Wi-Tribe’s Account Portal Troublesome :Day 10

One thing I’ve become aware of is that the wi-tribe portal where you can check your usage history is down most of the time. 9 times out of 10 you won’t be able to access it. That’s one thing the Witribe will have to work on and resolve as soon as possible and the reason for that is that your consumption stacks up so soon for some inexplicable reason that if you’re kept in the dark for too long courtesy the non-working portal, you would go overboard pretty soon.


And that’s one of the fallacies of the wimax technology. You cannot keep it switched on all day as I’ve done a couple of times, because when you do that, the data keeps getting accumulated in your account until pretty soon you have reached the limit. In nine days I had been reported to use up 2.3GB of my 5 GB limit although I had hardly downloaded any mammoth or even watched streaming videos. The most I had downloaded was 700mb and tested the streaming quality by checking just a couple of videos on youtube. The same goes for the rest of the family members who for the most part just focus on Facebook, and I have serious doubts about facebook being a big data chucker.

What we have been guilty of is keeping the device on even when we weren’t really using it. The conclusion is that wimax in Pakistan hasn’t reached the level where you can keep it on all the time or to download to your heart’s content.

It is very much similar to the dial-up system where you only switch on the modem when you need to do something. Otherwise you keep it shut lest it costs you money. In other words it’s a glorified form of dial-up where the speed is not that bad, however the inconsistency of dial-up is present in wimax as well. Or maybe it’s just in witribe and the rest of the brands – infinity, wateen and qubee are consistent.

Wi-Tribe Day 8

I didn’t get the time to check the speed on the 7th day, and it wasn’t terribly important because I had already decided to continue with Witribe and not opt for the money-back option. I’m willing to give considerably more time to Wi-tribe to showcase their level of service.
One problem I did encounter was the blocking of my wi-tribe accounts page. After I had checked my account once, the next time I wanted to check again it showed that my IP had been blocked. Now that reflects badly on Wi-tribe.

Wi-Tribe Day 6

The signal fluctuation is still there. During the day, the signal hovers over the 3-bar mark whereas at night it hovers over the 4-bar mark. Only rarely does it reach the pinnacle at 5-bar. I don’t mind it as long as there’s no variation in the speed.
I’’ve tried the streaming via Youtube, and there’s plenty of buffering involved. However, that’s not entirely the fault of Witribe because people well-versed with the broadband thing tell me that 512kbps does not provide seamless streaming. If you want continuous streaming with no buffering, 1mbps is the option to go for.

So if you want to view streaming video on 512 connection, the best way to go is pause the playback until the whole file loads in the cache.

Wi-Tribe Consumer Panel Day 5

When I reached home at 7pm, the news was good. Witribe had performed better throughout the day. The only problem was the cable getting in the way.
I embarked on another expedition in search of the golden spot. This time I found one, which although not as good as the current one, was good enough especially since the cable won’t be getting in the way.

I checked all the parameters with the speed test. For the first time, the ping rate was less than 100ms. But I do have some reservations about these tests. Even when the going is bad, these tests don’t really reflect it. The ping test, however, does a better job of reflecting the ground reality, but even that is not 100% fool-proof.

Wi-Tribe Consumer Panel- Day4

Day 4 was the worst.
When I returned from office, I was informed by the family that the performance was worse than dial-up and the modem showed remarkable consistency in getting hung up at every available opportunity. I smsed the guy explaining the situation and reminding him the need for a lengthier cable. He finally arrives at 10pm, with the wire and another device. He brought the device because he said there are only two reasons that the device ‘decamps’. Either the CPE is faulty, or the signal is too weak to provide sustainable coverage.


After attaching the new cable, he checked the old device for signals throughout my room, and finally concluded that the signal variation was too much and hence the device getting hung up, otherwise there was nothing wrong with the device.
He left me with the old device and the dilemma whether to continue with Wi-tribe or cancel the subscription for which I had only two days left.
Although the rep was polite and helpful, he left me with another problem – a not too long cable. I had asked for at least 25 feet, he brought one which was not more than 20 feet. I asked why, he said that for that long a cable, he would have to get permission which would have delayed my getting the cable. Whether that’s the truth or he just said it to get me off his back I can’t say. Only the Witribe management can answer that.

After he left, I spent the next hour running around the house with the device tethered to the PC as far as the cable would go. I finally placed the device just across from my room where the signal strength was the maximum.

It got better but then the issue of cable getting in the way of the feet arose. I was too tired by the end of this exercise to change the position again.

Wi-Tribe Consumer Panel- Day 3

Being a Sunday, I didn’t expect the Wi-tribe service to be any good. So it came as a pleasant surprise that it ran smoothly, not great mind you. The fluctuation was still too much. One minute you had the network flying like a F-117, the very next minute it was crawling like a camel cart.

Like the browsing speed, the same condition was seen in the downloading as well, only here you could see the enormous variations reflected in the speeds. Although the sales rep had said when asked about the theoretical and the actual download speed available that both the theoretical and the actual download speed was not much different- 64 theoretical, and 60-62 actual, in reality it varied from 64 to 24 in a matter of seconds.


In the evening, the overall network speed had declined dramatically. This could be the result of the rush hour traffic. But if witribe in its infancy cannot provide consistent speed at the peak hour when its users are not that much, what can we expect when the population reaches critical mass?

Wi-Tribe Consumer Panel- Day 2

I called the guy up asking him for a lengthier Ethernet cable- about 25 feet – to reach the area where the signal strength was maximum.



When I returned from the office at about 7pm I got the new that the net performed dismally throughout the day, even worse than a dial-up connection. The biggest problem was that the modem was getting hung up, ‘decamping’ as the guy said.


However, at night although the signals were still fluctuating between 2 and 3, the Witribe service was better.

Wi-Tribe Consumer Panel- Day 1

What little was left of the day I spent carrying the device to every nook and corner of the house, desperately trying to find an area where the signal strength was good enough to place the device while my family wondered why I had gone bonkers running around the house with a strange black box in my hand. Finally I did manage to find a few spots where the strength was maximum, only problem was, the Ethernet cable wasn’t long enough to get there and I didn’t have any Wifi device to test the coverage there.
In the end I explained the strange device to the family, asking them to test the internet connection as much as possible in my absence.

Wi-Tribe Consumer Panel - Day 0

My initial contact with Wi-tribe has stretched for over 6 six months. I first made contact with them when the service was first launched, and although the service reps were courteous and friendly, the experience wasn’t very good. The reason for that was the lack of response from Witribe when they found out my area didn’t come under their coverage. I registered my details at their website as well as left it with one of their reps at the Nazimabad outlet but they didn’t even so much as send an acknowledgement note. That was six months ago.

About two weeks ago, they left a flyer in my housing society to announce their arrival in the area with the business card of one of their reps attached. Still no effort to contact me. In contrast, the Qubee rep not only contacted me on his own accord but also offered to waive off the activation charges as a special offer especially for this area. When I expressed apprehensions about the quality of service, he gave me phone number and address of two of his customers in my area to verify the quality of service. No such initiative from Witribe. So yes, they need to spruce up their sales tactics.



When I did contact the person whose card was attached with the flyer and told him about the offer from Qubee, expecting something extra from Witribe as well, he offered to waive off the security deposit only if I referred another person, otherwise nothing at all. I guess the Witribe folks are a bit too confident in the wake of their recent extravagant marketing campaign with a brand repositioning of ‘connect to change’.



In spite of all these minor glitches, I decided to give them a try. So I called the guy again and told him I wanted the connection. This was afternoon. He promised to install the very same night. Late evening I called again to verify the time he would be coming and this time he said he would arrive by 10pm. I again called just before 10 and this time he said that he wouldn’t get free until 1am in the morning, but was willing to come over even late at night. I asked him to come over the second day. However, the same thing went on for the next two days (during which I had serious doubts about whether to really go until on the night of the fourth day- the 1st of January 2010, he finally came over at 11.30pm.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t one of those ‘All’s well that ends well’. As soon as the guy installed the CPE, trouble started. First, the signal strength was low at 2 bar (maximum is five). Then the device started getting hung up which the rep called as ‘decamping’ or something.
About the signal strength, the guy assured that even 2 bar was enough to get proper coverage provided the signals were stable and not varying much.

Anyway, he reminded me that I had the option of canceling the service and getting all the money back within seven days if I wasn’t satisfied. In that case as well, the guy activated my account at 11pm on the 1st, which meant I literally had only six days left to test the service.
Not the best of starts, definitely.

What is Wi-Tribe Consumer Panel?

‘ A longitudinal study that gathers data from the same sample of individuals or households over time is called a consumer panel. A consumer panel that consists of a group of people who record their purchasing habits in a diary over time will provide the marketer with a continuous stream of information about the brand and product class. Diary data that are recorded regularly over an extended period enable the investigator to track repeat-purchase behavior and changes in purchasing and usage habits along with changes in price, special promotions, or other aspects of marketing strategy.’
-Exploring Market Research by William G. Zikmund

The Wi-Tribe consumer panel will be an unsolicited one-man team comprising of myself (it may expand as time goes on). Conventionally, a marketer from the brand team analyzes the diaries maintained by the consumer panel subjects and based on them comes up with marketing strategies. In this case I’ll be the lawyer as well as the jury. i.e I’ll be analyzing my own experience with the brand, and based on those insights offer to the Wi-Tribe marketing team ways to delve deeper into the consumer mindset. It’s going to be like the people meter (pioneered by AC Nielsen), an internet meter to be more apt.
Consumer panels and people meter surveys are an extremely secretive process unbeknownst to the general public. This is the first time in the history of mankind that a consumer panel diary is being made public, that too on the universal mass medium – the internet.

Note:
This is an unsolicited consumer panel which is neither endorsed nor influenced by Wi-Tribe or any of its competitors. It is a uniquely independent and totally unbiased review of how this brand holds up in real-life situations for a consumer as opposed to a static review of its features.