Planning to get ADSL

[someone]

I have read a few topics and there seems to be major concern with speed, and to a far lesser degree the 3 GB cap.

I am planing to purchase ADSL in 2 months time. Thus I have a few questions and some other info I would like to mention.

Firstly I get absolutely fustrated with ISDN and 56K regarding connection time periods to make it affordable. The one aspect I like about ADSL is the 24/7 access at a set monthly cost.

Secondly I really don't mind a non-static IP as I don't host any servers for internet purposes.

Thirdly 95% of my downloads, uploads, gaming, etc is local, for most of the patches, updates, etc I can obtain locally. I have about 150 MB
to 400 MB per month international downloads for patches not available on sites in ZA.

Now I see many of you have mentioned speeds that at times are far worse than 56K modem, but most reported posts of speeds have left out some relevant information such as: Is it local sites or international sites? Is it before or after 3GB limit for international sites? The 3 GP limit is only applicable to international sites. The sites connected to which yeilds slow speeds, what are the equivalent 56K speeds for those sites?

I more concerned with the local speeds and I am wondering if it worth to get ADSL? or stick to 56K modem for IDSN is not worth the money spent.

[ASnogarD]

Most speed concern is about the international connections, local is usually reasonably fast. Local online gaming via Saix Gaming Server is fast as long as you don't try during business hours, then its lagging. You must remeber tho the Telkom ADSL network is set up to prioritise browseing and e-mail , so if a large number of people are surfing or e-mailing then IRC and gaming suffers (Locally).

You must bear in mind once you hit your 3 gig limit you have virtually no international connection, it is REALLY bad.

Personally I reccommend you monitor the ADSL situation for a while before commiting...there is rumour of Telkom planning some additional account types depending on what you are willing to pay.

[David]

Basically I see it like this:

We were running ISDN for every day internet access in our small office. A typical day would include checking email first thing in the morning and doing the banking, this could take about 45 mins to an hour online. Then during the day we would dialup a few more times to do banking and check email and perhaps surf the web a bit looking for information etc..

At no time did we ever use the internet dailup connection during working hours, for non bussiness related purposes and we used to spend about R700-R900 per month for this on the dialup.

So I came up with a very simple calculation, which most people are not aware of. It works as follows, taking the following into account. The average telephone call (local), let say from your dailup to your ISP will cost approx R20.00 ex vat per hour. This means to stay on line for 1 hour. (Office Hours)

So if you take that most people in small bussines will spend at least a min of 1 hour per day on the internet, you can calculate your phone bill very roughly as follows:

R20 per hour x 5 days = R100 per week x 4 weeks = R400.00 per month

change one hour to 2 hours and the cost doubles to R800, which is what it will cost you for ADSL anyway.

So for the small bussiness user, I would say that it is more cost effective than Dailup, especially if you have more than one modem in your office.

Do not get me wrong however, I am not saying that Telkom is justified in charging us what they do, both for normal telephone access as well as ADSL, I am just saying that in light of our options, we have ADSL which is at the moment the better in terms of cost.

At the end of the day I want to get my email downloaded quick, no matter how big or small, have you ever tried to download an email sent you, that is about 1 meg or larger in size and timmed how long it takes on dailup? Then only to find it is some junk that some one has sent you. This problem we do not have on ADSL.

I also want to be able to do my banking quicker and this is achived on ADSL.

As for the 3 gig cap, I do not belive this is a huge issue, if you use it as a bussines tool, if you are going to download mp3 and movie files the entire day, then stick to ISDN dailup, with Telkoms R7.00 call plan. and use it only after hours. You could download every night, from 7 at night ot 7 in the morning for only R7.00 per call for 32 days and it will only cost you R217.00 in calls only!

However Telkom does need to improve on their technical support, offering, as you can hold on for upto 30 mins before your call is taken and then the person you speak to is usually a parrot trained techie, that does not know anything about the mechanics of ADSL.

I am also lead to beleive that due to the fact that ADSL uses our normal copper telephone cabling, it must surely suffer in speed, should the lines be tampered with or be worked on, or simply be to old to handle the bandwidth.

thats my 2cents worth!!

[ASnogarD]

David

I do not dispute your rationale, however there is a business option and non-business option. Logically it is the casual user who would not pay for a expensive account like ADSL but the power user will see it as viable. If ADSL was business friendly only service then it should advertise as such and not have a public user option.

My story: I download via Kazaa fan subbed anime and they are large files, I used to download them via a dial-up account with the R7 special and average R600 Telkom bill per month, now looking at the ADSL offer I pay additional say R240 and gain 24/7 connection, the 3 gig limit...no problem I was sure the throttled connection couldn't be slower than old dial-up technology. Net gain 24/7 connection with a 3 gig 'bonus speed' downloads. I am being unreasonable with those expectations ? I never expected to get full 512 k speed at any time...but I at least expected the service to outperform my old dial-up service, and it was never mentioned anywhere there was network shaping in effect, if I had known that I would of never subscribed.

I don't do movies, music or games (not a movie freak , prefer my old collection of songs and downloaded games generally come with some unexpected software bundled). I have patiantly downloaded gigs of anime , often waiting a week or so for a few eps through my old modem...ADSL was suppose to be a form of reward for myself for quiting smokeing.[V]

[PAYBACK]

Someone, you say the 3 gig cap is not an issue. Well I thought as much as well, I'm not really that much of a file hog, a few patches here and there. Just remember anything you D/L,Int. or local gets added to your cap, and a hour of CS will take about 40 meg off that cap so if you do the math you see that a 3 gig cap gets used up very quickly. I've gone back to my ISDN line because ADSL has not yet rolled out at my new house I moved into 2 months ago. Its seems that during these 2 months ADSL has really turned out for the worse its a shame because when its running correctly like it was in the early days, it was a pleasure and the envy of the online gamming community.I don't think TELKOM was expecting such a huge demand for the service, thus catching them with their pants down.I'm sure though TELKOM is busy putting measures in place to address all these problems.

1. Price
2. Speed
3. Cap

Later......

[someone]

So basic the speed issues is mainly international where it is less than 56K modem while for local it seems to be much higher than ISDN during office hours still.

Correct me, the 3 GB cap as I understand it only applies to international sites, after which you are switch to a slower international connection. The local sites does not have this restriction thus can exceed the 3 GB limit for local sites with no performance penalty to them and not influencing the international connection if you have not reached 3 GB limit for international sites.

Also the price for 24/7 is actually much more affordable than I pay for 56K or more for ISDN, but if the local speeds are less than ISDN speed at any time of the day then it does not seem to worth the hassle. I don't mind the drop in speed for international sites once the 3 GB limit is reach, but should not drop at all below ISDN 64 K speeds at any time.

Thanx for the info so far.

[Pumba]

Someone,

Both local and International (up and down) adds up to the cap. But once capped, only international is effected.

[ChrisB]

The more you read on this forum the less easy it is to make a decision!

The whole point about ADSL should surely be the affordability of the damn thing. OK that, and usable speeds. Followed by the convenience of 24x7.

I work for a small (4 person) company with demand-dialled ISDN. With the line rental, we are paying over R2,000 per month, plus our ISP's charge at around R400. Maybe I need to set up the ISDN router to stay on line for longer in stead of timing out at 6 minutes or whatever, someone earlier did a calculation at R20 per day which should be only R420 per month for business hours calls only.

But look at the other alternative: A leased line comes in about R1,600 per mo, plus ISP fees starting around R4,300 (we wouldn't consider any of the 3rd-tier ISPs). So DSL at R800 plus R260 starts to look like a realistic alternative... until I read here about all the unhappiness.

Maybe we should stick with the inconvenience of up / down / up / down until Big Bro decides to provide a service rather than hide behind rules...