Internet Speed

[PoshinDevon]

Posh in Devon - please can you point out where I have said that Internet TV works 'all' the time.

Secondly, a 'constant' 2 Mbps is enough to watch UKTV on the Internet (the 'qualifying word in this statement is "constant")

Next a "Standard" package is perfectly OK to watch UK TV and we have lots of customers who are doing so.

No-one is being "conned" by any ISP and to even introduce this word (especially without checking - reading the posts in full) is (at best) negligent/reckless

Erol has a track record of putting words into people's mouths. My advice to you is to 'fully' read a thread before offering your advice.

https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306


https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/help/speed_checker_online

I have never said that you had stated that Internet tv works all the time.

I am only expressing my personal opinion and experiences. I am a telecoms engineer in a former life so I do have an understanding of how Internet tv works.

In my experience I will say that some of the things stated by ISPs regarding speed and Internet tv reception is incorrect. There are many factors to take into consideration.

I believe that some people want everything for nothing - let's by the cheapest package available because we have been told it should deliver what we want - in actual fact it delivers most of the time but guess what when you really want it or you are addicted to your weekly soap or the big match - that's the time when it won't work.

These are my own personal opinions and experiences born out of many years in the industry....so any claims spouted by service providers are taken with a pinch of salt. As I stated for us it's not an issue as we aren't tv addicts and have no axe to grind with any ISP, satellite service etc.

Erol has not put any words into my mouth. I am putting forward my own views whilst at the same time trying not to be confrontational or drawn into a slanging match, despite how you may see things. The customer pays the money and makes the choice....cheap and cheerful or Rolls Royce. Of course at the end of the day if you ain't a happy customer you have the choice to take your business elsewhere.

[erol]

Erol, in this thread and at the link that has been provided, some of your customers 'seem' to disagree with you on the main point of your argument AND I am sure that potential customers will attach 'more' credibility to what they say than anything you or I say.

My claim was that MM delivers faster speeds on average to the majority of it's customers the majority of the time than competitors like Extend. I make this claim because it is TRUE based on actual real hard data. That a handful of (presumed) customers over years have expressed on Google that they are not happy with the service is in no way credible evidence that my claim is in any way untrue as you must be aware. There however IS hard evidence as to if my claim is true or not and Extend has such evidence. So why not publish this evidence Paul ?

You 'appear' to be upset by this,...

What I am upset by Paul, as ever, is your self serving pejorative lies and distortions.

all that I have said 'really' is that all the bigger ISPs are much the same and the evidence from the comments of your customers 'seems' to back that up.

This is not true. You do or should know it is not true based on years of actual real hard data that is in Extend's possession, yet still you keep on repeating the lie over an over, not just privately 'one to one' as I know you do but also publicly and have been doing so for years now.

I don't think that there is anything to be gained by continuing with 'our' discussion and therefore, may I respectfully suggest that we call it a draw !

And I suggest that you either publish the years of DATA that Extend has that would show the reality one way or another or stop repeating the lie publicly, for I know nothing will stop you doing so 'privately'.

[Hector]

May I just humbly and ignorantly ask, why can't the internet bandwidth (or whatever it's technically called) from Turkey (supplied by cable from TTNET?) be increased so that the issue of slow internet speeds in the TRNC then doesn't arise?

[PoshinDevon]

May I just humbly and ignorantly ask, why can't the internet bandwidth (or whatever it's technically called) from Turkey (supplied by cable from TTNET?) be increased so that the issue of slow internet speeds in the TRNC then doesn't arise?

Reasonable question.

I would suggest infrastructure not in place (Only so much will fit down a small pipe) or costs prohibitive.

[Dalartokat]

May I just humbly and ignorantly ask, why can't the internet bandwidth (or whatever it's technically called) from Turkey (supplied by cable from TTNET?) be increased so that the issue of slow internet speeds in the TRNC then doesn't arise?

Although this is 2016 there is a lot of information regarding speed tests in Turkey. Interestingly the third paragraph explains a little the issues Turkey also has and one assumes it affects TRNC. Problems with internet etc. won't be solved until President Erdogan is satisfied he has reigned in all those he thinks is responsible for the coup last year and as it's the anniversary today and hundreds more people have lost their livelihoods, it could go on every anniversary and normal service will not resume until he says so


.http://www.speedtest.net/reports/turkey/

[erol]

May I just humbly and ignorantly ask, why can't the internet bandwidth (or whatever it's technically called) from Turkey (supplied by cable from TTNET?) be increased so that the issue of slow internet speeds in the TRNC then doesn't arise?

Other than those times when the links between North Cyprus and Turkey are not performing as they should, this is not where problems typically occur. When this link is working properly, which is the vast majority of the time and when it is not is typically fixed within minutes or hours rahter than days and weeks, then there is more than ample capacity on the links between Turkey and North Cyprus, generally and specifically for MM as well. However unless your destination is in Turkey itself, then it still has to get out from Turkey as well and typically it is these links that tend to get congested at peak times and not the ones between Turkey and North Cyprus. There is ample capacity on the links between Turkey and North Cyprus, despite what some would have you believe and MM (and I suspect other ISP) can afford and does pay TTNET for more capacity on this link than it's total peak time usage needs. Between you and any given destination there will be a series of links and any one of these can be the cause of problems. From your house to the ISP's base station would be the first link. Then from the bases station to Cyprus side of the link out from North Cyprus to Turkey (typically this will itself be more than one link or 'hop' in internet jargon). Then to the other side of this link to the south coast of Turkey. Then, again probably via several more links to the Turkey side of a link out from Turkey into Europe. Then various links or hops through Europe to the UK (if the destination is in the UK) and then hops within the UK until eventual arrival at your destination. It is a chain of consecutive links and hops and any problems (congestion, dropped packets and others things) on ANY of these links in the entire chain from any given start and end point will affect the performance of the connection. Streaming TV along with 'twitch' gaming are massively sensitive to even relatively small issues on ANY of these links / hops, in a way that most other usages of the internet are not. What is more your ISP will only have control of the 'starting' fraction of these links. Turk Telekom will then have control of the next series in the chain - after that there can be any number of other entities that control the next series of links before the destination is reached.

This is why streaming internet TV will never be as reliable as a broadcast based service like say Digiturk where there is one entity between you and the source of the content and you pay that entity (digiturk) for the service. With internet based TV there are multiple entities that control the links necessary to deliver the picture to you, with you ISP being the 'first' (or last depending on which way round you look) , Turk Telkom being the second, one of Turk Telekom's providers of it's links out from Turkey to the rest of the world (companies like Telia - former Swedish state own telco and NTT - former Japanese state own telco and Level 3 and others) would be the third. If you are luck whatever the source's internet provider is will be the fourth (but it could pass through several others as well before reaching that) before it finally reaches the source where the pictures are coming from.

This is why the claim that a given service 'only requires 2Mbs from your ISP' and it's corollary 'if my streaming internet TV is not working that means my ISP is failing to deliver at least 2Mbs to me' are extremely misleading claims that can and do only create expectations that sooner or later can not and will not be met. The TRUTH is that streaming internet based TV is a compromise between flexibility (being able to get exactly the content you want even though that may not legitimately be available where you are) and cost (internet based streaming TV is free or cheap comparative to sat based services) and reliability. You can not have both the maximum flexibility and low cost of internet based streaming TV AND the reliability of a sat based service. Anyone that tells you or tries to imply you can is not being honest with you.

If you use internet based streaming TV then there WILL be, sooner or later, times when it does not work. Anyone that tells you or tries to imply or create an impression otherwise is not being honest with you. Just as anyone who tells you if it is not working this means or probably means that your ISP is not delivering what you are paying for is not being honest with you. When your streaming TV service is not working ONE possible cause is your ISP and if your ISP is decent and you work with them constructively to establish if they are the cause of your problems, by doing things like connecting directly and not via wifi and doing speedtests to servers that test the relevant section of the 'chain of links' they control and only that section, rather than just demand that you 'get what you are paying for' and refuse to work with them or believe what they tell you, then your ISP will identify and rectify the problem as quickly as they can. This is what MM does, day in and day out. There will also be times when your streaming internet based TV is not working and it is NOT because your ISP is falling to deliver 'what you have paid for'. If there are problems with the link out of from North Cyprus to Turkey, then all your ISP can do is complain to Turk Telekom and wait for them to fix it. If the problems is with the links within Turkey that move the traffic from the South coast of Turkey to the point where Turk Telekom have links out from Turkey, then all your ISP can do is complain to Turk Telekom and wait for them to fix it. If the problem is with the links that carry Turk Telekom's traffic out of Turkey to the rest of the world. then all your ISP can do is complain to Turk Telekom and wait for them to complain to their suppliers and for them to fix it. And on and on through all the chain of links and entities that control said links to whoever is actually sending out the TV streams, who may themselves be having problems that are the root cause of your TV not working properly.

Now clearly it is within the realms of possibility that your ISP is the cause of your problems at any given point in time and it knows that it is the cause of your problems but it just lies to you and says it is not. All I can say is that Multimax do NOT do this, EVER. There are times when we are mistaken and think it is not us when in fact it is us but we NEVER knowingly say it is not us when it is. As to if this is true of all other ISP's or agents for other ISP's , I could not say with any certainty. Maybe such does happen and maybe it does not. What I can say is that Multimax does not ever do this. We always do our utmost to accurately determine if it is us or not and if it is us to admit it and fix the issue as quickly as possible and if it is not us to try and 'show' to the customer that it is not us as clealry as we can. We do this equally for those (small minority) of customers that will not work with us to help determine if it is us or not and who simply shout 'you are not delivering what I am paying for - fix it' as we do for those that do work with us. The more customers are willing to work with us to establish this, then typically the quicker we are able to do so and if it is us , fix the problem.

[erol]

.http://www.speedtest.net/reports/turkey/

Exactly the kind of hard analytical data that Extend will have in microcosm by running a ookla/speedtest.net server of their own. They will be able to and no doubt do analyse such data. They are able to compare the average speeds by ISP based on everyone who has ever tested their speed on the Extend speedtest.net server. When MM was running it's own speedtest.net server, which it currently is not but did do so for a significant period historically, this is what we did. By doing so we were able to see how much faster or slower on average peoples internet connections were based on what ISP they were using, producing meaningful hard and statistically relevant data once enough samples per ISP had been collected. We looked at raw numbers and we also looked at the numbers once the 'outliers' had been removed (highest 10% of results and lowest 10% per ISP, or 15% or 20%).

When Multimax was doing this and we had real hard meaningful evidence that on average MM customers who did speeds test on our speedtest.net server were getting higher speeds than our competitors customers were getting, not just slightly higher but significantly higher, we talked long and hard about if we should use such data in our marketing and advertising. We even did mini 'focus group' testing, inviting a few people we knew were not using our service to discuss what they would think about such marketing and advertising and if it would influence their choice of ISP provider going forward. In the end we decided that marketing / advertising based on 'denigrating' other ISPs by showing exactly how much slower they were on average to us was not the Multimax way, even though such was based on real numbers that could be verified to be true by anyone who doubted them and was willing to pay Ookla for that data. We took heart in knowing we were on average delivering significantly faster speeds to our customers than our competitors were to theirs and trusted that over time people would be able to come to this conclusion themselves without us having to make a big song and dance about it.

Which is why Paul's claim that "all the bigger ISPs are much the same and the evidence from the comments of your customers 'seems' to back that up" is so pernicious. He either already does know or should know this is simply not true, based on actual hard data that is real and meaningful, rather than asserting here that it 'seems' this way based on 'evidence' that is in any case clearly not meaningful anyway, in terms of the average speeds that ISPs are achieving.

Let me just add that an ISP achieving on average higher speeds than others is for some people not that important in terms of their own actual usage. Peoples usage of the internet varies massively from person to person and for some such higher speeds would make little or no difference and for others it would make a huge difference. So I am not saying that Multimax is better for everyone based on the fact that on average it is delivering higher speeds. For some and some types of usage this reality will matter and for others, other factors will matter more, like price, or minimum speeds achieved in peak periods, or any number of other considerations. I have said what I have above not as a a 'marketing pitch' for Multimax but only somewhat reluctantly as a response to the disinformation being put on here by others.

[SatelliteCyprus]

Firstly, we are not an Internet Service Provider, we are an Independent Agent who happens to work with eXtend Broadband. In the past, we have also 'tried' to work with another ISP, but the relationship was not successful and we ceased to offer their services to our clients. In the 14 years that we have lived here, I have argued and fallen out with many people who would not recommend us/our service - we are by no means perfect, but we have been doing this a long time with the same business.

As an Independent Agent, the company/companies who we work with 'know' that we are responsible for many clients who consider themselves to be 'our' customers. This gives us a considerable amount of sway with them in the discussions and meetings that they have with them on a daily basis. We are the first point of contact for 'our' customers who, when they have a problem, telephone us, explain what is wrong and we take it from there. Our customers are not 'frightened' to complain to us that their Internet TV system is buffering - why ? Because we sell Internet TV systems that we tell them will work (the majority of the time) on their Internet connection.

Laura B is a typical example of how the process works. Laura B dealt with eXtend directly. They had a period where everything was OK followed by a period where they were experiencing problems with their Internet and Internet TV System. They complained to their ISP (eXtend) who gave them one set of excuses and complained to their TV Service provider (NTV/Multimax) who gave them another set of excuses. We know what Erol's response/attitude is towards customers who complain about buffering TV as earlier in this thread, he said :-

"you come home from a hard days work and sit down to watch sky sports on your android box via mobdro or kodi, your are in fact stealing that content and when it does not work 100% of the time you then claim you are not getting what you 'paid for from your ISP. A more honest truth in my view would be that your are not getting what you are trying to steal."

Another example has been given by Art, the person who started this thread , who said :-

Numerous phone calls with broken promises to call me back.
No response to an email dated 3 July.
No response to an email which I sent yesterday to the owner of the company.
This morning I used the providers speed test facility and monitored 2.9mb upload 2.1mb download.
This was reported to my provider who told me the reading was wrong, there website was faulty and I'm receiving 8.1 mb and yet my TV is still badly buffering.
My request for a technician was refused on the grounds there is nothing wrong with the signal strength so it must be a TV or Android box issue.Fact is the only time the TV buffers is when the signal strength is low !

As a customer with 'limited' knowledge, it is difficult to argue your case and faced with such a response, or lack of response - what do you do, where do you go from there ? Well, you do what Art has done - post the information on Kibkom and I commend Art for doing so, but should you really 'have' to resort to doing that ?

I personally know Art to be a person of integrity with a 'strong' character who will not be frightened of posting the truth about his experience on here and someone who will definitely not be intimidated at the thought of being accused about complaining about the TV that he is 'supposedly' stealing BUT many people/customers are intimidated by such a response/attitude and as a result, would not 'share' their experience(s) of their Internet Service Provider on here. Perhaps that is the reason why Erol adopts this attitude ? To deter people from posting bad comments who I'm sure do not want to face a tirade of abuse from Erol !

There are many thieves on this Island who do need to face this type of wrath, but personally, I think that customers who are experiencing buffering on their Internet TV systems, should not. This, coming from someone who is associated with NTV (now, or in the past - whatever), is disgraceful.

Anyway, I heard about Laura B's problem and contacted them and offered to help. I visited their house, analysed what was wrong, put a solution in place and they are now happy customers who continue to use eXtend ((with us as their agent) and 'our' Internet TV system (in place of NTV)

I am posting this now, but will follow up with more about 'other' problems that customers 'may' experience with their ISP/Internet Connections.

[SatelliteCyprus]

In Northern Cyprus, the last mile of your internet connection is 'usually' (not always) provided using an external wireless antenna and routerboard (CPE). This is installed at your home and terminates to an RJ45 connector which is usually (not always) connected to a wireless router. Your phone, iPad, Laptop, Computer, STB etc. usually (not always) connects to the wireless router.

The (CPE) connects (wirelessly) to the ISP's Base Station. If you look at one of the ISP's Base Stations, you will see that they 'usually' (not always) have several/many antennas. Without getting too technical and complicated - these antennas (in conjunction with a routerboard and wireless card) handle the incoming and outgoing data which is forwarded usually, (not always) across a Backhaul Link to the eventual destination (your ISP's operations centre) where it is forwarded (across the internet) to its destination. The data flows forwards and backwards across this network (to and from your home).

In all of this, the 'most' important considerations for an ISP are :-

(i) to make sure that the CPE at the customers house is connected with a strong radio signal to the base station. If the signal is weak, the Internet can come and go. It can be OK one minute and painfully slow, the next. Weather conditions can affect a weak signal. Weak signals can suffer from frequency issues (noise) in the area meaning that the radio connection is limited in the amount of data that it can carry.

(ii) to make sure that the antenna/routerboard/wireless card that they are connecting you to at the base station side has enough capacity to handle the data that you are going to generate. If too many customers are connected to the same antenna/routerboard/wireless card, at times when 'all' these customers want to use the internet simultaneously, the data cannot flow freely because the capacity of the equipment has been exceeded. This means that your data (the speed of your connection) is reduced because the equipment cannot handle the throughput that it is being asked to handle. This is a 'very' common cause, or reason why a customer may be experiencing a problem. An example of what happens here is that an ISP installs an antenna/routerboard/wireless card at their base station and starts to connect customers to it. At the beginning, with one, two, or a few customers connected to it, everything is OK, but eventually, as more and more customers are connected to the same piece of equipment (and they all decide that they want to simultaneously watch the six oclock news on BBC 1) problems arise because the antenna/routerboard/wireless card cannot handle all the data that is being generated. In reality, what happens, is that the ISP continues to connect customers to the same piece of equipment until (at busy times) it is flooded with data and all the customers who are connected, are receiving less and experiencing problems (remember, there are two considerations here - the capacity of the equipment and the capacity of the radio frequency). Usually, they don't act until they receive complaints from customers and when they do, they are faced with two options. Move some customers off the piece of equipment onto other antennas/routerboards/wireless cards at the Base Station (spread the load) but the only 'real' solution is to install more equipment (adding more capacity). The equipment and labour that is needed to do this is expensive and a deters the ISP from acting quickly so usually, they try other fixes first. Spreading the load etc., but with limited capacity, the customers are experiencing problems at busy times and are not happy.

My advice is not to be put off and to complain, complain, complain !

I am posting this now, but will continue and post more shortly.

[elizabeth]

Does every answer on this topic have to turn into War and Peace, just a straightforward answer in layman's terms would suffice, people don't want to wade through all that pontificating for the answer to a simple query.

[SatelliteCyprus]

Before I continue, a word about complaining. When your Internet or Internet TV System is not working, or it is stopping and starting, I know that it is very frustrating/annoying (especially in the middle of a Formula 1 race or a football match) and I know that 'many' people will want to take that frustration out on somebody, but it is not a good idea to take it out on the person at the other end of the phone, or to be rude to them, especially if you are expecting them to help you. If you start the conversation by introducing yourself and continue with (for example), "I have a problem, please can you help me out ?" before 'quickly' explaining what the problem is - you are entitled to a civil response. If you telephone, fail to introduce yourself and start with something like "I'm bloody sick of this internet connection" in a raised voice, you are 'likely' to be given the first excuse available to get rid of you and future phone calls 'may' be answered with trepidation. The first line support staff are taking numerous calls everyday and people who stick at it for any length of time, are 'battle' hardened and have a battery of excuses in their armoury - they are used to deflecting complaints. The trick in complaining is to know something about the issue and to stick at - expect to make several telephone calls and maybe even a trip to the office.

Secondly, before you telephone the ISP/Supplier, make sure that you have power cycled all the equipment (switched it off and on). Customers usually, think that this means the wireless router and usually, they don't even know which of the plugs supplies the power to the antenna on the roof, but 'all' the equipment must be power cycled. If you do this, the person who you are speaking to will be able to see that you have done it on the system (because the antenna will have disconnected and reconnected to the base station) but more importantly, you will be able to ask them to look on the system to see that you have power cycled the equipment. This lets them know that you know slightly more than the average Joe and 'may' induce them to look into your problem a little deeper. If you are in any doubt as to which is the plug that supplies the power to the antenna on the roof (and it won't cause you any other problems with other electrical equipment) simply throw the main fuse on the consumer unit before switching it back on. That way, you can be certain that everything has been power cycled.

If you know that none of the cables have been touched and yet, you have no Internet connection, whatever you do, do not disconnect and reconnect cables because there is a chance that you may reconnect one or more incorrectly. When you speak to support, they 'should' be able to tell you where they can see up to (the CPE, the wireless router etc.). If they say that they can see the CPE on the roof, but can't see the router in the house, then there may be a case for disconnecting and reconnecting the RJ45 on the cable coming in from outside (from the CPE on the roof). Sometimes, dust can get into the RJ45 connectors which as a result, 'may' need taking out (a quick blow) and putting back (make sure that you put them back in the same place.) In the summer months, the heat of the sun dries the cable and over several years, cracks 'can' appear in the cable on the roof and coming down the walls. When the rain starts, the water gets in the cracks, flows down the inside of the cable and runs down to the RJ45 connector where it causes a problem. At the beginning, this can be intermittent (internet off and on), but eventually, the connection will be lost altogether. Power supplies (supplying the power to the CPE on the roof) can fail (the electricity supply here is not perfect) causing loss of your connection to the base station - make sure that you have a spare power supply. It's better than being without Internet for two, or three days because it has blown and you are waiting for the ISP to bring another one.

I am posting this now, but will continue and post more shortly.

[erol]

Why did you come on to this thread in the first place Paul ? Was it anything to do with you ? Was there any genuine help you were offering to either Art or people in general ? I think the real reason why you 'jumped in' on this thread is clear from just looking at your initial post on it. You start with the bland assertion that Multimax is 'suffering customer wrath' with the implicit implication that other providers are not suffering 'customer wrath'. Yet there are plenty of threads on here where people are expressing 'wrath' with Extend (and other ISPs), threads in which you did NOT decide to come and participate in all. You then assert the reason why MM is suffering this 'wrath' is because MM promised beyond what it could deliver. You then delivered one of your classic propaganda lines that MM was 'faster' than others when it had 'few customers' but now it has more it is no different from anyone else in terms of average speeds achieved - something that just is not true. Then you went on to imply that those customers of MM who had expressed and shown that they did in fact on average get faster speeds, were not really getting such in any case and were atypical exceptions.

I think the reason you came on to this thread that was nothing to do with you or Extend, having ignored countless others before that were to do with Extend, was because you just could not help yourself. You saw what you thought was a good an opportunity to publicly 'stick the boot in' to Multimax using misinformation and distortion and you seized it, because this is what you do Paul. It is what you have done for the 12 years you have been, according to you, offering " Quality products and Customer Service in the TRNC".

We know what Erol's response/attitude is towards customers who complain about buffering TV as earlier in this thread, he said :-

Was that really my response to the person who was complaining here of having buffering problems ? Or was it in fact my response to another poster entirely and their misconception that we still advertised our products as '20 Mbs' and their misconception that what they were 'paying for' was the ability to come home after a hard days work and be able to watch streaming TV, at the busiest of peak times, without problems and their implication that ISP's were not honest ?

As an aside if you want a reasonably good 'rule of thumb' way of spotting a BS merchant on forums like these, then you could do a lot worse than being suspicious of people who repeatedly talk with seeming authority about 'what everyone' or 'most people' or 'we' all know or understand.

Another example has been given by Art, the person who started this thread , who said :-

Multimax's response to Art was not as good as it should have been or I would have liked it to be. There were a series of things that went wrong and could have been handled better as well as some misunderstanding on both sides as far as I can establish. Starting with the the email on the 3rd of July that was not responded too and which initially I simply could not find. I subsequently have found it - in was incorrectly identified as 'spam' by our email service. Something we will learn from and seek to do better in the future. I could go on and address each of the points raised by Art but I will not do so.

Perhaps that is the reason why Erol adopts this attitude ? To deter people from posting bad comments who I'm sure do not want to face a tirade of abuse from Erol !

No customer should be 'afraid' of reporting problems to us or for recounting their bad experiences here on these forums. No one in this thread was subject to a 'tirade of abuse' by me in this thread or any other and your bland assertion that I did do such and your 'suggestion' as to why is Just another example of how you behave on forums like these and always have done Paul.

If you have any real interest in not polluting the forum with these tedious and tiresome threads Paul, then all you need to do is stop publicly poking your nose in to our business and concentrate instead on your own. It really is that simple.

[erol]

Does every answer on this topic have to turn into War and Peace, just a straightforward answer in layman's terms would suffice, people don't want to wade through all that pontificating for the answer to a simple query.

Unfortunately elizabeth the seemingly simplest of questions often have no simple answers, in any terms, laymen or otherwise. For example why is that we (humanity) is able to split atoms, put men on the moon, splice genes from one species in to another and maintain and run a global decentralised communications network (the internet) and yet seems unable to ensure that no child dies from lack of clean water or insufficient food ? It is a simple question is it not ? Is there a simple answer ? None that I am aware of.

[erol]

what happens, is that the ISP continues to connect customers to the same piece of equipment until (at busy times) it is flooded with data and all the customers who are connected, are receiving less and experiencing problems ..... Usually, they don't act until they receive complaints from customers

This may well have been how you operated when you ran your ISP and it may well be how Extend operates for all I know but this is NOT how MM operates. We attempt to ensure that their is sufficient capacity within all sections of our network to meet peak time loads before such manifests as problems for our customers in a constant 'just in time' manner. This is what we do, this is our job as an ISP and what people pay us for. Now we do not always succeed in achieving this for it is not an easy or simple task and it is indeed not uncommon that we fail and do not manage to put in the necessary capacity at any given point before it affects customers and thus end up playing 'catch up' of putting in the extra capacity needed to meet demand only after demand has exceed capacity and not before. But this idea that we knowingly overload sections of our network, knowing that doing so will result in customers getting sub standard service from us and simply wait until the 'noise' of complaints grows large enough before we even start thinking of increasing capacity is not how MM operates at all and it is defamatory nonsense to suggest or claim that is how MM operates.

[SatelliteCyprus]

Most customers are under the impression, as they are paying for a certain amount of Internet Bandwidth, that they should therefore, be receiving a certain amount of Internet Bandwidth permanently - sounds straightforward - a 4 Mbps Internet connection should provide 4 Mbps of Internet Bandwidth ? - No, not on a 'shared Internet connection which is what the majority of customers are paying for !

If your Internet TV System works perfectly during the day, but the buffering starts as soon as it is time to watch Tipping Point and Pointless, this is a good indicator that your Internet connection is over-contended. The contention ratio is the number of other customers who are sharing the Internet. The Internet TV works whilst no-one wants to watch, but doesn't work as soon as everyone does want to watch. You should expect 'some' buffering with your Internet TV System, but if you are experiencing too much, there could be a number of reasons/causes.

Typically, an ISP will exhaust the list of 'obvious' things to check (problems being caused by the way the client is using the Internet connection *I will deal with this later*, problems with the equipment, or cabling at the client's home etc.) before they begin to look at 'any' of the following :-

As locally, a large amount of Internet connections are wireless for the last mile, on over-contended connections, 'other' things that need to be checked are as follows :-

(i) Radio Frequency Bandwidth - Is the channel being used by other customers in the same area ? Not necessarily with the same ISP. Sometimes, changing the channel from 6 to 11 (for example) can solve the problem

(ii) Base Station Equipment Capacity - are too many customers connected to the same equipment ?

(iii) Backhaul Capacity - Having added more antennas/radios etc. (capacity) on the Base Station side, is the Backhaul Link maxed out ?

(iv) Total Internet Bandwidth Capacity - Is there enough Bandwidth Capacity onto the Internet ?

They will then move onto try and detect 'further' possible causes of the problem.

All ISPs apply contention ratios to their services. In simple terms, if they connect too many customers to the same service, there will be problems at at busy times.

Remember, that a problem can occur anywhere in the link to the source of the data

I am posting this now, but will continue and post more shortly.

[elizabeth]

Does every answer on this topic have to turn into War and Peace, just a straightforward answer in layman's terms would suffice, people don't want to wade through all that pontificating for the answer to a simple query.[/


Unfortunately elizabeth the seemingly simplest of questions often have no simple answers, in any terms, laymen or otherwise. For example why is that we (humanity) is able to split atoms, put men on the moon, splice genes from one species in to another and maintain and run a global decentralised communications network (the internet) and yet seems unable to ensure that no child dies from lack of clean water or insufficient food ? It is a simple question is it not ? Is there a simple answer ? None that I am aware of.

I have to say Erol that I find your response both sarcastic and condescending, as an employee of MM and also a moderator on this forum I feel that a little respect for both your customers and the members of this forum might be in order.

[SatelliteCyprus]

Erol said :- "This may well have been how you operated when you ran your ISP and it may well be how Extend operates for all I know but this is NOT how MM operates. We attempt"

Using the word "attempt" negates the rest of Erol's claim

As I said, "In reality" (I notice that Erol didn't copy that part of my statement) "what happens, is that the ISP continues to connect customers to the same piece of equipment until (at busy times) it is flooded with data and all the customers who are connected, are receiving less and experiencing problems"

I will leave Erol to speculate as to whether an ISP may do this intentionally, negligently, recklessly, or just make an attempt at doing it LOL

[Art]

I think it's time now to bring this post to a conclusion
Thank you all for your comment and thank you MM for sorting out the problem.
Art

[erol]

I have to say Erol that I find your response both sarcastic and condescending, as an employee of MM and also a moderator on this forum I feel that a little respect for both your customers and the members of this forum might be in order.

I am genuinely sorry that you found my reply to you sarcastic, condescending and disrespectful. None of those things were my intent or in my mind when I made the post, which was a genuine attempt to answer the question 'why can we not get simple answers to simple questions', whatever 'role' I may have been doing so as in my mind or yours.

[lee666]

Pack it in boys, enough is enough. It's becoming boring I'm sorry to say

[Art]

moderators

please close this thread.