ISP?

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.

ok ...it seems that both households have a telkom line...right?...hence the adsl line....
just go telkom adsl....and watch this space...ive heard mumblings and rumblings from the telkom camp....
only downside to telkom as an isp is....their support SUCKS!!!!!

Hi Baseline, yes, they are both Telkom ADSL lines unfortunately. Mine is in Cape Town, my father's is in Langebaan so Iburst and those options are out.

I had a quick look at the Telkom options but unless I am missing something, they don't have anything that will solve my problem. Do you have any indication more or less as to when / what it is that they will be releasing?

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Originally Posted by Skouperd

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.

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Please excuse my ignorance, but out of curiosity, why might this be so? I'm honestly at a loss here as to what mweb do that might make people take the stance you have.

As to advice... I'd get your folks household a prepaid account and tell them to be responsible with their Gbs usage so they don't run out half way during the month.

Afrihost prepaid - R29/GB and top up when you need. Why not get a 1GB account for each family member.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by pmurgs

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Skouperd

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.

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Please excuse my ignorance, but out of curiosity, why might this be so? I'm honestly at a loss here as to what mweb do that might make people take the stance you have.

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Hi Murgs, sure no problem, without turning this into a heavy religious argument, I appreciate that I have a very strange and unusual religion. I do not necessarily subscribe to popular believes etc, yet, I have an open enough mind and have engaged in arguments (technical, theological, theoretical, philosophical, scientifically etc) with all walks of life including Muslims, Fanatical Christians (Christians who believe the earth is only 6000 years old), Normal Christians, Buddhism, Judaism, Satanist, Atheist, Deities, you name them, I have argued with and against them all. So, during all my arguments, I came to the conclusion that irrespective of what your believes are, none of the believes will make my internet bandwidth go quicker, non of them will give me a better KDR (well, some might actually send you on training, but that is another topic), but more importantly, none of them will allow me to hit the golf ball any sweeter.

So at the end of the day, I decided I will be a loyal follower of only what is in my own best interest, which was at that stage the continuous participation of a weekly ritual I performed. Not only did my ritual involve me being in wide open fields every Saturday morning, it also required absolute dedication, and clairvoyance that can only be matched by the intense adrenalin rush observed when that final MCom station blows in BC2. I am talking about golf off course.

Unfortunately, this ritual of mine was a costly ritual especially considering that at the stage I was also paying for my own studies which I did part-time. As such, I took a zero tolerance policy on anybody, or anything, which tried to screw me or my ability to participate in my weekly ritual. So, when MWeb screwed me over a R50 debit order (after I’ve cancelled my subscription) in 1998, they were messing with my religion; i.e. golf. Despite my sincere efforts to enter into discussions with their accounts department, and legal department, their attitude at the time was basically, stuff you, we only care about new customers, not customers that already left them. So I made a solemn vow on the sacred grounds, (i.e. the putting green on the 18th hole) that I will never in my life have dealings with Mweb again.

It is now 12 years later and though I no longer participate so much in my weekly rituals, a vow made on the sacred grounds, is one that you can never break.

True story… well, most of it, since I just haven’t argued with a deity yet. :p

:stupid: :slap:

love the story skoups :)

ok ...telkom has been upgrading their exchanges for almost 2 years...as far as i know every exchange in south africa has been fitted with the hardware to run adsl 2+ this is at blistering speeds of 24Mb/sec lines....but none of the equipment may be used ....yet
as far as my understanding goes, it is inline with fifa requirements(by the way i have personally been inside bothasig and montagu exchanges, and have seen the equipment, asked about it etc etc.....)
now adsl2+ also increases the range of adsl service from 5km to approx 8km from the exchange, obviously you wont get 24Mbit/sec at 8 km....mabe more like 2Mbit/sec at that distance
this coincides with telkom and their huge fibre network to in many cases ..replace their existing copper lines
so as the world cup draws closer....we should see major things happening in regards to the interwebs as we know it in south africa
the info in this post has not been read on the webs...this is info i have gathered in all my travels and questions ive asked, it might not all be accurate, but lets wait and see
or if you want more info...go ask google :D

Hi Baseline, thanks for the feedback, I think it would be uber cool if your predictions do come true, however, I am one of the pessimistic people when it comes to Telkom and Telkom's service delivery. They have never, without severe pressure, provided something better than what is the absolute minimum. I would venture a guess, and I hope I am completely mistaken, that the ADSL2 lines will be available to the public, but the cost of obtaining / upgrading to that line will far exceed the benefit it will have. When we obtain IP-TV for instance, then that is another matter etc.

As I said, I hope I am wrong.

Telkom have already been testing speeds of 8-12mbit, I assume they will start roll-out of those speeds before jumping to 24mbit but I am pretty sure those speeds will be available to many before the end of the year.

I've been using MWEB 4Mb uncapped this whole month - not a single glitch or slowdown...but I don't abuse the privilage. I think I've used 15Gb (youtube and IPTV is orsim) so far, so definately got my moneys worth. From what I've heard, the Afrihost one is a bit on the nerfed side, whereas since Mweb makes use of *BT *Cough international bandwidth, there's no fear of hardcore capping like afrihost might do (Afrihost use AXXESS international).

Anyway, my bottom line is that for just a little more, it's worth going the Mweb route.

4Mb line is definately the way to go too.