Neotel, my experience so far...

[Chewie64]

Hi,

I'm a newbie here, but have monitored the forum for a while.

Herewith my experience to date...

I got connected to Neotel about 7 weeks ago. I signed up months ago on their website and they phoned, and persuaded me to join them (yes, for at least 24 months) at R599 month.

All very easy. Within 24 hours I had a new phone (and phone number) and a new connection. At the time I was still running with Telkom's 4Mbps ADSL and 3Gb bandwidth.

There were few initial frustrations. Mainly, coming down from 4Mbps to (on average) about 200Kbps. For me, this was the easiest to live with, as I just leave big downloads to run over-night.

The one that does bug me is not having an always-on connection. Even setting the Dial-Up connection to 'do not disconnect' doesn't seem to work too well on Vista...

I've also had some issues with Free Download Manager and BIG downloads. Visual Studio 2008 eventually ran up to 99 % (of 3.2Gb), and then got no further. Whenever I tried to finish the download it somehow 'grabbed' the connection and I couldn't do anything else (even though it was downloading nothing!).

Onto the good news (there is some!). At this crucial point in their 'Consumer Offering' life, they do have their contact centre working well. There is no waiting time to speak to a consultant. They do seem to be quite technically savvy, they do ALWAYS phone back when they say they will (even if it's to say they haven't got an answer yet).

Also, 10Gb is enough for my needs. Instead of waiting for a CD/DVD (Ubuntu, VS2008 etc) I can now download freely (except for the issue mentioned above!). And, late at night, the comnnection speed does increase significantly - although the best that I have got is top about 1Mbps. Not quite the 2.4Mbps maximum advertised.

Anyway, enough for now. If there is anyone who wants to know more about 'Living with Neotel'; please post, and I'll do my best to reply.

Regards to the forum.

Chewie

[Syndyre]

Interesting, thanks. I couldn't handle 200kbps though. :eek:

[pkid]

Good to hear some positive news! :D

[hj2k_x]

Interesting, thanks. I couldn't handle 200kbps though. :eek:

Same here. Even for normal browsing you are gonna feel the laaaaag.

[Syndyre]

Same here. Even for normal browsing you are gonna feel the laaaaag.

Yeah, if his speeds at night are around 1mb then their networks already overloaded so it'll probably only get worse, they can't have that many clients now.

[hj2k_x]

Yeah, if his speeds at night are around 1mb then their networks already overloaded so it'll probably only get worse, they can't have that many clients now.

I guess we wait....and wait for Neotel's ADSL offerings

[Syndyre]

I guess we wait....and wait for Neotel's ADSL offerings

If they were smart they'd start selling packages through ISPs like Verizon and IS do.

[Moederloos]

And, late at night, the comnnection speed does increase significantly - although the best that I have got is top about 1Mbps. Not quite the 2.4Mbps maximum advertised.


A bit of an understatement.
1Mbps is quite a long shot from 2.4!
And that is a best rate?

[hj2k_x]

If they were smart they'd start selling packages through ISPs like Verizon and IS do.

Yip - well we wait and hope as always I guess :\

[Chevron]

Yeah, if his speeds at night are around 1mb then their networks already overloaded so it'll probably only get worse, they can't have that many clients now.

They could still be working out some kinks.

Also this dude just have a slow connection because his far a tower or his modem is in the basement.

It'll be interesting to see how their CapeTown and Durban rollout goes.

[hj2k_x]

They could still be working out some kinks.

Also this dude just have a slow connection because his far a tower or his modem is in the basement.

It'll be interesting to see how their CapeTown and Durban rollout goes.

When is the CT rollout?

[Syndyre]

They could still be working out some kinks.

Also this dude just have a slow connection because his far a tower or his modem is in the basement.

It'll be interesting to see how their CapeTown and Durban rollout goes.

They could be but his signal strength should remain constant regardless of the time of day.

[ColinR]

When is the CT rollout?

Never :o (at least it seems that way). Was meant to be June, which is fading quickly.

[Chewie64]

They could be but his signal strength should remain constant regardless of the time of day.

Sugnal strengthe is usually max (4 bars EVDO). Only rarely does it drop and I get 2-3 bars and '1X' appearing on the handset.

Chewie

[hj2k_x]

Never :o (at least it seems that way). Was meant to be June, which is fading quickly.

That is for sure....

[Moederloos]

They could be but his signal strength should remain constant regardless of the time of day.

I am not an engineer, but I believe signal propagation is affected by time of day and so on. One "obvious" factor is sun-spots (obvious to me, and I hereby await a shooting down!)

:D

[thesones]

There seem to be quite a few problems, as for the ADSL offerings; I think we are going be waiting a long while...

The question remains that if you change from the CDMA package to the ADSL when it does become available, ehat do you do with your handset/telephone/CDMA modem?
(a doorstop?)

[Moederloos]

The question remains that if you change from the CDMA package to the ADSL when it does become available, ehat do you do with your handset/telephone/CDMA modem?
(a doorstop?)

Not sure. On the other hand, if you sign up today for the CDMA option, your two year contract will at least be long expired by the time ADSL arrives...
:p

[pkid]

Also this dude just have a slow connection because his far a tower or his modem is in the basement.

Lol. You made my morning :D

[thesones]

Not sure. On the other hand, if you sign up today for the CDMA option, your two year contract will at least be long expired by the time ADSL arrives...
:p

I think so too! :D

[Zyzzyva]

Also this dude just have a slow connection because his far a tower or his modem is in the basement.



rofl.

Somehow i could believe it.

[thesones]

Good news .....I've build the Yagi http://www.perite.com/vk7jj/NextGYagi.htm, and it works like a charm.
Makes a HUGE differance...reception went up from 0-1 bars to 3 bars constant. Download speed went up from 3-6 kbps to 100-150 kBps. I'm really impressed.
Total cost about R150.

What about using one of these?

[fingers@fingers.co.za]

A bit of an understatement.
1Mbps is quite a long shot from 2.4!
And that is a best rate?
they don't promise 2.4 :-)

they're very careful in stating that average speeds will be between 300 and 700 kbps from what I've seen. they don't even call it broadband (and rightly so)

[The_Librarian]

Now if somebody could build an Ethernet device... :D

[rtzouves]

Hi Guys

I too am a neotel newbie. Been with them for about a month on the prime uncapped.

I have noticed a significant difference in speeds between using vista and xp. On XP my best is about 1Mbps while on vista i get upto 1.5Mbps. Also have full signal as i am very close to the tower.

There are however a few problems with the service. The speed is very irratic as one minute you get 200kbps then it shoots up to 1.4mbps so that can be a bit frustrating.

The latency is obviously horrible, and not for the reasons you may expect, sometimes it can be as "low" as 100ms to saix, but it is also highly irratic and ranges from 100 - 2000ms in just a few seconds. Normally 100ms would be absolutely fine for gaming and even 200-250 is acceptable, considering the type of connection, but the constant jumping around between low and high just frustrates the heck out of you when playing online. With constant 200ms you can adjust to the lag, but when it hops around there is just no way.

Also I have noticed that when trying to do multpile things simultaneously on the net you had best forget about web surfing as it can take forever to load a web page while downloading a file at the same time. I believe this has something to do with the lack of prioritisation between the different types of traffic and as such HTTP traffic has the same priority as any other traffic.

The last and biggest gripe I have is the problem with p2p applications as due to no routing capability on the modem there are incoming connection problems. With high seeds and low leechers the speeds are fine, but as soon as the leechers start outwaying the seeders the speeds become laughable. I am talking about seeds in the thousands so its not that there are not enough seeds. It is just that when there are more leechers connecting to the seeds you can connect to fewer seeds as there are fewer connections to be passed around to the many leechers and due to connection being bad to leechers this results in a slower speed as you are likely connecting to more leechers and fewer seeders.

Other than those issues i am fairly satisfied with neotel's cdma as a temporary stepping stone to their Wimax and fibre services, but definately don't think i will be sticking with cdma for the long term.

By the way chewie64, I found that not using neotel's neoconnect manager and using vista dialup with the "reconnect if line is dropped" option ticked has eliminated my disconnect issues and i can now happily be connected 24hrs a day with the odd 5 second drop in connection every few hours.

[Devo-sa]

Hi,

Onto the good news (there is some!). At this crucial point in their 'Consumer Offering' life, they do have their contact centre working well. There is no waiting time to speak to a consultant. They do seem to be quite technically savvy, they do ALWAYS phone back when they say they will (even if it's to say they haven't got an answer yet).

Also, 10Gb is enough for my needs. Instead of waiting for a CD/DVD (Ubuntu, VS2008 etc) I can now download freely (except for the issue mentioned above!). And, late at night, the comnnection speed does increase significantly - although the best that I have got is top about 1Mbps. Not quite the 2.4Mbps maximum advertised.

Chewie

1. Right, so the good news is that Neotel don't have enough customers to overflow the 10-man call centre yet...

2. 10GB will be enough for me too, but there's a big difference between 1Mbps, and 2.4 - and another bloke metioned that he gets about the same, and he's very close to the tower.
Neotels CEO mentioned in a published article that unlike other providers, their network won't suffer due to lots of connections at peak times - but yours get's better at night eh..?
Interesting - there are definately lies here, either about the 2.4 Mbps, or the bandwidth loading. That says a lot about the ethics of a company and its leadership.

There are no strong enough words to describe the utter disappointment that Neotel is, and probably will be for a long, long time.

[fishfly]

There are no strong enough words to describe the utter disappointment that Neotel is, and probably will be for a long, long time. more than you've suffered with iburst or telkom?

[Devo-sa]

more than you've suffered with iburst or telkom?

Yes actually, as Neofail doesn't even offer a product that CAN actually compete with the other crap out there, plus they say this & that, yet is proven otherwise.

Telkom & Iburst both can be connected to LAN via ethernet, and other hardware options are available, as are other ISP choices (telkon) and neither have the 24 month "sell your soul for our k@k service" contract option as a mandatory.

The lame rep doesn't even address any issues or offer any explanation(s), ffs!

So far the 2nd national "fixed" line operator seems like nothing more that a huge hot, steaming pile of bullsh*t. :mad:

[fishfly]

The lame rep doesn't even address any issues or offer any explanation(s), ffs! lol try a iburst rep! give them a chance and they'll sell you cow dung just to have you on their network that they can't service/provide...