WiFi Update March 15,
2010
SERVICE
QUALITY AND SPEED
Many
of you know we have been disappointed with our Internet
Service Provider (ISP), Mediacom. Most of our
disappointment relates to the speed and service
quality. Although it would not be fair to blame
Mediacom for all of our WiFi problems, they are
responsible for most of our service outages and speed
related issues. We have PROVEN the speed problems to
belong to Mediacom (see next paragraph). They simply do
not have enough bandwidth/capacity on their network to
handle peak hours of the day. This is true for most of
Apache Junction, not just Roadhaven. They have recently
replaced the Management team in Arizona and Southern
California and have promised to address the issues
related to our problems. We certainly hope this is the
case going forward.
As of
now, we have a contract with Mediacom to provide one,
10/1.5 (10Mbps download/1.5 Mbps upload) ISP service
point per service zone (East, West, North, South). We
run periodic tests on the speed at various zones
throughout the park and have never experienced that
speed. At peak times, the speed has degraded to less
than 1Mbps which of course has a big impact on the speed
of the WiFi network here in the park.
Mediacom has made a new service pledge to us. They are
committed to improve service quality (outages) and
improve the speed from 10/1.5 to 20/2, and eventually,
to 50/2 which is 5-times the speed we currently have.
IF, and notice the IF is in CAPITAL LETTERS, they are
able to deliver on their promise, we are
certain it will
drastically improve the WiFi service you receive in the
park. We do not have any other ISP options at this time
and certainly hope Mediacom is able to do what they say
they will do.
SUMMER
SERVICE
We
plan to keep the park WiFi service up over the summer
months. We will lower the speed to reduce costs but it
should have no impact on the smaller number of summer
users. Maintaining service over the summer will allow
system upgrades to continue and support a smooth
migration to the busy season in the fall. We will
increase the speed in November to insure adequate
bandwidth for the busy season. If the new 50Mbps speed
is available we will increase to that speed.
2010-11
TICKET RATES
We
will have three tiers of WiFi pricing beginning in July
of 2010. A new Annual ticket will be offered at $40.
This ticket will be good for the entire season. Monthly
tickets will remain fixed at $15, and a new Weekly
ticket will be offered for $10. We have also increased
the test period from 15 minutes to 1 hour to allow you
to verify your ability to connect.
The
WiFi team would like to thank all of you for your
patience and understanding as we continue to implement
and improve the Roadhaven WiFi network. |
