NorCalWM

Now, right off the top, I did 1st, 2nd, and 3rd tier tech support for 5 years with one of the top modem companies... so I do know quite a bit about how to run a tech support line. Ok, so those who have followed my path with DW know that i have literally hundreds of calls logged to tech support - and pages of documentation. Now, I know that DW outsources there tech support (level 1 at least) to what sounds like India. Outsourcing is EVIL - not only for the US economy, but shows a true lack of concern for the end user of a product. I hold nothing against the tech support people over there... in fact, they are some of the most gracious and patient in the world. AND hats off to anyone who can learn our dreadful language AND all the tech terms and carry on conversations with a bunch of ugly angry americans..... shudder. However, my grief is that every time I call I am FORCED to go thru their little routine, which I call "The Cable Dance"... where the check all your settings, have you shut down the computer, pull every wire, coax, 25 pin cable, power cords, etc.. from your boxes to remove static charge.... then you have to put it all back together ... only to discover one of two things..... doing this fixes some problems, or that things still suck. I suspect that by the time you have finished turn at the Cable Dance, the tech support people have turned on a secret switch - you know the one, it reads "Enable Connection for 'so and so'".... or that thier congested pipes have cleared out a bit, OR, that the nightmare of networking protocols and firewalls and ICS have sorted themselves out due to the reboot. However, if I have to reboot the computer everytime satellite gets slow, I'd be doing nothing all day but rebooting. On to an example.... Each time I call I get a different set of instructions to try..... this guy says turn on proxy, this one says turn it off, this one says turn on firewalls, this one says turn off all anti-virus software .. on and on... So, yesterday, after 2 hours of not being able to work because my connection was in the 4-5kbps zone... I mean DeAD slow .. but still there... I ventured a call to tech support. This nice lady had me Re-Enable Proxy... which is what was disabled by the last tech support person the day before...... this INSTANTLY gave me a 540 - Satellite Outage Suspected Error - and no connection. Well, I KNEW how to fix this... but I thought I'd play along and spent the next 45 minutes as she walked me thru changing and resetting all my networking - including DNSs and Gateways etc..... I actully just sat and nodded and waited..... Finally I turn off proxy, thanked her for her time and hung up. This happens time after time after time. Sometimes.... I get a bit miffy and ask to speak with a manager.... especially when the level 1s say things like - Well, if you are able to browse, then there is nothing more we can do...... even tho I'm getting like 48 kbps.. and it is taking 1.5 minutes to bring up Google. I ask, I plead, I BEG on my hands and knees to speak to a manager - they say no..... OR< when I get really upset, they will put me on hold and say... Oh... the manager is in a meeting (this is the response 100% of the time) they say I can call back in a 1/2 hour, or an hour which ever..... but when I call back... the new tech person is FORCED to put me thru another 1-2 hours of troubleshooting before saying exactly the same thing. It is a scam, cuz there are NO managers at the outsource place.... come on.... in 50 tries to speak to a manager .... 0 connections. Getting to second level support???? Don't get me started .... las time it took 7.5 hours of 1st level (in a single call) just to get them to admit they had pretty much crashed my computer .. and a 2nd level would be contacting me in 48 hours....... HELLO... NEVER GOT A CALL. Anyone even considering this product..... just hear what i'm saying. At this point, forget the limb... I'd give a genital just for a call from a manager, or a second level techsupport. Can you tell I've had it? Not even sure if this post will make it to the server... currently getting 8kbps... sigh

got some questions, Have you ever noticed that certain satellites get better thru-put? I'm on SatMex5 and always have been. Installation - the guy who installed my system originally, it was his first installation - and was on the phone the whole time with support - he even asked ME what sattelite I wanted to be on. I took 3 tries - 3 trips out before they got me a speed of over 36kbps. He had nailed the coax so hard that it was crimped into the wood.and the rubber coating had been split. (btw... I have ofcourse replaced all that years ago.) What kind of speeds do you get? - say at 6AM, Noon and 6PM.? What is the hop count to your most important ISP. I work nearly exclusively with a provider which is about 150 miles away ... my hop count normaly exceeds 36 hops. An average of 16 hops JUST to get out of the DW network. Just as a REAL test of efficiency.... when you done reading this post, click home on this page .. and manually count how many seconds it takes for the page to load. If it is up in the 30 - 55 second range.... to load ONE Page .. welcome to my world. I'm about to post a tirade about their tech support.... so if you are wondering why this isnt' working .... read that. Ok guys... keep me posted !

Too True, Too True. I knew from day one that the system was not going to be useful. But... I want you to realize that I have NO Options. I live/work several miles away from a very small city.... very rural... very mountainous. When I called the phone company here and asked if they offered ISDN - they litterally did not know what I was talking about. There no projected plans for DSL for at LEAST 5 years out. And the Cable Company is going broke and won't be laying cable within 2 miles of me .... probably ever. Even Dial-up here charges by the minute .... I mean it isn't a lot ... but it adds up to more than this satellite connection. I'm also not a rich peron .... so that rules out sharing a T1 or buying the cable company to bring the cable here. And that is why I'm stuck with this lovely white elephant of a system.

Ah.... excellent questions ... All Three machines run Norton AV - always updated. All Three Machines run the latest versions of AdAware every few days. And the other dude's machine runs SpyBot constantly. We also have some kinda sniffer app running on the server to see where traffic bound - but I don't check it ...he does. I'm so paranoid, that I have confirm message before any cookies are allowed. We are a clean team MorE??

OK, I can give you a run down of what is currently running DW. Keep in mind that since I have owned the crap I have changed the computer, both modems - TWICE - the LMB, AND have moved to a new location - and have beefed up the ground cables and methods - and have replaced all cables - with the excpetion of the 25 ping modem connector. Ok So, the DW software runs on a Dell Mini Tower - P4 3.0gig with a gig of memory ... Running XP Pro. I have the 4000(???) series modems - the USB ones. I use ICS on this machine and have done no tweaks to the registry on this particular machine. I'm running DW version 4.2.1.10 wotj Service Pack A10. Now, I understand that there is a later software - but when the tech support people tried to get it to update - it took 5.5 hours and it turned out to be a corrupted version. My status is ALWAYS "Connected Via Satellite" at 93% I have a D-Link DSS-5+ Ethernet Switch attached from which I run My Main Computer - An even beefier P4 with XP Pro - 15.gig of RAM. And I have a another Dell P4 with 512 Ram running XP Pro hooked up as well. Now, my experience shows that the system runs well early, early in the morning - 4AM - 6AM PST - when I'm the only person on it.... but by about 7AM when my partner hops on the other computer - things start to go down hill. By 11 we are down to a grueling 5-8kbps. When we do lose all connectivity, or at least usefulness of the system - and we reboot - 50% of the time the speeds will come back to 60 - 120kbps. Other times it will just sit there.... and when I mean sit there ... there is virtually NO activity on the lights on the modems..... just an occasional ACK from the Xmitter. When it is slow, I can completely disable and disconnect the networking - and the "server" does not improve. I'm carefully testing this now, cuz I was suspecting my Switch, or my networking setup. But again, when it is slow, it is slow. Here is more interesting data..... Sometimes the my computer will slow to useless - but I'll go and test the server and it will be in the 600kpbs range. Other times my partner will have decent speeds, but I"ll be dead in the water. FAP????? Not a freaking chance - I check all the time just to make sure ... but when you only get 8kbs and hour... there is no way to even download enough stuff to get a FAP. OK, I'm sure I'm missing something here...... quiz me, and I'll try to get you info.... Currently 7:36AM :::.. Download Stats ..::: Connection is:: 202 Kbps about 0.2 Mbps (tested with 386 KB) Download Speed is:: 25 KB/sec Tested From:: http://www.testmy.net/ Bottom Line:: 4 times faster than 56K you can download 1MB in 40.96 second(s) Validation Link:: https://testmy.net/cgi-bin/get.cgi?Test_ID=21MGSG4WR

Those who have followed my ordeal with Direcway for the past 3 years know how horrible their tech support can really be. I managed to lose 7 hours on tech support the other day because they insisted I upgrade their software - the version they had me download was corrupt ... so, no more satellite... then I dialed up.. and got another version - which despite its name and id number, was actually a 2 year old version of the software..... finally I ended up having to do a very risky System Rollback.. because of it. So, I'm still getting magnificent speeds of 4 - 148kbps.... but I have a question..... A level one tech support guy had me run a a TestMy speed test. I got something like this... :::.. Download Stats ..::: Connection is:: 141 Kbps about 0.1 Mbps (tested with 386 KB) Download Speed is:: 17 KB/sec Tested From:: http://www.testmy.net/ Bottom Line:: 3 times faster than 56K you can download 1MB in 60.24 second(s) Validation Link:: https://testmy.net/cgi-bin/get.cgi?Test_ID=55TT5T1YV The only difference was the it had a higher "connection" speed... like 985kbps or such.... he insisted that that was my browsing speed ... even though I pointed out to him that it took 28-34 seconds to load the Google home page - about 6kb worth of file. Now, who is right here.... Professional Tech Support Dude, or me? Thanks

Ooops... Forgot to post my Test Results... 5:45PM :::.. Download Stats ..::: Connection is:: 67 Kbps about 0.1 Mbps (tested with 386 KB) Download Speed is:: 8 KB/sec Tested From:: http://www.testmy.net/ Bottom Line:: 1 times faster than 56K you can download 1MB in 128 second(s) Validation Link:: https://testmy.net/cgi-bin/get.cgi?Test_ID=I1V3XDFF9 So, how do you like THEM apples - sigh... same on dmarc machine and a networked machine.... sigh....

Thank you for a great reply !... So often people are snooty and pedantic on forums like this... so I totally appreciate your attitude. Ok, lets see... I can completely disable and disconnect the computer with the modems from everything ... and nothing changes. I did in fact have the whole setup installed on what is now one of my networked machines... but after 6 months of nightmare connections, I actually went out and bought a whole new system JUST to run the satellite. Still the same issue. I thought, because of much of what i have read, that it might be a static electricity issue.... and I didn't really trust the ground that was there.... so I replaced all that .. and I KNOW it is grounded now.... but the problems continue. I have been on tech support at so many levels and so many times, that when I print out my log of JUST the times and dates I call - been tracking that since day one.... it is over 8 pages of text. Another issue I face is that even at 3rd level support as soon as I get a decent connection by doing their dances with settings, they go.... "OK, you're good to go" .. and that is it. When it fails again, and I can't stand it any longer I have to re-call in and go thru level-one's song and dance for 1-3 hours.... Curious about this company (Direcway) they will NOT, under any circumstances transfer you to a manager ... they say they will call you back, and I have waited as long as 3 weeks for a call back.... NEVER. And, if you want to be transferred to someone else, honest to god here.... they transfer you to Accounts so you can close your account. Can you frickin' beiieve that. And I can't seem to break the magic code to get thru to these people that the damn thing doesn't work ....period. I've had so many MSCEs and networking geeks try to get it to work.. and it never does. Now, I WOULD go with another ISP if I really had any choice. I live in the boondocks -- DSL is not even predicted to be in the area for another 5 years..... the phone company here had never even heard of ISDN, both cable companies are going broke and aren't going to install cable, and I since I'm a business.. and already have 2 phone lines... I get charged by the minute to be on-line thru dial-up.... So, I'm basically at these bonehead's mercy. Well, thank you, thank you for listening to my crab-session.... sincerely,

Can ANYBODY help me. I have been plagued by this crappy direcway service since day one - two years now. I have replaced the modems (twice) the Dish, every cable, have moved and reset up the machine etc.. etc.. have spent literally HUNDREDS of hours on tech support - and still no resolution. The last time on tech support was SEVEN hours - they managed to mess up my machine so bad that I had to do a roll-back - and that still didn't fix it. Third level support is just as bad. I'm was a third level network ops specialist (8 years ago) so I do know something about all this.... but I can't figure this one out. I'm running the 2-way system with the USB modems, have XP Pro the system with the modems, and a little netgear hub/switch which connects two other XP pro machines. Have lost track of all the hundreds of tweaks and such i have made to this system... but can check anything you suggest. My biggest complaint (and I have many) is that it is so inconsistant. One moment I'll be getting 1.2mbs - then BANG.... 8-80kbps for hours and hours. Rebooting anything doesn't help... Suspiciously, nearly every time I get on phone with tech support ..it gets faster...... even tho I have done NOTHING to the machines..... Anyone? Anyone? I've already lost 20 hours of work time to this nightmare in the past week.... anyone have a suggestion? 3:05PM Here is a typical test::::.. Download Stats ..::: Connection is:: 44 Kbps about 0 Mbps (tested with 386 KB) Download Speed is:: 5 KB/sec Tested From:: http://www.testmy.net/ Bottom Line:: 1 times faster than 56K you can download 1MB in 204.8 second(s) Validation Link:: https://testmy.net/cgi-bin/get.cgi?Test_ID=LFSEYCCV5 Now one from 3:16PM :::.. Download Stats ..::: Connection is:: 156 Kbps about 0.2 Mbps (tested with 386 KB) Download Speed is:: 19 KB/sec Tested From:: http://www.testmy.net/ Bottom Line:: 3 times faster than 56K you can download 1MB in 53.89 second(s) Validation Link:: https://testmy.net/cgi-bin/get.cgi?Test_ID=D22YOC8TQ