Cell Site Congestion , Deal with it

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cette

17 posts

Geek

#21934 11-May-2008 17:55

Sunday , 5pm. Less than dial up speed, I'm lucky if i can even open up a web page.
I've got huge speed probs with the wireless connection , from hours of 9am to 1am i'm lucky to get 20k, peak times i'm lucky to even open a web page. I've had this issue with speed for months, woosh surrport basically ignored me for months with we'll pass this on to second level and after months of ringing and being lied to, i was told that the cell site i'm connecting to is congested and if ten more people connect to it, it will be over its limit. We can't do anything about this deal with it. great! This evening it took 3 minutes to open up the google home page. "deal with it" this was said by some one higher than 2nd level surrport.

gomez

84 posts

Master Geek

#130043 11-May-2008 18:12

Thats terrible! What cellsite are you connecting to?

Maybe they need to spend some money and add a couple more NodeB units to the cellsite. If the site's backhaul link is DMR, it could also be a genuine issue with the backhaul reaching capacity.

Either way, they shouldn't have told you to "Deal with it" thats really unprofessional. I'd recommend going to to the top level management to escalate it.

"Of everything I've lost, I miss my mind the most"

BarTender

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#130044 11-May-2008 18:21

I would complain to the commerce commission.

It seems that Woosh use microwave links for their uplinks between cell sites and the central connection, this was what I found out when I was looking through the RSM database. I assume (could be wrong) that the uplinks were only 2MB microwave links as per what was allocated.

If you check out http://wooshinfo.googlepages.com/locations.html then see if you are pointing to the closest access point, might be worth getting a booster, and moving the receiver to different areas of your house to point to a different Access Point.

The fastest I have ever got off my local Access Point which does have a 2MB microwave (I can see from the drum antenna on the side of the tower) is ~170-180KB/s, which is about right for a 2MB circuit, again the circuit could be larger, but I have never got anything faster than ~180KB/s even at 4am.

It sucks to be on woosh. I wouldn't use it if I had to pay for it.

cette

17 posts

Geek

#130045 11-May-2008 18:25

The cell site is newtown south, Wellington. They told me that no upgrade will happen, and there's nothing they can do about the useabilty of the connection and we won't charge you a dissconection fee. Yea have a good signal with booster attached, checked signal strenght when placing booster. 180k is well off the 0 - 9k which is what i've had all day

gomez

84 posts

Master Geek

#130046 11-May-2008 18:33

The Southland links use NEC PASOLINK stuff, and most of the stuff in Auckland uses Allgon or Ceragon equipment, but you are right, it depends on what their licensed limits are.

"Of everything I've lost, I miss my mind the most"

cette

17 posts

Geek

#130048 11-May-2008 18:42

I guess i'll have to spend more money connecting to a different isp, If anyones considering joining woosh, Don't!

cette

17 posts

Geek

#130362 12-May-2008 20:50

Speed test this evening

Samsung

Shop now on Samsung phones, tablets, TVs and more (affiliate link).

gomez

84 posts

Master Geek

#130457 13-May-2008 06:36

What is your signal level currently sitting at?

Another test involves installing the modem on your PC without the VOIP gateway, and using the "Wireless Broadband Modem Dialler" to check the signal levels. Try to connect using that, and run the same speed tests again. This will at least isolate the possibility of a dud gateway unit.

"Of everything I've lost, I miss my mind the most"

cette

17 posts

Geek

#130683 13-May-2008 19:54

The modem is connected to a computer, 52% signal strength, can't remember the delta but it was good. But yea the speed is fine on the connection from 2am till about 9am

Its not possible to load more than one web page at a time with this connection at these speeds, I have no idea why.
Doing a upload i'm totally unable to load any web pages at all with the upload happening, I have no idea why.

cette

17 posts

Geek

#131003 14-May-2008 21:38

cette

17 posts

Geek

#131855 19-May-2008 18:24

Update - I have been contacted twice in two days from woosh, and have been informed the cell site which i'm connecting to with many other users is being upgraded within a month and I think I have been credited on my account based on a on going problem. This is indeed a change from what I have experienced in the past from woosh.

gomez

84 posts

Master Geek

#131856 19-May-2008 18:26

Take that 1 month, and multiply it by 3 usually. :)

"Of everything I've lost, I miss my mind the most"

New World

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cette

17 posts

Geek

#131859 19-May-2008 18:30

gomez:
Take that 1 month, and multiply it by 3 usually. :)

Don't say that u bursting my bubble of thinking i may get a average connection with a average speed.

BarTender

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#131882 19-May-2008 19:39

There seems that there are a few sites that I havn't listed as per what I extract out of the RSM database. Newtown is listed up on the brooklyn hill (W1NTN) but not Newtown South (W2NTS), so are you pointing at the one up on brooklyn hill, or some other one? I know the woosh pages internally give you an idea where you "could" point your booster, but doesn't offer their exact locations which is a pain! If you use PPPoE to connect to your network, then sniffing the PPPoE dialup shows the site name you are connecting to. Otherwise there isn't an easy way to find out what site you are connecting to, asides from "site number" which doesn't give you anything that meaningful!

Going to have another go downloading spectrum search lite and re-updating my woosh.googlepages.com site with all the listed sites.

cette

17 posts

Geek

#131896 19-May-2008 20:15

yea i had a look at some site maps of towers on the net and the newtown south site wasn't located on any of the maps i could see. It happens to be sitting centre newtown near the shopping center, or not to far away.

BarTender

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#134255 29-May-2008 20:36

Here is a great example of how bad their international links are congested. I was getting just a touch under 500k/200k d/u off the Woosh Speed test site however Trademe failed to even load, changed back to my TCL Cable connection and everything springs back into life.

So perhaps it's not the local sites being congested, just the fact that woosh won't open their purses to get more international capacity, or are rate limiting everyone to hell.

Have you tried the woosh speed test to see what results you get when your internet is going dog slow?