Kibkom North Cyprus Forum

Whatever is wrong tonight have had several texts saying it is someone elses fault and all would be sorted by 2.00 pm ntv buffering.....i player buffering. Oh what joy

Today there has been several hours without power in many parts of Kyrenia that affected some of our basestations. The text was that information and unless you are still without power, electricity department has sorted things aout by 2pm as they have specified. I also hardly believe the text has said 'it is someone elses fault' or anything similar. Although the space is limited to provide tons of information (160 characters), we do actually pay money to those texts in order to keep our customers up-to-date with potential issues, so the least you can do is to read them properly and try to understand what they are trying to say.

As for your current problem, it obviously had no relation whatsoever with the text that you have received regarding power outages.

So the question is, before you graciously posted on the forum regarding your problem, have you contacted Multimax support? What did that say?

So, after a quick investigation, we have found your device was connected to the wrong basestation (a sideeffect of power problems today).

A simple reboot/power cycle of your equipment on your end would fix the problem on its own.

If not so simple for you, had you contacted us directly we would have performed this operation for you almost on the spot and you would be back to normal operation.

You are very lucky that we care enough to check places like this regularly for customer feedback. Your connection is now checked and fixed. Enjoy.

Kemal

Being (sadly!) in the UK rather than in TRNC, and having no experience of/subscription to/usage of Multimax, all I would like to say is that on the - fortunately rare - occasions that I have connection problems, the first thing I do is unplug/unpower my broadband modem/connection, wait, and switch back on. I've found that this usually fixes any problem; if not, then I use my backup dialup connection to see whether my provider's site has registered any work/maintenance/problems - because they don't send emails/text messages if there are....
Switch off, switch on, is a very effective cure for all sorts of problems that arise with computers!
If Multimax actually care enough to text their customers, good for them! We don't get that level of service in the UK!

I would second that Jofra, the service that we receive from Multimax, compared to some UK ISPs, is second to none!

For my education, does this explain why when I contact Multimax about a lost connection they always tell me to switch off and on? Since the first couple of times I have always done this BEFORE I contact Multimax but it does not always work and sometimes has involved more calls , hanging on and speaking o different people before someone - apparently - presses a switch and tells me I will be reconnected in a few minutes. I always wondered how they could do that - eventually - so apparently easily. Was it really just a matter of being connected to the wrong base station?

So it also explains the connection between electricity cuts and internet outages: of course the electricity cut is not always in the area of the customer so they may not always be aware of the reason, and if the internet goes completely they cant read the message!

When the internet is disconnected there is an icon that appears bottom right of my screen telling me so: pressing it sometimes leads through further stages to "Repair connection" which apparently leads to disconnection and reconnection with the server Again sometimes but not always this works. Can anyway explain in simple terms - is this also related to the base station?

Why is it that all these "so called" boffins expect us "less technical" people to understand their problems or jargon ! surely thats part of their business license ! to understand the majority of their customers needs and anxieties ! doesnt really happen here as they all try to show off their superior knowledge that they fell over by mistake ! regards Barry

Barry that is my complaint about the whole range of Internet products world-wide, but I wonder if it is fair to put it on a Multimax thread, as Kemal and Erol do make efforts to address customers worries and explain on this thread.

As far as Multimax is concerned, I think that problem is that most of us are expats and rely more heavily than non expats on the Internet for contact with family and friends abroad , and for contact with our financial base (which goes round in circles because we need to access funds in the UK to pay, among others, for internet connection! ) We are also mainly comprised of the pensioner generation who did not grow up with IT and had to learn late in life and are suspicious of it. If the Internet goes off and we dont know why or how long (and perhaps are exhausted by effort to sort it out themselves, and/or get an explanation by phone) it is only human to panic about losing essential contact and perhaps express our concerns less gracefully than we would normally.

As far as "boffins" in the information technology field generally is concerned (and defiitely NOT targeting Multimax) I think a lot of people are playing "knowledge is power" and this particularly power is becoming very frightening.

In the UK the Equal Opportunities Act prohibits public bodies and large vital companies (like the big Banks) from requiring older customers to use the Internet if they cant or dont want to: how often is it ignored and they use technology to blow smoke in their customers faces to disguise their own failings.

Be glad we live where we can usually speak to a real person, and with a bit of luck in our own language , even if we do not always like to reply!

barrysnakes wrote:Why is it that all these "so called" boffins expect us "less technical" people to understand their problems or jargon ! surely thats part of their business license ! to understand the majority of their customers needs and anxieties ! doesnt really happen here as they all try to show off their superior knowledge that they fell over by mistake ! regards Barry

I have to say that feels extremely unfair, not to Multimax, but to myself personally. I think I have a 10 year history of doing my utmost best to explain things IT (information technology or computers and stuff if you prefer) related as plainly and simply as I can, on public forums such as this one and on a one to one basis, from long before I worked for Multimax (or indeed any company in North Cyprus) and since. I am not an easy person to upset based on a post in a forum like this but I do have to say in all honesty your post has managed that as far as I am one of these alleged 'boffins' who is only interest in posting here is to "show off [my] superior knowledge". It is not easy to talk about 'myself' on a forum like this one but I have to say I am in all honesty upset by the allegation because I genuinely believe that in my personal case the allegation is so far from actual reality, shown consistently over many many years. For me IT is and has always been a passion, first and foremost, like I imagine music to be for you Barry. Yes I have also made my living from it but a passion it remains at my core. As such I have always tried my utmost to explain things, often complex things, as plainly as I can for the audience I am addressing and what is more I also believe, maybe delusionaly, that I am in any comparative sense pretty good at it.

erol wrote:

barrysnakes wrote:Why is it that all these "so called" boffins expect us "less technical" people to understand their problems or jargon ! surely thats part of their business license ! to understand the majority of their customers needs and anxieties ! doesnt really happen here as they all try to show off their superior knowledge that they fell over by mistake ! regards Barry

I have to say that feels extremely unfair, not to Multimax, but to myself personally. I think I have a 10 year history of doing my utmost best to explain things IT (information technology or computers and stuff if you prefer) related as plainly and simply as I can, on public forums such as this one and on a one to one basis, from long before I worked for Multimax (or indeed any company in North Cyprus) and since. I am not an easy person to upset based on a post in a forum like this but I do have to say in all honesty your post has managed that as far as I am one of these alleged 'boffins' who is only interest in posting here is to "show off [my] superior knowledge". It is not easy to talk about 'myself' on a forum like this one but I have to say I am in all honesty upset by the allegation because I genuinely believe that in my personal case the allegation is so far from actual reality, shown consistently over many many years. For me IT is and has always been a passion, first and foremost, like I imagine music to be for you Barry. Yes I have also made my living from it but a passion it remains at my core. As such I have always tried my utmost to explain things, often complex things, as plainly as I can for the audience I am addressing and what is more I also believe, maybe delusionaly, that I am in any comparative sense pretty good at it.

Have to agree with you Erol you seem to go way beyond the call to help people out and always have done. I also do not see as a non boffin what is hard about what KB refers to "A simple reboot/power cycle of your equipment on your end would fix the problem on its own", switch it off, count to ten switch it back on again, really these people should try dealing with BT before they have a go at MM!

Try not to take it to heart Erol your help on this and other forums has always been appreciated by myself and many others.

To all those people who seem to love to berate Multimax, over the past week I have spoken to 3 friends in the UK who are having problems with their ISP's (3 different ones as it happens) - their problems have been ongoing for between 3 and 6 months with all of them only managing 100 - 250 Kb speed whereas they are promised up to 8 Mb. The frustration all of them are experiencing is immense and they are all tied into unbreakable contracts so before everyone thinks all in bliss in Blighty remember how quick MM are at dealing with issues, often immediately but normally within 24 hours not 3, 4 5 or even 6 months and combine this with the money back guarantee if you want out, very very good service to me. As always I will say thank you to the MM team, as their staff must get somewhat disheartened at all the negative comments .... Chillin'

I totally agree with those who think that Erol goes above and beyond to assist people with their problems. I also agree that problems with ISP's in the UK can go on, and on, and on, and on. One friend has had problems with btinternet for 6 months now and another has been banging her head on the wall with the lack of assistances she has been receiving from Sky. As someone said earlier, its because of our continual need for the use of Skype, emails etc that we are so much more reliant than people in UK and our need is that much greater.

barrysnakes - you seem to understand IT enough to place a post titled "Windows Latest Version" in an attempt to promote your own issues? Don't now complain about technical explanations confusing people, when you are happy to mislead people yourself please!!

MM do a very good job explaining to the lay person some of the technicalities of IT, it is not a simple thing to do at all.

Ragged Robin wrote:For my education, does this explain why when I contact Multimax about a lost connection they always tell me to switch off and on? Since the first couple of times I have always done this BEFORE I contact Multimax but it does not always work and sometimes has involved more calls , hanging on and speaking o different people before someone - apparently - presses a switch and tells me I will be reconnected in a few minutes. I always wondered how they could do that - eventually - so apparently easily. Was it really just a matter of being connected to the wrong base station?.....
.....When the internet is disconnected there is an icon that appears bottom right of my screen telling me so: pressing it sometimes leads through further stages to "Repair connection" which apparently leads to disconnection and reconnection with the server Again sometimes but not always this works. Can anyway explain in simple terms - is this also related to the base station?

Out of curiosity, I searched to see just how many files ("instructions") existed in the Windows directory on the laptop that I'm using as I write - 104,518 files (in my case), just to make Windows work! I guess/assume that if the processor and/or memory misreads just one, it can cause a hiccup or even stop Windows from working at all - so, switch on/switch off makes it read the files (instructions) again, and hopefully get it right this time....
...And then, once Windows IS running, then the same problem arises when you try to open a program or connect to the internet....
How the H*ll does anything work on a computer.....

Just a thought - I remember twenty-odd years ago, writing programs in BASIC, and how precise and pedantic you had to be - a space or lack of a space; a comma as opposed to a colon - anybody remember what effect these would have?

I never even tried PASCAL, LISP or any of the other multitudinous languages.....

Here we go again, poor MM, they are always good for a whipping. To have a go at Erol as a 'boffin' is just not on. MM supply - to my mind - the best service available here, Erol is superb at his job and a decent person to deal with, he knows his stuff and is always happy to help people like myself who hasn't a clue what a 'mother board' is!!! So yes our internet and computers are important to us here but let's take a minute and recognise that MM and Erol are doing their very hardest to keep as many as possible happy for as long as possible, something that a lot of other people and companies here do not even attemp. I have never, ever had the 'cyprus shrug' from MM or anyone else who works for MM. So from me - thank you MM, keep doing what you are doing because you are the best we have.

jofra wrote:Just a thought - I remember twenty-odd years ago, writing programs in BASIC, and how precise and pedantic you had to be - a space or lack of a space; a comma as opposed to a colon - anybody remember what effect these would have?

I never even tried PASCAL, LISP or any of the other multitudinous languages.....

Ha! positively advanced languages - I used to program in assembler, using binary, machine code and octal core dumps for debugging for HP mainframes (the computing power of which you could fit on a music playing birthday card these days..) Those were the days paper tapes and punch cards..... Still it did teach me the need to program efficiently which stood me in good stead

Totally agree with Gumbo. Multimax give excellent service.
Thankyou for our reliable lifeline to our distant friends & family,& the ability to watch TV if we so wish.

Erol & Kemal both top men. I applaud your patience & tolerance as well as your expertise

"If Multimax actually care enough to text their customers, good for them! We don't get that level of service in the UK! "

How often would you need "that level of service in UK?"
As a swallow of 10+ years I have ISPs in both UK, BT, and TRNC, Multimax. I can't remember the last time I had a major problem in UK. Multimax provide the service they do because most of the problems are not of their making, though obviously they are easiest to blame.

T

Blimey,Is this a weekly event to have a pop at Multimax? So many keyboard warriers

Ragged Robin wrote:For my education, does this explain why when I contact Multimax about a lost connection they always tell me to switch off and on? Since the first couple of times I have always done this BEFORE I contact Multimax but it does not always work and sometimes has involved more calls , hanging on and speaking o different people before someone - apparently - presses a switch and tells me I will be reconnected in a few minutes. I always wondered how they could do that - eventually - so apparently easily. Was it really just a matter of being connected to the wrong base station?

I will do my best to answer your questions, even at the risk of being labeled a '"so called" boffin' and accused of doing so not out of a desire to try and help but out of a desire to "try to show off [my] superior knowledge".

"Switch it off and back on again" is a standard first step with any kind of digital device that is not operating properly, be it a computer, tablet, smart TV,mobile phone, router etc etc. Any number of potential issues with such devices can be 'solved' by turning the device off and back on again just as any number of other potential issue will not be solved by such but it is always a first thing to try.

In terms of a Multimax internet connection the first thing to clear up is what it is exactly you can turn off and turn on. In a standard Multimax set up there will be a device on the roof which will have a power supply plugged into the mains inside the house and the power is fed into the cable that runs up to the device on the roof, via a small device we call a 'splitter'. This is separate from the power supply that feeds your 'router / wifi access point' inside your house that our cable from the roof is plugged into. In the case of your device on the roof being connected to 'secondary' or 'tertiary' base station, or sector of a given base station, which typically happens after power outages causing your 'primary' base station to be off, turning off the power supply to the router inside your house will have no effect, where as turning the power off and back on to the device on the roof will force it to search again for the 'primary' base station and provided it is operating attach to that base station, thus solving the issue of being connected to a secondary or tertiary one. In simple terms turning both power supplies off and back on again may solve things and it may not depending on what the problem is but it is always worth a try.

Being connected to a secondary or tertiary base station following power outages of your primary one is ONE issue that would be resolved by turning off and back on the power to the Multimax device on your roof. There are potentially other issues that powering off and back on the device on your roof will resolved, just as there are some it will not resolve and just as there are others that powering off the router in your house (and / or your laptop, tablet, smart phone, smart tv etc etc) will resolve and others doing so will not.

If you have tried powering off and back on again the device on the roof , your router in the house and the device you are connecting with (laptop, tablet etc) and your problems still persist then you need to contact us. On doing so we then try and establish where the problem is, after first checking that you have tried powering off and back on the equipment in your house. I do appreciate this is a tiresome process but it is a necessary one. Again depending on what the actual problem is , sometimes the 'fix' is as 'simple' as us effectively turning off and back on again some element of the network at your base station or further down the 'chain' and so the the result is a near instant (once we have identified what the cause is) fix. Other times the fix requires sending an engineer either to your location or your base station or someone where further down the chain that you and your base station connect through.

[cont]

Ragged Robin wrote:So it also explains the connection between electricity cuts and internet outages: of course the electricity cut is not always in the area of the customer so they may not always be aware of the reason, and if the internet goes completely they cant read the message!

We could set up our system such that you can only ever connect to one given base station ever (the 'primary' one) and if that is down because of loss of power at the base station or any other reason you simply get no internet connection at all until it comes back again. However we do not currently do this. We do allow the device on your roof to connect to a 'secondary' or 'tertiary' base station in the event that the primary one is not working for any reason. This will mean you will continue to get internet even when your primary base station is down, as long as there is a secondary or tertiary one available but the quality of the connection when so connected will be lower than when connected to a primary. These means you get some connectivity when your primary base station is down but a secondary or tertiary is still up, but the connection is not as good AND a reboot of the device on the roof is required once your primary base station is back up again to get you back on to it.

Ragged Robin wrote:When the internet is disconnected there is an icon that appears bottom right of my screen telling me so: pressing it sometimes leads through further stages to "Repair connection" which apparently leads to disconnection and reconnection with the server Again sometimes but not always this works. Can anyway explain in simple terms - is this also related to the base station?

There is no simple answer to this. If you have no connection from your roof out to the internet it will cause the icon to show this. However you can also have connection from the device on the roof out to the internet but have a problem with the link from this machine / laptop to the wifi router in your house and that will also be shown on the icon you refer to. There are in fact different 'icons' that indicate different problems but there is no simple correlation that means this icon means 'problem with base station' I am afraid.

KWAKERT4 wrote:How often would you need "that level of service in UK?"

Indeed. You could also ask how often are there power cuts in the UK ? Reliability of mains power is not the only difference between the TRNC and UK in terms of reliability of internet access but it is the biggest single difference.

Bonnie wrote:Totally agree with Gumbo. Multimax give excellent service.
Thankyou for our reliable lifeline to our distant friends & family,& the ability to watch TV if we so wish.

Erol & Kemal both top men. I applaud your patience & tolerance as well as your expertise

Not forgetting the very helpful girls who staff the office(s).

Kanonier. Absolutely, apologize for not mentioning the helpful office girls. They also patiently & politely talk you through & problem solve.
Altogether a great team.

When I had a BBC Iplayer problem (nothing to do with Multimax) I asked Erol to help, because a friend said he was an expert. I asked, and he solved my problem for me - at no cost, even though I was not a MM customer at the time.

KWAKERT4 wrote:

How often would you need "that level of service in UK?"




Indeed. You could also ask how often are there power cuts in the UK

Actually Erol, That is exactly the point that I was making

T