TSTT Forum: primitive - Viewing Profile

I think people (myself included) spend a lot of time complaining, and not a whole lot of time praising things/people when they do the right thing.

Today, I wanna big up the hard working people at Greendot, who have shun in the customer service department since I got the service about 2 months now.

Tech support is top notch (the one issue I had, which was my connection dropping every hour or so, they where able to fix by upgrading the firmware in my receiver, if it was TSTT the rep would have tried to convince me that my lan card had a virus (this happened!!)) also. When they have a request pending from me, they call me regularly to update me on any status changes, so I know things are getting done.

The service itself is all quality as well, and I have never tried flow or blink, but it is better than most regular dsl I have tried in T&T. For starters, my speed remains fairly consistent throughout the day, and since my connection was fixed, I have not had a single minute of downtime (I know because I have a remote link to my office that breaks and does not reconnect whenever the connection goes down.)

I am not saying Greendot is the best, or that they won't have issues in the future that may frustrate me, however, I must say that I am a person who appreciates effort and hard work, even if the desired result does not come off.

I strongly recommend anyone who has been given the run around by TSTT or don't have access to flow, to seriously give Greendot a look. Your mileage may vary, but they seem to be a pretty honest, young, knowledgeable and service oriented bunch, so just asking questions will give you some reasonable feedback as to what to expect from the service.

So far, Greendot gets 2 thumbs way up.

I finally got high speed internet home. I went with Greendot as that was the ONLY option available. I took the 256K package which is roughly $400.00 on a monthly basis (I took a 1 yr contract, much cheaper on longer contracts).

I thought it would be good to share my experiences with the service so far:

- Firstly, the install procedure was relatively painless and quick (less than a hour) and the technicians where fairly knowledgeable.
- They were able to install the equipment with minimal interference to the existing infrastructure (I rent, so that is VERY important).
- The service so far has been fairly reliable, with only about 4 drops occuring (it may not have to do with the service since I only use Linux home, so it maybe a driver error with my OS and Lan card.)
- Initially I was getting around 220kbs/32kbs but now I am getting around 512/32 consistently (Speedtest Results).
- I dont care too much about ping times, but they are in the high 100 ms.
- I was called by a rep. after the install and they welcomed me to the service and outlined ways I could get help if required.

I will continue to post if I get any problems, but so far the service meets my needs. I live in San Juan, off El Socorro Rd. so if your living in this general area you may see similar results.

Well, I know everybody probably fully aware of my issues with getting "proper" internet services by now. Well, I have a couple more things to add:

I signed up for GreenDot last week since they were the only available option I seem to have for broadband internet. The sign up and payment procedure was relatively painless (except for the fact that it cost 1200+ for install and first month service, with $409 per month for 256/64 package). Now, up to this point I was fairly pleased with the customer service I was receiving. They called letting me know what was going on and when they where coming to do the install. We agreed on Sunday (Nov. 11, 2007) to do the install. They did keep their appointment, but they came at around 6p.m, which I did'nt mind, but others probably would.

Anyways, They offloaded their equipment and took 3 receivers (not sure if they are receivers, but its the assembly that holds the network cable.) onto the roof where they attempted to configure the receiver to pick up a signal. Turns out that two of the receivers not working, and they don't have a password for the other receiver.

Now, although they came when they said they would, and they were quick to come and do the install, I have to wonder why they would bring 3 broken receivers to my house at 6:00 PM on a Sunday afternoon! I have narrowed it down to three possible options:

• They dotish (that how trinis spell it?) and dont know what they doing.
  
• They really wanted to connect me so they were relying on faith to make the devices work
  
• They wanted to report back to their central office that they came by to do the work, but the equipment not working, thus enabling them to collect they money regardless.

You draw your conclusion, but it is apparent that they knew the receivers were not working since they traveled with three to the roof in the first place. I am still confident that I will get my internet service, however, its things like this that get me upset and wonder why incompetence is so rampant in the Telecommunications industry.

I got a blackberry curve (8300) from Digicel with the primary aim of using the device as a modem with my laptop. My exploits in trying to get internet access home have been well documented throughout the forum, so I won't go through that. Why I decided to spend roughly $3700 dollars (device, data service, voice service) on a blackberry was shear desperation. I really needed a reliable internet connection home. Other reasons were:

- My birthday is tomorrow.
- I want to start an online business, so having email access all the time is pretty good.
- I will never get anything from bmobile again!

So far the device has been solid and I get good reception home, 5-6 bars. The EDGE service on the blackberry is spot on once you are using it through the device, however, performance is dodgy when you use it as a modem. They are a couple of technical reasons for this (please correct me if I am wrong on any point):

- The blackberry only allows 5 outgoing connections: So, if you run something like ares or like to open alot of webpages simultaneously, you will have problems once you exceed 5 outgoing connections.
- You get bumped offline once an email comes in. Not sure if their is a way to change this option, but, that seems to be the default behavior.
- Some websites won't work. This is only a minor set which seem to use strange protocols or masquerading methods to publish their domain names.
- Speed varies widely during the day. At off-peak times a typical speed 120/80 to a high of 180/80 , during peak hours a bandwidth test won't even run.

So far, I don't feel that I have wasted my money. but I still believe that the service should be allot better. If you want internet, this is an option, but if you have a choice (I didn't), I wouldn't recommend it.

As far as I see, EDGE speeds in San Juan for Digicel and BMobile are exactly the same, so if you have a choice, either one is equally good, or bad.

Let me know what you think. I would also like to get a hold of Mobishark for blackberry but so far "alternate" means of getting the software is proving elusive.

Bless.

Good day,

I am interested in getting the Digicel Blackberry service for the sole purpose of using it as a modem for my PC. Does anyone have any experience with this service in terms of reliability and expected speeds when used as a modem? Any benchmark would be helpful.

I also read in a previous post (Post) you can't access certain websites with the service as digicel blocks ports. Is this still the case?

Thanks for your help.