Search: “qualitynet”

I am going to start off by saying I am not a fan of Wataniya. I have been an MTC user since 1995 and I am very loyal to the brand. So, when I was contacted by Wataniya to try out their new W-net internet router I wasn’t very thrilled because I would rather it had been MTC calling me. But I still went ahead and met with the Wataniya guy who turned out to be cool and a Nintendo Wii fan and he explained to me what W-net was and told me that Wataniya had hooked me up with a 6 month prepaid subscription. I was thinking worst case scenario if the connection turned out to be crap I could take the router to work and hook it up over there since my office lacked a wifi connection which annoys the hell out of me whenever I take my Macbook to work. After using the device for over 2 weeks I can say I am impressed.

When I first opened the package I found the Quick Start Guide which involved 11 steps on how to setup the connection. I ignored the guide, turned on the router and connected to it via wifi on my Macbook. Thats it, I was connected to the Internet. Its a lot easier then 11 steps.

The Wataniya router works on the HSDPA network which is a 3G mobile protocol. Currently 3G isn’t covered everywhere in Kuwait so if you don’t have 3G in your area you will end up connecting onto the much slower EDGE network. So if you want to take full advantage of W-net you better hope you live in a 3G zone. I live in Salmiya and I have 3G here.

The most impressive thing about the W-Net connection is the download speed. I have a 512 DSL connection by Qualitynet and I usually download files at around 63 KB/sec. With W-net on the other hand I download at around 107 KB/sec which is nearly twice as fast as my DSL connection. The upload speed is slow though at around 15 KB/sec where as my Qualitynet hits around 35 KB/sec.

Loading websites feels slower on the Wataniya connection. When I type in a URL its always quicker to load on my Qualitynet connection. I thought it was because of the connection latency but I pinged mark248am1.wpenginepowered.com on both my Qualitynet connection and the Wataniya connection and the results were very close so I don’t know why the lack of acceleration.

Qualitynet
PING mark248am1.wpenginepowered.com (66.199.240.42): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 66.199.240.42: icmp_seq=0 ttl=45 time=321.393 ms
64 bytes from 66.199.240.42: icmp_seq=1 ttl=47 time=305.564 ms
64 bytes from 66.199.240.42: icmp_seq=2 ttl=45 time=325.444 ms
64 bytes from 66.199.240.42: icmp_seq=3 ttl=45 time=356.846 ms
64 bytes from 66.199.240.42: icmp_seq=4 ttl=45 time=376.722 ms

Wataniya W-Net
PING mark248am1.wpenginepowered.com (66.199.240.42): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 66.199.240.42: icmp_seq=0 ttl=45 time=306.380 ms
64 bytes from 66.199.240.42: icmp_seq=1 ttl=47 time=327.925 ms
64 bytes from 66.199.240.42: icmp_seq=2 ttl=45 time=383.964 ms
64 bytes from 66.199.240.42: icmp_seq=3 ttl=45 time=295.931 ms
64 bytes from 66.199.240.42: icmp_seq=4 ttl=45 time=472.001 ms

For the geek users, you can customize the settings of the router to your liking just as if it was an ordinary router. It originally came set with the IP address 192.168.1.1 but my network runs on 192.168.0.X so I just logged in to the router settings and just changed stuff like turning of DHCP and changing the routers name. The router has an Ethernet port so you can connect it to the regular network or directly to your computer in case you don’t have wifi.

The price of the router plus Wataniya data line is KD135. The monthly charge for the connection is KD28, or KD300 for 1 year and KD565 for 2. I don’t know if you can order a different cheaper router off the web and use it with the Wataniya data line, I guess it could work.

Would I give up my DSL connection for W-Net? No I wouldn’t. I upload a lot of stuff all the time and 35 KB/sec is slow for me yet alone 15. I also browse the web a lot and like it when pages load instantly. The W-Net connection reminds me of my previous Shownet connection (which was Satellite based). It has a high top speed but slow acceleration meaning when browsing websites you don’t really feel the connection is fast only when you start downloading files do you notice it.

Would I recommend the W-Net connection? Yes in certain situations. For example in my old place in Salwa I couldn’t get a DSL line setup because the phone network in my street didn’t support it. My only option was a Satellite/Dialup combo which sucked. If I was still living there then I would definitely get W-net. Also for people who can’t get phone lines for one reason or another or for people who simply want an Internet connection wherever they go (camping, challet, anywhere with a power outlet) then this would also be a good option.

Am I going to take the router to the office? Nope, whenever I have files to download I just switch over to the W-Net connection and download them. Its really convenient having it because its cutting my download time in half. Anyway if you have any questions regarding W-Net just leave a comment below and I will try to answer it.

www.wataniya.com

Today I met with a person from Wataniya. They wanted me to try out their new W-Net router based system so they hooked me up with a device and a 6 month subscription plan.

It runs on the HDSPA network and right out of the box on a busy Thursday night I am downloading at 51.6kb. I will post more pictures and details after I play with it some more this weekend. So far this Internet connection seems as fast as my Qualitynet 512 DSL connection.

Here are 26 urls from A to Z. These are the first sites that appear in Firefox when I type a letter:

A – Autoblog
B – Blind Melon
C – CNN
D – Digg
E – Engadget
F – Applenova Forums
G – Gmail
H – Hotbot
I – iToot
J – Joystiq
K – Kottke
L – Lebanese Forces
M – MacRumors
N – NBK
O – NBK Online
P – PowerPage
Q – Qualitynet Unwanted
R – Real Hot Stuff
S – Socialitelife
T – TorrentLeech
U – U Shop We Ship
V – Virb
W – Naharnet
X – XE Currency Exchange
Y – YouTube
Z – zDistrict

update: Just to make things clear. In some browsers when you type a letter in the address bar you get a drop down list of your most visited sites starting with that letter. the above list is my most visited sites per letter on my Mac at home. Yours will be different. This list is just to share with you some sites some of which you might not know of.

K.theKuwaiti conducted a survey on Kuwait ISP’s by asking people what provider they were with, how much they were paying and what download speed they were getting. Using the results he plugged them into an Excel sheet and calculated which ISP gives you the best bang for the buck.

So what is the best deal? Turns out its Qualitynet followed closely by Zajil. Fasttelco came in last. For a more detailed analysis check out K’s post. [Link]

Another reason to choose Qualitynet over Fasttelco.

Update: Here are some more sites that were just blocked:
MySpace.com
SomethingAwful.com
TheSuperficial.com
SocialiteLife.com
Jewaira.wordpress.com Local blogger, other wordpress.com sites not blocked

These are the current DSL prices in Kuwait for a 512KB connection.

Qualitynet: KD24.5 a month (You need an NBK account for this price)
UnitedNet: KD25 a month (Yearly contract paid montly)
Fasttelco: KD70 a month (KD50 if paid 1 year in advance)

Just a note, Fasttelco had the lousiest sales guy when I called, really crap. UnitedNet don’t seem to have a website which I think is very ify Turns out they do have a website but google doesn’t know about it. With Qualitynet if you don’t have an NBK account then you need to pay the full year subscription in advance or you will have to pay the monthly fee of KD38.

Fasttelco is now also blocking BoingBoing. Qualitynet also haven’t removed BoingBoing from their block list even after all the emails and phonecalls. Sucks.

Update: You can now visit BoingBoing by just going to mark248am1.wpenginepowered.com/bb

I watched the trailer a few days ago and it looks like Scary Movie 4 is going to be even sillier and funnier then the previous movies. In the trailer they spoofed War of the Worlds, The Grudge, Saw and The Village but the actual movie will contain even more spoofs from more movies. Here is a link to the trailer. [Link]

Update: Qualitynet for some stupid reason is blocking the Scary Movie website. Here is another link to the trailer. [Link]

I am at work and I am online using Qualitynet dialup again. It turns out that although Fasttelco brought back online most of its services yesterday night, their Kuwait City users will remain without Internet for another day or two. All phone numbers starting with 24 still do not have Internet access.

What a day, my Internet stopped working last night and I figured it was something with my account. Today morning I came to work all ready to check my email and turned out we didn’t have Internet here. At first the word was our internal server was down but then the word reached to us that everyone in Kuwait was having Internet issues. As many bloggers have posted it turned out that there was a fire in the building hosting the servers of the 3 main ISP’s in Kuwait and this disrupted the service. Things are better now though and both Qualitynet and Zajil/KEMS have their services back up. The bad news is that our agencies ISP, Fasttelco, got hit the worst and according to TivoGuy they had most of their stuff burn down. Fasttelco has assured us though Internet would be back up in 3 days time but I think it might take longer.

So until we get Internet back up I will most probably be connecting online from work using a qualitynet dialup account like I am doing now. Its a bit retro but better then nothing.

One interesting thing I realized was without Internet I did stuff I used to do before when I never had Internet. For example I read 3 newspapers today morning and then spoke to Nibaq on the phone for at least 20 minutes… the longest I had spoken to him on the phone since back when we were in high school trying to setup a Duke Nukem multiplayer session!

What the fuck, I was just checking idontlikeyouinthatway.com as I have been doing everyday now except today its blocked by my ISP Qualitynet! Why did they block it now? It didn’t have any nudity recently or anything controversial. There are worse sites out there and they decide to block celebrity gossip! Unbelievable!

DSL prices in Kuwait have gone down recently. Both Qualitynet and Fasttelco have double the bandwidth. It started off as an offer but it seems they have decided to keep this permanently. This is how much 512KB will cost you in Kuwait

Fasttelco
512kb down / 128kb up
1yr Subscription Price: KD360 ($1232)

Qualitynet
512kb down / 256kb up
1yr Subscription Price: KD380 ($1300)

Both providers are reliable, I use both of them, one at home and one at work. Sometimes a site could be blocked by Qualitynet and not by Fasttelco, and sometimes its the other way around, they mostly come out even. So if you are new in Kuwait and looking for a decent connection, get a 512kb DSL connection, the 256kb is too slow, and the 1MB too expensive, 512kb comes in nicely at around KD30 a month.

Was just reading a post about Verizon’s new fiber connection in the States. The price is incredibly cheap and the connection speed is insanely fast!

Here are the monthly prices:
5 Mbps down /2 Mbps up = $39
15 Mbps down /2 Mbps up = $49
30 Mbps down /5 Mbps up = $199

In comparison I am paying $110 per month with Qualitynet for a 512kb down / 256kb up connection.

[Link]

The other day at Virgin, Nataly showed me this book called Bunny Suicides, I was about to get it but then changed my mind the last minute. Good thing I did, seems someone scanned the book page by page and posted it online. Really funny stuff here is the link.

Update: huh?! qualitynet is blocking the link above. Sucks..

I finally have internet at home. It feels soo good to finally have decent internet at home. First thing I did was go to Bandwidthplace.com and make sure I was receiving the bandwidth I was paying for. As expected it registered at 58 kilobytes per second. Second thing I did was run Quake 3, its the only game I ever play online and the latency measured at 164 which is 4 times better then what I was getting with shownet. This will make playing online games with my PSP a breeze. If I have any problems with Qualitynet I will definitely post them here. For now though they seem fantastic.