Skouperd
14-04-2010, 04:32 PM
Hi everybody.
This is my situation. I have been paying for my parents’ bandwidth ever since I’ve convinced them to go online. This is dating back from the days with just normal analogue dial-up. For the last couple of years, they have been using ADSL and on average, they were just sharing my bandwidth, since my father was mainly checking emails, browsing the internet, skyping every now and again and it did not concern me that much. I was averaging in total around 3- to 7GB per month (including his usage).
However, the last year or so, my brother moved back into the house with them, and suddenly I was left with no bandwidth despite upping my cap to 10GB and limiting my own usage. Effectively, he basically discovered the joys of downloading content from the internet, and since big-brother is paying for the bandwidth, did not think twice before he would start downloading. The fact that the downloaded movie cost me more in terms of bandwidth than had he just go and actually buy the original never really crossed his mind.
When 10GB cap was no longer sufficient for both households, I decided to do something else to bring things back to reality again. Shopping around at that stage indicated that WebAfrica’s prepaid group ADSL was the way to go. This allowed me numerous logons, one for me, one for my father, and one for my brother. I can suddenly throttle each login’s bandwidth according to how I feel that month. However, this setup did not promise what the brochure said and I had endless hassles with WebAfrica. I got upset when I paid for over 35GB in two months, and they could not tell me which of the 3 accounts actually used it. Effectively, I was missing approximately 20GB of unallocated bandwidth. The final straw came when I tested out their free-zone, and I was billed for the bandwidth.
WebAfrica is now in the process to cancel my group-ADSL account, and give me a single prepaid account which I am only going to use when I want to access Steam, or any of the free-zone stuff. (They agreed to load the now ~5GB remaining onto that account as well). The two ADSL in question is a 4Mb line (mine) and my parents use a 386Kb line. I am now in the fortunately position to review my options with regard to best value for money in terms of ISPs. One of the interesting developments of late is uncap ADSL (I can just see my brother’s face lighting up at this thought) however, despite there being numerous ISP’s that is selling uncap ADSL all of them are restricted to a single concurrent connection. Whereas most paid/GB packages have 4 or 5 concurrent connections enabled.
My goal is to try and keep my ISP bill under R500 / month. If I do have unlimited bandwidth I can definitely see myself actually using it for the purchase of games etc. The options I am currently considering are the following:
1. Purchase an Afrihost 10GB account and pay R290/month and share it between both households. This account allows 5 concurrent connections. The problem with this approach is that WHEN (not IF) the bandwidth dries up in the middle of the month, my father will not be able to get emails / etc. I will still be able to use the WebAfrica prepaid account but I don’t necessarily want to remove my father’s access to the web.
2. Purchase an Afrihost uncap 384Kb account, at R197 for my parents, and I just use a prepaid Afrihost account at R29/GB for myself. The problem with this is that my parents’ now have a state-of-the-art-super-dooper-ultra-cool-uncap-ADSL-line-that-they-use-for-emails (which I am paying for), and I end up with a lousy couple-of-GB-prepaid-account. That is just wrong on so many levels and will definitely cause a disruption in the space time continuum.
3. Purchase a 4Mb uncap ADSL account from Afrihost for R497 / month, and tell my family to go get their own bandwidth. The problem with this, I might be seen as a bit selfish given that my parents are retired, and my brother doesn’t have an income.
Right now, the 2nd option seems to make the most sense to me, despite the disruption the said action will have on the equilibrium of the matrix. Now, that you are aware of my circumstances, I just have the following question, will you go with the black router, or with the white router?
Ok, serious question, anybody have experience (from latency, stability etc) of the Afrihost network especially with regards to online gaming. If Afrihost is bad, what other options / ISP’s will you recommend given my very peculiar needs? By the way, my religious believes prohibits any dealings with MWeb. So whether or not they have the best deal or not, I unfortunately cannot consider them as an option.
This is my situation. I have been paying for my parents’ bandwidth ever since I’ve convinced them to go online. This is dating back from the days with just normal analogue dial-up. For the last couple of years, they have been using ADSL and on average, they were just sharing my bandwidth, since my father was mainly checking emails, browsing the internet, skyping every now and again and it did not concern me that much. I was averaging in total around 3- to 7GB per month (including his usage).
However, the last year or so, my brother moved back into the house with them, and suddenly I was left with no bandwidth despite upping my cap to 10GB and limiting my own usage. Effectively, he basically discovered the joys of downloading content from the internet, and since big-brother is paying for the bandwidth, did not think twice before he would start downloading. The fact that the downloaded movie cost me more in terms of bandwidth than had he just go and actually buy the original never really crossed his mind.
When 10GB cap was no longer sufficient for both households, I decided to do something else to bring things back to reality again. Shopping around at that stage indicated that WebAfrica’s prepaid group ADSL was the way to go. This allowed me numerous logons, one for me, one for my father, and one for my brother. I can suddenly throttle each login’s bandwidth according to how I feel that month. However, this setup did not promise what the brochure said and I had endless hassles with WebAfrica. I got upset when I paid for over 35GB in two months, and they could not tell me which of the 3 accounts actually used it. Effectively, I was missing approximately 20GB of unallocated bandwidth. The final straw came when I tested out their free-zone, and I was billed for the bandwidth.
WebAfrica is now in the process to cancel my group-ADSL account, and give me a single prepaid account which I am only going to use when I want to access Steam, or any of the free-zone stuff. (They agreed to load the now ~5GB remaining onto that account as well). The two ADSL in question is a 4Mb line (mine) and my parents use a 386Kb line. I am now in the fortunately position to review my options with regard to best value for money in terms of ISPs. One of the interesting developments of late is uncap ADSL (I can just see my brother’s face lighting up at this thought) however, despite there being numerous ISP’s that is selling uncap ADSL all of them are restricted to a single concurrent connection. Whereas most paid/GB packages have 4 or 5 concurrent connections enabled.
My goal is to try and keep my ISP bill under R500 / month. If I do have unlimited bandwidth I can definitely see myself actually using it for the purchase of games etc. The options I am currently considering are the following:
1. Purchase an Afrihost 10GB account and pay R290/month and share it between both households. This account allows 5 concurrent connections. The problem with this approach is that WHEN (not IF) the bandwidth dries up in the middle of the month, my father will not be able to get emails / etc. I will still be able to use the WebAfrica prepaid account but I don’t necessarily want to remove my father’s access to the web.
2. Purchase an Afrihost uncap 384Kb account, at R197 for my parents, and I just use a prepaid Afrihost account at R29/GB for myself. The problem with this is that my parents’ now have a state-of-the-art-super-dooper-ultra-cool-uncap-ADSL-line-that-they-use-for-emails (which I am paying for), and I end up with a lousy couple-of-GB-prepaid-account. That is just wrong on so many levels and will definitely cause a disruption in the space time continuum.
3. Purchase a 4Mb uncap ADSL account from Afrihost for R497 / month, and tell my family to go get their own bandwidth. The problem with this, I might be seen as a bit selfish given that my parents are retired, and my brother doesn’t have an income.
Right now, the 2nd option seems to make the most sense to me, despite the disruption the said action will have on the equilibrium of the matrix. Now, that you are aware of my circumstances, I just have the following question, will you go with the black router, or with the white router?
Ok, serious question, anybody have experience (from latency, stability etc) of the Afrihost network especially with regards to online gaming. If Afrihost is bad, what other options / ISP’s will you recommend given my very peculiar needs? By the way, my religious believes prohibits any dealings with MWeb. So whether or not they have the best deal or not, I unfortunately cannot consider them as an option.