| Author |
Message |
no_one
Guest
|
 Posted:
Tue Nov 30, 2004 8:24 am Post subject:
Starband / IA-7 satellite will be down, at LEAST until Frida |
|
|
Starband / IA-7 satellite will be down, at LEAST until Friday...
That is coming from someone i spoke to at Intelsat.
I will not mention who told me this information, due to it not being
official and them possibly getting in trouble or losing their job.
They specifically stated that the satellite is partially communicating
at this point, and their is effort on their part to try to get it
fixed. Yesterday was not the same situation, they said.
Mean while, Starband is sitting around twiddling their thumbs,
answering the phones, and doing nothing, and telling people that
nothing can be done when you call them.
Starband has not done anything their recording says for their
customers when you call their tech support; ie. obtaining dial-up
service and alternative satellite location.
002, 050, 189 are only supposedly the only 3 clusters affected by this
satellite, which Starband was supposedly in the process of changing
some customers over to a new position. If someone knows of any other
clusters affected, please feel free to mention them.
I am on cluster 50, and Starband has offered me no solution at all. I
would not be on the internet right now if it were not for a dial-up
account i have access through.
I asked the tech support rep about pro-rating bills, and they said
that this would be done, so all the people who are intending on not
paying for the days the system is off, there is no need to fight on
this one, or at least it seems that way at this time. I for one will
NOT be paying for any service since Saturday night, which is when the
service really went offline for me. I will not hesitate in contacting
the BBB if i have any problems with Starband not changing my bill rate
for the month affected.
I can't honestly help but feel puzzled at the fact that the new IA-8
goes up on Dec. 17, and this has happened. I am not pointing fingers,
but I honestly find that really odd.
What I really want to know is: When will service for me and the
several others be back up?
Why has Starband not done anything regarding this situation?
As soon as DSL or cable is available in my area, Starband is GONE.
PERIOD. i have said that 1000 times before, and i say it even more
strongly now. I didn't pay almost a 1000$ back in 2001 and 50$+/month
to deal with this shit. I did it so I would not have to put up with
what i am FORCED to use now.
24/7 my ass.
No one else's fault but Starband, due to lack of a back-up plan on a
hardware method that is unstable.
and if no one thinks this is Starband's fault, why is it that people
like me, do not have service?
Go and do a look up for all the television channels that were on IA-7
and were back on the air in less than a day.
I would love to hear from someone that just signed up and what they
think of them about now. Anyone who just signed up for their service,
could rightfully sue them and win, and get out of their contract no
problem. |
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 |
Guest
|
| Posted:
Tue Nov 30, 2004 8:58 am Post subject:
Re: Starband / IA-7 satellite will be down, at LEAST until F |
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|
I'm not sure you can blame Starband for this disaster - it seems things
were already stretched think to make a reasonable profit, so I doubt
they could afford to have a good backup plan for such a disaster as
huge as this that takes out over half their bandwidth. It's a lot more
difficult for starband to realign everyone's dishes and get all the
installers out to all the locations to do so thank it is for the news
links who have professionals on call to realign (though at this point
Starband said they will NOT allow anyone to realign to GE4 to get back
online - I asked.)
The only thing I fault Starband for is for providing so little
information and keeping their news sources (starband.general and
discussion.starband.net) off limits for everyone who is down. I have a
feeling they don't want their customers to talk too much about the
outage :)
I would be very surprised (though very very happy) if they can fix this
by Friday. I'm worried that they might not get everyone back online in
December which is why I'm considering going with a Direcway system to
hold me over. Even if they can get everyone back online, I wonder if
the cost of doing so will mean additional congestion for months to come
and how bumpy the road will be with such a huge number of customers
getting back onto new clusters in such a short period of time -- how
good was Starband's deal on T7 compared to newer satellites which may
be available today? How is satellite bandwidth capacity vs. demand
today? |
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Joel
Guest
|
| Posted:
Tue Nov 30, 2004 10:49 am Post subject:
Re: Starband / IA-7 satellite will be down, at LEAST until F |
|
|
Does anyone know what birds they are going to move us too? I was just
thinking this would be a great time to move the dish. They originally
mounted the dish in the middle of the roof on the front of the house. I sure
would like to get it on a poll. I have everything ready for the move, the
pipe and coax and so on. But now that we won't be pointed at T-7, I need to
be careful to make sure I have a good shot at the new bird before I cement
to poll in the ground and go through all that.. Considering they will have
to re-point the dish, what better time to move it!
Joel
"no_one" <no_one@no_where.com> wrote in message
news:uaonq092d5gmmpj24tihbktirenjo7m69f@4ax.com...
| Quote: | Starband / IA-7 satellite will be down, at LEAST until Friday...
That is coming from someone i spoke to at Intelsat.
I will not mention who told me this information, due to it not being
official and them possibly getting in trouble or losing their job.
They specifically stated that the satellite is partially communicating
at this point, and their is effort on their part to try to get it
fixed. Yesterday was not the same situation, they said.
Mean while, Starband is sitting around twiddling their thumbs,
answering the phones, and doing nothing, and telling people that
nothing can be done when you call them.
Starband has not done anything their recording says for their
customers when you call their tech support; ie. obtaining dial-up
service and alternative satellite location.
002, 050, 189 are only supposedly the only 3 clusters affected by this
satellite, which Starband was supposedly in the process of changing
some customers over to a new position. If someone knows of any other
clusters affected, please feel free to mention them.
I am on cluster 50, and Starband has offered me no solution at all. I
would not be on the internet right now if it were not for a dial-up
account i have access through.
I asked the tech support rep about pro-rating bills, and they said
that this would be done, so all the people who are intending on not
paying for the days the system is off, there is no need to fight on
this one, or at least it seems that way at this time. I for one will
NOT be paying for any service since Saturday night, which is when the
service really went offline for me. I will not hesitate in contacting
the BBB if i have any problems with Starband not changing my bill rate
for the month affected.
I can't honestly help but feel puzzled at the fact that the new IA-8
goes up on Dec. 17, and this has happened. I am not pointing fingers,
but I honestly find that really odd.
What I really want to know is: When will service for me and the
several others be back up?
Why has Starband not done anything regarding this situation?
As soon as DSL or cable is available in my area, Starband is GONE.
PERIOD. i have said that 1000 times before, and i say it even more
strongly now. I didn't pay almost a 1000$ back in 2001 and 50$+/month
to deal with this shit. I did it so I would not have to put up with
what i am FORCED to use now.
24/7 my ass.
No one else's fault but Starband, due to lack of a back-up plan on a
hardware method that is unstable.
and if no one thinks this is Starband's fault, why is it that people
like me, do not have service?
Go and do a look up for all the television channels that were on IA-7
and were back on the air in less than a day.
I would love to hear from someone that just signed up and what they
think of them about now. Anyone who just signed up for their service,
could rightfully sue them and win, and get out of their contract no
problem. |
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Jeff
Guest
|
| Posted:
Tue Nov 30, 2004 11:00 am Post subject:
Re: Starband / IA-7 satellite will be down, at LEAST until F |
|
|
| Quote: | From talking with starband late this afternoon, they honestly don't
know yet. |
As of this afternoon, starband tech support said on the phone that they
were still not sure whether people would be repointed or not... |
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Joel
Guest
|
| Posted:
Tue Nov 30, 2004 11:08 am Post subject:
Re: Starband / IA-7 satellite will be down, at LEAST until F |
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|
Ah, so they are just hoping the Sat will come back on-line? I guess that's
a viable answer. Of course the last time I talked to tech support they said
the satellite was hit by a meteor and was off spinning in space.. I guess it
all depends on who you talk to. Seems like they should have a "story" up on
the board so they all give out the same information.
Joel
"Jeff" <beaverisland@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1101794448.416942.108350@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
| Quote: | From talking with starband late this afternoon, they honestly don't
know yet.
As of this afternoon, starband tech support said on the phone that they
were still not sure whether people would be repointed or not...
|
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UpEarly
Guest
|
| Posted:
Tue Nov 30, 2004 6:33 pm Post subject:
Re: Starband / IA-7 satellite will be down, at LEAST until F |
|
|
This totally sucks!
I have never been very happy with StarBand and now this!
I had to get a dialup account just so I can check my e-mail.
Oh, but first I had to install a modem AND find the drivers.
You know what?
Dialup does not seem that much slower than Starband!
At least for casual browsing.
I am adopting a wait and see attitude, but I can see a second phone
line and a dialup account in my future.
For anyone in the same boat as me, I got an AllVantage dial account
for $5 per month. That would be http://www.allvantage.com/
UpEarly |
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don
Guest
|
| Posted:
Wed Dec 01, 2004 2:04 am Post subject:
Re: Starband / IA-7 satellite will be down, at LEAST until F |
|
|
i am also on cluster 50 and have no starband service. i was on
direcway for 3 long, horrible years and so i had a dialup service
also. direcway was down more than it was up in my case.
i have been on starband (with a 360 modem) for 2 months now.
i have not experienced one single glitch in all that time. i never
turn my 'puter off.
i download at least 1 gig per day.
i have never had starband "FAP" me like direcway did (on a regular
basis)
to sum up, my starband experience has been great.
surfing was at least 5 times faster than dw
downloads speed avged 80
upload speed was not a problem because i never upload anything of any
size
i have no other option except for starband. i'd rather use dialup than
go back to dw :)
all i can say is that i will just have to wait until starband gets
back online.
don
no_one <no_one@no_where.com> wrote in message news:<uaonq092d5gmmpj24tihbktirenjo7m69f@4ax.com>...
| Quote: | Starband / IA-7 satellite will be down, at LEAST until Friday...
That is coming from someone i spoke to at Intelsat.
I will not mention who told me this information, due to it not being
official and them possibly getting in trouble or losing their job.
They specifically stated that the satellite is partially communicating
at this point, and their is effort on their part to try to get it
fixed. Yesterday was not the same situation, they said.
Mean while, Starband is sitting around twiddling their thumbs,
answering the phones, and doing nothing, and telling people that
nothing can be done when you call them.
Starband has not done anything their recording says for their
customers when you call their tech support; ie. obtaining dial-up
service and alternative satellite location.
002, 050, 189 are only supposedly the only 3 clusters affected by this
satellite, which Starband was supposedly in the process of changing
some customers over to a new position. If someone knows of any other
clusters affected, please feel free to mention them.
I am on cluster 50, and Starband has offered me no solution at all. I
would not be on the internet right now if it were not for a dial-up
account i have access through.
I asked the tech support rep about pro-rating bills, and they said
that this would be done, so all the people who are intending on not
paying for the days the system is off, there is no need to fight on
this one, or at least it seems that way at this time. I for one will
NOT be paying for any service since Saturday night, which is when the
service really went offline for me. I will not hesitate in contacting
the BBB if i have any problems with Starband not changing my bill rate
for the month affected.
I can't honestly help but feel puzzled at the fact that the new IA-8
goes up on Dec. 17, and this has happened. I am not pointing fingers,
but I honestly find that really odd.
What I really want to know is: When will service for me and the
several others be back up?
Why has Starband not done anything regarding this situation?
As soon as DSL or cable is available in my area, Starband is GONE.
PERIOD. i have said that 1000 times before, and i say it even more
strongly now. I didn't pay almost a 1000$ back in 2001 and 50$+/month
to deal with this shit. I did it so I would not have to put up with
what i am FORCED to use now.
24/7 my ass.
No one else's fault but Starband, due to lack of a back-up plan on a
hardware method that is unstable.
and if no one thinks this is Starband's fault, why is it that people
like me, do not have service?
Go and do a look up for all the television channels that were on IA-7
and were back on the air in less than a day.
I would love to hear from someone that just signed up and what they
think of them about now. Anyone who just signed up for their service,
could rightfully sue them and win, and get out of their contract no
problem. |
|
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no_one
Guest
|
| Posted:
Wed Dec 01, 2004 4:23 am Post subject:
Re: Starband / IA-7 satellite will be down, at LEAST until F |
|
|
to requote myself:
"I would love to hear from someone that just signed up and what they
think of them about now. Anyone who just signed up for their service,
could rightfully sue them and win, and get out of their contract no
problem."
change that to "I would love to hear from someone that just signed up
that has never used DirecWay and what they think of Starband now.
:-P
I have never used DirecWay, and i would have to say i would rather go
back to dial-up than switch to them.
DirecWay sucks, and their FAP can go screw itself.
I have heard far more people complain about DirecWay and their
'Economy' priced system than Starband.
| Quote: | i am also on cluster 50 and have no starband service. i was on
direcway for 3 long, horrible years and so i had a dialup service
also. direcway was down more than it was up in my case.
i have been on starband (with a 360 modem) for 2 months now.
i have not experienced one single glitch in all that time. i never
turn my 'puter off.
i download at least 1 gig per day.
i have never had starband "FAP" me like direcway did (on a regular
basis)
to sum up, my starband experience has been great.
surfing was at least 5 times faster than dw
downloads speed avged 80
upload speed was not a problem because i never upload anything of any
size
i have no other option except for starband. i'd rather use dialup than
go back to dw :)
all i can say is that i will just have to wait until starband gets
back online.
don
no_one <no_one@no_where.com> wrote in message news:<uaonq092d5gmmpj24tihbktirenjo7m69f@4ax.com>...
Starband / IA-7 satellite will be down, at LEAST until Friday...
That is coming from someone i spoke to at Intelsat.
I will not mention who told me this information, due to it not being
official and them possibly getting in trouble or losing their job.
They specifically stated that the satellite is partially communicating
at this point, and their is effort on their part to try to get it
fixed. Yesterday was not the same situation, they said.
Mean while, Starband is sitting around twiddling their thumbs,
answering the phones, and doing nothing, and telling people that
nothing can be done when you call them.
Starband has not done anything their recording says for their
customers when you call their tech support; ie. obtaining dial-up
service and alternative satellite location.
002, 050, 189 are only supposedly the only 3 clusters affected by this
satellite, which Starband was supposedly in the process of changing
some customers over to a new position. If someone knows of any other
clusters affected, please feel free to mention them.
I am on cluster 50, and Starband has offered me no solution at all. I
would not be on the internet right now if it were not for a dial-up
account i have access through.
I asked the tech support rep about pro-rating bills, and they said
that this would be done, so all the people who are intending on not
paying for the days the system is off, there is no need to fight on
this one, or at least it seems that way at this time. I for one will
NOT be paying for any service since Saturday night, which is when the
service really went offline for me. I will not hesitate in contacting
the BBB if i have any problems with Starband not changing my bill rate
for the month affected.
I can't honestly help but feel puzzled at the fact that the new IA-8
goes up on Dec. 17, and this has happened. I am not pointing fingers,
but I honestly find that really odd.
What I really want to know is: When will service for me and the
several others be back up?
Why has Starband not done anything regarding this situation?
As soon as DSL or cable is available in my area, Starband is GONE.
PERIOD. i have said that 1000 times before, and i say it even more
strongly now. I didn't pay almost a 1000$ back in 2001 and 50$+/month
to deal with this shit. I did it so I would not have to put up with
what i am FORCED to use now.
24/7 my ass.
No one else's fault but Starband, due to lack of a back-up plan on a
hardware method that is unstable.
and if no one thinks this is Starband's fault, why is it that people
like me, do not have service?
Go and do a look up for all the television channels that were on IA-7
and were back on the air in less than a day.
I would love to hear from someone that just signed up and what they
think of them about now. Anyone who just signed up for their service,
could rightfully sue them and win, and get out of their contract no
problem. |
|
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| Back to top |
|
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Jeff
Guest
|
| Posted:
Wed Dec 01, 2004 4:34 am Post subject:
Re: Starband / IA-7 satellite will be down, at LEAST until F |
|
|
| Quote: | I have never used DirecWay, and i would have to say i would rather go
back to dial-up than switch to them.
DirecWay sucks, and their FAP can go screw itself.
|
How can you say that if you've never used direcway? I had never
considered direcway, but a local business that uses their $99/month
account says they are very happy with it over the last 6 months - no
complaints they said.
I had not considered it while starband was available because of FAP and
starband performing fairly ok lately, but now that starband is down I'm
looking at the direcway Small Office plan. Users are reporting close
to 1 MBPs down and between 90 and 105 kbps up which is very very close
to what they quote their plan as... and the upload on the .98m dishes
appears to be noticably better than over starband. obviously no
gaurantees over time as with starband, but for now it looks good.
Obviously FAP is a major limitation, but since I don't download that
much (not over 300 MB/day at present) it shoudn't affect me at all,
with the exception of downloading linux ISO's about once every year and
a half, and then fap will only last for 24 hours to refresh the 500 MB
threshold.
Obviously there is no perfect solution, but with starband down and no
ETA, direcway is looking better to me. |
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no_one
Guest
|
| Posted:
Wed Dec 01, 2004 4:46 am Post subject:
Re: Starband / IA-7 satellite will be down, at LEAST until F |
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|
On 30 Nov 2004 05:33:51 -0800, dan@bluesheads.com (UpEarly) wrote:
| Quote: | This totally sucks!
I have never been very happy with StarBand and now this!
I had to get a dialup account just so I can check my e-mail.
Oh, but first I had to install a modem AND find the drivers.
You know what?
Dialup does not seem that much slower than Starband!
At least for casual browsing.
I am adopting a wait and see attitude, but I can see a second phone
line and a dialup account in my future.
For anyone in the same boat as me, I got an AllVantage dial account
for $5 per month. That would be http://www.allvantage.com/
UpEarly
|
come on in, join the boat, it's fun! :-P
i have a nice external zoom modem that is still under warranty until
the year 2007 that i pull out every so often that works for these kind
of situations. i suggest everyone get one. it pays off in the long
run.
as far as e-mail blocking/bouncing/checking goes for the past few
days, as well as casual browsing, especially on secure/login sites
(cough cough ebay), it has been going much faster. |
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no_one
Guest
|
| Posted:
Wed Dec 01, 2004 5:39 am Post subject:
Re: Starband / IA-7 satellite will be down, at LEAST until F |
|
|
On 30 Nov 2004 15:34:10 -0800, "Jeff" <beaverisland@gmail.com> wrote:
| Quote: | I have never used DirecWay, and i would have to say i would rather go
back to dial-up than switch to them.
DirecWay sucks, and their FAP can go screw itself.
How can you say that if you've never used direcway? I had never
considered direcway, but a local business that uses their $99/month
account says they are very happy with it over the last 6 months - no
complaints they said.
|
i know at least 2 people that do the same activities online as i do
that both own DirecWay systems, and they are constantly getting FAPed.
one owns the older system, and the other owns one of the newer systems
(not sure of the model #'s on either).
the one with the newer system gets FAPed a lot more, since he is
always on irc grabbing stuff.
i constantly have to hear them complain about the crap they put up
with, and one of them can even get dsl...figure that one out.
DirecWay instead of DSL???
businesses are never going to have any trouble. they are on special
business accounts, and they can call and complain and have it fixed if
they have any problems, not to mention you will always have 2
different type of business owners...one that uses it only for business
purposes, and another that does whatever he wants. what exactly is he
doing with his system? i am guessing he is the kind that only uses it
for business, other than the occasional e-mail checking and web
browsing?
plain and simple, business owner accounts are treated completely
different, even if no one wants to say so.
| Quote: |
I had not considered it while starband was available because of FAP and
starband performing fairly ok lately, but now that starband is down I'm
looking at the direcway Small Office plan. Users are reporting close
to 1 MBPs down and between 90 and 105 kbps up which is very very close
to what they quote their plan as... and the upload on the .98m dishes
appears to be noticably better than over starband. obviously no
gaurantees over time as with starband, but for now it looks good.
Obviously FAP is a major limitation, but since I don't download that
much (not over 300 MB/day at present) it shoudn't affect me at all,
with the exception of downloading linux ISO's about once every year and
a half, and then fap will only last for 24 hours to refresh the 500 MB
threshold.
Obviously there is no perfect solution, but with starband down and no
ETA, direcway is looking better to me.
|
i download gigs a day normally. DirecWay would only give me a
headache, and have me calling them up, asking where my bandwidth is.
at the rate i download, i would be getting FAPed within an hour or 2
of turning on my computer.
how long have you had your system? 48x or 360?
i honestly don't know how you can even think about stomaching the
money you spent previously on the system, plus what you are willing to
spend on the DirecWay. sounds a bit too pricey for me.
i have not even upgraded to a 48x b/c starband does not have a smart
upgrade system setup yet.
glad i didn't now, it would be sitting here just like the 360 is now,
with me being out more money. |
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Jeff
Guest
|
| Posted:
Wed Dec 01, 2004 6:26 am Post subject:
Re: Starband / IA-7 satellite will be down, at LEAST until F |
|
|
I started with the Starband 180 system and then upgraded to the 360
system. I've had starband for 3 1/2 years now.
FAP is definitely a drawback, and I'm *only* considering the small
office or business accounts which start at $99 or $109/month plus $999
for equipment and install plus $100 for a pole mount. They use a
larger .98m dish which is a plus. The even lower FAP on the
residentail accounts plus the slow upload (*up to* 50 kbps only) makes
the residentail direcway systems out of the question for me. The
business direcway systems may be a good choice however as it appears
they are delivering very near or even over 100 kbps uploads... the
drawback is still downloading files over 300-500 MB which would trigger
fap and cause you to be at 56k speeds for ~12-24 hours which would
obviously be terrible for the money.
How can I consider direcway you ask?
The answer is that I have no other options at the moment.
Starband is dead with no ETA for a fix. It could be days, weeks, or
months... no idea yet.
The other thing I thought about would be hooking up some v.90 modems
and multilinking.
For four modems I would pay $20 x 4 to the ISP plus $30 x 4 to the
telco for the phone lines = $200/month for ~100 kbps up and 160 kbps
down, and not always on. (I get high 20's to mid 30's for upload and 45
for download over each modem, minus overhead.)
I could do three multilinked lines for $150/month for 75 kbps up and
135 kbps down. The plus is that there's no setup, but it could take a
while to get the phone lines installed. |
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Billary Clinton
Guest
|
| Posted:
Wed Dec 01, 2004 8:41 am Post subject:
Re: Starband / IA-7 satellite will be down, at LEAST until F |
|
|
If you have t-mobile coverage, 90-120 kbps for $29.99 / mo.
http://www.t-mobile.com/business/plans/internet.asp
"Jeff" <beaverisland@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1101864363.368206.212370@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
| Quote: |
I could do three multilinked lines for $150/month for 75 kbps up and
135 kbps down. The plus is that there's no setup, but it could take a
while to get the phone lines installed.
|
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Jeff
Guest
|
| Posted:
Wed Dec 01, 2004 9:44 am Post subject:
Re: Starband / IA-7 satellite will be down, at LEAST until F |
|
|
LOL - I wish! That would be very nice. Here it's something like $29
per 8 MB transferred I think... |
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Jeff
Guest
|
| Posted:
Wed Dec 01, 2004 9:44 am Post subject:
Re: Starband / IA-7 satellite will be down, at LEAST until F |
|
|
LOL - I wish! That would be very nice. Here it's something like $29
per 8 MB transferred I think... |
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