MIO oh my
MIO looks good on paper. It also can help to bring down your phone bill. However I'm not impressed by the performance. MIO suffers from the general congestion that plagues the Singtel connectivity. Also my installation is plagued by wireless problems. After a while the DHCP server will stop responding on the wireless network. It still works on the wire. Resetting the MIO box remedies the problem -- for a while. The ADSL modem router is a 2Wire 2700HGV-2 suitable for ADSL2+ and in theory capable of 25Mbit downstream (I subscribed to 10MBit).
So I called the MIO hotline. After the usual voice menu hell (why don't they publish the direct destination numbers on the website?) I talked to a support officer. He offered me to use a remote control software to take over the PC and check all the settings. Since the work laptop was connected to the wire I had to refuse. There is a rather clear IBM policy about that. Seems that support is getting better equipped. I explained the problem in detail: DHCP is not working, configuring manual IP addresses let me surf happily. I further explained, that all machines I have with all operating systems (Windows, Linux and OS/X) show the same symptoms. Obviously presenting a problem analysis threw him off the book and he insisted in checking the PC settings being blissfully unaware that Thinkpads are configured differently (using Thinkvantage for wireless network management).
Running out of options he suggested to reset the wireless to its default settings. I remarked: resetting will remove the problem for a while but not solve it. So it will be off his list but not solved.
Finally he concluded: "You need to call the modem vendor". I replied: "I'm calling the modem vendor, there is a Singtel sticker on it, I pay Singtel for it and a Singtel engineer installed it in my house, are you telling me that I have to call a third party to get that sorted out?". Sensing my unhappiness he suggested, that can arrange for a call back but it might take a while. So I'm waiting. At the end of the day the modem unit needs to be replaced (unless a firmware update could fix it). I'm curious how many hoops and loops I have to go through until that happens.
So I called the MIO hotline. After the usual voice menu hell (why don't they publish the direct destination numbers on the website?) I talked to a support officer. He offered me to use a remote control software to take over the PC and check all the settings. Since the work laptop was connected to the wire I had to refuse. There is a rather clear IBM policy about that. Seems that support is getting better equipped. I explained the problem in detail: DHCP is not working, configuring manual IP addresses let me surf happily. I further explained, that all machines I have with all operating systems (Windows, Linux and OS/X) show the same symptoms. Obviously presenting a problem analysis threw him off the book and he insisted in checking the PC settings being blissfully unaware that Thinkpads are configured differently (using Thinkvantage for wireless network management).
Running out of options he suggested to reset the wireless to its default settings. I remarked: resetting will remove the problem for a while but not solve it. So it will be off his list but not solved.
Finally he concluded: "You need to call the modem vendor". I replied: "I'm calling the modem vendor, there is a Singtel sticker on it, I pay Singtel for it and a Singtel engineer installed it in my house, are you telling me that I have to call a third party to get that sorted out?". Sensing my unhappiness he suggested, that can arrange for a call back but it might take a while. So I'm waiting. At the end of the day the modem unit needs to be replaced (unless a firmware update could fix it). I'm curious how many hoops and loops I have to go through until that happens.
Posted by Stephan H Wissel on 07 October 2007 | Comments (0) | categories: Buying Broadband