WorldCall is the first ISP in Karachi to provide high-speed internet links at an affordable price. [at least in the area where I live]. They have set up their own private fiber optic network in Defence and Clifton, and are providing internet and TV over cable. I’ve been using their service for about 4 months now, and since a number of people have asked me about the service, I’ve written a review of WorldCall’s service.
I, like many others, have been eagerly awaiting the launch of any internet service faster than dialup. For any internet savvy user, dialup just doesn’t cut it any longer. I have been keeping track of all the ‘high-speed’ ISP’s over the years [mainly by reading the newspapers] and WorldCall was the first affordable one. The various DSL services available all start at 7000 Rs. and above, which is way to much for a normal internet user. WC at 1400 Rs. For a unlimited 64k, and 2100 Rs. for 128k was a pleasant surprise, even undercutting most unlimited modem packages.
When they started putting up their advertisements, I excused the fact that they were calling 64 and 128K broadband internet as at least the prices seemed affordable. Technically, anything below 300K cannot be called broadband. Taking into consideration the fact that Pakistan’s entire internet bandwidth is very little, even 128K sounded very good.
There was a WC node near my house, and a few times I stopped by while they were doing work on it. The equipment inside was impressive and looked expensive. Again, that gave me the impression that these people are setting up a proper network and know their stuff.
Fast forward to installation: After many phone calls and delays the cable finally got installed. The TV has been very good since day 1, and I recommend it to everyone. The cable internet on the other hand has been problematic from day 1. There are days when it works just fine, and its great. Even at 128k, which is a small step up from a 56K modem, internet browsing becomes a lot faster, and it being always on means that the internet is that much more easily accessible. People have been singing the virtues of broadband for many years now, and I doubt anyone reading this needs to hear about why broadband is the cat’s pajamas.
Back to the Cable Internet Service: Almost every single day, WC has some problem or the other with the Internet service. I am not taking into consideration the multiple times PTCL goes down, as that is not WorldCall’s fault, but all the other times it’s down besides that.
Since WorldCall is down so often, in the beginning I used to call them to find out what was going on. I must have called them at least a hundred times in the last 4 months. In 50 of those calls, I got to speak to someone beyond the operator who seemed to know something beside’s answering a phone. I am not even going to go into the operator’s responses as they don’t know anything at all. This also is the fault of the management as they seemingly haven’t trained the operators, and don’t provide them with any information. Anyways, every time I get through to some technical person, they reassure me that they are working on the problem. Every single time they take down my home phone number, cell number, modem number, and sometimes even my email address and promise that they would get back to me. This is another very unprofessional sign, as being a computer literate company they should have a database of customers with all the relevant information. So far, I have not received a single response from them. This is completely unacceptable. I can live with slow speed, and the service being down, but at the least they should have the decency and the professionalism to inform their customers. Cybernet sends an email a few days before any service outages, and if the service is unexpectedly down or slow, they also send an email. WorldCall not only does not inform, it often denies having any problems at all!
A few of the explanations I’ve gotten from them:
- The internet is not working because KESC is working in your area and have cut our lines. We don’t know when they’ll let us reconnect. { TV was working. And here I thought the internet and TV came on the same wire }
- Everything is working perfectly, and your computer is bad. (what can be said to that?)
- You have to let the cable modem be on for a few hours so it can access our system. { hmm, a bit of black magic never hurts }
- The internet is slow because you just turned on your computer. It takes a little while for the modem to warm up, so till then the internet will be a bit slow.
- PTCL link is down. This of course is the #1 excuse for everything. I understand PTCL must be bad, really bad in fact, but WC takes the cake. Sometimes it seems like the chai walla trips on the power to their servers and they run and plug it back in. Or it’s a desi setup where the plug slips out and has to be pushed in.
- Unplug the cable modem, and plug it back in, then call back. Repeat many times.
- Unplug your pc and restart. Repeat.
- You shouldn’t unplug the cable modem while it is running. It must have gone bad.
- We are sorry, technical support is not unavailable. We don’t know anything at all, please call back. {on the call back, same answer. }
- Give me your cable modem mac address (and why don’t they already have it) and we will monitor your connection and in half in hour it’ll be fixed, and we’ll call to inform you. Needless to say, I’ve never received a call/email from them. Problems do seem to get fixed once in a while, but there seems to be no correlation between my complaints and the actual time of fixing.
I have had other equally good answers regarding their server setup which I’ll post later.
Around 5 days of the month I still have to use dialup, and many evenings if I just want to look up something real quick, it’s faster to dial up, then to try to use WC. Most of the time web browsing is working fine, but even then it seems to fluctuate worse than KESC. Many times I have to load a site 4-5 times for it to come up. It then loads very fast, which leaves me wondering why can’t they fix their set up so these stupid problems don’t occur day in and day out!
I am currently working on 3 websites, so I need to upload files every now and then. WorldCall has no upload bandwidth it seems! In the last 4 months, I’ve been using Cybernet for most uploads. WC did expand their upload bandwidth and it worked great for 2 weeks but then it went back to their normal standard. So for 3 out of 4 months I’ve had to use Cybernet anytime I’ve wanted to upload something! It’s not just the speed which is the issue. If I’m uploading some files, I usually just put them to upload and leave the pc. With Cybernet, I’m guaranteed a working upload. With WorldCall, thanks to their servers (mis)configuration, their automatic proxies, huge amounts of lag, numerous times out, lost connections, etc. it’s a huge pain. A typical ftp message using WC:
bq. ERROR:> Timeout (60000 ms) occurred on receiving server response.
ERROR:> Failed to establish data socket.
Using dialup, speeds might be slow, but at least they seem to know the basics of networking. The above message is not something I saved for a rainy day; I just connected to my website right now as I type this and tried to ftp a 13kb file. Their service is that reliable!
They also make a number of mistakes which no ISP should be making. Sometimes, they randomly block a few ports. Now, if they were protecting against viruses, etc. that’s a great thing and it shows that they’re on their toes, but instead they block things like ftp, msn messenger etc. Now they either do that on purpose, or its through sheer incompetence. I cannot think of any reason to block these ports so it must be the second answer. Other things they do on and off is mess with Squid. For those who don’t know, squid is a transparent proxy server which most ISP’s around the world use and there are numerous websites which teach everything there is to know about using/configuring squid.
The sad conclusion is: WorldCall is the sorriest ISP I’ve used in Karachi. I’ve been using various [read: many] ISP’s over the years ever since Digicom started offering internet in the early 90’s, and I have yet to come across one as badly run as WorldCall. Cybernet, Fascom, Supernet etc. are now three of the biggest ISP’s in the country so it might seem unfair to compare a new ISP like WC with them, but I have been using all three since they first started, and they were even at the beginning a lot better than WC. Dialup, dsl or cable, there are certain standards for these services which have been established worldwide. Even downgrading the standards by the required pakistani amount leaves worldcall far short of the mark.
I am now back at the waiting stage, hoping some other [more professional] company will start up true broadband services. This gives me hope, but it’s going to take at least 6-8 months more.
Update: While the post date for the review is September 6, I wrote it in July/August. As of Sept the 18th, they’re still going strong with their marvelous service, and have introduced a few other features. I started using the worldcall email address for some of my emails, and in the last two weeks I’ve received numerous complaints from people that emails sent to my worldcall email address keep bouncing back. Not only is it bouncing emails, it is the slowest email server I have ever used in my life. This includes a decade ago using bbs based email on 2.4K connections. Receiving a 1k email takes a minute, and it times out every now and then.
Recently, about 12 users who frequent the WorldCall forums went en masse and complained to the management. The results seem positive, but so far no go with the improvements. I am a bit disillusioned, as in July I had a meeting with their support manager, in which I had suggested that at the very least they set up an email system to inform customers of service outages etc. I was assured that they would be setting up such a thing and they had already planned it. In another face-to-face in August I again brought it up and they said they’re in the process of implementing it. It’s now September, and no sign of an email from them, let alone any contact. They are getting more bandwidth which should fix most of the internet problems, but it boggles my mind that an email server can be so slow. Not everything can be PTCL’s fault, as they (I hope) must/should know, and when they keep blaming things on PTCL and PTCL alone it just leaves a bad impression of incompetence.
p. Update: The South Asian has a great article about the state of the telecoms industry: Pakistan – Markets in IT & Telecomm Convergent Technologies
bq.. 2.9.3 HFC Cable TV
The only significant entrant into the Hybrid Fiber Coaxial cable [HFC] is WORLDCALL —The hybrid-fiber-coaxial [HFC] system in Pakistan for WorldCall’s HFC network has cost about $ 150 per subscriber. In India this cost is about $ 50 per subscriber due to lower labor cost . The total Capital [ Equipment ] cost for WorldCall Karachi network of 100,000 house passes is therefore $ 15 million US dollars If a Fixed wireless [ LMDS- 28 GHz / MMDS ? 2 GHz] technology is added to this network at a cost of $ 12 per subscriber , the additional system cost is another $ 1.2 million.
…In Karachi, the Clifton and Defense areas are complete with the HFC systems [using high Quality Corning Leaf Single mode fiber for the main Trunk lines and Cable RG6 for the house passes, Cable Modem Termination Systems ?CMTS are from ADC Telecom USA ] ] including Network Management Operations Center. WorldCall?s Karachi HFC system Road show was expected to start by March 2003 end with a media campaign of services such as video-telephony.
2.9.4 HFC- MSO – Cable TV + Internet—Significant Revenues & Payback.
For 100,000 subscribers for Cable-TV and high Speed Internet [ @ Rs. 1200 for Internet and Rs.300 for Cable TV = $25 per month ], the annual revenue comes to $ 100,000×25 x 12 = $ 30 million before taxes. The estimated Project Payback period is about 2 years. Lahore WorldCall Cable-TV subscribers are 35,000 in total, and therefore the number of 100,000 in Karachi is realistic for the first year.
p. Update: It seems WorldCall is running Sendmail 8.x.x with Qpopper 4.0x as the pop server and also their DNS server all on a Sun fire 280R 4U machine with Solaris 8. All this through a simple refer log! Maybe this is why email runs so slow sometimes. WC is still loosing emails into some blackhole, even after their bandwidth upgrade of Sept 25. Since tt can’t all be due to choked bandwidth, it’s probably due to the need to choke some heads at WC. It could be that instead of a Ultrasparc 1.2 ghz processor they mistakenly got a 0.12ghz machine. Slow slow slowThe email server is still slower than on dialup! I just can’t comprehend why such a state of the art system can get so slow. They did complain that people leave on Kazaa etc. all week long and that slows down their network. Jeez, next they’ll be telling us that tv reception is bad since too many people are watching tv. It seems they were going by dialup usage statistics, which are quite low, even for heavy users. They are slowly getting it into their heads that if you sell unlimited internet people are actually going to use it, and not just polish the cable modem and keep it on a sidetable.
Update: I had really expected things to get better. I was even starting to regret writing such a bad review of WorldCall, for I thought they would get better and no longer deserve such a bad review. Well, it seems I was wrong. Dead wrong. For the last 3 days their email server has been down. They did manage to get it working for an hour in between, but it conked out again. Internet not working I can understand, and WorldCall can come up with a thousand excuses. However, not being able to keep a simple email server up and running is just unbelievable! Providing an email service is one of the most important functions of an ISP. If for some reason their server goes down, there has to be a backup running. If they don’t have a backup running, then they should be running to the nearest shop and buying a pc to run the mail server on. In 3 days they haven’t managed to do this. Did I mention that their website has also been down, as they run everything on the same machine? (ed: As noted above)
While up till now I had overlooked/forgiven all their past mistakes, this one reeks to much to just let go.
Update: It’s November now, and WorldCall just doesn’t learn. Some WC users have had a number of meetings with them, and despite repeated promises there hasn’t been any progress. So, one of the WC users, King_Huzi got hold of a tech guy at WC:
bq.. I talked to our source in worldcall (u know who .. i wont mention him) … and he cleared a lot of points for me . I will discuss them in detail.
Worldcall uses a state-of-the-art HFC network capable of everythign that a foreign network can . It has the capability to have data upto 30 Gigabyte at a time so the 27 mbyte was a total bahana . The problem is not in PTCL or in the end-user but with worldcall itself and its workmanship . They have made a very good network but they are not maintaning it that well . Pings they receive from PTCL are in the 100-200 range like any good ISP but after passing through their network it goes to the high pings that we get . All the seniors at worldcall do not care about customers and consider us fools (The message about the anti-virus and ethernet-to-modem signifies that) .
1. The bad browsing is totally worldcalls fault .. it is because of their bad routing and general maintanence problems and the fact that they do not consider it a problem .
2. The high pings are also related completely to the routing problem … if they fix their routing we shud get ideal pings with no losses which is the standard of a HFC .
3. MSN … well .. it disconnects because there is too much lag between MSN servers and our end .. lag is the high amount of time that it takes for a request to go to a server and come back … at 200-300 pings MSN shud run like a charm .. but cus our pings are in the 1000-2000 range it often looses synchronization with the MSN servers .
4. Local speeds – This is completely and totally selfishness on WC part .. Last time they gave us a bullshit excuse that their HFC cannot take more than 27 megabyte of data at a time … If a HFC engineer will hear this he will go into a fit . They can give us like speeds in MB’s easily … cus HFC is a very powerful medium … So this is a demand we wont leave without getting result . Me n Mafia did some research on HFC and will brng proof that what we are askin is legit . And also people in WC confrmed our findings … that we can easily get high speeds on HFC WAN …
p. Dec 4 2003: In early November, 35 angry users stormed the WC offices to complain once again. This time around, they got hold of the MD and the CTO. After much arguing, WC finally admitted that they had problems and said they’ll do something about it. They seemed to have no idea whatsoever that there was something very wrong with their setup. ( Another unprofessional sign ). It was clear even to me ( and I don’t know much about networking ) that the problems were with their servers and routers, but they were in such a state of denial that getting them to admit their beloved network had problems was almost as hard as getting a smoker to quit.
Anyways, the outcome of all this was that they (once again) promised to fix the service. Some of the users ( If WC was listening ) gave them very good suggestions about how to relieve congestion on the international links by providing means to share content locally, and other suggestions. Some people were genuinely concerned about the level WC had sunk to, and seemed almost like people at a sick man’s bedside in the hospital, looking worried and everyone wanting to know when it would get well!
As of November 14th, it has been working a lot better. If it continues like this for 2 whole months, then I’ll update this review.
The purpose of this review was not to blast WorldCall, but to try to get them to sit up and take notice of all my complaints which for 7 months went completely unacknowledged. It is ironic that this article got published right after they did finally get around to fixing their many problems.
Email sent on April 23 2004 to WorldCall:
bq.. To whomever monitors this email:
For the last one week, my internet has been frequently down. Despite
numerous complaints over the telephone (111111925), nothing has been
resolved so far. I’ve been told on three occasions that a team will be
dispatched in 24 hours – this is on three different days.
My main grief is that Internet is not working most of the day. I have
to resort to dialup – which is especially galling as I am in essence
paying for an Internet service (Worldcall) which I am often not being
able to use.
Another major problem I have with your service is the support
personnel. They assume that every caller knows next to nothing about
computers and give out wrong advice. I understand that this must be
the case with many of your customers, but it is not true for all. For
those who are knowledgeable, it is extremely annoying being given
wrong or misguiding suggestions whose sole purpose is to get the
caller of the line. For those who are not computer literate, while
they may be satisfied with whatever they are told – as they don’t
understand most of it anyways – it is still morally and ethically
wrong to give them the run-around. It is also certainly not sound
business practice in any case.
Another suggestion I had made to you earlier was providing alternative
dialup connections to those customers who are experiencing problems
with their cable internet. You can use caller-id to tie these dialup
accounts to specific customers to limit abuse. In any case, no one
would want to use dialup when he has working cable internet. When it
is running, internet at 128 is a lot better than dialup, which is why
I am still a WorldCall subscriber. I just wish that once and for all
my internet problems could be fixed. Once again I will reiterate, as I
have done many times before, if you could have a system in place which
will inform affected users of outages in their areas beforehand than
most users, including me, would not get as upset as I have been the
past few days.
p. It’s almost like talking to a retarded child….
Update: See ‘WorldCall: Review Update’:http://ko.offroadpakistan.com/pakistan/2004_07/worldcall_review_update.html , posted July 10, 2004.
Comments on this entry are now closed. Please use the ‘forums’:http://ko.offroadpakistan.com/forums for any further discussion about WorldCall.
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i’ve read the article and all reviews above,
this page seems much better than the discussions held inside the worldcall forums,
i’ve been using worldcall in lahore since aug 5, 2003
my consistent problem has been the modem slowing down/ having to reset it
i guess that is because of signal loss, which could be anywhere in the path from their office down to your modem, the best i can do on my side is to keep the connections/jacks/splitters in good condition,
i guess their service varies from area to area, if your area people complain frequently, clearly and politely, i think things in your area will get fixed eventually
i dont think their cable tv is too great too, its good when you’re just browsing channels and listening news and stuff, but sit down and watch a movie for two hours and you will get interrupted a number of times, anyways, i dont watch tv that much so it doesnt bother me, just there was a post above that said tv service is excellent
recently our neighbor placed his own splitter in our cable line, he thought we wont mind their using it, i reported this to worldcall, and they were absolutely casual about it, one of them told me ‘chulnay dayn, kuchh naheen hota’ , i had to spend a whole day calling/going to their offices in my area and main office in gulberg, and finally round 6/7 pm their guy came and cut the neighbors’ splitter out, just mentioned because their approach in other matters is similar
i depend on my email a lot, i get lots of emails for my software projects, and from friends, family, clients, project websites, if my email is down my work gets affected, usually their reply to my complain on email is “bus? sirf email naheen chul rahee? “
i’ve been using isps in lahore since ever, since there used to be only Brain Net, i think Nexlinx, WOL and cybernet are great, worldcall is quite pathetic compared to them, i wish wol or nexlinx would start cable service, i just dont have an extra phone line , as soon as i have that, i’ll switch to dial up, yeah im lazy and i couldn’t get the phone line in the past year, but now with the rates going down at ptcl its a better alternative i think
about a bit different matter, there is a cable channel without any logo, it shows wonderful movies, on my tv it comes right after CNN and BBC, does anyone know this channel’s name? or if its movies’ schedule is available somewhere?
ko, its a good post, thanks
whew that was a long post… just finished reading it. I’ve also got “bus? sirf email naheen chul rahee? “ reactions from WorldCall… its their attitude which really annoyed me about this.
I don’t watch TV much, but the internet service has improved greatly. I figure the majority of their problems lie with line noise, which they don’t seem to really tackle.
I’ve been reading this review for a while now, and I thought I’d say my bit. Worldcall Cable TV is great, but their Internet (aaaaaaaaaaaargh!!!). Half the time it’s down, and when you call 111-111-925, they put you on hold for 20 minutes before you get a smart aleck guy to help you! It annoys me soooooooooooo much! I’m thinking of switching back to Cybernet! In fact, I definitely will!
new ‘development’
our tenants have subscribed for a new cable line finally,
but to my misery, the cable company has split our line at the pole, put a splitter on the pole, and given them the new line through that,
my download speed used to be around 7.5 kBytes/sec, and now its round 6.5 kBytes/sec,
i called world call, and they say i am ineligible to complain unless my download speed goes below 5 kBytes/sec, and that there is no signal loss due to the newly placed splitter, tomorrow im going to sell my three old monitors just lying around and take a step towards buying a new phone line and an internet connection with a reasonable ISP like WOL, nexlinx etc, if anyone has a better suggestion , then please let me know, thanks, sincerely
just got worldcall delayed it for a year due to bad reveiews and all i can say is its not the greatest thing on the face of the planet but its not THAT BAD its been very consistent at least here in clifton karachi
this is the third class internet service provider in the city making people with false presentations and publicity .i suggest govt should take serious actions agains them and should shut down all their offices in pakistan due to bad service and bad customer support , and doing fraud with the people of paskistan presenting a broad band company local isps speed is million time better then it 64 ks is worst speed ever any isp presents and illmanner staff who does not give the customer the support the customer required .
This thread of messages has been really helpful. I am a Software Engineer working in NYC. I am considering moving to Pakistan, Lahore that is. I am looking for a reasonably priced, fast and reliable internet connection. I will appreciate if someone could respond with an informative and helpful review of the ISPs in Lahore.
I’m in Defence, Tauheed Commercial… I got WorldCall 64K.. I got meetings and voice-chats almost daily. Uploads every 2 days for work and this is just AMAZING!.. I hate dialup! I have tried every single dialup ISP in this place since 1998… AND out of all the ISPs WC was the one who I had to call the least… I know there are allot of problems and all… but in the end its Pakistan!.. when I get back to Canada is when i enjoy the real shit.. BUT for this place!.. if your in my area.. go for it.. maybe cause we live close to the hub but its pretty good….
BUT this month has been the worst so I’m not happiest I can be.. but for here… we got long way to go and until then.. something IS better then nothing…
salam
i request worldcall to start shia channels due to mohram, its very shameful thing that this channel shows all sort of channels but nothing religious though this is a muslim country,
i hope u will start majlis n nohas soon ,n plz give some thing for islam also
thanks
neelam
Surprisingly worldcall is getting worst day by day !!!!
I read the whole review and its really strange that problem are still same and their responses on technical support 111111925 are same too. I think, they have learnt nothing with in a huge time of one and half year.
Their upload bandwidth is the worst in earth, I cant upload a few kb file to my server.
Surprisingly worldcall is getting worse day by day !!!!
I read the whole review and its really strange that problem are still same and their responses on technical support 111111925 are same too. I think, they have learnt nothing with in a huge time of one and half year.
Their upload bandwidth is the worst in earth, I cant upload a few kb file to my server.
Here’s the email I ve sent to worldcall after 15 days of their so called broadband use. It is self explanatory for all:
From: K.Alam
Date: 20 February 2005 03:00
To: cs@go4b.net
Subject:
My net stopped working on the afternoon of 17th Feb. I called two hours later and the person on the helpline tried to guide me for various checks on my system but to no avail. He promised someone would check my connection the next morning, as I mentioned to him that the ‘cable’ indication on my modem is off and probably due to high winds the cable has become loose from the electric pole. Nobody showed up the next morning i.e. 18th Feb I again got a call again from WorldCall and the person tried to repeat the steps for checking the settings on my pc/cable modem. I informed him that it has already been tried and hasnt worked. Yet he insisted and tried the procedure again. Then he informed me that in the evening someone will check the connection at your residence. Again no one came and I inspected the electric pole from the ground and saw several cables broken and hanging. I called the helpline and informed them of the damage to which the person replied that it will be taken care of first thing tomorrow morning i.e Feb 19th. Nothing happened today morning so I called again around 11 am to be told that it would be taken care of by evening. As usual nobody came and I made another call at 8 pm on which the person on the helpline asked me a couple of stupid questions such as when I informed him that the cable is broken so he asked me “then are you getting any internet at your home?”. He also asked me for my customer id which I have no idea of as to what it is and no one asked for it before. Then he asked me whether I have ever received a bill from worldcall for the services I am using. Finally he gave me a complaint number and when I asked him when this problem will be taken care of he replied that there is a three day holiday so it will be taken care of on tuesday the 22nd Feb.
I am disappointed at the pathetic state of affairs at worldcall. Apparently I am not the first one to receive this treatment as if you search on the internet you will find many forums full of complaints and lack of proper customer support / behaviour by worldcall personnel. And each of these people have done the same as what I am going to do. Say goodbye to worldcall broadband and start using unlimited dialup which costs less and works faster than the pathetic speed of worldcall broadband.
I am sure this email will neither have any affect on you people to try to improve your service and customer support nor will my discontinuing the service will affect your business as there are lots of crazies out there who are happy to have broadband which they dont realize is worse than the most pathetic dialup service available.
So only after 15 days of use I am saying goodbye to worldcall broadband and do not desire to see any of your technical personnel at my doorstep for fixing my cable.
I will quote this mail everywhere I can think of in Karachi to let those who havent gone for worldcall as yet to stay away from it.
Please consider this as a proper notice for discontinuation of broadband internet service.
Thank You
Hi,
Thanks for the detailed review.
My company was thinking of partnering with WorldCall in Pakistan to offer telephony services. It seems we should think long and hard about quality issues before we go ahead.
Regards,
Naveen Hussain
http://www.iphoneyou.co.uk
I have really valued this blog so I am going to paste a few interchanges I had with KO (here rather than “WC review update” b/c the last comment there is in Dec 04). First here’s one I wrote that got lost somehow:
I have read all the posts in the “Internet Connectivity” forum and the most recent posts in this one. I saw that there were a lot of complaints about Worldcall in ‘03-’04, but was surprised to read this most recent post of less than a week ago. I don’t know how to monitor Worldcall performance-wise as compared with dial-up. For me, it comes down to the fact that with Worldcall I have continuous internet access and tv as well, and internet use doesn’t interfere with my phone line (which is often full of static and sometimes totally down, requiring long waits and plenty of chae-pan for the lineman). A continuous DSL connection, if even available at this time in my area (DHA Ph. V), is too expensive, and the performance is questionable. I HAVE had horrendous customer service experience with Worldcall (though I have come to expect that anywhere in the country), but performance-wise I don’t have many complaints – maybe there is something I’m unaware of. I can’t really base my judgment on bandwidth speed tests, because I’ve tried running those at 3 different places and get radically different results for a 128 Kbps connection (shared with 10 other home users).
My most pragmatic test has been the use of a Vonage VoIP phone with a local U.S.-based number, and I get good call quality in the mornings, half-decent even at night when traffic is higher, I assume.
I am open to any enlightenment on this matter and interested to even cancel Worldcall if someone can convince me that there is a better ISP option for DHA Ph. V.
Sorry for the double-post – my browser was hanging (b/c I am using WC?!) so I clicked POST twice.
KO said he is using Cybernet DSL 128k in my area, so I asked him a few questions:
_Are you sharing the 128k DSL w/ 10 other users? Or 5?_
Cybernet says 4. Keep in mind that these figures are basically meaningless. decent isps based on the usage of their networks come to a ratio which delivers acceptable performance at the price level they can live with – it is not a figure set in stone, and should not be. Some months the isp will end up paying more, others less. The theory behind this ’sharing’ ratio is that most users don’t use the bandwidth they have, and hence isps can oversell – what pakistani isps don’t understand is that this ratio is fluid and has to be calculated according to their users. While some users utilize their connections a lot, others like me use under 0.1 percent – so it balances out. There is always the early adopter problem – which is that the initial wave of users tend to be the ones who will be really using their connections, and then as the service spreads out to regular users the average bandwidth utilization per user levels out. I think what happens here is that ISP’s are overly scared of the first initial wave which end up sucking up whatever bandwidth that ISP has.
_How does it compare to your 128k WC connection?_
Uncomparable. You know, out of 15 people I know (family, friends who I sometimes help with the computer issues) who had WorldCall internet, every single one including me has cancelled their WC internet service.
Their technical people (in my experience) have been mostly useless. Two years into the business, and WC still does not inform its customers about their *planned* network outages, forget about the numerous unplanned ones.
_How long & how much trouble did it take to get it set up?_
depends on your telephone line. mine took about a month from signing up. however, the actual work only takes a few days.
_Did you have to show the deed for the bungalow? We are tenants._
no. They actually didn’t ask for anything besides an id card.
_Do you happen to know if Cybernet is giving out new connections now?_
Not sure. they have a very large backlog right now, a few months.
_Did you get an ADSL line so you could use the phone?_
ADSL is the name of the technology. It works on your existing phone line. When you shifted from analog mobiles to gsm, you used the same air right?
_I am open to any enlightenment on this matter and interested to even cancel Worldcall if someone can convince me that there is a better ISP option for DHA Ph. V._
I think it will take some time yet before there are options. Right now all the ISPs are concentrating on the corporate market. DSL is an option, but currently I know of only Cybernet who’re offering an affordable 128k connection (Rs. 2270), but they have a long backlog, and haven’t yet publicly launched their home service yet.
Slam
Plz tell me your Phone No
we are required internet cable at saddar (fleet club)we are looking your No. But fail
Answer as soon as Possible
Slam
Dear KO,
I returned from USA back to Karachi after a long time. I was used to a 45 mps backbone at the university there and was naturally, horrified at the state of interconnectivity in Pakistan. A 5 MB mp3 song used to take 10 seconds to d/l. Here, with a telephone line full of static, 20 minutes to half an hour, in the middle of the night, if you’re lucky. So ofcourse, when WorldCall started bandying about terms like ‘Broadband’, I was ecstatic. My experience with them, was not much different from that of yours. I have shopped all over the place (Paknet DSL, Dancom, etc), but these are all sub-standard, unreliable services managed by buffoons who should only be allowed to manage…buffaloes.
Last week I visited GoCDMA at their Boating Basin HQ to inquire about their wireless internet service. The same breed of clueless, careless and corrupt morons are managing this wireless technology. However, at 4:45pm on their demo PC in the shop, they showed it to be connected to the internet at 115.00 kbps (although it took them 5 mins to bring up the CNN website).
The CDMA set that is internet-ready costs Rs. 5000/-. Then you buy internet cards worth 500, 1000 and 1500 (unlimited) per month. This MAY be what we’ve ALL been looking for…but then again, maybe it’s another WC. Only time will tell. But I would like the readers to keep their eyes open and if they hear something, anything regarding this technology, to hook us up here.
Love your weblog and the reader feedbacks. Keep them coming. It’s comforting to know that you’re not alone in your misery.
Hi Adnan,
Some people have posted their ‘GoCDMA views here’:http://ko.offroadpakistan.com/pakistan/2005_01/internet_connectivity_in_pakistan.html.
By the way, 115.00 kbps is just the connection from the pc to the modem, not to the internet. Yes, the reader feedbacks are sometimes really informative.
GAB: _Bottom line: Get a life guys and girls! It’s all a case of pros and cons! You don’t like WC? Switch! Simple as that!_
Switched, but it’s not that easy when there aren’t any alternatives.
will anybody tell me whtz wit thiz world call phone thing. how do u get thiz whtz itz tarrif.wht advantage am i gona get from it.iz it gona replace ptcl
Worldcall: Keeping our promise 4 a worse life.. than eva..! WORLDCALL SUX…. the most KHASSIEST service.. and the customer helpline is the lamest.. insult em and they’ll do ur work.. thats the way i get my things done..!!!
urmm Rafia its better not to think about replacing ur PTCl phone with WC TRING TRING freephones (false advertisements)!!!
Btw, I have come to know of a few people who work at WorldCall (2 Talwarien) Clifton office, in various technical capacities. The upper mgmt really does not care about us, ‘the customer’. *Really* they don’t . The inner workings, the office politics, their technical priorities have really disgusted these folks and at this time, ALL of them are looking to move to other places (even for lesser pay!).
It’s really sad. And here, I had such high hopes for this company. Was really rooting for it to succeed. It turned out to be another mirage.
has anybody tried the 3C deal from Inbox. Is GoCDMA really that bad. I never had a chance to try the service because the friggn guy never came over with the GoCDMA phone.
WC is too slow man.
nice review
though i have to say i’ve been using world call for 2 years now and have never encountered so many prblems.
i have a 64 k connection with them and honestly i’ve gotten 300 KB/sec download speeds over filesharing ( bit torrent). about the ping i am surprised bout that.
i get 200- 300 pings with xbox player in usa when i play online so i am surprised and uc get 200 from ptcl. is that infocorrect.
Comments on this entry are now closed. Please use the ‘tech forums’:http://ko.offroadpakistan.com/forums for any further discussion regarding WorldCall. Also see See ‘WorldCall: Review Update’:http://ko.offroadpakistan.com/pakistan/2004_07/worldcall_review_update.html , posted July 10, 2004.