My current internet connection is normally rated at 128kbit/sec. They have the cheek to advertise this as unlimited broadband. For starters, an internet connection that is no fast than dual channel ISDN, and isn’t capable of playing many online radios does not seem so broad to me. Secondly, their definition of unlimited somehow equates to 10Gb of down or uploads in one month. Once you pass that gargantuan (LMAO) amount, the internet connection is further throttled down to 32 kbit/sec. That is worse than most old 56k dial up connections! All this makes getting the good jobs quite difficult online, as those with faster connections are able to reserve jobs before this PC’s browser has even opened up the initial page.
All said though, we do at least have ADSL here now, I remember when we first arrived it was strictly dial up only, and the large phone bills that would follow a few late nights online. The WiMax trial that was mentioned some 18 months ago was never completed in this area of town, so the only hope really is that the ISP will get a little more realistic in both terms of speed, and also monthly bandwidth caps.
Mar 26 2008
May 30th, 2008 7:55 am
Oh boy, oh boy.. sounds a little bit like my story with Kazaktelekom’s MegaLine!.. :)) I felt your pain in all of your posts. regarding DSL over there. I was so used to Verizon’s DSL, which was 3 Mbps with a truly “gargantuan” amount of up/downstream data, that going to 256 kbit was like hitting a brick wall at 60 miles an hour.. and then there is the fact of being throttled. I use VoIP a lot.. so it doesn’t take me long to go over the limit. At that point, not even Google.kz 😉 loads properly. I am assuming that you live in Almaty or Astana (the latter, probably, judging from your comments on “three marked lanes do not strictly equal three _real_ lanes of traffic”.. sometimes four… sometimes five, which scares the living daylights out of me, especially in Almaty)?
I was just browsing for “megaline vci vpi setup” in Google, when I happened to stumble onto your blog, which I enjoyed reading tremendously.. 🙂 Just as an FYI (if you are interested), the curtains in the back are adapted from the old Soviet times, when government officials were driven around in Volgas, lacking tinted windows :). They were to prevent the officials from being seen. I have no idea why these curtains are still around. Totally un-cool, if you ask me ;). On the other hand, by driving in Kz, you will be the best driver in the UK, once you get back.. :)) Good luck with everything!
June 3rd, 2008 9:49 pm
Spooky timing with your comment on this slightly old post – as the 1st June 4.10am saw Megaline double their speeds! We now have around 256kbit up+down, though I believe the original data cap limits still sadly apply.
One thing worth trying out in this country is changing your DNS servers. I don’t know whether this is just because we go via a different company’s network hardware, but when I use OpenDNS’s servers, I find look ups are a lot more reliable and normally a little quicker. I’ll try and make a post on this later tonight/tomorrow.
Yes, you’re right, we do live in Astana, and it is nice to see the original Kazakhstan posts I wrote to inform family and friends back in the UK are still getting read. Did you arrive at them via the Kazakhstan 101 page?
Do you still need any assistance with VCI/VPI settings for Megaline? Let me know if so, though again I’m not certain if my settings are the same as direct Megaline customers. I can check in with the mother-in-law’s PC this weekend to confirm, as she is definitely a direct customer. I doubt I’ll ever drive regularly here – I will happily drive if there is some sort of emergency, but day to day driving, I’m not so happy with. All that is a pretty mute point anyway, as we don’t yet have a car 🙂
June 8th, 2008 5:05 pm
Hey Chris!..
Thanks for your message.. I just got in to Almaty on the 3rd of June and was pleasantly surprised about the speed increase (spooky indeed! 🙂 I placed a request with Megaline for my flat in Almaty.. and was faced with yet another problem: it takes quite a while for them to enable the service (although I have no clue about what exactly happens in those 3-10 business days between the time of your request and when you can utter than sigh of relief and browse to Google.kz.. 🙂 They promised to enable everything by Tuesday morning, although I somehow highly doubt that this will happen as promised. When I will be up and running I will still need your help in setting the correct VPI/VCI values! 🙂 I am so glad that I finally found someone who knows what they are doing! 🙂 In talking with the Megaline folks in AlmatyTelekom on Friday, I was astounded by their response to my VPI/VCI question: “I don’t know what that is.. If you can’t set up the modem yourself, you can get a technician to set it up for you (for an equivalent of $20).” Oh-kay. I don’t think that I am that computer-illiterate, but the VPI/VCI values seem to be kept a government secret around here. Every time I call Megaline support, I seem to get varying answers: 0/33, 0/35, 0/40, 8/35. I brought a modem from the states, two, actually.. so I’m really crossing my fingers that they will work here: one of them is a Verizon Westell 6100 with a set VPI/VCI of 0/35 and another is a BellSouth (SBC) Siemens SpeedStream 4100, which seems to have the option of setting custom VPI/VCI values (again, crossing my fingers here, as I don’t really feel like dropping another $50 on a modem that is unlikely to be used anywhere else.. ever..).
As for now, I got myself a $15 Internet card with Nursat. I have to reconnect every few minutes and the DNS lookups take absolutely forever, but this will do for now. Speaking of DNS lookups, thanks for the DNS tip! I wouldn’t rely on their DNS servers for a minute. When I was visiting Russia (Nizhniy Novgorod), their aDSL provider always had poisoned DNS servers, which brought you to various “interesting” pages.
Now, I’ve read that you do BitTorrent.. Is that okay around here? I know that your speed will drop to sub-dialup levels after exceeding the “unlimited” limit, but are there any other strings attached to using it on Megaline’s network?
I arrived upon your pages, ironically, after searching for “Megaline Kazakhstan VPI/VCI settings” in Google. I think that your blog was one of the top (if not the very first one) among the search results… 🙂
Are you living in Kazakhstan for good? Or are you planning on moving back to the UK in the very near future?
Thanks for your help!
Kind Regards,
Akhan.
June 9th, 2008 10:02 pm
Just to add to your mix, I have a PPPoE connection, with a VPI of 40, and a VCI of 0 … HOWEVER, I do NOT have a direct connection to Megaline, I have to go through some network hardware that belongs to the telecoms company that is responsible for the blocks of flats in our area. Basically, I wouldn’t be surprised if ‘normal’ Megaline customers, who have a Kazakh Telecom phone line, don’t use those settings. My mother-in-law is a customer like that, but her PC and other hardware is all disconnected and packed away right now; once they’ve finished redecorating the house, I’ll be reconnecting it all, and can check for you then. Who knows, perhaps the setup is different with Almaty’s exchanges anyway?
Re. the delay in waiting for ADSL to be enabled on your line, this is by no means a Kazakh phenomena – last time I did this in Britain, it took three weeks!
Re. the clueless tech support/customer service staff you encountered, they aren’t quite that bad in Britain (I used to do 2nd line support for some ISPs a few years back), but I tend to trust info on company’s web sites, or even more preferably, other customer’s knowledge on forums etc.
Re. Bit Torrents, I hope for your sake that my problems are down to the aforementioned extra hoops my phone line has to go through with the apartment telecom company, but when using torrents, although I have no issue with speed per se, my entire connection drops to 0Kb/sec every minute or so, for up to 20 seconds. After this is over, the torrent continues downloading, and sometimes goes for 5 minutes without another problem.
Finally, Kazakhstan won’t be our home for good, we’ve lived here for a little over two years now, and at some point we will be moving back to Britain, but no immediate plans. np re. the help 🙂
June 10th, 2008 4:57 pm
And.. (drum-roll) after a day of struggling, it works! It turned out that Megaline does, in fact, have VPI/VCI values of 0/40, just like you have mentioned. I think that I am not a direct Megaline customer.. not a direct KazakhTelekom customer anyway, since I go through AlmatyTelekom’s equipment for everything. I was awed, when they set up DSL on a pulse dial-only line. I thought that this was near impossible to do!
Although, my modem is still not able to keep a constant connection when you specify the username and password in the configuration page. I have to use my Linksys WRT54GS to maintain a constant PPPoE connection. So far, I’m flying.. and my Vonage service works fine.. I’m very surprised. I guess I imagined things to be a lot worse than they actually are, judging from last year’s hassle with getting everything set-up.. 🙂
Good luck with all your future endeavors!
June 10th, 2008 9:53 pm
Congrats on the connection 🙂
June 11th, 2008 2:16 am
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