Dear All, I think that I should have turned this into a blog series, and maybe a book serialization or a movie, anyway here goes. Just after my last email, I was suddenly bombarded with calls on Friday March 5, 2010 all the way from planning section, customer care, systems administrators all looking to assist me with my problem. Unfortunately I have not heard from any of them since 5pm, Friday March 5, 2010. At one time I actually felt that I was being helped, now I am back to where I was, more confused than ever. Stephen
_____ From: Stephen Musoke [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, March 04, 2010 6:24 PM To: I-Network Uganda Cc: 'Linux Users Group Uganda' Subject: [i-network] RE: RE: New UTL Prices - UPDATE March 4, 2010 Dear All, Another long day with support staff and bottom line is unless I buy a Cisco 1841 Router which costs $1,295 (new) and $800 (used) from Amazon.com along with a $250 setup fee, I cannot get dedicated bandwidth. I am not sure what's so special with the branch level router yet my ADSL modem has an inbuilt router. BTW the support technician kept time, and was very responsive, despite the message that he carried. Until I get more Disappointed Stephen _____ From: Stephen Musoke [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, March 04, 2010 12:08 PM To: I-Network Uganda Cc: 'Linux Users Group Uganda' Subject: [i-network] RE: New UTL Prices - UPDATE March 3, 2010 Kibaya, I am expecting a UTL techie to come over, so I will advise on what I get from him. I am using a linksys WAG54GS which is an ADSL modem with an inbuilt router. I have set it up in such a way that its connected to one card on my File/Print/Active Directory Server/Internet Gateway and the other card connects to a switch. Therefore any changes that need to be made are isolated form the network computers which all use the server as their gateway. While it may be more profitable to manage shared bandwidth at low connections, if the migration path to higher bandwidth is fraught with high migration costs, then it makes much more sense to stay where you are and suffer quietly. The only way the ISP can make money is to have the customers move to higher bandwith since the lower bandwidth has been slashed by a whopping 70%, if they don't then the revenue immediately drops by 70%. We want to move, but the barriers are too high. Stephen _____ From: Kibs Elly [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, March 04, 2010 9:57 AM To: I-Network Uganda Cc: 'Linux Users Group Uganda' Subject: [i-network] New UTL Prices - UPDATE March 3, 2010 Hi Stephen, Its unfrotunate that you seem to have had a disappointing encounter with the UTL customer care desk regarding your data service profile. First, i would like to state that in any IT environment, there aren't hard and fast rules encraved on stone, hence there is always a work-around. For your requirement of moving your shared connection to a dedicated mode, i would put as follows: 1. It first and foremost depends on what you already have on your side, but iam certain you already have a modem. 2. All you need is some routing mechanism, since your ADSL modem in this case will be operating in Bridge mode. To achieve this, you can acquire any routing device with two ethernet ports. Alternatively you can also use a PC (for NAT) with two network cards, one to the modem and the other to the switch....this i believe is cost effective on your side and it works too. The reason probably why the customer care desk advised that you acquire a 1000$ router (normally CISCO 877 ROUTER) could have been due to the fact that this particular router has both an embedded modem port and ethernet integrated, hence much easier to do both routing and ADSL functionalities. As for capping shared bandwidth at 512K "instead of 1----4M"; i believe UTL's approach is the most efficient manner of managing shared bandwidth, otherwise giving out 4M on a shared basis wouldnt be good business model and usage isnt optimized in anyway....besides, bandwith generally is still a resource that has to be well managed even with the emergence of Submarine cable. Hope this helps to put some clarity. Otherwise, your observations are genuine. Kibaya --- On Wed, 3/3/10, Stephen Musoke <[email protected]> wrote: From: Stephen Musoke <[email protected]> Subject: [i-network] New UTL Prices - UPDATE March 3, 2010 To: "I-Network Uganda" <[email protected]> Cc: "'Linux Users Group Uganda'" <[email protected]> Date: Wednesday, March 3, 2010, 8:11 PM Dear All, 1. Its me again, well I have spent all day with UTL customer care and I was shocked to find out that to move from shared to dedicated connections I need to dump my current hardware, invest in a CISCO router of $1000 and $250 setup fee. 2. I am just wondering why instead of capping shared bandwidth at 512K, you do not give us the options to have 1MB, 2MB, 4MB shared connections so that we do not have to buy new hardware which costs as much as 7months rental for the lowest plans 3. Also just a word of advice to UTL if u are listening: A) Prepare marketing and technical materials before hand to read and explain the services, so that your staff spend less time on the phone - makes your support more scaleable since it handle more queries in the same period of time B) Ensure that the customer service staff, 1st level Support and Technical support have the same understanding of the service needs and expectations C) Add the information to your website please (Shameless advertising pitch - OFFTECH maintains websites this for many different customers around the Globe) Stephen Operations Manager Offshore Technical Agency http://www.infoma.com/offtech.htm +256 414 345 166 -----Original Message----- From: Stephen Musoke [mailto:[email protected] <http://us.mc528.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]> ] Sent: Wednesday, March 03, 2010 9:29 AM To: I-Network Uganda Cc: 'Linux Users Group Uganda' Subject: [i-network] BREAKING NEWS - New UTL Prices - This is Outstanding!!! Dear All, Sorry for cross posting I have just got the following rates from UTL Shared bandwidth - includes 18% VAT 128K - 80,000 256K - 120,000 512K - 200,000 Dedicated Bandwidth - excludes 18% VAT 256K - 360,000 384K - 515,000 512K - 675,000 1MB - 1,325,000 Stephen S. Musoke Offshore Technical Agency http://www.infoma.com/offtech.htm +256 414 345 166 ________________________ Visit the I-Network website - www.i-network.or.ug Follow I-Network on Twitter: http://twitter.com/inetwork The I-Network Dgroup is a platform for ICT Knowledge Sharing ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- Visit [web site]( http://d2.dgroups.org/iicd/i-network/ ) Click [here]( mailto:[email protected] <http://us.mc528.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]> ) to unsubscribe The email is intended only for the recipients. 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