This is the most difficult article I have ever had to do for The Faust Chronicle since I wish to be most objective about the new Zuku Broadband Service and what it took to get to the stage of actually getting the service up and running, for the sake of other aspiring customers who wish to subscribe to Zuku Broadband which falls under the Wananchi Communications group of companies. I also wish to note that there is not a single mention of Zuku on Wananchi’s Corporate website, even in the services section. This is most worrisome since this is an ISP, right?
The bulk of their marketing is based mostly on the interwebs, innit? Their masterpiece, piece de resistance, the first step in encouraging the customer to take a look at their comprehensive up to date list of services, etc. I am afraid to say that it is woefully neglected and not too tidy. The customer care number on the Wananchi site rang for ages and was never picked up on a certain Saturday evening on the 18th of October 2008. Shock on me!
I shall ignore that simple fact. Shortly, where are their customer care numbers? Wait, I had to text the engineer who came over to do the installation for it, there is none of that at the Zuku.co.ke site, just a sales number. Is this a strategy to keep the clients away from customer care? It is 020 329 2400 for your information. So far I have found one customer care representative at the centre at a time, Elisha during the day and Kajomba at night. Perhaps the service is yet to take off so it would be to no end to have more CSR’s on duty at any one time, which brings me swiftly to the first problem I encountered with the service.
Installation is as simple as putting up a Wi-Max radio on the highest bit of the house for the best signal, preferably a line of sight location to the nearest Base Station [there are 20 so far in Nairobi, could not for the life of me get them to tell me where they are located] connect this by cable to an indoor radio unit which would either plug into a router or directly into a computer if you happened not to have a router [I would recommend one, the firewall and access restriction that it offers compounded with protocol handling ensures you get instantly better speeds than a direct computer connection, you can find a cheap one at any computer store starting at Kshs 6,000] and you should be good to go. This in essence should take no more than two hours at most.
This was not to be the case. Mine took a sum total of 19 days from start to finish, 31st September to 18th October 2008 at 4.30 pm. You could argue that this was not continuous but it took, threats, cajoling, begging and finally it was intimated to me that there was a signal problem in my area [my roof is on top of the second floor and chimney level is way past third floor level], Kileleshwa and that they required a pole [for line of sight access] and three legged bracket which was unavailable, but needed on almost every install, and due to office red tape it would take a while to procure and supply. I offered to pay for the pole and bracket if they would present me with the cost, all out of pocket, they said they would get back to me on that.
They then went quiet for a few days and on calling up sales again and harassing the heck out of them [total Telkom CDMA calls came to one thousand bob or thereabouts, not counting the calls from my Safaricom mobile over this period to the sales team] I was told that in hand they had the sample bracket which they shall, on the following day come and install, they did not. They showed up on the following two days consecutively and on the 18th of October they finally got signal and I was provisioned [let onto their network so to speak] with a slight signal fluctuation reportedly caused by a bunch of tree tops obscuring direct line of sight with the nearest Base Station, I was told that would not be any trouble at all.
I ran tests with the local Wananchi servers and found:
Which I was assured would be improved with time, as the link was still new and would settle into optimal settings within a few days. It did, as promised.
The local loop speeds are brilliant and can download at up to 60 Kbps meaning a 2 megabyte file is downloaded in under 20 seconds or so.
Then we get onto the promised international bandwidth:
I am subscribed to a 512 kbps link. On the rare occasion I am able to watch a streaming video live [you tube only by the way, anything else throws a hissy fit], possibly about an eighth of the time, the rest of the time I have to suffer a wait of half an hour or more for a four-minute video. There are instances where even gmail, twitter and my web hosting service have timed out. I shall not even go on to how many blogs have timed out while I was trying to make a comment or load up.
The highest i have clocked was downloading attachments off gmail at 20 kbps meaning the same 2 megabyte file takes a little over 1 minute.
Shock on me since I am subscribed to the 512 kbps [0.5Mbps - refer to the screenshot above, local speeds clock it - Nairobi - but international speeds are 0.25 at best signifying i am not getting what i subsribed for] Supersurf option, which I was hoping to upgrade to the 1 Mbps Megasurf option once the link went up and I am having a very tough time even calming myself down at this point since the service is far from what I tested at their exposition at Kasuku Centre Kileleshwa which is a stone’s throw away from my residence, which awed me so much I signed up quite promptly and paid on the spot, that was on the 13th of September, 2008.
I get on the horn since Monday morning till today, Wednesday 22nd October 2008 and today I was told something that scared the beejeezus out of me. I was told the reason it was slow was because it is shared, not dedicated, so it would be slow. Really, it was the straw that broke this camel’s back. When an ISP falls back on that excuse when their speeds are slack and haphazard at best, it strikes fear into the bravest of hearts. The industry standard as far as I know is that it should never fall below 60% of subscribed bandwidth, which in as far as I can determine I have averaged a lot less than that, it is behaving as though I am subscribed to a 128 kbps link.
Since I am running out of space I shall have to do a second post in another week or so with updates on the link and I shall leave you now with a summary.
Positives
1. Brilliant local speeds, totally instant load pages and downloads faster than you can whistle. Solid. [More speed than you can shake a router at, I tried, honest!]
2. No equipment costs, low installation fee, Kshs 5,800.
Negatives
1. Horridly inconsistent international speeds. At times it spikes to work brilliantly and the next second stops dead. [Too bad you do not stop and careen spectacularly into the neighbours field]
2. Shared bandwidth gives extreme leeway for ISP to have limited bandwidth and get away with it, scot-free. [Probably not, perhaps some painting is in order?]
3. Customer care that is entirely unhelpful. Each conversation ends with, “we shall let the guys in network balderdash know so that they can assist with your problem.” [In other words, well to me at least it means I shall hand it over to this nameless person who shall proceed to do nothing about it]
Have you had a Zuku installation done successfully, anyone? Tell us about it in the comments.
EDIT; Part of the reason i subscribed to this service was this article by WhiteAfrican.
Shiko-Msa
savvy
val
Miss Cheri
Mushki
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colour me blonde, and am not trying to be cute or anything, but up there near the first black screenshot – how is 60kbps faster than 394kbps?
i have used several so called broadband connections in Kenya and nothing comes close to the speeds on your screenshot. The highest i ever got was almost an 1/8 of what you got. Word to the wise – be grateful for what you have.
The delay in installation might be due to excess demand.
I love their ads
I’m thinking clients of the various ISPs need to band up and demand some sort of service level agreement with measurable parameters in terms of speeds, downtimes etc. Access do have an SLA, but I doubt it covers speeds.
As to how to get the clients together, I have no idea.
@CB – i have clarified, see the bold sections on the bandwidth areas.
@This is Africa – Interesting point you have here sir/madam. There is a world wide broadband standard and 2 kbps above dial up does not count. Now an eight of a barely broadband speed is hardly broadband you have to agree, right? Should i be grateful to get speeds much slower than i am paying quite a chunk of change for? To what end i wonder? Just a by the by, you commented from a wananchi connection. How is your connection doing?
As for the delay in installation, there was a material shortage, hard to install without brackets right?
Their advertisements are superb, brilliant stuff!
@Pink M – this thought has been bandied about quite a bit and it is advised that you do that before signing on the dotted line, but as soon as SHARED is dropped into the conversation, all bets are off. We do expect a reputable ISP like Wananchi to step up their game and supply what they promise, even on a shared connection 60% of subsribed speed at peak hours is not too much to ask. The speed even at off peak hours [read 3 am on sunday morning] is less impressive than peak hours, ironically. I am still logging the speeds anyway with a view to pursuing this matter.
you have a lot of time in your hands for bull-crap!get a life
@KM – Another comment from radiator.wananchi.com
Trolls. I likes them.
That is an opinion too.
Interesting and information Zuku review. Sad to hear that Wananchi Online still have customer service issues from the last time I used them approximately six years ago! However, seems that “true” and “guaranteed “broadband won’t really happen in Kenya until sometime next year when the cables start landing.
I doubt any ISP would offer residential clients an SLA. Also, as far as I know, all residential internet packages have a shared aspect to them.
International bandwidth will continue to be an issue until the fiber(s) land (whenever that will be).
I’m still waiting to move houses before I plunge into Zuku though..
Thank you all for sharing. Please keep the comments coming, bring friends and neighbours too, this magazine after all is shared. Pun so intended.
@Moses Kemibaro – Sadder i am, i paid for service! I will not hold my breath, its not about the pipe, they did install a brand new satellite link in their Upper Hill offices recently did they not? Click here for relevant story.
@Josiah – I do not mind the shared aspect, the problem was tagging it as a 512 kbps option, charge more for it too, i do not want 512, a minimum of 320 kbps. Perhaps that is too much to ask?
When it is upstaged by a 128kbps shared option at my office that is a bit disheartening.
But these days getting a dedicated wireless bandwidth ISP are very hard as only AcessKenya offer it but the zuku speeds are also not bad but it seems that they still have some kinks to work out in their system.I also wonder why they cannot set-up a toll free customer care service
@jigsawman – access@home is a dedicated service yes, the speeds are not bad, just that they are not concordant to subscribed speeds.
Skype or gmail or yahoo chat perhaps? Better still call the customer back immediately to shoulder the cost of the call. Just ideas. My DVD library has gmail chat and phone text access to their clients.
those speeds sound mindblowing to me considering what I have experienced so far. but Wananchi should at least meet what they have advertised even if is halfway. but you are an early adopter maybe they shall iron out the hitches in time.
It’s not funny. That is one crap service. Wananchi though is known for crap customer service, my dad had a connection with them and he had to terminate it. Their ads are funny though.
Every new thing faces its potential problems at the start – maybe close to even a year after – it will not be perfect… Even Africa Online had problems with iBurst before they got it right.. Lets give the guys at Zuku a chance to do their thing..
I agree – they cant give SLAs for dedicated bandwidths, but as at last time, Zuku’s aim is to give you a 512Kbps “experience” – meaning that when u need it, its there.. Time, if after 3 months its still the same, move to Econet 3G…
@Kirima – They are quite fast, that i have no problem with, the non stability of said speeds, fast then slow to a crawl in an instant is annoying especially if at the moment you happen to be on a call using skype or yahoo messenger or msn.
@Shiroh – Shi, for the moment it not spectacular but they have assured me that they are working on it quite fervently too i must add, they seem to have a problem with the Kileleshwa BTS at the moment.
@Tito – I was with AOL iBurst since its inception till last month when i decided to move since their speeds had progressively slowed to the point of it being unbearable and they had upto then not implemented a promised tariff revision in light of new competition.
i am on uunet 1mbps down and 512kbps up through kenstream on the e1 link, and i’ve just tested international speed at:
Last Result:
Download Speed: 723 kbps
Upload Speed: 114 kbps .
By the way this link is connected through a host of network routers nic card scanners, firewalls blaa blaa and serving 38 computers.
Surely Zuku should do better, they have absolutely no excuse… these guys are taking advantage of peoples ignorance in this matter. Oh and i am still waiting for my quote from Wananchi requested for way back in September.
@Sobbz – I like those speeds, superb stuff there from uunet, that must be dedicated and cost more than my MacBook per month.
@eleet – it sure costs more than a mac book per month
That is the best broadband analysis I have seen in Kenya. I thought I was the only one suffering through these so called broadbands.
I wanted to try wananchi but after this article, I will pass. I have tried in the past 4 months nearly all providers and i am now left only with access kenya to test. I was orange today advertising something but anyone advertising 512 speeds in kenya is just plain lying.
Do you or anyone know how serious access kenya is with their speed guarantee? I am stuck with a funny provider but need another this week otherwise my online businesses will just crumble.
How good is accesskenya with their non shared speed guarantee?
Personally i was skeptical from the start that they were really going to provide 512 kbps. I’m currently on Africa Online’s infinet which was rigged with troubles initially, but now offers some brilliant speeds. On a good day i was able to to get about 842kbps to a local server at speedtest.net. However, that’s irrelevant considering that most of the stuff we surf and download on the web are from international servers. None the less the international speeds weren’t bad as i was able to get about 80 to 100 kbps which can be considered pretty decent.
Wananchi’s speeds aren’t bad but i would personally be patient before switching as they handle the kinks of their new technology.Also as i’m hearing from my source zuku is priming themselves for the TEAMS cable which wananchi has a 10% steak on. So for now they maybe slow but within a years time the may be the fastest service in Kenya.
@makii – Thank you kindly.
give Wananchi a try, perhaps its my area with link issues.
we need brave people to sign onto all these offers so that we may see how they perform, how else will we find out?
The buzz around Access is really good.
@Drew – its improved? i had to leave a month because i could hardly get anything to download at 4kbps even at 3 on a sunday morning! my best friend still has hers and shall duly retest and do a post on that. Are you in Mombasa or Nairobi and where in those places do you reside? and are you on the 256 or 128?
hmmm, just a thought, if u want dedicated 1:1 CIR bandwidth, and that over a sat connection on C-Band Freq. you probably need to fork out about us$1000 per month for a 1mbps connection… and btw, thats not even guaranteed… radio frequencies are always prune to interference (satellite is a radio frequency)… if you want a 99% uptime, u gotto duplicate all hardware, from the router to the satellite dish… im not saying that it is not possible, im just saying… show me the money! but really an investement worth more than ksh, 2-3M… just so that you can open ytube faster?
for the fiber landing, that will have its own challenges… first one i am seeing is the connection from MOM to NBO… the current providers have really have issues in setting this up correctly.
basically what i am saying, is that money talks. if you want speedy access to the net, then pay for it… and im not talking 5 digit figures…
@madcow – hai.
thanks for your contribution.
its not about you tube here, its about holding wananchi to their word.
http://zuku.co.ke/broadband/ i quote from the main blurb ”
From 2,999/- a month, you’ll surf the net at speeds and prices other providers consider illegal. Play videos and music online without waiting for the stream to buffer. Download all you want, when you want, for one flat fee, unlimited. Your only limit is your hard disk space. Sign up now, you know it makes sense.”
Further insult to injury is that with my other Safaricom 3G connection i can stream video, video chat using the Huawei E220 modem at peak hours in Industrial area, with 1 bar of signal and this is not a dedicated Wi-Max device mounted on my roof, through a dedicated power unit and router, and it does this over a shared BTS, with calls and what not, and beats the zuku link which is dedicated to this purpose!
Now tell me why i am flabbergasted? I hope someone else sees this as clearly as i do?
@CB –
The difference between the two is that the 394 is in kilobits and the 60 is in kilobytes. ISP’s normally advertise their speeds in kilobits. You can work out how much that is in kilobytes by dividing by 8. So if you are on a 512 kilobit connection then you are actually getting 64 kilobytes. Hope that clears it up for you. I’m planning to move back to Kenya in January and wanted to sign up with them but after reading this I might just wait until the TEAMS cable is up and see if speeds improve.
@Tito(different one) – i am giving them some time. so far they have offered that the signal in my area is fluctuating and were to come reposition the wi-max radio. i am still waiting…
@Tito(different one) – Thanks, it does
Really nicely don, thank you. I was just about to get zuku but I shall pass. Maybe next year after the cables land.
I’m doing africa online and they get me raving mad sometimes but they are better than most out there, at least. And their customer care isn’t bad at all.
@eleet – I live in Nairobi in the Kilimani area within view of Yaya centre,so that may explain the speeds. However, i also use download accelerators to enable me to reach such speeds.I’m presently on the 128kbps service.
I heard from an inside bird…once the cable lands…..2 MBps….will go for either 1k or 2k bob per month….I am pretty sure he said 1K…but lets see!
Greetings all.
First up….a big asante sana for highlighting this zuku issue. I literally feel alot at ease that i’m not the only one getting 10kbps speeds on my broad band.
Let me give you a brief about my experience regarding wananchi/zuku. I fell for it before I read this review. It took me almost a full 10 days from subscription to my installation. I believe you and several others have suffered the same. Within those 10 days, I even got a call from the wonderful sales lady (Jacky) asking me how my new connection was bacause she was reported to that my installation was done already. I just laughed it off and told her that maybe they mistook me for another. I have to admit though that this lady gave me much needed consolation from the wananchi side and really cooled me down during my forthcoming frustrations which i’ll highlight below. She even told told me straight up on the day i paid that they were pretty busy and it might take 7days minimum before i get my turn. I had opted for the 512kbps connection. I must say during these 10 days I never chased the zuku’ans
Seven days plus three more it was a sunday (25th oct) when the guys came over to get me installed. The installation guys were pretty alright, they knew what they were upto but i did realise that zuku have a very small installation team. These guys looked weary and from my understanding of their conversation they had to go for two more installations that day. Anyways they came at 10am, and i was done by close to 1pm.
Once they were done, before they could step out, i decided to try out the connection and ofcourse my first option was good ol speedtest.net. I got speeds of around 220-230kbps, which did get me raising my eyebrows. I asked them why the speeds were like that and all they could tell me was to give it an hour for the speeds to be automatically adjusted to optimum by the server. Yeah right, I wish they knew i am a computer engineer and not an accountant.
All in all, the first thing i did was to download a file from rapidshare which was almost 100Mb. To my surprise my data transfer rate NEVER at any one time exceeded 14kbps and it averaged around 8-9kbps, all this on a sunday considering not many people / corporate clients would be using wananchi’s 155mbps satelite link!!!! Do the math and guess how long it took the download. But the worse was lurking right behind the door.
After close to 2hrs of that download and a further 30-40minutes of surfing (which wasn’t really very fast), suddenly my local area connection failed. It said limited or no connectivity. I tried any damn thing that my knowledge could tell me to do, but hell no, that connection was no more. 3hrs into the connection and I was royally shafted already. I tried it on my 3 different laptops, without router, with router, changed to a different router, re-crimped the rj-45 connector which goes into the indoor radio unit, played with the network settings but hell no, that thing died on me right there.
On monday, i called good ol’ jacky to give her my sob story, she said that someone will call me within the hour and sort me out. Ok, the call came in but within 3hrs and i was told to try the ipconfig /release and /refresh crap. For heavens sake, dont these guys know I have got virtually no connection with their server, how on earth would these commands be possible to execute?? In the evening Jacky called me to follow up on the progress and I told her it was just that one call which lasted virtually less then 2minutes. She said that the next day in the morning she will try on her end and apologised to me once more for all that was happening.
Tuesday morning at 9.30am while was working on my computer, I suddenly saw two small monitors flickering in my system tray. WOW, the connection has life once more!! I called Jacky right away to thank her for sorting me out early in the morning. She was a little surprised and she told me that she was yet to speak to the support guys about my issue but she was glad that I was able to use the connection at last. Well, I was glad too though I told her that I was on 256 and not 512, she checked that and reconfirmed that i was right and she will sort me out on that issue right away.
Well I knew jacky was sorting me out on this but I decided to call support and tell them about my data transfer rates of 10kbps on a 256 connection was a raw deal, I was given a story similar to yours that I can only get my full through put on local sites. Now, who the hell really uses the net to surf local Kenyan sites??? And even if they do, for how long??
But hey hey hey…..guess what guys, my happiness once more was short lived!!! Before noon, my connection was back on “Limited or no connectivity”. I swear it i thought someone was playing games with me and i dont f**kin like such games. I called Jacky and told her what just happened and she too was taken aback. The only good news she could give me was that I was right, my connection was actually a 256 and not 512 and that it had been rectified. But alas, I could use the connection no more to try my new speeds.
I spoke with Jacky everyday till today, she actually used to call me to find out what was happening. She gave me the contact for a techie called Neville who was gonna work with me to sort me out. True to her word, this guy did sort me out and at noon today i saw life once more on those two little monitors in my system tray. This guy seemed to know what he was talking about and i’m glad i’m “alive” again. The question though remains, for how long?? So far 8hrs down the line, its alive alright.
I did a speed test with my 512kbps on speedtest.net and i hit 470kbps downlink and uplink of close to 100kbps. However, one thing is to be noted with speedtest.net, the local server specified there is for KDN and to my understanding Wananchi no longer borrow/buy bandwidth from KDN. I asked neville today if he could fill out details for the Wananchi servers on speedtest.net so we can do a proper test and he said he’ll try to get in touch with the “network” guys and do it.
Yes, the zuku website loads instantly like a charm but as for international communications, sorry to say, I am still firmly stuck on my seat of <20kbps. I still did a rapid share download of around 20MB and i got a data transfer rate of max 12kbps. watching you tube clips is similar as using a dial-up connection. So much for having a 512kbps connection!!
I have experienced very many connections in Kenya and the only thing that comes close to a true broadband is Safaricom’s 3G but ofcourse getting their connection and their customer support is even more pathetic then telkom kenya’s. Celtel/zain has only the advantage of giving you unlimited connection for 3k but their speeds are horrid, i wonder when they will introduce 3G? Access Kenya, AfricaOnline are a little faster then zuku but way more expensive too. When Telkom Kenya introduced ADSL, it was WOW, but it quickly died out when they increased their client base and retained same backbone data capacity. I havent tried them out since orange joined hands but i’m told its no different. So all in all, if cash and customer care is not an issue and you want speeds, safaricom 3G for now is the way to go, you’ll actually love “you tubing” with them.
@Mushki – dude. thank you for commenting. i am so sorry about your woes. i had the tech guys come back 3 times since i posted this and i am happy to say that the speeds have vastly improved. i have post pending at the moment as an update to this one and so far i have experienced up to 666kbps on the downlink, uploads are still quite slow here too.
i used to lose connection to wananchi periodically but so far it has been up for 1 day and 7 hours without a flinch, so i suspect it was radio adjustment that was the problem. I would recommend they send back the tech team on site and they should not leave till they have a solid signal. where is your installation location? and do keep us updated on your link.
Give them a chance i would say, it may take a while but they may deliver in the end, i am still quite guarded and skeptical that is why i am keeping a log of tests and speeds every day.
On an a slightly different note….I was talking to one of the sales guys and he told me that once the cable lands they were looking at a price of 2MBps for about 1k or 2k a month….
Oh my, oh my….At around 11pm last night upto now, zuku 512 has once again gone in its dreaded state of coma called “Limited or no connectivity”. I have sent out a call for assistance to the good people I know off at wananchi but i suppose its too early, they have yet not stepped into the office.
Its sad the connection lasts close to 12hours and just when i thought my energy would now be channelled towards asking them to improve my data transfer rates especially for international surfing, this zombie resurrects to come and haunt me again.
well, i’ll keep you guys posted on whats happening to my connection but honestly….i’m feeling really pissed off at these guys.
@ZYX and all the others who are very optimistic about speeds and costs, I want you guys to see how history has been in the Kenyan internet industry. Remember from the good old days of internet debut with 9.6k-14.4k modems, there were slow speeds and high costs because only a few ISP’s existed.
When the numbers of ISP’s increased and so did competition and speeds improved to around 28k-36k modems and those isp’s that werent performing well, blamed it all on the then “Kenya Posts & Telecommunications Corporation”’s analog exchanges.
Then when costs never came down it was because of ISP’s upgrading their equpment to 56kbps modems and similar bullshit. All this time telkom was upgrading their network to fiber and all exchanges were now going digital.
When Nairobi was almost all fiber and ISP’s STILL blaming high backbone costs to UUNET, the goverment decides to give its baby, Telkom Kenya, monopoly over backbone connectivity.
Anything and everything was blamed to Telkom Kenya’s Jambonet. High costs, slow and unstable connections, pathetic customer care. I mean you name it, ISP’s never took any blame and still kept the charges way high.
After liberalisation of backbone connectivity, Jambonet was royally dumped and isp’s shifted to “improving their infrastructure ” to accomodate new backbone connections with UUNET and other partners and that is why costs were still high although speeds and connections had improved.
So now the high costs and slow broadband connections will only be rectified once the undersea cable is laid they say??? Keep hoping guys, the ISP’s broadband connections to making excuses are amazingly fast and i’m sure they will come up with excuses to make sure costs are still high and broadbands are still narrow.
@mushki
Now i know that my isp called kwachunet or something are using the same infrastructure with wananchi. So I will not be moving.
I experience the very same problems you have just outlined including the same time when your isp went to the limited connectivity crap.
All this time, I have been given excuses like the weather, remove cache, restart etc but after having read your posts here. I think these companies are all using the same data provider. Probably jamii .
If these companies cannot provide the advertised services, then why bother? I have decided to very reluctantly move into an office in the CBD and forget about home connectivity in Kenya.
There is still access Kenya. If anyone has any information about their connectivity I will be very happy. Especially how long they take to connect anyone and if they do stick to their advertised speeds. I am just tired of shelling out connection fees to non-existent services.
The costs are high yet they pay people in their companies less than $500 per month. I wouldn’t complain about their customer service people, they have no idea what they are talking about.
It is the Kenyan business model. Promise the moon, offer nothing, pay workers peanuts, make supernormal profits, then offer a useless IPO and fleece everyone again.
I have decided to start a site specifically for people to rate Kenyan companies. This may be the only way for consumers to know what they are about to get. I will contact the owner of this site when it is finished.
@makii
sorry to hear about the crap you’re going through. Its the story of our lives i guess and the people who really feel it more are the ones who are computer literate at 7 and above on a scale of 1 to 10.
I’m still down with the zuku’ans and heard nothing from them as yet, though I’m glad for celtel and safaricom to keep me going as and when required but many are not so fortunate.
Making a website to report this sort of crap is not a bad idea, i’m all for it. I’d love to help you especially in the IT area, if you know how to make the site. Actually I have an idea, we can make a ‘.org’ site that fights for quality and international standards of various services and equipments sold in this country of ours. We request professionals who will be non-partisan to help us out in the various categories we will review. We put in all our experiences in black and white and maybe issue the companies with our small logo as a quality branding scheme something like the Kenya bureau of standards but ofcourse we shouldn’t be compromised like them. We could divide it into various categories like IT, Automotive, Construction etc etc and have professionals in the various fields to write up reviews about all thats being offered in those fields.
We’ll have to advertise the site heavily so that if any citizen needs any advice and reviews about something would intuitively know right away to log on to our site and see if we have reviewed the respective company or product. We could judge the companies according to customer care service, cost, quality etc. Thats my two cents but yeah, I’d love to name and shame these guys who give us a raw deal.
@mushki
I was wondering what direction to take but after spending 4 months in Kenya, we seriously need consumer education on our products. From cell phone providers, to restaurants and pubs, to even damn politicians. It is ok to have lower quality services since we are still a third world country but blatant lying is just not kosher.
My view is to have the reviews run 100% by members. the experts can do an editorial but all the ratings and reviews be done by members. That way we never go into supporting one company or another.
Giving people badges also leads to corruption sooner or later. Let the users of the products do the reviews. I may like something you hate.
If anyone is interested and has any ideas, you can contact me at gmail , niainvest. It is time to start getting rid of fly by nights and deal with serious mama mbogas only.
Still no life on my end.
I was just thinking that since the day I was set-up by the zuku’ans which was last Sunday, I have used that connection for less then 18hrs. Pretty nice statistics not to mention the international speeds on offer.
I also wont be wrong in saying that whether you’re on their 256kbps, 512kbps or 1mbps, international speeds are just the same. I’d know that, i tried 256 and 512 so why would 1mbps be different?
Anyways i’ll keep you guys posted on whats happening on my end if i see life once more or if i hear from the zuku’ans.
@makii –
What a wonderful idea (the site)! You could include practically everything on it, from places to restaurants to products, to… everything!
As for the whole Zuku story… I suppose I shouldnt switch from Safcom – and simply continue sleeping at 5am?
Today Monday morning (03 Nov) I woke up to a live working connection. The first thing i did was a “speedtest.net” test and i got a 471kbps downlink and 102kbps uplink. This ofcourse is to a local server, the reason i did it was to see if i was still in their 512kbps bracket.
To check on my international speeds, I dont have much time to do a file download (which by the way is the best measurement guide for me), I did a quick speedtest test with a few servers on speedtest, in Buenos Aires, Newyork, Losangeles, Rome, London, Krasknoyarsk in Russia, Taipei, Sydney.
For Buenos Aires, it was a 70kbps up and 16kbps down, Ny I got a 118kbps downlink and 31kbpsuplink and LA i got a 134kbps downlink and 27kbps uplink, Rome was 85kbps up and 32kbps down, London was 138kbps down and 29kbps up, Krasknoyarsk was 115kbps up and 37kbps down, Taipei was 98kbps up and 7 kbps down and finally Sydney was 124 kbps up and 17kbps down.
This gives a rough guide to how well zuku communicates with the rest of the world. All in all, I can say is that on average i’m still accessing less the 12kbps speeds for international access.
I dont think i’ve anything else to add for the zuku broadband, other then its an absolutely pathetic service bundled with lies and slow speeds. I just pray that anyone trying to go for this ISP would atleast read this review and save him or her self the pain and anguish. I wouldn’t recommend these guys anymore to anyone. I will not carry on commenting more on my misery here, i’m just going to call the deal off with them. The day i do comment, I hope it will be when I get true 300kbps international access.
Take care everyone.
thank you all for sharing and please continue to do so.
as for those who are not here to engage in constructive discourse or share their experiences i am tracking your IPs as soon as you log onto this website, and if you persist in abusing my readers i shall proceed to block the same.
Oh my, i made a boo boo. My last comment about speedtest speeds to the international servers, the higher speeds are my downlinks and the lower speeds are the uplinks. Sorry for the mistake.
Looks like yet another useless service from ISPs trying to bilk their customers. Ati you can only access full speeds from local sites. Rubbish! Then let them say so on their advertising 512kb for local sites and 2kbps international
The attention this post and the Safaricom Broadband post have attracted definately shows there is a yawning gap in the information that the public have about ISP’s. What is needed is a serious focal point or website where people can share their experiences and review the services of the various players in the ICT world in Kenya. It should be public and well marketed.
We need qualityservice benchmarks Is the ICT board listening?????
With the upgrade of their bandwidth, a 155Mbps connection cant promise real 1024, 512 or 256kbps to clients. Kwani how many number of clients are they planning to attract, only 2000? or perhaps 1000?
What if u want to host your site? the uplink speeds from the comments are very slugish, apparently these speeds are for casual surfers.
The upto 7.2Mbps connection from safcom 3G is very expensive. Just pull down a 700MB xvid file from the net or let a torrent run overnight and u’ll see what i mean.
Its high time kenyans started seeing what games these telcos play at us. Will we be smilling our way to pay our monthly net bills to these telcos as from sept next year after the fibres are complete? i really doubt.
To me, a symetrical 2Mbit is very appealing for serious net experience.
@Kirima – that website is more than imminent. look out for breaking news here.
@Maingi -say if you got 200 clients demanding 1Mbps a piece that bandwidth would be horribly insufficient. Looks to me like they have bitten off more than they could chew?
UPDATE: BREAKING NEWS! I shall shortly put up an update on the progress of the service this time as a video screen capture, hopefully so that you may experience the connection with me, at least for a few minutes.
Cool, can’t wait for this. Thanks.
Haiya!!!! Kime umana!!!
I wonder what eleet is upto.
@eleet –
nyc review u guys n am sure now of isps to neva subscribe to but just add, those storis about Zuku r no different from kdn. I use kdn n at one point i thought u wa narrating my story: same excuses n fake promises but am sure sites like this will tame them.
Otherwise i wanted to ask if anyone has any idea about orange b4 i commit myself?
@Bena – When Telkom introduced ISDN dial-up 64k, i was one of the first guys to go for it. Just too good. But alas, it reached to a crawl.
After the monopoly of jambonet ended, Telkom launched ADSL 128k, I was again one of the first guys to go for it. I absolutely loved it. On the international access, i used to get a dtr of around 80kbps and during off peak hours i used to get close to 100kbps. Imagine getting a dtr of over 80% on your connection. It was just too WOW.
But as with everything Telkom, services and products begin to deteriorate really fast. They advertised like crazy and got more clients but as with everything kenyan, they never bothered to increase their own backbone capacity. In no time i used to complain my head off with them and they were just not bothered. I guess they never cared coz they were the only ones who at that time provided anything close to broadband and more so because they were a parastatal.
ADSL left such a bad taste in my mouth that i dumped anything telkom out of the window from my house and premises and since then i’ve been happy ever after. I think….
Since orange joined in with them, I still fear going back to them. I would love to know how their evdo services are, but i just dont want the botheration of paying deposits to them, buying equipment from them, pay high monthly fees and still end up getting pathetic services. Mind you, most of their personnel still stink of parastatalism, and because Telkom is so huge and just very recently privatised, its gonna take a long while for them to perform like a true “Orange”
Also the fact that they had to take a huge loan to lay off their workers, I doubt if their prices are gonna come down anytime soon for as long as they are still paying their debt off. But i guess due to the fact that their broadband service is expensive hence prohibitive for many to use them, i think, i just think, that maybe their data services might be good.
I too, just like Bena, would like to know how Telkom Orange is performing now so if anyone is using them, give us a detailed report.
However, if Telkom ever introduces ADSL2, I’d rush out and get it. Oh boy, I can dream can’t I?
@mushki thanks 4 ur reply, Is thea someone ment to regulate isp’s and how does the speed test work or any other measure of bandwith because my dealer is taking me for a ride due to the fact that i cant prove the bandwith allocated to me and weather its deadicated or not?
What actually causes timeouts in a connection?
Hey Bena and Mushki thanks for the info. I would guess that the Communications Commission of Kenya should be the ones regulating it but I don’t think they do much. I think there should be a civilian complaints bureau like the Citizen’s Advice Bureau in the UK. Companies in Kenya are quick to fleece customers without second thought because they know they can get away with it as there are no routes for a customer to make complaints. If we had an advice bureau they could collect numerous reports from customers and lodge them in bulk to the companies. The CCK is too politicised and only care about licencing.
When you carry out a speedtest, your computer sends out a packet or packets of information to a server and times how long it takes for them to make a round trip. If you’re getting slow speeds it could be as a result of your ISP’s overall connection or it could be because the packets have to go through so many other points before arriving at the server. So when you run a test on a server in Kenya then the packets will most likely return to you very quickly and so you’ll get a high speed result.
Timeouts can occur if the server does not respond to your request. So for example, if you want to go to http://www.google.co.ke, your computer will send a request to the site to display the page. If the Google server is encountering problems it may receive the request but not send a reply back to your computer and so after a while your connection times out. This can also occur if your request never actually reaches the server you’re trying to reach.
Timeouts in your connection at home can occur, especially with wireless networks if you are having lots of lost packets. This is when packets of information you are trying to send or receive from your computer are lost while in transit. Like if you were sending a parcel from Nairobi to Mombasa and along the way it fell off the lorry, you would keep having to resend the parcel until it arrived, after a while you get tired and stop trying. You would then get a timeout.
Wireless networks are prone to interference, basically anything that uses radio/microwaves can damage your signal. I used to have a room right beside the kitchen and whenever someone used the microwave, I would lose all connection. So try and keep the router or your computer away from any unecessary electrical equipment.
when i ping a site like google and get a reply of something like 800ms assuming all hops are constant does it reflect my bandwith and can timeouts be eliminated?
is there a software that measures bandwith accurately?
If you assume all hops are constant then yes it probably indicates that your connection is quite slow. Funny thing is that I’m getting the same ping times and I’m using an ISP in the UK. So I guess the problem’s the same here! There’s not much you can do about timeouts apart from ensuring there is no interference on your end. As for speedtests I’ve only ever used speedtest.net maybe someone else knows of another one? You can always try downloading a file from say, the Microsoft website. I usually get my highest speeds from them. Get the average in kilobytes/s from your browser then multiply by 8 (to get kilobits/s) and see if it matches the service you’re subscribed to.
Hey
). And when you get too technically critical you can have reasons like diverting all internet traffic through one tcp port, clearing of browser cache, using old browsers. Alot of crap can cause timeout errors but not much to worry about.
Usually timeouts occur for various reasons. Could be your firewall blocking any net access from your end (assuming you are not aware about it) or your browser security settings are too high. Your isp maybe a steam engine (using old servers), they may also be cheapskates and not have enough money to buy bandwidth. Gateway 504 errors – as tito said, if one server cannot communicate with another due to a breakdown etc. session timeouts like when you dont use your connection for too long (eg reading this long thread on the FC
What you should care about knowing is how fast your connection is. speedtest.net is a very nice baseline of measurement. you can basically get a rough idea of your internet speed using it. test your connection locally first to the local server (which by the way is the KDN servers) and it gives you a rough estimate in what bracket your bandwidth lies. then try with a few international servers and it gives you another rough estimate of your international access speeds. Read my previous responses on this thread about my experience with Zuku.
If you’re a lil more technically inclined you can use the command line with PING, IPCONFIG, NETSTAT, TRACERT (with the respective options) to give you more detailed responses.
A file download is also one nice way of measuring how good your ISP’s speed is. Download a file from rapidshare and see how long it takes. I like using Rapidshare because they have alot of uplink capacity on their end. I’m also a premium member of rapidshare so i get the extra benefit of more and faster capacity. I’ve downloaded a 100mb file from them in less then 15minutes…….using 3G ofcourse
I’d suggest anyone to start using Opera whether you have a nice connection or a lame dial-up. It kicks the butt of IE, Netscape, Mozilla and even Chrome (yes even chrome, i’ve tried it!!). Its no wonder that its called the fastest browser in the world.
Let me ask you,cause am about to get Zuku though am on Africa Online Iburst,i you were to compare between the two,which would pick.The porblem with Iburst is expensive,sometimes the signal is low,the highest download you get is 30kbps ,dont ask about uploading,its craps!
@elboma – I’m on Zuku and since saturday (8th Nov) upto now I’ve been down again with limited or no connectivity. Read my comments here about zuku, note how long it took me to get online with them, see the speeds that i get, my stints with their customer service etc etc.
I’m not here trying to deny Mr. Fanneli (if thats his name) his bread but generally i’m not impressed at all with zuku. I’m sorry that you have had bad experiences with AfOL but my mate is using them and i can say they are better then zuku.
If I had a say on your choice, i’d tell you to hold on to your buck for the moment. A tweety bird whispered to me that before the end of the year (less then 2mths) we’re gonna have a 2nd 3G operator in town. I hope its true.
Or…if you have the guts, try out Telkom Orange broadband and see how it is. We’d love to hear your opinion on them.
yah i went to Ex-Telcoms house and i started another journey with a new isp although on awrong note when 3 of their staff contradicted themselves on an issue i thought they should have mastered by now.
first it was the sales lady who insisted i dont need any fone to enjoy, orange broadband. When i called customer care i was assured i needed a fone, this tym a CDMA wireless fone but on my arrival to pick my fair lady i was further taken aback wen the lady attending to me insisted that i must have a fixed landline first.
without much a do i left and av decided to give them more tym to put their house in order. I will be visiting them later after further consultations.
Nevertheless, i cant tell u how my dealer was shocked when he realised i could tell my bandwith thanks to speedtest which even uses my isps server yet they still give us a raw deal.
Another thing i can never understand is hoe comes access kenya uses kdn infastructure as am told yet kdn itself provides very pooor service.
Ah. I have decided that there is no internet in Kenya. I went to try accesskenya and I decided against losing another $150 on the so called connection fee.
I will stick to my local connector, at least I know they are bad and I have found a way to work around them. I am considering adding flashcom as a backup plan. Getting an office is out of the question after I saw the traffic.
The accesskenya lady I talked to seemed to know something about internet connectivity that is why I found it funny that she could not assure me of the dedicated speeds they trumpet around. In fact I was being sold the so called corporate option for 64kbps download for 15k a month.
Can you believe that? A $200 a month for internet connection. Even AOL in their worst days were not that greedy.That was meant to assure me that no one will share my connection.
I will be buying accesskenya shares. It seems they are making a killing on the backs of gullible Kenyans.
I have decided to move out of Kenya until someone somewhere understands that business can not be run like this. Between terrible power supply, and lying internet providers, no wonder my competitors are moving to South Africa.
Consumers need to tell each other about these fake companies. I am sure one of them will see the light and change their business models. Otherwise for now, I would advice against being suckered into home internet connections in Kenya.
It is better to be stuck in traffic than pay outrageous prices for fake services.
i have orange broadband,download speeds during the day are between 12-15kbps but at night from around 8pm it shoots up to 120-200kbps,you can watch youtube videos without waiting and i just finished downloading ”The Dark Knight”a 1.2gig file and it took an hour and 30 mins to download
@ eric: Which Orange Broadband plan are u on. It seems you really getting good speed during off-peak hours. Btw, any one who knows the new Safaricom corporate broadband connection, which they offer through OneConnect? What are their charges and bandwidths? I heard its an unlimited plan.
New Post; UPDATE: http://www.thefaustchronicle.com/2008/11/zuku-broadband-service-from-wananchi-update/
@eric – hey which product are using? are you using the orange evdo? if so. which package plus, turbo, or ultimate what are the maximum speed?
Zuku keeps getting worse. We paid them over a MONTH ago. They took three weeks to come, and happily accepted our cheque. And after that, another few weeks for them to tell us that they needed another 8 thousand shilling payment. But before that, the customer care person told us to write a complaint letter about their technicians and services to the MD! Which we found very weird, her helpless shrug of shoulder and hurt persecuted voice (”I am persecuted from within by my inefficient colleagues! Help!”) but before we could write the complaint letter we needed a copy of a receipt from her, as we needed to include that in complaint letter. It must be easier to extract wisdom teeth with bare fingers. This morning, mid conversation, she, who advised this course of action hung up on us. They have ourt money. And we are about to be disconnected by Africa Online waiting for them, Its so horribly dissapointing.
I’m currently with Access Kenya and have been experiencing slow internet. However since the 19 December my internet is now working as it should (256kb), is this because users have travelled or have they sorted out their bandwidth issues.
Has anyone else notice this.
@eric – well i also would like 2 know more about orange….. seems others are just a crap
@symo –
i’m on turbo, the connection during the day is horrible,you’ll be lucky to be even connected for at least 10 minutes without it disconnecting, but onwards from 7pm its very very fast…..
So I’m finally back in Nairobi. Only been back a couple of days. I’ve been told the best ISP at the moment is Safaricom. I live in Nyayo Estate and they have the KDN Butterfly wi-fi here. The connection is not too bad, I’m getting an equivalent of 256Kbps. Only thing is I’m using the pay as you go option as I’ve only just found out about it and it’s Kshs35 for 30min.