WiFi =/= internet connection

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › WiFi =/= internet connection

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hashbrown

463 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1571351 13-Jun-2016 22:40

If you supply the router that supplies the wifi, then yes, you have an obligation to support the wifi function of that router.

If you go chasing the mass market by shipping modems for people who can't configure their own, expect more of this.

Lias

5589 posts

Uber Geek

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Lifetime subscriber

#1571358 13-Jun-2016 22:52

MadEngineer:

While I don't like your analogy; I wouldn't, but I can imagine someone's grandma doing that.

The power company would then advise to turn the oven off at the wall and suggest they call an electrician or their landlord - ie providing as much help as they can.

I'm not sure people should be calling their local dial a geek when they don't know if a problem is with the wifi on their provider supplied router.

BigPipe is NOT the ISP for your grandma.

If you sign your grandma up to an ISP that only offers naked services, no phone support, encourages BYO modems, and is pretty blatantly targeted at a younger tech savvy generation, I hope she cuts you out of the will :-P

I'm a geek, a gamer, a dad, a Quic user, and an IT Professional. I have a full rack home lab, size 15 feet, an epic beard and Asperger's. I'm a bit of a Cypherpunk, who believes information wants to be free and the Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. If you use my Quic signup you can also use the code R570394EKGIZ8 for free setup.

NonprayingMantis

6434 posts

Uber Geek

#1571370 14-Jun-2016 00:42

hashbrown: If you supply the router that supplies the wifi, then yes, you have an obligation to support the wifi function of that router.

If you go chasing the mass market by shipping modems for people who can't configure their own, expect more of this.

Supporting the wifi function of the router goes as far as helping people get the best out of their wifi - which is *exactly* what this article is doing.
I.e. Explaining to people how to best place their router, switch channels, etc. Helping people understand that wifi congestion is not some thing the ISP controls. that's exactly what support for a router should look like.

hashbrown

463 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1571385 14-Jun-2016 07:06

NonprayingMantis:
hashbrown: If you supply the router that supplies the wifi, then yes, you have an obligation to support the wifi function of that router.

If you go chasing the mass market by shipping modems for people who can't configure their own, expect more of this.

Supporting the wifi function of the router goes as far as helping people get the best out of their wifi - which is *exactly* what this article is doing.
I.e. Explaining to people how to best place their router, switch channels, etc. Helping people understand that wifi congestion is not some thing the ISP controls. that's exactly what support for a router should look like.

You can't sell someone a router, then draw a box around the the router labelled "YOU". The technical content is fine, but the message that this isn't bigpipe's problem is very explicit. That would have been fine up to the day they shipped the first router.

sbiddle

30853 posts

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Retired Mod

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Biddle Corp

Lifetime subscriber

#1571387 14-Jun-2016 07:16

hashbrown: If you supply the router that supplies the wifi, then yes, you have an obligation to support the wifi function of that router.

If you go chasing the mass market by shipping modems for people who can't configure their own, expect more of this.

Mind exaplaing *exactly* a should RSP support WiFi? And exactly what level of support should they provide? There isn't a lot a RSP can do if a user expects WiFi to work (for example) on the bottom story of a 2nd story house when the router is located at the other end of the house on another story. A helpdesk can't magically change the laws of physics.

The average consumer has absolutely no understanding of how WiFi works or the fact it's a complementary solution to Ethernet. Is isn't, and never will be (unless it becomes full duplex at a bare minimum), a replacement. The expectation that a single AP/router can provide coverage to an entire house is also completely unrealistic but once again people don't understand that.

hashbrown

463 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1571390 14-Jun-2016 07:30

sbiddle:
hashbrown: If you supply the router that supplies the wifi, then yes, you have an obligation to support the wifi function of that router.

If you go chasing the mass market by shipping modems for people who can't configure their own, expect more of this.

Mind exaplaing *exactly* a should RSP support WiFi? And exactly what level of support should they provide? There isn't a lot a RSP can do if a user expects WiFi to work (for example) on the bottom story of a 2nd story house when the router is located at the other end of the house on another story. A helpdesk can't magically change the laws of physics.

The average consumer has absolutely no understanding of how WiFi works or the fact it's a complementary solution to Ethernet. Is isn't, and never will be (unless it becomes full duplex at a bare minimum), a replacement. The expectation that a single AP/router can provide coverage to an entire house is also completely unrealistic but once again people don't understand that.

My exact words were "support the wifi function of that router". That means helping your customers when they suspect that function is faulty even though 99 times out of 100 it probably isn't. Directing them to that blog post is fine, but if I thought I had a faulty bigpipe supplied router and read that, I'd go ballistic.

Jedsdad

120 posts

Master Geek

#1571415 14-Jun-2016 08:30

I think people are missing the point here.

We all know that Bigpipe provides support via email.

I think what they are trying to do is have somewhere for the non-tech savvy consumers to go to initially if they suspect they have wifi problems.

This is far better than trying to troubleshoot via emails.

Good on you Bigpipe!

Quic Broadband

Move to New Zealand's best fibre broadband service (affiliate link). Free setup code: R587125ERQ6VE. Note that to use Quic Broadband you must be comfortable with configuring your own router.

NonprayingMantis

6434 posts

Uber Geek

#1571435 14-Jun-2016 09:23

hashbrown:
sbiddle:

hashbrown: If you supply the router that supplies the wifi, then yes, you have an obligation to support the wifi function of that router.

If you go chasing the mass market by shipping modems for people who can't configure their own, expect more of this.

Mind exaplaing *exactly* a should RSP support WiFi? And exactly what level of support should they provide? There isn't a lot a RSP can do if a user expects WiFi to work (for example) on the bottom story of a 2nd story house when the router is located at the other end of the house on another story. A helpdesk can't magically change the laws of physics.

The average consumer has absolutely no understanding of how WiFi works or the fact it's a complementary solution to Ethernet. Is isn't, and never will be (unless it becomes full duplex at a bare minimum), a replacement. The expectation that a single AP/router can provide coverage to an entire house is also completely unrealistic but once again people don't understand that.

My exact words were "support the wifi function of that router". That means helping your customers when they suspect that function is faulty even though 99 times out of 100 it probably isn't. Directing them to that blog post is fine, but if I thought I had a faulty bigpipe supplied router and read that, I'd go ballistic.

the blog post is basically a more friendly way of doing troubleshooting on wifi - not really any different to what you might do over the phone with Spark or other providers. the main difference is it's there when you need it instead of having to wait on hold to speak to somebody.

If I was less tech savvy and thought I had a faulty bigpipe router and they directed me there I would love it. I don't want to go through the hassle of returning a modem and waiting for a new one. If the fix turned out to be as simple as router placement or changing the channel that's a much better solution.

andrew027

1286 posts

Uber Geek

#1571458 14-Jun-2016 09:37

Generally, I like the tone and message of the guide. As @Lias stated above, BigPipe is probably not the best ISP for your nana so I would expect most of your customers to be reasonably tech savvy, but the fact you have to write a guide like this means you must have had enough of these calls that you need to provide some clarity. So if I was writing this for my company (I am a technical writer) there are a few things I'd change, e.g.:

I'm not sure you need the hidden content (activated with the "dropdown" arrows). There's really only two small pieces of content, and the one under But how do I know if the problem is with Bigpipe or my WiFi? is critical to your message, considering the target audience is people who are not clear on the difference in the first place, and therefore probably shouldn't be hidden.

The Change the frequency section starts "Back ye olde olden days..." I'm pretty sure even five years ago we used to say "Back in ye olde olden days..." And I'm not sure you need both "olde" and "olden" unless the duplication is intentional - to show just how far back history goes?

In the same section you say "5 GHz is almost always better" and "5 GHz is better than 2.4 GHz because it’s faster, and there’s more room in the frequency for more devices to talk to your router without getting interfered with.". Apart from the fact that that last sentence is quite clumsy and needs re-writing, I have a vague memory of reading something here on GeekZone (from @sbiddle?) about 5GHz being less "stable" (my word), i.e. less coverage/distance, less tolerant of walls, etc. compared with 2.4GHz. Is it good advice to recommend the 5GHz channel as a magic bullet solution, if you haven't also pointed out possible disadvantages?

In the Make sure your network is secure section it talks about some of the things people are doing by hijacking your router then says "But more importantly, because everyone’s using it, it can make your WiFi really slow." This is not more important. What's more important is that (a) people you don't know are chewing through your broadband data allowance, meaning you could get a huge bill at the end of the month for overage, and (b) they could be accessing something that could get you into trouble if BigBrother (no relation to BigPipe) is watching, e.g. copyrighted content, Jihadi Joe's IEDs made easy, or child pornography.

Under Change the channel (advanced) you say "If too many devices are using the same channel, you’ll get interference. How to fix it? Simply log in to your router and change the channel." If I have 12 devices trying to access my wifi using channel 6, it's not clear ho changing the router to channel 10 will help if there are still 12 devices. I have had some success changing channels before, but this was because my next door neighbour's wifi was on a channel that "overlapped" mine, so increasing the separation reduced the interference.

For this last one, you might prefer to just ignore it, but under Everything in its right place (now I have Radiohead on internal perpetual loop), while BigPipe provides naked services could someone have a landline with another carrier? I know someone who did this in Australia - had a landline with his preferred provider but worked mostly from home so his employer paid for a second line and provided internet via their preferred provider - but I don't know if it's common enough (or even possible) here to worry about. I mention it because if people have cordless phones they can interfere badly with wifi, often sharing the same 2.4 or 5GHz frequencies, and the base unit sitting close to the router as the phone and internet wiring terminate at the same physical location.

JoshBigpipe

122 posts

Master Geek

Trusted

BigPipe

#1571496 14-Jun-2016 10:07

hashbrown:
sbiddle:

hashbrown: If you supply the router that supplies the wifi, then yes, you have an obligation to support the wifi function of that router.

If you go chasing the mass market by shipping modems for people who can't configure their own, expect more of this.

Mind exaplaing *exactly* a should RSP support WiFi? And exactly what level of support should they provide? There isn't a lot a RSP can do if a user expects WiFi to work (for example) on the bottom story of a 2nd story house when the router is located at the other end of the house on another story. A helpdesk can't magically change the laws of physics.

The average consumer has absolutely no understanding of how WiFi works or the fact it's a complementary solution to Ethernet. Is isn't, and never will be (unless it becomes full duplex at a bare minimum), a replacement. The expectation that a single AP/router can provide coverage to an entire house is also completely unrealistic but once again people don't understand that.

My exact words were "support the wifi function of that router". That means helping your customers when they suspect that function is faulty even though 99 times out of 100 it probably isn't. Directing them to that blog post is fine, but if I thought I had a faulty bigpipe supplied router and read that, I'd go ballistic.

There's some really good discussion and feedback happening here - thanks to everyone who's contributed.

Some really good points made about our level of support for Bigpipe-supplied routers. We are going to change up the article and the diagram slightly to indicate that we definitely do support the Bigpipe modem when it comes to faults and that we're always happy to help with troubleshooting, even on a BYO device. We've always done that - partly out of goodwill (we want our customers to have as easy a time getting connected and staying connected as possible) and partly out of the fact that we have to do troubleshooting anyway, to pin down if a problem lies with a customer or with us.

As people have correctly noted, the article's less about defining responsibility and more about explaining How Things Work with regard to WiFi. It's designed to arm customers with a bit more knowledge to make things less frustrating for them - but we're going to do a bit of re-writing to do to make that clear.

hashbrown: If you go chasing the mass market by shipping modems for people who can't configure their own, expect more of this.

I wanted to reply to this one in particular. It doesn't always seem like it because geeks tend to hang out with other geeks, but the number of people who can configure their own modem with any degree of competence is vanishingly small - even if we had all of them, there'd be no market in it. People who can do this will always be particularly valued customers of ours, but our offering a modem is less about chasing the mass market / dumbing down and more about making it easier and cheaper for people to get a higher-quality connection.

With the fibre rollout and increasing VDSL capability more people are picking those options, as you'd expect. The average BYO modem tends to be left over from someone's ADSL connection from five years ago and it may not be able to do either VDSL or fibre well or at all, no matter how much config you do. And decent new modems are pricey. It's a huge pain for customers. Whereas the Bigpipe modem does VDSL and fibre (even Gigatown) really nicely, it's configured out of the box, and it's a pretty good price - $99 for a brand new HG659 if you're a new Bigpipe customer or changing plans from ADSL to VDSL or fibre ain't too bad.

www.bigpipe.co.nz

https://www.facebook.com/BigPipeNZ

https://twitter.com/BigPipeNZ

JoshBigpipe

122 posts

Master Geek

Trusted

BigPipe

#1571502 14-Jun-2016 10:22

andrew027:

Generally, I like the tone and message of the guide. As @Lias stated above, BigPipe is probably not the best ISP for your nana so I would expect most of your customers to be reasonably tech savvy, but the fact you have to write a guide like this means you must have had enough of these calls that you need to provide some clarity. So if I was writing this for my company (I am a technical writer) there are a few things I'd change, e.g.:

This is some really good constructive feedback - deserves a solid reply.

I'm not sure you need the hidden content (activated with the "dropdown" arrows). There's really only two small pieces of content, and the one under But how do I know if the problem is with Bigpipe or my WiFi? is critical to your message, considering the target audience is people who are not clear on the difference in the first place, and therefore probably shouldn't be hidden.

Good point on the first bit of content.

The Change the frequency section starts "Back ye olde olden days..." I'm pretty sure even five years ago we used to say "Back in ye olde olden days..." And I'm not sure you need both "olde" and "olden" unless the duplication is intentional - to show just how far back history goes?

Argh. Typo. The duplication was intentional though. I like redundant redundancies.

In the same section you say "5 GHz is almost always better" and "5 GHz is better than 2.4 GHz because it’s faster, and there’s more room in the frequency for more devices to talk to your router without getting interfered with.". Apart from the fact that that last sentence is quite clumsy and needs re-writing, I have a vague memory of reading something here on GeekZone (from @sbiddle?) about 5GHz being less "stable" (my word), i.e. less coverage/distance, less tolerant of walls, etc. compared with 2.4GHz. Is it good advice to recommend the 5GHz channel as a magic bullet solution, if you haven't also pointed out possible disadvantages?

You're right about the last sentence. We can make it look like less of a magic bullet solution, because nothing is, but while 5 GHz can be flimsy we reckon it's matured enough to offer more advantages than disadvantages. The problem with listing the disadvantages is that it'll push out the wordcount without adding much. We can add a "read more" section, though.

In the Make sure your network is secure section it talks about some of the things people are doing by hijacking your router then says "But more importantly, because everyone’s using it, it can make your WiFi really slow." This is not more important. What's more important is that (a) people you don't know are chewing through your broadband data allowance, meaning you could get a huge bill at the end of the month for overage, and (b) they could be accessing something that could get you into trouble if BigBrother (no relation to BigPipe) is watching, e.g. copyrighted content, Jihadi Joe's IEDs made easy, or child pornography.

Er. Actually, this was a joke. Data allowance isn't a worry as we don't have caps, but yeah, we were trying to make the gag that having your connection slowed is hardly as problematic as random people using your connection for nefarious purposes unknown. Didn't really fire though, and it's potentially confusing, so we'll change it.

Under Change the channel (advanced) you say "If too many devices are using the same channel, you’ll get interference. How to fix it? Simply log in to your router and change the channel." If I have 12 devices trying to access my wifi using channel 6, it's not clear ho changing the router to channel 10 will help if there are still 12 devices. I have had some success changing channels before, but this was because my next door neighbour's wifi was on a channel that "overlapped" mine, so increasing the separation reduced the interference.

For this one, we make it pretty clear that it's for advanced users, and the How To guide we linked to makes it fairly clear how changing channels works. It's a hard one because it's definitely not a magic bullet solution but it can really help in the right circumstances.

For this last one, you might prefer to just ignore it, but under Everything in its right place (now I have Radiohead on internal perpetual loop), while BigPipe provides naked services could someone have a landline with another carrier? I know someone who did this in Australia - had a landline with his preferred provider but worked mostly from home so his employer paid for a second line and provided internet via their preferred provider - but I don't know if it's common enough (or even possible) here to worry about. I mention it because if people have cordless phones they can interfere badly with wifi, often sharing the same 2.4 or 5GHz frequencies, and the base unit sitting close to the router as the phone and internet wiring terminate at the same physical location.

Yes, we do offer the option of landline with another carrier, but we never front-foot it because it is really quite confusing. We find that people usually ask us about it specifically if they need a landline, and if they do we let them know how to set it up. That discussion is outside the scope of this article, but we'll add "cordless phones" to the list of things that can interfere with your WiFi.

now I have Radiohead on internal perpetual loop

Working as intended.

Thanks for the excellent feedback!

www.bigpipe.co.nz

https://www.facebook.com/BigPipeNZ

https://twitter.com/BigPipeNZ

andrew027

1286 posts

Uber Geek

#1571602 14-Jun-2016 12:45

JoshBigpipe: Thanks for the excellent feedback!

No problem - it's what I do for a living. Don't worry - no charge. But call me if a job opens up!

JoshBigpipe

122 posts

Master Geek

Trusted

BigPipe

#1571848 14-Jun-2016 17:35

Just a heads up - we've taken a bunch of the feedback here on board and changed a few things in the article.

(we kept the Netscape reference though, we weren't about to get rid of that.)

Cheers!

www.bigpipe.co.nz

https://www.facebook.com/BigPipeNZ

https://twitter.com/BigPipeNZ

PhantomNVD

2619 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1571850 14-Jun-2016 17:54

"Giga what?"

The info is all now open on the main page, but the dropdown box remains, though empty when you click it?

andrew027

1286 posts

Uber Geek

#1572111 15-Jun-2016 09:19

PhantomNVD: "Giga what?"

The info is all now open on the main page, but the dropdown box remains, though empty when you click it?

Seems to be OK for me - perhaps they have changed it again since you posted? But maybe BigPipe should tell people how to pronounce it, in case they've seen Back to the Future.

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