a short rant about comms companies

[Oilslick]

So...a few months ago I'm on a little rustbucket rig in the middle of the swamp.  I hook up the comms equipment from one of the companies we contract for that sort of thing and as usual, I'm sorely disappointed and spend more time troubleshooting comms than doing my job.

So...bright idea...tether my smartphone and turn my little laptop into a wifi hotspot.

I do some stats gathering and quickly discover my bandwidth abilities, network speeds, etc.  Turns out my little tethered smartphone is giving me roughly 4 times the bandwidth downstream, more than 10 times the bandwidth upstream, has zero connectivity issues, etc.

So I put together a *friendly* little email over to our comms coordinators that pay for this stuff documenting with several screenshots the difference b/w my phone costing me ~120 bucks a month, and the system our company is renting for over 4 grand a month.  Long story short, I started a shitstorm.

Here we are now, a couple months later, on another job, with a different comms company's equipment rigged up (oooh, a pretty self aligning and gimbled dish setup).  Sure, rig up was easier, but alas the same troubles ensue as soon as we start transmitting data to town.  Unfortunately, I'm way out in the middle of the ocean this time with no cell towers for at least a hundred miles.


Time to do some stats gathering: what bandwidth do i need..what bandwidth do i have...what is this "service" costing us?
Weatherford's real time data stream to town recommends a minimum 100k upstream.
VOIP phone recommends 16k upstream free.
Baker's real time stream to town recommends a minimum 80k upstream.
Regular reports and email uploads on the order of several megs - upstream.
The people on my crew running around with smartphones, ipads, laptops, and other miscellaneous stuff constantly requesting facebook status' and modern socially acceptable continuous contact - upstream.

Call up the comms provider...come to find out the following:
$6248.23 per month per rig.
Bandwidth it pays for:  capped bandwidth at 128k combined up and down.

 ARE YOU FRIGGIN' KIDDING ME!!!!!

I start another shitstorm...they boost bandwidth to 256k.  At least the phone stays online now.

And of course...they assume I didn't set it up right...that the dish must have something blocking line of sight to the southeastern sky...blame the customer, never the system right?  My response, "I've got your dish 300 feet in the air roughly 120 miles out in the middle of the ocean, if there's something blocking line of sight it's a @#$%ing UFO!"  Response, "oh".

[Kothnok]

LOL, Oil!

Good to see you taking those scam artists to task! Keep up the good work and you'll be rewarded with some  .

[Icemunch]

Happy Easter Oil .. as Koth promised you will be rewarded with some cake.  Soon as you get back .. ill make a table just for you!!

[un4]

"I've got your dish 300 feet in the air roughly 120 miles out in the middle of the ocean, if there's something blocking line of sight it's a @#$%ing UFO!"

OWNED