March 12, 2010
Q: It doesn’t seem right that Americable holds a monopoly on Internet service for the bases and offers substandard service and expensive prices.
We pay for Internet service speeds that we are not even getting. Why is this happening and why is nothing being done about it?

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A: Americable does not have a monopoly on Internet service for the Navy bases. In fact, SoftBank (formerly JENS) also offers Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) service and when Americable initially began offering Internet service in 2003, all customers were SoftBank DSL customers.

I believe you can still purchase the J-Spot cards or have the service in your home from them. You can also pay approximately $65 per month for a cellular device that will provide internet access here in Japan from a variety of vendors.

We did begin experiencing network congestion during the peak times of 8 to 11 p.m. in late November when the fleet returned. Americable is in the final phase of a three-step plan to address this issue. Specifically, in November we installed new software which enables us to better monitor and control network traffic. In mid-January, we installed new equipment which doubled the capacity of our infrastructure on the Yokosuka and Atsugi bases.

After the installation of this equipment, we no longer see any congestion within our plant. However, the third phase of the plan includes doubling the size of our connection to the Internet gateway. We ordered this new circuit in December and our vendor has completed their initial survey and levels checks but has yet to provide us with a firm installation date.

Due to the size of the circuit we have ordered, our vendor must bring additional fiber onto the base and their tentative projected installation date is early April but we are pressing them to move this date up. Finally, neither Americable nor any other Internet Service Provider guarantees speed. If you are leasing a circuit and not just a service (usually for business purposes and even then there is language in the service level agreement regarding overhead and other factors that may affect speed), the pricing increases dramatically.

We pay our vendor for a leased circuit and even with the prices we must pay them there are still times when they must do maintenance and replace equipment.

Even though our speeds are quoted as BE (Best Effort) and you receive those speeds most of the time, they may be less during high traffic periods but we believe that the final phase of our upgrade will remedy even this issue.

They better hope the spokesperson isn't talking out of his ass. >.<

So because we can get internet off our phones or DSL they're not considering themselves a monopoly? Um, it's obvious we have considered them a monopoly with home cable because that is what MOST people want in their homes (since "faster" options aren't available), and there is no other company providing this.

And there is no way we get the speeds we pay for "most of the time". I've done speed tests many of times and it usually comes to half what I'm paying for, nor have I seen what I'm paying for one single time. It nearly never goes over 10 Mb/s.

I will give them that I have seen a change since they have implemented these "steps". Around the Holidays the Internet was a crawl, it is now usable.

where did the answer come from?

Doc

Q & A From Official Yokosuka Seahawk Newspaper | Answers Are Official. Do you agree with answers?


This entire section of Q:A goes back 3 years. They are all official answers and questions released from the base PAO office.

So the spokesman "believes" that we have the option to get SoftBank DSL in our residence? Would be nice to know that for a fact or not without ME having to do the legwork to find out. That is why I am assuming this is Americable talking in this response because they wont tell us about that for sure and it keeps saying "we" this and "we" that as they are telling half truths.

Yes internet was realllly bad when the fleet came back, and now it is just bad. But isnt this a Navy base which has a fleet? I dont understand how they seemed shocked this happened, like it was an unexpected event that now they need to react to? Its like, "our service is great when half the people paying us arent here". what is THAT? Our service sucked a lot but now it only sucks a little, can you count that as an improvement? still sucks, right?

and that BE stuff, well it is BS. We have never gotten anything close to that. They have5MB, 10MB and 15MB packages yet to hear them tell it, you just get what you get. You would think it would be 0-5MB, 5-10MB and 10MB-15MB then. not 0-15MB as BE no matter what you are paying for.

If anyone reading this, THAT is what we are talking about when not getting what we pay for. If I am paying for 15MB I shouldnt be getting 3MB or less 90% of the time. If that is the case, what are the 5MB people getting? OK waiting for early April to see if this promised upgrade actually happens.



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Official Q&A right there at the top of the forum. That'll teach me. RTFM right?

I have not been here long enough to comment on how the internet service performed over the holidays or improved with the updates. What I can say is that I expected to get the famously speedy Japanese web speeds and that is not what we have. Speed test says that the speeds are well below the ISP average.

Doc

yep, its the PEAK hour of 1am now (LOL) and I am getting a "blazing" 5.8MB on a 15MB plan. But thats ok, they are making a "best effort"! That B.E. stuff is more like you should be getting 15 and you get 12 from time to time, I would accept that reason but it is much worse degradation than that.

Next we are gonna hear that the speed tests are "not really an accurate reflection of your actual speed due to (insert BS reason)" OK gonna shut up on this subject until mid April to see if they do what they say they will.
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Everyone should monitor and screen shot speed test 3-5 times a day for a month... and everyone mail all the images and data to America Cable, the Seahawk, Stars and Stripes =)

I'm paying for the premium package, 15mb, and the fastest I've seen is about 1400/sec....so?

Americable needs competition to provide better service..otherwise, where's the motivation?

I assume the original post came out of the Sea-Rag, the propaganda paper for the base which is a waste of paper in my opinion. Anyway, it's interesting that the Editor of this poor excuse of a news publication doesn't have the common sense to ensure that all the article have a name/rank/and phone number of the person who writes this dribble so people know who to complain to or follow-up. It's not Rocket Science dude.

It's also not a COMMERCIAL endeavor. It's a military, and more specifically, a base supported newspaper.

Sounds like a lot of damage control to me. Perhaps they don't want a repeat of the Yokota AB incident where they were essentially shut down. I understand that they probably need more fiber to the base. Japan has one of the largest if not the largest fiber network in the world, can't be that hard to get more on this base. If Americable couldn't see the internet growth/trends torwards a more robust, media rich, content intensive, internet that was barreling down the pipes like a freight train more than 5 years ago, and that they would have to adapt with it then they have no future in the cable internet or communications buisness.
Without real CABLE internet/tv competition here on the base they have little to no motivation to continually upgrade and provide the advertised services. Instead they will continue the "Good enough to sooth the savage beast for now." mentality they have had in the past. They will do the upgrades. The internet on base will improve "enough for now" again, and the "savage beast" will be satiated for the time being.

Will the customer service improve?
Will we get the speeds we are paying for and not their "Best Effort"?
Will we still pay premium prices for substandard cable programming and ISP?
These are the real questions the wonderful propaganda rag needs to ask.

EDIT: As I do not currently have the Cable service other than what is offered in the Lodge. Can someone tell me if they offer any HD channels? I'd be willing to bet the answer is no or extremely limited.

You are finally in the Lodge AZ? When did you guys get in?

we got here 1 week and 2 hours ago. =)

I haven't been able to watch anything on the computer for two days.....

Get Stoned: What are they saying when you call the support line?

Haven't called...will try tomorrow!

And no HD

Sigh... sounds distressingly similar to the scam being run on GTMO.

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010...band-test/

They are an American Company and the Base is Technically American Soil... sick the FCC on them.

I tried it on GTMO.  No luck.  FCC sent me a nice form letter saying that it was out of their jurisdiction.

just tested.....4486 kbps download
920 kbps upload

and we're paying for the 15 mb package

how do u test? i know that the link was posted on here before.. sorry

I don't live on base, but if I did, here's my take... I know what they say, but I will assume that Americable has a contract to provide these services to the bases(s). If it is a contract, and they aren't providing the service per the contract, they should correct it or the government should cancel it. I'd be filing complaints to CFAY or whomever, especially if you're not seeing the speeds that you're paying for.

broadband.gov

enter in your address, street with zip, and it'll give you results

Not sure about calling them, but I have been waiting for 38 minutes to "chat with our technical support staff in real time." I guess real time means when they have time or when they give a damn; which if you have lived here for more than 3 weeks, you know they don't.

Hi Adam,



I cannot figure out to how stop notifications from these forums. Where do I go on my profile to remove them?

Thanks,

Erin



From: yokosukaqa@japanbases.com
To: erinklamb@hotmail.com
Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 08:50:51 +0900
Subject: RE: Americable Monopoly on Internet Services For The Japan Bases [00002390:00010503]

A message was posted to a forum you are tracking.





ET2/SS Alexander Posted:14 Mar 2010 08:50 AM
Subject: RE: Americable Monopoly on Internet Services For The Japan Bases

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010...band-test/

They are an American Company and the Base is Technically American Soil... sick the FCC on them.

To view the complete thread and reply, please visit: http://japanbases.com/home/forums/a...10503.aspx

Thank you, Japan's Military Base Community
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Erin, did you track this forum or are you getting notifications for everything? If it's just this topic, look underneath the title of this topic at the top. There should be a box to the left with a check mark, and next to it it says "You are subscribed to this topic.". If you click on the check mark it should stop the subscription and notifications for this topic.

If you're having more trouble than that... I'll let Adam handle it, Lol.