₦airaland Forum

netotse:
@tomcat
i know just wanted to use it to benchmark for when they finally deploy the glo1

P.S. how can you tell when a company is using subsea cables? i know you said from the traceroute or speedtest but i still dont get how you do it. . .

indeed you can do it via the tracert from the command prompt, and see what kind of ping you are getting but there are simpler ways as well:

1. open your command prompt and type: ping www.yahoo.co.uk or any other site in UK (i always check with UK). If the ping is between 120-350ms it's fiber optic. If the ping is anything above 570-600ms it's satellite, as signal needs to travel all the way from here to the satellite and down to earth again.

As far as i know MTN 3g has switched traffic to main one.

2. Easier still: go to www.visualroute.com and go to livedemo. In there chose a server, normally i chose one from london UK, and then press start, it will show you all the hops that the traffic is passing to reach your computer, in most cases you can even tell which internet wholesale provider they are using.

glo 3g is not on glo-1, at least it wasn't a few minutes back when i checked,

glo 3g has good speeds at least in Ikoyi, however, it is still satellite backbone and not Glo-1,

on the contrary MTN is using submarine fibre optic backbone (maiybe main one?).

etisalat cannot confirm what they are using as i can only use their EDGE network as i cannot find their HSDPA if indeed they have one,

MTN has fibre optic from old VGC, they bought VGC and they have expanded that network.

The problem is that they are extremely expensive for their ADSL internet,

as far as the main one and 3g concerns, it doesn't look like is working everywhere, only last night i tried glo, etisalat and mtn but max speed i got was 180kbit. I can confirm though that MTN and Etisalat are on main one, or in submarine cable in any case,

vickoy23:
For glo, u will need to get to dia office to buy data sim too for N100.00 then go through the activation process. collect the procedure instruction from them there. you would need to wait for minimum of 1hr after you start the procedure to be on the 3g service. once this is done, the apn is gloflat, username flat and password is flat too and you are good to go. the down side of glo is that when you subscribe to a bundle plan, do not use the data sim on a none 3g device. you would be billed 15k per kilo even though u have an active bundle but dia one day plan for N500 gives you 150mb unlike mtn and zain that gives 50mb.

I went to a glo office and they give me a normal sim card and 500N recharge card. I wanted to try the glo 3g with their 1 day package for 150MB. However i got no instructions on how to activate, so i used the sim card on a mobile phone to activate it.

The thing is that is not finding the glo 3g network on my usb stick (unlocked ZTE MF626) and i think i haven't activated the card for 3g.

1. Does glo have special data sim cards that they should have given me? (like etisalat)

2. how do you activate that sim card for 3g for the specific package please?

FLYBOY:
I use MTN HyNet at home for the past two (2) months.
The service is reliable and has been fast.

I have had 2 downtimes, once for about 3mins
and the second for about 3hours.

At all times i was kept abrest of the problems.

All in all a better experience .

what package you have please and what is the speed that you are getting?

flyuche:
glo used a vsat provider based in cyprus to carry it's 3G internet traffic. not anymore. according to press release, glo 1 commercial launch is eminent. does it not make sense that by now the submarine cable is being tested? glo 3G plus download speed has improved tremendously from a mere 2-5kB/s to beyond 100kB/s.

you can post your tracert and i can tell you where the internet provider is based on, you can even check it youself, this is mine, i guess the same should be at yours,

Organization Intelsat GlobalConnex Solutions
ISP Intelsat GlobalConnex Solutions

glo-1 might have been tested with UK however the terrestrial cable needs to be connected with Glo-1 in order for the whole Glo network in nigeria to be "powered" by glo-1, something that hasn't happened yet,

flyuche:
pls let us know where the 3G is connected if you know better.
speedtest.net is used and recognised worldwide. when pcmag or pcworld magazines conducted the average download speeds of wireless networks in the USA, they used speedtest.net.

1. It will be either VSAT or SAT3. If you open your command prompt (start-->run) and type cmd, then type tracert www.yahoo.co.uk, it will show you all the hops in the route. If you post that or if you do a whois on the IP addresses you can see if it is SAT3 or VSAT.

2. speedtest.net is very good for ADSL connections with fiberoptic backbone. On wireless solutions is not working properly, for example on my ipnx it can show upload speed of 600-700 which is nowhere near close to it

for a proper speed test you need to use a download manager and go to a website with huge capacity like nvidia.com and download a driver, whatever your steady speed is it will be your download,

you can do same test but with ftp server for the upload,

this thread is about Glo-1 submarine cable, and not glo 3g or any other ones,

however please note 2 things:

1. the 3g is not connected to the glo-1 as your ping clearly shows

2. In wireless connections like 3g or wimax, speedtest.net rarely shows the real speed of your connection.

as far as i know glo-1 will be connected around September as they all expect, and that means that it will be the main backbone for the 3g, broadaccess, voice etc,

broomstick:
Gentlemen, i still think we will not fully maximise the benefits of these transatlantic cables except we develop our last mile infrastructure which will definitely deliver at our doorstep true broadband capabilities. These Telcos still rely heavily staellite to deliver these services and as such is still early days, so lets siddon look as we are sure we have an almost limitless capacities not just in Nigeria and but in West Africa so, do not rejoice yet! Good morning!

Glo did exactly that, end to end connectivity as they are also building the last mile,

the question/challenge is, how well they will be able to maintain their infastructure, and when the glo-1 will be operational,

if you happen to pass around ikoyi you will see some of the roads are dug in order for the Glo to pass their cable for fixed telephony-internet,

there is a also a cable that was running out of kingsway road towards 3rd mainland but i see that this has been stopped.

so that means the project is very much live and kicking,

not so sure if Glo-1 is live yet or not, but definitely the infastracture/last mile within Ikoyi is happening,

if the backbone of the 3g is not glo-1 it will feel no different than any other 3g out there (msn, starcoms etc)

i think they are rolling it out now in order to hit the ground running when the cable is expected to get connected,

the cable is still not connected,

Glo-1 has left UK and reached Senegal and from Senegal has reached Accra.

Now the cable has left Lagos (the landing in aplha beach was the departure of the cable) and is going to accra to get connected.

So when the cable from lagos reaches accra will go live both to ghana and nija

estimated time end of this year

eventually copper last mile will deliver the best internet service or triple play if this is what Glo is targeting if i'm not mistaken,

however to start with not so sure what last mile they gonna use unless they use their existing 3g service,

not so sure on the capacity of the cable though, but i think is gonna be plenty to start with,

i dug out those two articles last night:

https://www.communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/140/35855?199

http://allafrica.com/stories/200906300175.html

from what i know from reliable sources the cable has reached a few miles outside Alpha beach. The PO has been raised for the building to be built in order to accept the landing of the cable, and is scheduled to be completed for end of this year.

not so sure what last mile Glo will follow, however, they have laid fiber and copper around Lagos and connected Lagos with Abuja and maybe Kano if i'm not mistaken, so they kind of made the main rings,

making the last mile with copper or fiber to every house would take long time, as just to deal with the license from each government to let you dig and pass cable it would take ages,

from the little i know from the Alcatel people, the cable is very close to be completed, however the completion means that it can just reach offshore,

It is Glo's responsibility to build the buildings that the landing will be, along with gateaways, datacentres etc, so that in my opinion will take some time, apply for licences etc,

Glo intends to roll out their own internet and fixed telephone and for that purpose they are doing, to the best of my knowledge, the best organised network in Nigeria. They are running copper and fiber in major cities, and they have already completed the ring main around Lagos, however again to go inside Lagos to the last mile for door to door, will take lots of time,

I don't know if they will use the bandwidth for themselves, but i would imagine that it would make sense, until they are ready with their own network to wholesale their bandwith to others, that they are already have the last mile, whatever it is, can't be worse service than Nitel's Sat3,

hyconnect is the ex-VGC internet service,

MTN has bought VGC and are using their infrastructure within Nigeria for fixed telecoms and internet,

nothings wrong with it, is just a smaller pack with better packaging, and a bit cheaper,

but same great taste,

i guess noone has tried them yet, ?

There is a 125gr McVities digestive red box in lagos.

Have you guys seen it yet? is it available in your areas?

I'm interested as well to listen from people that have Nitel adsl. Their website is not working to give more info, as all the adsl hyperlinks are cripled,

Nitel and Glo are passing fiber optics all around Lagos, but Nitel is the only one who has access to Sat3.

According to some Alcatel people they have 2x8gb bandwith available, of which hardly any is used,

Until sat3 starts getting used properly will never see reliable and cheaper internet in Nigeria.

So any nitel adsl users please come forward,

yes you are right, although partly,
@yahoo.co.uk email accounts have access to the POP3 for sending and receiving. I setup up a new in August and works fine with MS outlook. Same applies for some other countries' yahoo sites like @yahoo.gr

However, a friend of mine that has @yahoo.com email he needs to pay $19.99 per year to get pop3 access,

yeap, it's VSAT, sat3 ping to uk servers or european servers i.e. www.yahoo.co.uk will be between 120-250ms. Used to be 120 few months ago, now is around 200-220, i guess is nitel's problem.

Also, often you will get some packet losses on VSAT

2 questions:

1. What is ur tecnology? Fixed wireless, Wimax, cable?

2. What is the backbone. VSAT or SAT3?

do you know what this company, Startec using as the backbone, ? Is it SAT3 or VSAT? If you are not sure could you please make a simple test?

1. Go start-->Run

2. Type "cmd" (without the " and press enter

3. On the prompt type: ping www.yahoo.co.uk

You will get a number at the end in ms. Please post the average figure.

Thanks

hmm, yahoo had always had pop3 facility to be linked with MS outlook or outlook express so u can download ur emails in these clients,

for the user above me:

is that on SAT-3, or u just spam the forum and u are going off topic, ?

apparently VGC is offering broadband in SAT-3....false or true I don't know..

I phoned them today...to see what internet options they have...they say they have dsl broadband internet...with different speeds...

when I asked about the backbone if it is SAT-3 or VSAT...they said that it can be SAT-3 if i want and VSAT as a backup...

now if that's wright or wrong...i do not know...