Affordable Personal TV & Internet in Afghanistan

[Nfld Sapper]

did you expect more from Sappers? jk

That's nice to know, are there plug ins everywhere or just in a central location?

Shouldn't you concentrate on your job rather that what creature features may or may not be present at the FOB's or Strong Points.

My  :2c:

 

[NL_engineer]

Shouldn't you concentrate on your job rather that what creature features may or may not be present at the FOB's or Strong Points.

My  :2c:

well we have been doing that for the past year  :, and its nice to know what is there to communicate (read as watch youtube) during our off time  ;D.

 

[PuckChaser]

Some people don't realize that there is a war going on and it's a nicety...not a necessity.

I don't think truer words have been spoken. I remember hearing grumblings that the internet wouldn't work during a Comms Lockdown, both mostly at KAF but some other places too. People easily forget the reason there's a comms lockdown is because one of the 2,500 Canadians they deployed with is in Landstuhl or a flag-drapped box.

 

[Franko]

I don't think truer words have been spoken. I remember hearing grumblings that the internet wouldn't work during a Comms Lockdown, both mostly at KAF but some other places too. People easily forget the reason there's a comms lockdown is because one of the 2,500 Canadians they deployed with is in Landstuhl or a flag-drapped box.

You should have seen the look on some people's faces when I told them to GTFO so I could lock 'em up.

"Why do we have to get off?" was the most common thing said...by those same people you are replacing NL_engineer.

Needless to say I don't hold them in very high regard, but that's another topic all together.

Regards

 

[MOOXE]

http://www.satsig.net/ivsat2.htm

Those services sound pretty good. I emailed them some questions about personal internet. From the looks of it they outfit many US Serviceman already, in Iraq.

 

[MOOXE]

This is a good solution for a small section to split on. Hardware comes free for US Military. I did mention I was in the Canadian Army and the offer was extended to me also. All you have to do is purchase, set up the dish, and you have high speed.

 

[eurowing]

You should have seen the look on some people's faces when I told them to GTFO so I could lock 'em up.

"Why do we have to get off?" was the most common thing said...by those same people you are replacing NL_engineer.

Needless to say I don't hold them in very high regard, but that's another topic all together.

Regards

Quite frankly, the lockdown is fairly pointless in KAF.  Freedomnet at the boardwalk is not shut down, nor are any of the local internet providers.  Also, the proliferation of Roshan cell phones at .25 cents per minute negates all the effort put forth to lock it.  You would have to be some kind of idiot to tell family or friends anything has happened until it hits the news anyway. 

 

[Loachman]

KAF - All shacks (AFAIK) are wired to recieve your AAFES internet and cable TV. Internet starts at 70 USD per month, add another 15 USD and you get cable TV with a bunch of channels. This internet is unfiltered, non firewalled do whatchuwant style, the speed is anywhere from mere bytes to 30kb/sec.

AAFES? I don't think that there's any connection there. I didn't see any sign of one, and I'd expect much, much better service than what I got from them if this was an AAFES operation. They appear to be raking in a bundle, and not putting much of the takings into maintaining or supporting, let alone improving, their system. Cables rest on the ground, and the weatherhavens are daisy-chained together, so problems cascade from one to another. Somebody in the one next to mine decided to do some mods one day and killed of our entire row for several.

The bottom package is actually US$35.00 per month. I had the US$70.00 package for the first two months here, and dropped to the US$35.00 package for the third. I went to the US$0.00 package towards the end of that month. I was tired of waiting and waiting for pages to download and numerous outages. Sometimes some people in my weatherhaven had a connection while others did not. I had a total of two days' useage out of the first three weeks of my third month's subscription so I went and cancelled it and demanded my money back. They tried to claim that I had been downloading stuff constantly all of that time, but I got US$10.00 back. There was a line forming behind me and the first few people were passing on the conversation to those behind. Several walked away, so buddy could see that he had to shut me up or lose more business.

Apparently it is now filtered, but I no longer give a rat's rectum.

Canada House has wireless and you use your Global Connect card to access. There is also wireless pumped into the shacks,

The wireless in Old Canada House has been unreliable at times, but has been much better for the last few days. It is slow during peak periods, but as I work weird hours I can take advantage of the hardly-used periods. It is not "pumped into" the weatherhavens around, but the closer ones can get it. The same service at Tim Horton's is generally quicker.

The best thing about it was the satisfaction that I got from not paying crooks/incompetents anymore for what amounted to more frustration than service, and listening to others complain about annoyances about which I no longer cared.

There is also the US Freedomtel Net available on the boardwalk, free, with no login required. It's unfiltered. It is slow during peak periods, but again, I work weird hours.

 

[MOOXE]

AAFES is who sells that internet started at 35$. Its sold by Pakistanis but the company is AAFES. I would think it would be better to. Its tolerable though in the shacks by New Canada House. The wireless and the AAFES by Old Canada House has been very sketchy. When I was there for my week of KAF in Sept 08 it was not worth it to pay for AAFES and the wireless from OCH was very very weak once it reached the weatherhavens.

Anyways.. New Canada House has much more reliable service both wireless and AAFES than does OCH.

 

[Franko]

Quite frankly, the lockdown is fairly pointless in KAF.  Freedomnet at the boardwalk is not shut down, nor are any of the local internet providers.  Also, the proliferation of Roshan cell phones at .25 cents per minute negates all the effort put forth to lock it.  You would have to be some kind of idiot to tell family or friends anything has happened until it hits the news anyway.

Out in the FOBs, where everyone has to know WTF is going on, it's prudent to do a lockdown and it's controllable.

It keep idiots from flapping their gums about who was hit before the NOK is contacted(which has happened before). Believe me, I've overheard enough OPSEC/ PERSEC violations from some people that have no clue as to what they are saying, which resulted in them being put onto a plane bound for Canada.

KAF is obviously not do-able, but then again the majority of KAFers don't know what is actually going on beyond the wire and those that do, know to keep their yaps shut.

Regards

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Quite frankly, the lockdown is fairly pointless in KAF.  . 

That doesn't mean you stop doing the right thing though...........

 

[vonGarvin]

That doesn't mean you stop doing the right thing though...........

Exactly.  My own "thing" was to log off the DIN computer (it was for less-than work stuff anyway).  Naturally, not everyone had DIN. 

 

[Jarnhamar]

The "packi internet" in KAF started at $35 but it was slow. So slow you couldn't check your email book or msn. Next was $70 and then $100 a month.
It was very shoddy wiring around KAF. If I unplugged the power connection on my router or whatever it's called then all the people in my tent would loose it and so would the 7 other tents with net access after me.Assholes were stealing 10 cent European to American power converter plugs which then would again down the internet for dozens of people.
Trying to get them to fix it was a joke. You have to track them down and harass them over cell phone calls and visits to their officer over the course of a few days.  After having the net go down, get fixed and go down again over the course of 8days, every day, I went to their boss and demanded our platoons money back for the last 2 months considering it was down more than it was up and people were paying 100 bucks US each for the net. I was pretty convincing, they ended up getting off their ass and sorting the problems out. But that was just our little area.
IT goes without saying anything you write or read on that net found it's way to Pakistan and the Taliban.

Global Connect has wireless at places like Canada house as mentioned and it extends to some of the shacks around it but we were too far away. The range doesn't seem very good. Not as big of a deal but everything you write and read again gets scoped out by the CF. Global connect is also subject to the silly lock down procedure.

We tried getting our own Satellite but it was a disaster. Took  3 times as long as we expected to come in.  Didn't come with the parts to calibrate it. We each had to put up $200 to buy it initially which we lost because the signal we got when it finally worked was shitty and we'd get about 15 minutes use of it a day before something would happen.

 

[40below]

The signal supplied by Global Connect at New Canada House when I was there in January was pretty robust. I didn't take my laptop to any of the FOBs, but internet in the welfare trailers was decent speed, if prone to drops, and since the techs - interestingly, most of whom seem to be ex-Sigs -  might only get there once every few weeks to fix or swap stuff out, it's iffy, but as has been said above, it is a war zone.

I know some of the Americans were able to set up private nodes using iDirect (IIRC), and they said it wasn't much more buggy than any other wireless network and speed was OK.