About two years ago I blogged about the connectivity problems we had at our home in Kurtistown, and how we came across a wireless provider that solved our issues, Advanced Wireless Systems Hawai‘i, and showed what lengths it took to get wireless to our home (see picture below).
All was well for the first 18 months of use, and about 6 months ago we began to experience slower connectivity, which eventually devolved into sporadic connectivity with periods of nothing but message os “cannot reach server”. After putting up with this for a few months I finally called AWS, and after three visits by their techs over the course of a month, we’re still not much better off. We had decent (300-400Kbs) connectivity for short stretches (10-15 minutes) followed by stretches of no connectivity at all of 5-8 minutes). This past week one of their techs pointed our antenna to another access point to the south-east of us which is closer to us than the previous access point was, and while we have better speed when the connection is working, we still have infuriating periods of no connectivity at all.
Their main tech guy is blaming our area and trees, but I’m not really buying it. I could see trees causing variation in connectivity speed, particularly in times of rain, but not the long periods of no connectivity. Also, the behavior is exactly as it was when it was pointed to a different access point. Hmm, maybe the trees that were playing mind games with us previously have cousins between us and he new access point.
I’m considering getting a wireless router from MobiPCS and their Hele system to see if they are any better. We have Mobi phones, and while their service is not that great in our area, I’m hopeful that it will be better than what we have.
I live in Hakalau up Chin Chuck Rd and have similar issues. Until a stand of bamboo grew too tall I was getting service from Coconut-Wireless (now East Hawaii Wireless?). It was pretty slow and became nonexistent. Rather than pay the outrageous installation charges from Advanced Wireless I got MiFi from Verizon. It’s a portable hotspot that will run up to 5 devices at the same time. The speed is awesome! Mobi has no reception at my place so if you run into that problem, check out Verizon…the unit is $149 with a 50 buck rebate, then 60/month…a little more expensive than Mobi but less than Advanced Wireless. Hope this helps!