Gotel Test User Experience

[DarkAngel]

I'm living in the St. Catherine area and have been a test user of Gotel's Fixed Wireless system for just under two months now. I'm very happy to be apart of this test with free internet access for the time been and the prospects of getting a home phone at last. (Since Cable and Wireless seem not to be interested in providing phones in this area**) My experince so far is that the voice quality over the phone is comparable with that of Cable and Wireless (very good) though until CW monopoly ends in March of next year i can only call other Gotel customers (699-xxxx). I have not experince any proformance hit with my internet access during the heavy rain over the pass few weeks very good equipment IMHO (equipment supplier Prime Wave
Communications of Houston see url for picture of the equipment they are using:
( http://www.pwcwireless.com/demo/cpe.asp )
I have spoken to a couple of people about prices for the service when they launch next year but it's either they are keeping it a well guarded secret or they have honestly not yet worked out any price range as yet since nobody at the company is "able to say at this time".

My BIGGEST Disappointment however is with the connection speed and tech support i'm getting,after been told by the technicans installing the sytem at my home that i should
expect speeds of 250 kb/s (both ways) i'm however only getting speeds in the range of 56 - 65 Kb/s (after doing several test at various times over the last couple of weeks) this is not much better than my old dailup connection .I know for a fact that some people are getting 150+ kb/s, i have call tech support about this but got no where to date. On my first call to them the person on the line could never careless in fact he was a bit rude saying somthing to the effect "that's way i told them not to put so much people on this this thing" then saying that he can't stay on the line anymore, i just hang up the phone after that since i see i was not getting anywhere. I won't be calling them anymore untill they launch next year when i start paying for the service, i only hope that the customer support improves and they try to address my problem; but in the mean while i will enjoy the free service and finally get RedHat linux 8.0 completly downloaded .

** It's interesting to see Cable and Wireless technicans are checking out Gotel's equipments two of them came to my house to look at it a few weeks ago. Funny that they have just shown interest in this community after ignoring us for so long.


PS. Hope to get some feedback from other Gotel customers on their experince particularly people living in the St. Catherine area. Thanks

[Chris]

kacey had posted feedback on his Gotel test setup as well. You may read his post in the topic on N5's wireless at:
http://www.techjamaica.com/tech_foru...id=66;start=60

We were also trying to get info on their service including the rates and features, but no luck. With all the press hype that we've seen about them and their service BEFORE they've fully tested and even priced...hmmm ???

[Collin]

It seems like this customer srvice issue is one where each compnay can differentiate themselves in the very near future....

It will indeed be interesting to see Gotels final rates.

[odsamuels]

I only hope the prices aren't ridiculous!

[DarkAngel]

kacey is getting good connection speeds 256 kb/s (both way) ! that's like 32 KB/s download/upload compared to my 7 KB/s speeds jus curious if Kacey is located in the St. Catherine area like i'm?

[odsamuels]

When you guys say St. Catherine, do you know about any Portmore ppl testing? How is it for them?

K, lemme know.
L8r

[Chris]

DarkAngel, consider yourself lucky to have a test account with GoTel. As you can see from the other posts relating to their rates and packages, you'll see that getting acurate info from them can be a challenge. If you have any sources there (more than likely you do) let them know that they need to sort out their packages AND communicate it to their customer service reps. Just a friendly bit of advice to them

[Collin]

Thats a WHOLE heap of GOOD ADVICE to them not a bit !!

[DarkAngel]

You are right their customer reps. need to get more acquainted with the services their company is offering it's something that i have detected the very first time i called them about getting a test user account, although this is history now it is worth mentioning, i was told that they have completed the testing and can not accomodate anymore user bah bah bah, just to see two days after a number of people in my area been approached and getting the units installed i was subsequently approached two weeks after and given a test user account! I only hope that Gotel get their act together because it's a poor reflection on the company that they have reps. who are not clear on basic information as to the product and services the company they are representing are offering! it's clear these people are new on the job and have not been properly briefed before they are alowed to interact with the general public. I'm sure however that they will get their act together soon... well i hope so :-\ since i will have to deal with them from time to time as one of their subscriber.

On a slightly different issue my test user account will unfortunetly come to an end in less than a week- free ride is over :'( i will be submitting my new application and payment of $4140.00 (according to the invoice covering installation of $1500, 64 k internet connection $700 and voice line plus $500 talk time $1400 + GCT) early next week. Althought i was not given the 256kb test connection promised i'm still happy for the free ride and now i will have a house phone(cellphone bill a kill mi) and a always connected internet connection, something i never expected to get in the near future living outside of Kingston.

[Collin]

[quote author=DarkAngel link=board=1;threadid=211;start=0#1746 date=1037309207]
and now i will have a house phone(cellphone bill a kill mi) and a always connected internet connection, something i never expected to get in the near future living outside of Kingston.

[/quote]

That is what is going to draw a lot of people to them DarkAngel... the ability to now have a phone at home!! ...