Wateen has recently launched its WiMAX services for Home Users in Karachi. I had been looking forward for WiMAX operations to start in Karachi for a long time now. After the launch, I decided to check them out.
Wateen offers very attractive packages for both Internet and its telephony services. Their website has a list of all packages and payment options they offer. Check there website out at wateen.com for more details.
I studied their packages and decided to go for their 512 kbps internet connection. As I also required a phone line so their bundle package was the one I was interested in. I registered myself using their website some days back, but got no response so I decided to visit their franchise.
I got to the franchise in my locality and had a chat with the representative. He explained me the whole process, how it is going to work and also gave me a demonstration on a setup that was deployed there in their office. The browsing and everything seemed quite good, so I opted for it. I filled in the form for a new account that night.
Next day, a person arrived at the door-step. He had brought all the equipment – Ethernet cable, WiMAX modem, etc. and setup the connection. With-in 30 minutes all was up and running. I checked it out, and things seemed to be going smoothly. I paid him the amount and he handed me the rest of the items including account details. I got the telephone number too. Things have been running pretty smoothly since then.
The WiMAX Device / Customer Premise Equipment (CPE):
Wateen provides Motorola WiMAX router that hooks up to their network. The router is pretty straight-forward with 4 ethernet ports and 2 phone jacks (RJ-11). You can hook a normal telephone set with the router to use their telephony service.
The phone line is going like normal, no delays or anything of that sort. Call quality is good and you would hardly notice any difference then using a normal landline.
Signal strength plays a major role is deciding the quality of service you would be getting. Luckily, at my place the signal strength is full – hence I should expect no problem with the service. So far, so good.
The router runs a DHCP server over the subnet 192.168.15.x. It provides internet connectivity by becoming a NAT device (ofcourse). Over here, at my home, I have changed the subnet to match my network’s – 192.168.1.1 – and I have disabled the DHCP server on the WiMAX router. I have a WiFi network at home, and I am using the WiFi router’s DHCP server instead. It doesn’t much effect me anyway, as most of the terminals here have Fixed IP addresses.
The WiMAX Router (CPE) Administration – Screenshots:
Let’s take a peak at the Motorola WiMAX router provided by Wateen, for those of you who are techies and would like to see the inside — here are some screen shots:
1. Router WiMAX Main page:
2. Router Signal Strength:
3. Router – Advanced Settings:
Getting Online through Wateen WiMAX
Once everything is setup and hooked to your computer. You need to start your browser for accessing the Internet. The first time you open your browser or try to access the Internet — wateen’s network needs you to authenticate yourself. This is done by the CISCO EDGE Subscriber Gateway (assumingly running RADIUS). In simple terms, when you try to access the internet, you need to authenticate. The following screen automatically pops up asking you for your account credentials:
Once you login successfully, the screen does not bother you again till your modem gets out of sync for a longer duration. This login is a one-time activity after every long disconnection (my assumption is that the session times out after 2 hours of being offline from wateen’s network).
The internet is going pretty smooth and delivers the promised speed. So far so very good. I have been enjoying the Internet at a speed of 512kbps. YouTube videos run smoothly with almost no lag. Browsing is blazing fast. Download runs consistently on ~60-65 KBps.
More updates on Wateen’s service would come as time will pass. Check back soon.
Hiya,
i went to Wateen franchise Office i waz full interested for taking 128kbps in the begenning but when the representative told me that you have to Pay installation charges Rs.2999 + Rs.499 per month & 11 cheques of monthly fee . i waz like wtf they are charging so much i though they got wifi solution but no they don’t have they are giving nomal eithernet connecivity to there adopter i asked for wireless they said u have to spend More money on router lol Wateen is Shit they are charging so much & giving there black ass. you know what Connect Communication giving me 512kbps itz Cable net & they are giving Movies Sharing , Game Server & all that & wateen charging so much & giving shit.Peoples i prefer Cable net cuz nothing new in it.i m using cable net on wireless router & its good, Wateen CoMe On get something new cuz itz Nothing if u want to sale your connections so Decrease the charges.I m so disoppinted when the representative told me the charges.Peoples need gud service & charges should be low but u guyz freaking pulling the legz of CPE woteva tht is & your charging mouny on the name of em. Make your installtion fee easy stop this crap. Else u guyz will get kick on ass soon. you guyz driving like lunatic :S , Get the Wireless tecnology this is Crap pPlZ are fed up with this wires & all this crap, & yeh your internet come through your voice this is 2nd crap , make it direct. Wireless LAN & Your Wireless Spot COnnectivity by username Password. Easy way , if you guyz can invest so invest in this way… anywayz BEST OF LUCK WATEEN LOL! not being sarcsm LMAO…!
Cool dude, I was planning to get it too, but these installation charges is gonna keep me off it, for a while, I m better off with maxcom till them 🙂
there r a lot of charges of wateen connection shahzad is right at first i think that the monthly is (250 per month but here i know that its a big job so i decide instead of getting this connection i will get a car on that money.bye.
hey,
Really informative post..thanx for providing all the details for ppl who want to get WATEEN WIMAX..
Hello.
Thank you all for your comments. I really appreciate you people dropping by my blog and reading my 2 cents.
@ Shahzad:
Thanks bro for dropping by. Yep, the installation charges are the major hurdle in people getting through easily and its something that’s making even the most enthusiast ones think twice.
@ Tee:
Heyyy!! How come you’re here? 😛 Thanks a lot Tee for your comment.
@masood Khan:
True! The charges are there and they are comparatively higher. If only they could provide free installation, perhaps people would be overwhelming their customer centres. I guess they do not want that at this stage? Who knows….. Thanks for the comment.
@ Umair:
Well. Dude. lots of things. you need to know more about the devices before you actually pitch into and sign up for a service. I am not taking their sides, but they never mentioned support for WiFi in the WiMAX device. It shouldn’t be confusing, both are different standards and have different devices. Some router miight possibly be there that might provide support for both standards but then again the one provided by the Wateen people only supports "WIMAX".
I have WiFi setup at my home, and that’s a separate router – LinkSys. I hooked it up with the WiMax router to enable internet over my network.
—
THank you all for posting your responses. 🙂
Wateen people are cheating they charged me Rs. 5980 and 11 cheques of Rs. 1350 for bundle package and told me the use is unlimited but after a week of my purchase those assholes called me up and told me it is not unlimited and i have a quota of 10 G.B WTF is this …wel i screwed wateen and used 200 G.B this month and if i get a bill i will disappear with the wimax router and will tell my bank to mark those cheques for stop payment…. i even have admin password of my router so i can configure it myself ….within a month telenor is launching Wimax services 2 😉
ok i got this wateen too. yes they r givin 10 gbs which thy call unlimited. what eva i hav my ways to mak it unlimited. but m havin otha problems. first of all i cannot change my ip address. n m here to ask if anyone can help me with tis. n how to acces these administrative thing of ur router? can ne 1 help?
@Umer:
Lolz. Well I guess sales representative will tell you anything and everything just to make a sale and get his commission. That’s pretty lame for salesman to lie and make sale!!!!! Good luck with your plan, man!! 😀
Amir,
Which IP address are you referring too? You can change the local IP address of your PC. I have done that myself 2 home.
@AMIR:
Yep. They give 10GB limit. Recently PTCL has dropped their DSL rates too (they are offering 1Mbps connection with no limits @ Rs. 2000).
Anyway coming back to your query. Dude, you can not change the public IP that the whole world sees for your PC simply because you pass through Wateen’s proxy. It’s like you have an internal IP (the IP address on your local LAN) and all your requests goes through a proxy. You can not change your public IP address because you are never assigned one exclusively.
In order to access wateen’s router (if you have the motorola one) you can use the following login details if you are running on a default configuration:
http://192.168.15.1 (or the IP of the router)
Username: router
Password: router
(Router/Router is the default username/password for motorola routers).
thanx man. thats nice of u. will come bak with more queries later.
@asim..
dude ive got wateen too and im running a linksys wireless router with it..
but ive got dgcp enable on both devices..i see uve disabled one.is tat neccessary.does that make any difference or slower the internet..help please
@ hamza:
Same here bro. I am having wateen + linksys router. Yes, you can not enable DHCP on both devices. I suggest you turn off "DHCP SERVER" on your Linksys wireless router.
The purpose of DHCP server is to assign an IP address to a terminal (PC) that is connected to the network. It makes no sense to have two DHCP servers running on a home network.
It doesn’t effect the internet speed much however if you are running both routers using their default configuration, I doubt your internet would be working. The motorala WiMAX router (by default) runs DHCP server on a 192.168.15.x subnet whereas the Linksys wireless router operates on a 192.168.1.x subnet. You might have to play aruond with the settings a bit to bring both devices on the same subnet.
My suggestion: Disable your linksys wireless router’s DHCP server.
@asim
thnx for the promt reply. ive disabled dhcp on linksys and plugged the wimax wire in the network slot of linksys.now im getting ip from wimax.what change do i have to do with the subnet.
wimax-192.168.15.1
linksys-192.168.1.1
@ hamza:
In your linksys router give it an IP address which belongs to the subnet of the wimax one (i.e. change it’s Local IP address to be in the subnet 192.168.15.x) e.g. my motorola wimax router has an IP 192.168.15.1 and the wifi linksys router has IP 192.168.15.5.
Note: Make sure your DHCP server IP pool doesn’t conflict with the static IP addreses. @ my side the DHCP server IP pool starts from 192.168.15.100.
Hope it helps.
@asim..
ok man.thanx for the help.
no wonder why i couldnt access my linksys when the ip was assigned by wimax……….btw how much time do they take to provide the user name and id..im running on demo rite now
@hamza
yeah man. no prob. same here, its been around 2 months and i am running on demo account. I think once their "free" internet offer is gone they will issue us the "real" accounts.
hey asim hows ur wimax going…ive got my id…but im not satisfied with the internet..sometims it works sumtimes its extremely slow..even when no one else on my network is using it..how about u wat speed do u get.
yap it’s true that its speed is unbelievable but device is expensive, otherwise speed vise is good.
how do u open router administration page
Check these guys out… i have their internet service on WiFi. they charge very nominal installation fees and their CPE is hell a small and is based on usb. best of all i can take my cpe anywhere where their service is available and i get to use my internet anywhere.
im loving their service and support. they told me their company is based on usa and they will market themselves in june of this year…
check out their website http://www.invisifi.com
im using the same service.. invisifi.. its cooool!
they hv small device with usb interface and speed is amazing with nominal charges normally i watch geo web tv in my office on laptop without any jerk. no downtime if there is load shedding, rain or even blackdown! they r up all the time:)
Hi all,
I have recently got the Wateen Wimax. Its going good. I have one question. Can I use VoIP using the number I got with the bundle package. I mean can I call from net to that number free on charge . the same services are provided by brain tel also.
Appreciate any repsonse on this,
Regards
Hi Asim
Appreciate your help. I have Wateen Wimax too, and have been trying (unsucessfully, I might add) to install my newly purchased TP-Link Router to enable Wifi on my 512 connection. However, I cant seem to be able to do it – no matter how many times I read the manual.
Being a non-technie I’d appreciate if you can give a step-by-step account (from the very basic first step i.e. take the router out of the box, put it on the table etc :P) so I, and possibly other people like me can catch a break.
Your’s is the only website I have which describes what I’m trying to do. The web is surprising devoid of any how-to pages on this kind of thing!
Many Thanks, in advance 🙂
http://www.ebloggy.net/2008/07/15/pakistan-wateen-wimax.html
i am also one of Wateen’s consumer but am not satisfied with there services, if you can visit my blog above and take the time to read about my experience with the So called State-of-the-Art technology! would really appreciate that fellow bro & sis!
Service is good but sometime it does bother while downloading and uploading u-tube as i m using 1 MB package. Please do better ur services in order to retain customer
I did not pay anything for the installation nor do i pay monthly rent or anything of this sort but still i use 256kbs wireless internet on my laptop.
2 of my neighbors are doing so and one of my neighbour’s wifi router is on UPS as well !! so i still get uninterrupted wifi access without a jerk.
Their wifi router is on public access and i have cracked 2-3 different username / passwords for 2-3 different xxxxxxx@wateen.net user accounts and i daily download around 4-5 gb’s of data every night mostly torrent files with dedicated bare minimum speeds of 50-60kbs.
plz tell me am i unethical? is it a sin?
:{
LMAO……..
wateen Service is good. I appreciate their management.
I had recently got wateen Wimax and its working fine.
Quick Uploading & downloading