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Aston University, Birmingham

Birmingham

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Internet In Rooms At Aston

kevinciorra

WARNING!!! :eek:

KEYSURF (aka Keycom) INTERNET was awful last year, :mad:

It was installed two years ago and suffered "teething problems" in the first year.We were told that they would fix all problems and it would work fine last year, but it did not.

It will work well in the first few weeks, but it gets worse.
In the first days I was watching movies online and playing games (Americas army...etc...) but within a month the internet had got so bad I couldn’t open my emails. I tried to log on to my bank account, it took ten minutes to load the three pages of security checks before it finally said page unavailable. That is not high speed!!

In some rooms it works great, one friend I had got faster transfer speeds than she paid for. 200 people I saw signed saying how awful it was, and more would have signed but I could only gather so many signatures.

INTERNET IS FREE :smile:

In the library FREE access to WIFI (wireless internet). Also all uni pc's are linked to a decent high speed connection. A download I started in a friends room said it would take 2 hours 15 mins to complete. In the main building it took less than five seconds!

Save your money, Buy a memory stick, read emails in the main building, chat on msn in the main building, but don’t waste the time on it in your own room.

I am still at Aston uni,(doin Product Design & Management) I organised a petition against Keycom last year and after lots of hard work and going to their head office in Stafford (the town not the tower) I managed to get only half my money back.

When it comes to exam times and you want to download papers, the last thing you want to happen is for your internet to crash. Everyone will be trying to download papers and the internet service was non existent at peak times for me.
Its not worth the stress!

I have been told by uni authorities that they will watch Keysurf closely this year. If you have any trouble with Keycom that is not resolved through their helpdesks then do speak to residential services. The quicker you write demanding your money back, the more likely you will receive it. I was told by Keycom's chairman the only way i would have got all my money back is if I had written within to their head office the first week demanding it!
MAKE SURE ALL LETTERS ARE SENT RECORDED DELIVERY AND YOU KEEP COPIES, it increases their legal standing.

a report of the problems can be seen on;
http://www-users.aston.ac.uk/~ciorraka/0605%20The%20Keycom%20Report.mht
The report is a bit messy and hard to follow but for readers who want proof read it.

pics from the protest

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Reply 1

futurist

Forgive me if I sound a bit daft for asking this but can I use the internet in the library on my laptop??

Aston University, Birmingham

Birmingham

Reply 2

kevinciorra

yes if you have a wireless network adapter on the laptop. You can buy USB network adapters from argos for £20

:smile:

Reply 3

Ay786

Why cant aston do something about it then and change?

Telewest, BT etc are very good especially telewest and even Sky broadband as well not too mention its one of the cheapest. I think personally Aston should ditch the company if its like this because i need my internet as im sure most others who will be joining will also need it.

Reply 4

chilin_dude

Ay786

I take it you can't get private internet then? I want to sign up to bulldog in my room!

Reply 5

Alchemy

Indeed you cant have private net providers. No Wire connections.

Reply 6

kevinciorra

You will have to cope without internet in your room.
Trust thats better than thinking you got it in your room, when it never works proper... sucha a waste of time.
In ur second years go live off campus and then you can get decent internet!!

Reply 7

Alchemy

imo, the main problem with Keysurf was that it wasnt consistent. I often leave programs idling all the time and would return to find them disconnected. At some points, those who dont have a high download demands could quite easily work with the internet provided.

However, the fact is, the service is NOT good enough for a university campus, and is NOT value for money. The contract they hold with the university should be cut in my opinion, but until then, theres precious little alternative other than going to the library or computer clusters when you need to use the internet.

Reply 8

uni guy

Was the internet really bad in all the halls?
And is it broadband?
And also, how much does it cost per week/month?

Reply 9

Lil Lee Lee

It's far too expensive for what you get, can't remember exactly but about £10 a mont or something, anyone else remember? You can also pay for the whole year at once.

There's no real point in getting the faster speed, they perform to the exact same low standard, but it's supposed to be broadband.

If you're not going to be downloading all the time, you can work with it most of the time, but it's incredibly slow.

Reply 10

J4ME5

Get some computer science guys to hax0r their servers :P

Reply 11

Ay786

Im going to be doing Computer Science - Only solution i can recommend - Blow up the servers and get some new ones in :biggrin:

Reply 12

chilin_dude

This may sound geekish - But will we be able to use xbox live and such?

Reply 13

Lil Lee Lee

Only WiFi works there, there's no lines to plug anything in

Reply 14

Ay786

So do we need our own wireless internet cards then or will they provide them?

Reply 15

kevinciorra

£85 for a year 256kbps at aston
£150 for a year 512kbps at aston
have to buy your own wireless network cards (argos is cheapiest)

N.B I have been told that;
" they may say you need special network cards, that was coz they were selling old models of network cards in campus shop, where as computer shop in the main building was selling nearer models at half the price (a fare price). People were being tricked into buying the more expensive ones from the campus shop as Keycom had a cut in the profits. "

Nottingham uni charge £80 a year, and get 1.5 mbps true download speeds and 10 meg lan to play with other campas people for file transfer and gaming with poweb.

Solution is to just use uni facililtys in main build and transfer files with memory sticks.

N.B we were sold 256 connection, i rarely received faster than 20 kbps, and that was when it was working. (first few weeks were the exception as it worked ok)

The way it appears to work is in pulses, so you would get 10 seconds of activity folowed by two mins of no connection, rubbish for MSN, Video streaming and gaming.

The system will stay till the buidlings are torn down in 5 years. It looked too expensive to wire all the buildings up if they are going to be torn down so soon. But we are students paying them for a service(via tuition fees), surely that should be taken into consideration? Especially seeing all you guys are paying 3 times more tuition fees than ever before.

Reply 16

Ay786

Is the internet in the halls wireless or cable?

Reply 17

kevinciorra

chilin_dude

This may sound geekish - But will we be able to use xbox live and such?

lol
if only!!!

we are talking about such bad connectivity web sites are "slower than dial up" to load... "keysurf is the definition of LAG, trust"(anon)

Reply 18

kevinciorra

Ay786

Is the internet in the halls wireless or cable?

yes its all wireless tho wired did exist (according to a guy from uni who wants to remain anon) in lakeside. It was all removed as people only paid for one connection and were connecting routers to it and sharing it.

Reply 19

Ay786

Do they provide you with the wireless card then?

Internet In Rooms At Aston

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