Recommended Tests

We initially had DW6000 and were extremely satisfied with it so after  6 months we decided to upgrade to DW7000 Professional Edition.

I earn my living using the internet.  But  last Tuesday, I started having problems with the internet.  I called tech support and was told that we had exceeded the FAP and we had to wait for 8-12 hours for our system status to be back to normal. (Hubby had been donwloading ISO DVDs for Linux).

I did wait...still, after the waiting period, no internet connection (system status degraded, TCP accel not operational, web acc impaired). I called tech support again.  Asked me to do power-cycling, no change.  He made me reset the thing; okay for several minutes.  That first day, I made 2 calls before it was up and running again for probably 3 hours, during which time my husband was again able to download ~100 MB of software.  Then no internet again that night.  Hubby called tech support, and we were finally told that the problem was the satellite itself.  Nothing wrong at our end, nor at their end (they could no longer use the FAP bs because that was supposed to be 350 MB in 4 hours and we waited already; last download was just about 100 MB).

Second day, I made several more phone calls, was basically made to do the same things over and over again, until I decided it was not worth my time to try to work when 95% or more of my icomputer time was spent with tech support rather than online.  When hubby came home that night, he was able to use the net and download some more files.  I was too sleepy to even try to work.  I kept my fingers crossed that the next day, I would be able to work.

Third day, I made my 7th call to tech support, and was told again that it was the satellite that was the problem, and that they could not give me a timeframe when this would be resolved.  He said he wished he could. He sounded apologetic but helpless...I almost wanted to tell him that he was no better than the Indians whom I had talked to in the lower support (I later on realized that I could call directly the higher tech support). 

I used dial-up to try if it will serve the purpose for my kind of work, but it could not.  I surfed the net for posts/articles about DW7000/DirecWay complaints, and got very discouraged.  I think we are F#@&ed up.

When hubby came home that day, he called them up.  Relayed to me about something that he was asked to do upon his persistence in troubleshooting, having downloaded some software for the modem, changes in reference to a transponder, and he told me he set it up at 2 watts instead of 1 (although the latter he was not told to do so by the tech support).

I was able to do 1.5 hours of work that night.  I went to bed hoping everything would be fine the next day.

So today, I was able to work for quite a decent amount of time compared to the past days, although from time to time I would have no connection to the Management Server? (I always check the 192.168.0.1 system status and connectivity whenever there seems to be a problem).  I still spend considerable time doing the same powerr-cycling and connectivity tests over and over again when all I wanted to do was to be able to work (which was the primary reason why we opted to switch from dial-up to satellite, our only other option, in the first place).  My work and income are our justification for spending that much money on satellite internet.  But, this satellite performance is way way below what we had during our first 6 months using DW6000.  I am losing income, and wasting money for a service that does not deliver what it promised.

Since we have no other option for a broadband connection, all we can do is wait til the satellite is fixed (whenever that will be).

I came here and posted this, not only to vent, but also hoping that someone might probably have a better solution to offer (I might actually get better tech support from here than from Dway), because at this point, I feel like we are going to be among those who will join the class action lawsuit here https://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/case/DirecWay_satellite, which I doubt would help us any.

I feel that soon I will have to seek a job not requiring internet.

PLEASE HELP...

Hi ghostmaster,

Here are the specifics:

Longitude: 83 west
Frequency: 1330 MHz
Rate Code: 256k 4/5 (TC)

I wonder what the odds are if I indeed demand to be moved to another satellite or transponder?

Thank you very much on your input.

manang:  I am also on AMC9, 1330, 256 2/3 - DW7000 Home Plan   Currently running on an average of 850/128.  Generally speaking, the only failed transmissions I get is sometimes running DWay Satellite Speed Test, seems to want to hang up for extended periods of time.  Am in Louisiana  Lat 30.78  Long 89.87. 
Signal is 84 to 89.
Jim

"My husband continues to download maybe around 50-1000 MB at night when he comes home (and I do not know why he is lucky to have such uninterrupted internet during such times).  He said he would just try to power-cycling if he starts without connection, then everything would go ok."

1000MB a night WILL get you fapped.
FAP is like a bucket.  If you are on the Pro plan, you get a 350MB bucket, which is constantly refilling at 56Kbps(dialup speed).  They tell you it's in a 4 hour period but that isn't completely true, at least for some of us.  When that 350MB is depleted, you are Fapped, for about 4-13hours.  In some cases people revert to dialup speed, and some lose the connection all together.  You might want to tell your husband to stop downloading when he goes to bed, that way you will have a full bucket during the day so you can work. 

If you are a heavy downloader, (linux distros, movies), then DirecWay is NOT for you.  You would have to use some sort of Commercial grade satellite, or think about Wild Blue, as they have a rolling monthly FAP bucket as opposed to a refilling 350MB bucket.  So my advice is tell your husband not to download for a while, and see if the connection improves.  Have you been checking your usage online?  It will tell you when you are being FAPed.

Hi - Your TCP acceleration being out has nothing to do with your fap or the amount you download - it has to do with your transmitter power.  Weather can affect this - such as a heavy cloud bank (either at your area or at to noc or both) it can be caused by water then the freezing of the water in your transmitter)  etc etc...  OR even there are periods during the year you will see your transmitter not working well.  (i have a period in december for whatever reason that it doesnt work well for about a week and in the afternoons most of the winter)  Weather is the major factor with tcp being down this will result in the system light being down then the transmit light going out in a few minutes after resulting in a tx code 10 - try power cycling and if this doesnt work best thing to do is turn it off and wait -  usually clears up after the storm front blows off etc maybe a few hours or couple days.  you can get a more powerful watt transmitter but if you are tcp out it is usually a weather or water issue that will clear itself up.

In my experience when I get FAPed my TCP acceleration tends to go out as well.  I actually had DWay decomission my modem once

Here's my dl speed test while online (when it does work)

::::::::::.. Download Stats ..::::::::::
Connection is:: 1062 Kbps about 1.1 Mbps (tested with 579 kB)
Download Speed is:: 130 kB/s
Tested From:: http://testmy.net  (main)
Test Time:: 2006/03/21 - 7:05am
Bottom Line:: 19X faster than 56K 1MB Download in 7.88 sec
Tested from a 579 kB file and took 4.469 seconds to complete
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.12) Gecko/20050915 Firefox/1.0.7
Diagnosis: Looks Great : 11.55 % faster than the average for host (direcpc.com)
Validation Link:: http://testmy.net/stats/id-92Y1VB576

I tried the upload test but got very impatient.  So I tried again the download test

::::::::::.. Download Stats ..::::::::::
Connection is:: 1069 Kbps about 1.1 Mbps (tested with 579 kB)
Download Speed is:: 130 kB/s
Tested From:: http://testmy.net  (main)
Test Time:: 2006/03/21 - 7:22am
Bottom Line:: 19X faster than 56K 1MB Download in 7.88 sec
Tested from a 579 kB file and took 4.438 seconds to complete
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.12) Gecko/20050915 Firefox/1.0.7
Diagnosis: Looks Great : 12.29 % faster than the average for host (direcpc.com)
Validation Link:: http://testmy.net/stats/id-NXUV05MGP

Still looks good...wonder why I am having problems with the upload? (I was able to do so without problems earlier when I made my first post here.

Finally!  here's my upload test results:

::::::::::.. Upload Stats ..::::::::::
Connection is:: 159 Kbps about 0.2 Mbps (tested with 386 kB)
Upload Speed is:: 19 kB/s
Tested From:: http://testmy.net  (main)
Test Time:: 2006/03/21 - 7:25am
Bottom Line:: 3X faster than 56K 1MB Upload in 53.89 sec
Tested from a 386 kB file and took 19.92 seconds to complete
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.12) Gecko/20050915 Firefox/1.0.7
Diagnosis: Awesome! 20% + : 80.68 % faster than the average for host (direcpc.com)
Validation Link:: http://testmy.net/stats/id-H894DBIXN


You can very well see here that my problem is not the speed...Notice the time diffrence between these tests.  That was the time when I had at one time a "satellite outage" that I tried the upload test twice before running the 2nd dl test and then the third and final trial of upload test.

Sometimes my offline status is longer...and this has been happening for almost a week now.  I can't continue to work on such internet conditions.  In fact, I have informed my supervisor (using a dial-up connection) that I would try to work again next Monday just to see if my internet problem will be resolved by then; if not, I might have to look into a career change (I work as a medical transcriptionist, so I download 2-25 minutes of voice files one at a time; not sure how many kb each is, but I should not have a problem with FAP with just those files.)

ghostmaster,

When we were told about hitting the FAP and that we would have to wait, we did wait for about 10 hours before my husband was again able to dl 100 MB. Then we were careful not to hit the FAP again, but still, we are having problems.

you mentiond your husband dowloading software for the modem. there is no software required for the 7000 modem it is self hosted. and changing the setting to 2 watts for you transmitter does not make it a 2 watt transmitter that is only for reference for tech support setup by the installer. you would need to physically change the transmitter.