Thanks to David, Fezal, Bharat and Selven (and taking into account my own data), I’ve collected more than 300 measurements over the week. I owe each of them a nice lunch at Lotus and a drink :-)
As a reminder, we all downloaded a 100kb and a 1000kb file from the US and Europe three times per day (hence 12 readings) for the whole week (including Saturday and Sunday).
Now that the data collection process has finished, I am now embarking on the analysis phase. I’ll use my limited knowledge of statistics to prove (or, perhaps, disprove) the following: Mauritius Telecom is not giving us the bandwidth we are paying for and, consequently, we are being robbed of the opportunity to participate in the Web 2.0 revolution.
Of course, I’ll keep you informed. I’m setting myself the deadline of Friday 20 July to finish writing an academic paper containing this analysis.
Thanks, once again, to all those who have helped me.
How do you feel about the privatization of Mauritius Telecom?
From the results you got, the situation looks really terrible.
Some real action, formal action, is needed in order to increase the chance for something to change in that direction.
They are really stealing your money and it is unacceptable.
I think it is very good what you did by starting this study and trying to collect and put together data that proves what is going on.
does anyone ever consider suing MT?
I mean if you publish your paper, that you be some kind of proof right?
Glad to have been able to help…
As you are saying, Mauritius is not even in line of sight of Web 2.0. Even Youtube can’t be properly used here, now consider online apps? I won’t like working on an online app that would be lagging! I’ve been chatting with friends. What do you say about 8 Mbps uncapped connection for 24 pounds per month? Rs.190 approx = 1 Mbps! Now that’s a connection.
Anyways, we won’t be getting that speed here since our customer base is too small (around 15,000). The investment of ISPs won’t be covered.
I believe that instead of trying to lower the price of internet connection any furthur, why not increase the quality of service, and why not, the speed? That would be much better IMHO…
posting it in a news paper would be cool to piss MT off :)
75 year-old woman gets 40 Gigabit connection in Sweden!!
Source: http://www.thelocal.se/7869/
Excerpt:
“Sigbritt will now be able to enjoy 1,500 high definition HDTV channels simultaneously. Or, if there is nothing worth watching there, she will be able to download a full high definition DVD in just two seconds.”
Now, we poor MT subscribers can keep dreaming…Hehehe…
lol i guess Nomad’s already dead and if by the end of the year nothing is to be done well ,we can start attacking MT ! anyone check MTML’s service?
I’ve tested MTML service from Terre Rouge. I couldn’t hold the connection for more than 15 mins at a stretch. It always gets disconnected. So far, it’s no better than Nomad, although speeds are pretty good. Was able to get 12KBps with 144Kbps dialup they offer.
And David, this might be of interest to you:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTTH
Quoting, “As of March 1, 2007, Orange SA released their first commercial FTTH offer in Paris at 45€ a month for a 100 Mbits Internet connection (flat rate) and a set of services including telephone over IP and television. The fiber installation is free. In June 2006, France Telecom/Orange SA launched a test program for FTTH in some arrondissements of Paris. It proposes up to 2.5 Gbit/s upstream and 1.2 Gbit/s downstream per 30 users using PON for 70€ a month.
In September 2006, Free announced a €30 a month triple play offer including 50 Mbit/s Internet connection, free phone calls to 42 countries and high-definition television. The roll-out of this service is planned for May 2007, first in Paris, then other French towns including Montpellier, Lyons and Valenciennes as well as certain Paris suburbs.”
@ Bharat
quote =although speeds are pretty good. Was able to get 12KBps with 144Kbps dialup they offer.
thats pretty bad :(
@Anascrash04..
That’s pretty good for a Wireless connection. I mean, they offer 144 Kbits per second, and (144/8)= max theoretical of 18 KBytes/s. 12KBps is pretty good.
The problem is that the connection does not last long before getting disconnected. Also, there seem to be an issue about concurrent downloads. I wasn’t able to set more than 2 simultaneously at one time.
I think we have a problem here esp regarding SI units when it comes to connection speeds. Do we divide by 8 or 10. So, can I possibly receive 25.6 or 32 kbps on the much criticised MyT 256K line?
Have a look at this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SI_prefix#Computing
Thanks for pointing this out.
I’ll try to confirm with someone from MT. Anyway, I think your maths is not correct:
256kbit/s could either mean 256,000 bit/s or 262,144 bit/s. In both cases, to convert to bytes per second, you have to divide by 8 (as 1 byte = 8 bits). The 10 comes from the era of asynchronous (serial) connections when bytes were preceded by start and followed by stop bits…
So 256,000 bit/s = 32,000 bytes/s = 31.25 kilobytes per second
And 262,144 bit/s = 37,768 bytes/s = 32 kilobytes per second
All in all, there are only a 2% difference between those two.
Since we’re looking at the prices for connection speeds, here’s some news that will make us go MAD!
The The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has released a report detailing global braodband prices. In Japan, people are having 100 Mbps Internet connection! That’s over fibre optic!!!
Corrected Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6900697.stm
Btw, this 1GB download limit which is now ‘garantie d’usage’ is just playing with words.
I called em after suffering from big connection problem, they told me its because i’ve already gone past my 1GB download limit.
Another site, engadget I believe, said that Comcast will be releasing 150Mbps over traditional copper wires by using some kind of channel bonding technology. Not much detail but promising.
150Mbps would be awesome.. But who needs that kind of speed, apart from heavy downloaders/uploaders, or maybe Linux Distro or open-source seeders?