I was one of the biggest proponents of MyWireless, since a week after they launched. I was probably one of the first people to sign up for the service.

In retrospect, my usual paranoia has paid off... I only signed up for the 128k package, figuring that if the service sucked, I wouldn't be losing too much money per month.

The first month, February was awesome. I was surprised that I received signal everywhere I needed to, and the speeds of the device came very close the the actual 128k package that I was on. The only problem was the consistent packetloss on the connection, so I started investigating a little. Firstly, the Windows drivers that came with the modem, had full DEBUGGING information turned on. A dbgview of the kernel messages indicated the WORLD of spam, as the drivers were logging each and every little IRQ that happened and WDM driver callback notification that ocurred.

In retrospect, this wasn't such a bad thing either, since it allowed me to more easily examine the USB protocol, in order to write the MyLinuxDrivers device driver for the modem, which naturally wasn't forthcoming from Sentech and IPWireless. The bad thing about the debug logging though, was that due to the extraordinary overhead involved in calling DbgPrint() for every little thing the drivers did, there was a lot of delay and overhead in a simple thing such as an ICMP ping. Thus I started a small section on this website (MyTweaks)

So, I happily finished the Linux driver, and then looked at ways of improving my signal. Hence came research into Cantenna's buying PigTails, etc. Things were looking up. The Linux support was there, people could build cheap Cantennas and the service worked pretty much as advertised. The MyWireless forums were picking up, and we even had a technically proficient Sentech employee posting useful information from time to time... Nic Roets even designed a more efficient, and accurate signal calculator using proper signal theory than the useless "ZoneLocator". The community was swinging, gurgling and happily exploring the width and breadth of this awesome new technology.

It was almost too good to be true. And naturally, if something is too good to be true, it probably is. And this is exactly the case.

Let there be darkness...

Disconnections started becoming a regular event. Everyone was up in arms. Where'd MySignal go? Finally it was discovered that Sentech "optimized" their masts, so that the footprint for the base stations would be smaller. This disconnected a LOT of people that previously has signal, and had SIGNED UP FOR THE SERVICE, based on the fact that they HAD SIGNAL.

There was no official word, or warning from Sentech about this. It just happened, over the period of a week. Their offical "ZoneLocator" wasn't updated to reflect the new footprints.

So, the "dumb users" bit the bullet. They invested in expensive PatchAntennae that did not increase the signal ONE iota. The patch antenna's biggest use was to be butchered of it's PigTail in order to build a Cantenna, or for connecting to a more expensive dish, or grid antenna. Most people got their signal back. After approximately weeks of "tower optimization" during which users were left in the lurch, without connections whatsoever, most people were back online again, either via CanTennae, dishes, or grids, or sheer luck.

During this period of course, "dumb users-that-we-can-lie-to-without-consequence" asked the helpdesk what was going on, and the word was "optimization". No rebate offers or excuses or apologies delivered. Suddenly you were just WITHOUT a connection and it was up to you to get it sorted out.

The Go-Slow

After the tower optimisation nightmare, things were good, again in the land of MyWireless. Of course, this was not to last. On a certain Friday, the service started performing like only an analogue 14.4k modem could. Speeds crawled down to 2-3kb/s to complete nothingness at times.

"dumb users" once again, called the Sentech helpdesk:

dumb_user: "what's going on?".
hell_desk: "dumb user" you signed up for a contended product.
           This is now the effect of bandwidth contention, and that's the
           speed you're going to get...
dumb_user: but, but, this isn't even WORKABLE? I can understand contention,
           but this is worse than a modem!
hell_desk: Yes, that's the effect of contention.
dumb_user: Well, what can I do?
hell_desk: You can upgrade...
dumb_user: But, I already have the 512K package and it sucks like a 56k modem
hell_desk: We'll get back to you.

That was more or less how most conversations went over the course of the weekend. Monday came, and someone dropped note that Sentech had "miscalculated" the contention ratio and that it had been fixed.

Which, of course was utter BULLSHIT, aside from the fact that they were blatantly stonewalling the poor performance of the service. _One of infosat's core routers had been down for the weekend, or their routing tables were screwed, as was clearly seen when the "dumb users" started doing traceroutes and comparing it with previous traceroutes._

The Hiatus

Once again, things were pretty rosy. Speed on the service had picked up again, but was never quite the same. International bandwidth was now DEFINATELY contended, but it was useable. Local bandwidth was up and down like a yo-yo, depending on the time of day, but the "dumb users" once again bit the grit and bore the brunt. The service worked. Occasionally a "dumb user" would complain about poor performance, but would report that it looked "better" a while later, though definately not close to the speed that their package is sold at.

The Maintenance

I have yet to finish this bit... It gets worse. I'm BEHIND in my ranting, and that, I know is inexcusable...