LebGeeks

rolf

Member

Re: Fast Connection In Lebanon!!

Has anyone tried the 512k wireless broadband plan from any of the ISPs?

I noticed that cyberia and tdm have a requirement for eligibility. You need to have 3 other people in your building with broadband before you're eligible.

However, terranet didnt mention anything about that in their EULA.

How efficient is the 512k connection? Does the speed vary? Anyone know wether its a 802.11x standard that they are operating on?

If you've used this service I'd really like to hear from you. Thanks.

Yeah i have the terranet 512.
OK here we go:

-Terranet (unlike other ISPs) use a satellite connection as backbone. A low latency satellite (ping 600ms) but still. I should have gone with idm, theire the n.1 ISP in lebanon and dont use satellite.

-Web browsing is great for lebanese sites only. For lebanese sites, latency is comparable to that of US ADSL. For outside sites, it's nowhere near ADSL, yet faster than modem and most illegal cables. as a test, I'm going to open this page now: www.discovery.com (haven't opened it recently, so it's not cached)
Took 25 seconds to display (35 seconds if you wait for the flash to load completely).
Google/yahoo/altavista is almost instant...  www.microsoft.com took 7 seconds ...
As I said, crappy latency.

-In the morning, early afternoon and late night, you get 45-55KB. In the peak hours (afternoon and night, especially weekends), you'll get less (right now, at midnight, I'm getting 35KB). It also takes more time to get to the 35KB speed at peak hour (3 seconds to connect, then 10 seconds to reach top speed right now). On very rare occasions, the connection gets slower (15KB) and pages are slower to load. But that's rare.

-They did something to kazaa, I never saw downloads at more than 8K, yet when tunneled kazaa onnection through HTTP using http-tunnel, I saw 50K downloads, which makes me think that they put some kind of limitation on kazaa.

-about 23 sessions only means it is not recommended to share the connection on several PCs and try not to open too much software at the same time. Open Kazaa+Emule+Bittorrent+MSN = kherbet el denye

-You get a logged off if you turn off your PC and will have to log on through a webpage to use your connetion. I have developped a PHP script to automate that login, if you are interested.

-upload is THE SAME SPEED AS MODEMS. Ya3ne big attachements will still be a pain. Actually the upload on 128Kbits is 16kbits, that slower than modem. On the 512 and the 256 it's 32kbits, roughly the same speed. havent tested it, though.

-they have blocked the sites of fiberlinksnetworks and cedarcom.net. In the case you didn't know, the 2 above companies are planning to release  a broadband offer that will compete with the GDS/terranet/idm/cyberia in the future (inshallah - I dont know when!). Blocking their sites is... ya3ne tfi 3ala heik 7araket.

-did not try Voice chat yet

-There does not seem to be a download quota (or "fair access policy) until now

-You get a private (not public!) IP. Not good.

-They have blocked VPN connections. I was counting on VPN connections to bypass their session limitation...

That's as far as I know. God knows what else they have blocked or slowed down.

-------------------------------
Now for the good aspects:

-no connection shortages, ya3ne internet 24/24 no matter what happends.

-Nice to see flash movie loading very fast!

-I love listening to 128k internet radio stations while still beind able to browse and download at a good speed.

--------------------------
Conclusion:

If you think that you will get a connection comparable to the ADSL they have outside, you'll be deceived.
This is obviously more relieable than most illegal connections, but they have the same private IP/kazaa slowing down/crappy upload problems/session limitation problem.

rolf

Member

Re: Fast Connection In Lebanon!!

Anyone know wether its a 802.11x standard that they are operating on?

The wireless system they are using is called "angel" something.
I think it uses proprietary protocol.
More details:
http://www.80216news.com/publications/p … 313913.asp

http://www.srtelecom.com/html/en/produc … nology.php

The SSU4000 is what you get to receive your "broadband" connection:
http://www.srtelecom.com/html/en/produc … r_unit.php

rolf

Member

Re: Fast Connection In Lebanon!!

We are the only persons in the building. But with a bit smoothtalking, we were able to get terranet to give us a 512 broadband connection.
If you already have a dial-up account, call and say "i have been your customer for such time" and ask if it is possible to have the connection in a short amount of time. Try to sound like somebody rich and important. Ask for 512. That's all I can say. I tried myself, didn't work. Then my father called, and somehow got them to come whithin one week.

rolf

Member

Re: Fast Connection In Lebanon!!

well can't wait for Monday the Great 128K Up Down Connection will be installed in my office  including Voice, Cam..blablablablablabal  hehe

Would you mind giving me the quote?
Last time I called fiberlinks they gave me something like 500$. Too expensive.
I would not pay more than 300$. I am talking for office use too.

samer

Admin

Re: Fast Connection In Lebanon!!

-they have blocked the sites of fiberlinksnetworks and cedarcom.net. In the case you didn't know, the 2 above companies are planning to release a broadband offer that will compete with the GDS/terranet/idm/cyberia in the future (inshallah - I dont know when!). Blocking their sites is... ya3ne tfi 3ala heik 7araket.

the one i'm getting from blocked "godaddy" (domain name registrar) for no apparent reason, but i managed to bypass the blocked access by using one of those CGI proxy scripts.

I made sure that the ISP hadn't been blocked by asking a friend of mine (who has the same ISP) to test it, same problem . :?

TSOG

Member

Re: Fast Connection In Lebanon!!

You guys want really fast internet? Apply for a legal Showtime subscription. I'm telling you, it's awesome. You get internet for free once subscribed, but if you want something as fast as 512, you'll need to pay up just a bit more. Bottom line, legal Showtime + 512 internet would still cost way less than what you're paying right now. Oh, and there are NO installation fees. Peace out!

toxic

Member

Re: Fast Connection In Lebanon!!

tsog wouldnt u have to have showtime decoder ir something

toxic

Member

Re: Fast Connection In Lebanon!!

can  u give me more info cuz i went to showtime arabia and there was nothing

rolf

Member

Re: Fast Connection In Lebanon!!

For uniderectionnal satellite internet, check out:

http://www.euroskynet.com/?tpl=page/hom … ng&lang=en
They do not seem to have any Fair access policies, but they work by "priorities", prioty 0 being the lowest priority. If your internet traffic has priority 0, it will wait in line for all traffic from the higher priorities to go through first, hence your conneciton will be slower at peak time. You can upgrade your priority (up to priority 6) by paying.
Information about average bandwidht of different classes of priorities can be found here:
https://service.skydsl.de/monitor/

http://www.geosat.fr/asp-boutique/bouti … T_PACK.htm
(in french), note that they have a "Fair Access Policy" that they do not disclose. A fair access policy means they'll slow you down if they consider that you use too much bandwidth.

I recommend the first option, although I have never tried any of these 2 services.
Hardware and installation for these 2 sevices should cost:
(These were the prices last year. They may have gone down since)
100-150$ for the dish+LNB+installation by any "m3allem dish" in lebanon
$100 for the receiver card in your PC

Note, that is unidirectionnal satellite, which means you need to provide the upload yourself through a modem, or better a cable provider. So you'll nee to add your cable eshteraak to the satellite monthly fee.

Satellite is still not a good deal, and is not suitable for heavy downloaders.

toxic

Member

Re: Fast Connection In Lebanon!!

man can someone giveme info on showtime satallite
and rolph plz send that php thign when u have time?