husagi, you signed up in spite of what's been said? I'm flabbergasted! You must have well-off benefactors! Mind introducing them to me?

Anyway, back to the topic.



Like I said, when buying property, it's all about location, location, location. With wireless broadband, it's all about signal reception quality, more signal reception quality, and even more signal reception quality! PC Cards with built in antennae are notoriously bad for reception; in my wifi experience, anything with an external antenna beats anything with a built in antenna, given the same chipset. I guess it's the same here. I can only imagine what would have happened if it started to rain while you were in the midst of doing your testing though. The mind boggles; the imagination's running riot

So, lemme say it again - you gotta be next to a window or open unobstructed area to get good reception, just like UMTS signals. The deeper you go into a built up structure, the higher the chances of no reception.

Even if you were in a location nearer to their base stations, I doubt it will improve things significantly. And I have yet to determine how safe it is to be near one of their transmission antennae I have no wish to end up "ammunition-less"

And they claim about being connected even while moving at 100km/h? Hhhhmmmmppphhh...I'd like to see that! Maybe they mean in a convertible. Oh yeah, how nice it would be driving around in a convertible showing everyone you're surfing while travelling at 100km/h, especially during monsoon season. Seriously, this should never have been a selling point for the service



Ah yes, now this would give all of us some idea on how to hook up their IzziPro product to a wired/wireless router, right? And they claim only a select few brands/models work with their IzziPro product, a claim which I took with a whole bucketload of salt when I heard it. And they insisted that they will not do support for customers wishing to share their connection - it's up to the customer to experiment and get it to work (I happened to read their internal training manual - I asked so many questions which they weren't able to answer during the roadshow that they just took out the damned training manual and showed it to me. It was around two inches thick )

I would like to see more input from Husagi on the 4G technology in Malaysia (this is like doing a final year project....).

[quote=husagi,Aug 3 2007, 12:33 AM]
LOL. true... true...

Here are some candies for you guys to chew on...


Traceroutes:

[/quote]

well i guess that is the interconnect with the international side or it their own international router hmm wonder why..

[quote]
speedtest.net:

[quote]
shoulden't the line be 1mbps , and if i'm not mistaken 1mbps = 100KB/s but your getting about 250KB/s which is like 1/4 of what you subscriber, damn that even worst/badder then streamyx 70% ratio

hopefully on the next try/test/ping/etc etc the figure will be better...

[QUOTE]

These tests were done outdoors, in Puchong, using their PCMCIA card. Signal strength was on the order of "Excellent" (i.e., 80%-100%, according to their utility software). In fact, signal strength was consistently 100% for 90% of the time.

My initial attempt to get connected indoors with the PCMCIA card failed. No coverage... Will need to find a location that's closer to one of their base stations... if only I know where they are!!

Oh!! And I had a great time playing with my car's power windows... wind down window = get connected. wind up window = no connection. Looks like tinted windows are a no-no. There goes the mobility function....

I also wanna point out that they're using PPPoE for user authentication. So, a dialer needs to be configured on the PC.
[/QUOTE]

if i'm not mistaken the PCMCIA card has a "lobang" to affix an external antenna right ?, maybe you can fix one outside and cable it to the inside of your home..

it seems the "total mobility" has been paralyzed lol

anyway i congrats you for providing us all this valuable information, hopefully the connection will be better in the next few months then we can chuck streamyx away

Izzi.Net this dude is the first one to show result hopefully the discussion will become something good , unlike screamx deaf ears

[QUOTE]

---

Added on August 3, 2007, 12:48 am
seriously, you expecting him to come back here with a posting, after all the humiliation he suffered?

Chances are, he's probably resurrected himself and going by another username already. hehe

Oh whatever..

[/quote]

well he's so nice defending izzi net, the fun just started please come back

This post has been edited by JinXXX: Aug 3 2007, 10:02 AM

HECK.... NO!!!! I borrowed...

Ah... perhaps... perhaps... hehe

No contest there. You're most probably right. The point that I wanted to prove was that their PC Cards (and by extension, their USB cards too) do face problems with indoor coverage.

LOL. Given that the reception was very strong where I was running the tests, I'd say that the base station could have been nearby. I.e., <3km away. Moreover, I was sitting at an elevated ground with very little obstruction -- i.e., direct LOS to the base station. Ironically, when I relocated to another place (*ahem* my house) that was around 500m away from the initial location (still on fairly elevated ground) but no LOS since signal has to propagate through a few rows of houses, I lost coverage completely even though I was outdoors.

And another weird thing I experienced... when I put my notebook on top of my car, located no more than 100m from where I ran my tests, signal strength kept flip-flopping between 100% and 0%! The PPPoE dialer couldn't even establish a connection with their server. Seems as if the transmitting signals from the PC Card being reflected off my car rooftop was causing a lot of problems... *shrugs*

Err... won't literally any router with built-in PPPoE support work then?

OMG. Wow... Either they're freshies or you were very hard on them.

That hop #9 router is indeed an international router (VSN), which is one of AIMS's uplink provider.


Errr.... readers... be careful there. It's not kB/s, but kb/s (or kbps). So, yes, I was getting a mere quarter of what I'm supposed to get, despite having such strong signals.

I've yet to confirm the connector type. It could very well be MCX. Lemme verify that tonight with my GPS connector or my trusty ole Lucent Orinoco if I can still find it! (hopefully, I won't forget. hehe) BTW, external antennas for this iBurst won't be so easy to source for. Will have to custom build one, I reckon. Perhaps, I can somehow scrounge for a GSM 1800 whip antenna....

This post has been edited by husagi: Aug 3 2007, 12:01 PM

well sorry about that guess i didn't convert the 250kbps to KB/s my bad my bad ,
i'm not sure whats the connector is called but its DAMN SMALL

will ordinary GSM based external antenna work ? btw what iburst runing on i mean the spectrum last i heard is was on some 2.5Ghz range or something like that.. maybe we can check with kyocera for the technical spec..

iBurst in Malaysia is on 1.7GHz, between DiGi and Maxis (what was TimeTelekom's network... I think). More specifically, between 1790MHz and 1800MHz.

They claim the technology, in an open and fairly flat environment, can propagate signals across 13km. In densely populated areas, it falls to 3km. But the reality nowadays is that there's so much interference in the airwaves that almost nothing can be taken for granted, and you experienced this. Although they utilise the 1.79Ghz spectrum, your experience indicates that much more is happening that meets the eye. And weird stuff with the car roof, freaky...spooky...your hair follicles weren't tingling at that time, were they? I'll have to try the test sometime

If anyone decides to take the PC Card or USB option, bear what husagi mentioned in mind. I can almost guarantee that you will not be able to get reception inside an enclosed space And if you're not on a (rough) LoS of their base stations, good luck to you. And next time anyone drops by their roadshow booth, insist on them telling you where the nearest base station is, and attempt to take the notebook and device deeper into the building to test for yourself



Say no more. Let everyone figure this out for themselves







That's a rather poor speed, considering the test was probably done in the evening when there is theoretically less traffic? Another reason could be the base station you're connected to is in an area where they have a lot of subscribers and backhaul capacity just couldn't handle the traffic? That speed is even less than what you would have gotten in Streamyx's first incarnation of their service running at 384kbps. This also dispels the urban myth that "good signal reception = good download speed"



According to further research I've done, the connector type is MMCX, confirming my earlier suspicions when I compared it with the connectors on my Orinoco, Buffalo, Senao and SMC wifi cards, all of which use different connectors (well, the Orinoco and Buffalo use the same; the other two use different connectors). The PC Card outputs a maximum of 100mW of transmit power, and it's still a 16bit card if my research is correct. And you're right about the antenna - they will NOT be easy to find, since the service operates at 1.79Ghz. Many antenna are optimised to work best within narrow frequencies (a jack of all trades is not good when you're an antenna ). Standard wifi antennae are no good; these work best within the 2.4Ghz spectrum. I've always wondered why Mobif chose this spectrum, when the service can operate at 1.7, 1.8, 1.9 and 2.3 GHz. The only reason I can think of is that they don't want people buying equipment from places like Australia or South Africa and being able to use them here, depriving them of an additional revenue source.

BTW, all three products come with external antenna capability.

Do let me know if you can scrounge up a 1.8Ghz antenna with the right connectors; I'd love to do further tests with it

And to be accurate, iBurst in Malaysia operates within the 1790 and 1795 Mhz spectrum range.

This post has been edited by wr6969: Aug 3 2007, 12:47 PM

This iZZi product will surely gulung tikar one day...

I think.... only the 1.7GHz band was available then (despite knowing well that that 10MHz gap was meant to be a GSM guardband!). 2.3GHz, at the time, was in the midst of being gazetted for WiMAX/BWA, and I think strategically, it wouldn't have been wise to lobby for 2.3GHz since "everyone else" was going to bid for it.

Gonna be tough. We'd probably be better off building one from scratch... any idea what's the quarter-wavelength of the 1.8GHz signal, without Googling?

I think you're half right. They were granted 10MHz of spectrum. So they should be able to run 2 carrier channels, no?

I'm surprised the regulators alloted them that particular frequency, knowing full well how close it was to the GSM frequency used by DiGi and Time.



I have no clue whatsoever; I thought you were the RF engineer/expert?



Hehe, I was only quoting what their website says.



Source.


Done any further testing since yesterday? Hope the download speed's much better compared to the test you performed yesterday!

The way to determine whether it's 16-bit PCCard or 32-bit CardBus is to look for a copper grounding strip in front of the card. 16-bit PCCards don't have this.

This post has been edited by dog: Aug 3 2007, 03:56 PM

You are indeed correct about the MMCX connector.

Hey... I'm not an RF hardcore, OK? In fact, I'm not even a certified RF engineer. That's why I've to Google.

Anyway, I don't think I'd be able to find any spare MMCX connector in time to make the antenna since I'm returning the PC card to its rightful owner pretty soon.

Nope... no time. Perhaps this weekend, I will. At a different location, of course.

Sad to say, too many people have been saying so, even before this service could take off. Moreover, their marketeers got their packaging all wrong. If the packaging & pricing strategy had been right, I think no matter how bad the technology, they could somehow survive.

I feel so sorry for them... wish there'd be a shining star amongst the wireless/mobile broadband players (minus the 3G/telco boys, I mean).

can do a traceroute to www.tm.net.my & flying spaghetti monster.org? ( , mod can i put the blue address here? )
let's see if we can dota on it..

This post has been edited by cherasbabe: Aug 4 2007, 12:37 AM

I was thinking of switching TMnut screamyx service to another ISP. Izzi.net seems quite like a "promising" one. However, i still need to do more survey but this thread contains lot of jargons i dont understand. Pardon my ignorance.

Can anyone draw a conclusion about this service? Is it better than streamyx? or is too soon to tell? Thanks for help!

Just went to Pc fair at KLCC yesterday and visited thier booth. I ask the girl to carry out a speed test with speedtest.net and the result is kinda bad. I only get download of 150kbps and upload 70kbps tested on KL server. The salesgirl is kinda embarrassed and keeps defending saying that the signal indoor is bad. So dun tell me i subscribe this service just to server on my balcony ?

This post has been edited by cy97: Aug 5 2007, 11:00 AM

your flyingspaghettimonster.org cannot ping....



Here's it's traceroute...


traceroute to tm.net.my:


Better than Streamyx.... not really. If you're outdoors a lot, or live in a fairly open area that's within 1km from any of their base stations, you'll have better luck using their service.

--

Over the weekend and this morning, I checked out their coverage in Sunway at a couple of places -- at an apartment (friend's place) and Sunway Hospital.

At the apartment, signal was strong and stable indoors at 90% since there are a lot of windows. No complaints there.

At Sunway Hospital which isn't too far away (within 1km from the first location), the signal was not stable. I was located fairly indoors (on purpose) so signal fluctuated between 0% and 90%. It was still usable, though on many occasions, coverage went down to 0%. Sometimes, signal was 40%, sometimes 70-80% and maxed out at ~92%. Bear in mind, though, that they have a base station in Bandar Sunway, and I'd have assumed that the site is very nearby.

Although these two test locations are located <1km apart, they are served by two different base stations!! Here's the proof:

Traceroute to google.com at Sunway apartment (note the first hop):


Traceroute to MetroFON at Sunway Hospital (again, note the first hop):


So now, I'm begging to ask this question: Where are base stations 116.206.1.1 and 116.206.1.3 located?? I find it hard to believe that Sunway is being served by two base stations, when their coverage map only indicates one base station for this area. Is 116.206.1.1, by any chance... Kelana Jaya?

Here's the ping test to next hop (connected from Sunway Hospital):


Speedtest at Sunway apartment:


Speedtest at Sunway Hospital (note that uplink may not be accurate because the coverage went from "Good" to Zilch towards the end of the speedtest):


So overall, looks like my bandwidth tests have never exceeded ~250kbps (DL) in all my three test locations. Note that all my speedtests are rated against the MetroFON server in KL. Further analysis may need to be done, to verify whether the bottleneck is due to distance from base station or due to their uplink Internet gateway provider (i.e., AIMS). MetroFON does not peer with AIMS.

Final note: I don't think I'll be doing further testing on iBurst after today since I'm returning the card to its rightful owner. Hope this is helpful to those who are curious/interested in their service.

hey great job, the info you provided was much more than what any of us expect, but like you said 3 test/3 locations speed was never more than 250kb/s.. i think that tells us a lot in term of their bandwidth/stability, but like you said
with time it might improve..

anybody know who metrofon peers with(directly) in malaysia ??

its august and its about 4 or 5 months to WIMAX launch in december, any "stories" on wimax development other than they all agree to share the tower/infrastructure , and that most fiber is controlled by tm

husagi, GREAT JOB

Don't think they peer with any other ISPs. In fact, I believe they purchase bandwidth and terminate at NTT and Pacific Internet (Sg).

Wasn't there an article indicating that WiMAX won't be till next year? Happy waiting, peeps! LOL

Why... thank you.

in fact, he is right, the izzi tech support advice given was piece of crap.

i am using izzi pro, at first was ok when i am using one single laptop to connect.
and a week later i tried to hook up other laptop and pc, it's not working at all.

called them many times and the only crap advice they will say, they only provide guidance
throughout the cd and installation of drivers (for the usb card/pcmcia peanut setup),
and for izzipro, they dont provide help for routers, means DIY.

so to me, its very misleading of their izzipro product claiming able to connect multiple users but same time
dont provide related tech support/guidance for routers or no routers in their FAQ website or phone support.

i myself even tried setup the ICS, disable my wifi router dsl auto dial, auto detect settings and script, network collaboration usage, etc...
none of it work...... and still, only 1 computer can access internet at same time regardless how many drivers install on my each computer.

(they dont provide trial usage, they forced you to pay one lump sum amount to purchase, they will left you in the lurch if you face problem which they unable to solve)


already complained to them via email and awaiting for their call to rectify this problem before i sing out to the media.

they had flyers distributed all over aman suria today. some sohai came and put on my car. interesting package. They did claim (on the advertisement flyer) that they were able to do all that u've all posted before. Yes i did go through all the pages.

Almost signed up for it, luckily didnt. Thanks . will alert all my friends who are looking for streamyx alternatives......

Out of topic - anyone tried emailing metrofon lately ? been sending em various emails but none replied.