KDN Box – Review
After 10 weeks of chasing up on getting my box connection at home, I got home today to find it connected.
First thing I got round to doing was hooking up my wireless network onto the IDU provided to me by KDN for free. I got the 1mb/1mb link broadband of course, and I have no idea what the contention rate on this thing is. No one at KDN gives that information out either.
Now we all know that KDN are the last mile service providers of Seacom in the region and have the largest fiber network in the region. For an ISP this big they sure are poor at following up with their potential clients and totally suck at marketing. I wonder if they have enough clients for their own liking.
Trust me, following up with these guys to get this link at home was no easy task. It is completely difficult to get hold of anyone at KDN who would have any useful information regarding your installation status, at times it is just impossible to get anyone on the phone (about 65% of the time).
Lets get down to the chase. After all the excitement of getting this connection, I faced nothing but DISAPPOINTMENT (typical from Kenyan ISP’s isn’t it guys). Now this link for one doesn’t even go through Seacom but through KDN’s fail over satellite links
Tracing route to www.facebook.com [66.220.145.10]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 * * * Request timed out.
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 * * * Request timed out.
4 204 ms 230 ms 254 ms l3.london.kdn.intersatafrica.com [212.113.15.97]
5 227 ms 370 ms * ae-34-52.ebr2.London1.Level3.net [4.69.139.97]
6 601 ms * 350 ms ae-44-44.ebr1.NewYork1.Level3.net [4.69.137.78]
7 * * 262 ms ae-3-3.ebr4.Washington1.Level3.net [4.69.132.93]
8 264 ms 271 ms * ae-84-84.csw3.Washington1.Level3.net [4.69.134.1
86]
9 261 ms 263 ms 266 ms 4.68.17.149
10 263 ms * 259 ms FACEBOOK-IN.edge3.Washington4.Level3.net [4.53.1
16.6]
11 262 ms 346 ms 267 ms ae2.bb01.iad2.tfbnw.net [204.15.20.88]
12 331 ms 400 ms * xe-1-3-0.bb01.sjc1.tfbnw.net [74.119.76.170]
13 330 ms 332 ms * ae1.dr02.snc4.tfbnw.net [74.119.76.185]
14 328 ms * 331 ms eth-17-2.csw01a.snc4.tfbnw.net [74.119.76.46]
15 411 ms * 350 ms www-10-01.snc4.facebook.com [66.220.145.10]
Trace complete.
Secondly the local loop connection just doesn’t do it for me. The latencies are so high & inconsistent it is unbearable, a simple ping to Access Kenya’s DNS shows this
Pinging 196.200.16.2 with 32 bytes of data:
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Reply from 196.200.16.2: bytes=32 time=4ms TTL=58
Ping statistics for 196.200.16.2:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 1, Lost = 3 (75% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 4ms, Maximum = 4ms, Average = 4ms
Reply from 196.200.16.2: bytes=32 time=79ms TTL=58
Request timed out.
Reply from 196.200.16.2: bytes=32 time=41ms TTL=58
Reply from 196.200.16.2: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=58
Ping statistics for 196.200.16.2:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 3, Lost = 1 (25% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 9ms, Maximum = 79ms, Average = 43ms
So far this link is good for nothing. Really I have always complained about Access Kenya, but there link’s have been far more consistent and better. This product from KDN is a total rip off, more so because it simply fails on the local loop network too.
For now I will be hoping to see some sort of improvements made to this service and strongly advise anyone willing to go for this service to keep off for a while.
This post has 19 comments
April 19th, 2010
onlinemasai,
Sorry for the long wait before you were connected can you rusha a mail to dealership@kdn.co.ke and some will address your complains
Thanks
April 20th, 2010
online masai,
kindly send us your contacts
April 20th, 2010
Hi onlinemasai,
We are sorry for the bad experience you have had so far and for the positive criticism. However, could you please send your details (location of site, telephone number and/or email address) to marketing@kdn.co.ke then we can have support look into your problem asap.
April 20th, 2010
@all thank you for your responses. I shall get that email sent to you guys as soon as possible.
April 20th, 2010
i was aching for a new isp after acces@home proved to be too expensive but i’ve been holding off cos of the large deposit and the refund clause that if you cancel your subscription before 2 years are over you lose the deposit. finally decided to take the plunge and sent an email to kdn. 6 hours later, no reply so i called them. i was on hold for 2minutes and 36seconds before i ran out of airtime. all these large isp’s seem to be ignoring the home market as their corporate products are quite good but of course expensive. i’ve also had issues with zuku and access and i’m afraid i might hav to use orange.
April 20th, 2010
I do not thing the ISP’s are really geared up to handle Soho / home users. On top of it they end up providing a crappy service.
If they provided what they say they do then they would hardly require extra support staff.
You are lucky you have not yet subscribed to KDN. You are better off holding off with them. Their service is the worst I have come across so far.
Infact, the above guys asked me to email the various email address, I did and have received no response from them yet.
May 7th, 2010
LOL Typical KDN… they shud stop pursuing different technologies every 3 months… and focus on service delivery. Mtaka yote hukosa yote!
April 23rd, 2010
they’re too obsessed with corporate clients so they’re blind to the huge potential in the home market.and they also take the concept of shared bandwidth too far. one of these ISPs should take the equity bank route and focus on ignored market segments. for now i’ll just stick to access@home but i’m testing orange.
April 26th, 2010
how do you find orange so far?
August 2nd, 2010
I have been using Orange Usb Modem to run a cyber cafe in Ongata Rongai for one month and I can say its better in terms of consistency than KDN B.O.X. I applied for KDN more than 5 weeks ago. It took me 3 weeks to get the internet i.p configurations (something which should take a maximum of 5 minutes, can you imagine.)
Then the KDN technician came and found out that my i.p address was wrongfully given to another client but after rectifying the problem the internet was still inconsistent. One minute it was up another its down.
What I can say that the orange live box is more stable than the orange usb modem and at the moment they are the best I.S.P in Kenya.
K.D.N is absolutely pathetic. They should scrap B.O.X because at the moment they cannot deliver. What I can say is ‘Caveat Emptor’, buyer beaware because K.D.N are the worst I.S.P in Kenya. Their customer care behave like prison wardens. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
August 12th, 2010
Asante for your response bwana charlo… I am in love with Orange’s GSM internet myself.. its too damn stable…. I am really eager on trying out zuku as I am told they are quite good too.
I agree with you, KDN should scrap BOX.
May 7th, 2010
HI guys, Has anyone noticed how the local loop is ridiculously slow ??? im on accesskenya and pings to uk (250ms) are faster than pings to Nairobi(500ms)??? Will post my results later on but really …. wats the deal?? Does anyone have a similar experience? Oh im in Mombasa by the way.
May 22nd, 2010
I got hooked up to the box after 2 weeks of chasing. The first week was excellent, speed was good and so was the performance. Then something happened and i lost the internet connectivity. Then the reality of KDN support dawned on me. This is the worst ever support that i have experienced. Behind the charming, courteous and understanding front desk PR personnel, is an inefficient, indifferent, and non-motivated support engineers who dismantle all the good work that KDN are striving to put up. Knowing how they are I called them several times over several days to complain about my downtime but nothing seems to be done, despite being given ticket number, etc. My installer tells me the fixing of the issue should take an average of 10-15 minutes. Am on day 5 of waiting and still counting….IP mappings for new connections (meaning new business) can take days, a process which takes 1-2 minutes. Certainly the support department is letting KDN down.
May 24th, 2010
i still haven’t got a site survey so i gave up on them. on the other hand, orange is plagued by some serious analog issues. I held off on getting their surf amd talk pack when i realised that phone lines had been down for a week. while they do have good service when they’re on, they experience too many interruptions.
June 16th, 2010
I dont know about hops and all that but KDN were supposed to connect a wired network in my house. I paid for 1mbps/1mbps bundle which they insisted payment for upfront. I obliged. They still havnt set up all the points we agreed to pre-payment and we gets breath taking speeds of 0.1 mbps download..dont even bother trying to attach anything to emails when they eventually open.
Requests for, what is by virtue of payment and contracts signed, “haki yangu” to their customer care was met with an email telling us we could be moved to swift global if their services are not satisfactory. I am incensed by them, still trying to figure out who the hell is in charge of their customer service because that was just plain rude!!!
June 19th, 2010
Kindred spirits (at last),
i Share your pain, trust me. This is someone who’s been through access kenya, zuku and orange. You’d think that someone who’s been through dissapointment to the third power would know better…but the kdn box service somehow managed to pull one over me.
I’m in my third week of waiting for them to get my link up but to no avail, apparently there’s something wrong with the new ngumo base station they just recently put up (which was the only reason i subscribed to them in the first place)
I blame myself, I went through the exact same thing with access kenya but apparently came out none the wiser.
KDN, if you’re reading this…c’mon, you know your customers deserve better.
Ndd I was so excited about the 1mbps/1mbps…
July 20th, 2010
I was on KDN’s Butterfly Wi-Fi service for over a year and experienced pretty good speeds averaging 1.8Mbps. Speeds began to drop in March then in both April and May I had two weeks of no connectivity. I ended up paying for 2 months of connectivity and only got 1. Their support bluntly stated that they could not and would not refund me.
My connection was down for the whole of June and numerous calls to support resulted in the same answer each time “We’ll check with the engineers and get back to you.” Well, we are nearing August and I’ve gotten no callback.
Desperate for Internet (for work), I decided to try my Orange 3G+ modem again and speeds have improved dramatically since I last used it in February. I’m getting between 600kbps and 1Mbps on average on their 7day unlimited offer.
I would not recommend KDN to anyone. Their support has just become appalling. Keep away.
August 18th, 2010
Hi,
I was about to order KDN, but for sure will stop this. I also have a contact with AccessKenya, they are expensive. In the end, I am fine with high costs, as long as it works as described, with good Service?
What to choose? I want a 1Mb connection (at least download). Please advice !
September 1st, 2010
Scary ! very Scary almost parted with 15k. Thanks