SA "Broad"band proposed name change

R

robkowa

Active Member
Joined
May 28, 2009
Messages
57
Reaction score
0
Hi all

I've just arrived SA from the UK. I ordered a 4 MB ADSL line from Telkom, and subscribed with Axxess (what with them having won "best ISP" recently). With moderate internet usage (some light video streaming, and occasional file sharing) I'm now at about 9 GB and stand to pay overall ca. R1500 at the end of the month for my internet. Truly amazing, given that in the UK you'd pay perhaps R400 flat for an entirely uncapped 8MB connection. In other words, you'd pay 3 times less for a service that has more than 3 times as much value. A factor of 9 altogether.

Worse, yesterday, I've discovered that my "Broadband" isn't actually broad, either: I payed R77 at the official UEFA site to get a decent stream and watch the UEFA Championsleague final in the comfort of my home.

Ha ha, how naive of me...! Little did I know that the 450kb stream, normally not too much to handle for a modest 512K Broadband connection, would stutter and buffer, and be entirely unwatcheable. I know, you'll tell me about contention rates, etc., and I know all that. Many people will have streamed that at the same time. Nevertheless, I'm paying R1500 per month, half of my rent, for a service which isn't able to deliver what its name implies: frequently, I find myself unable to stream ordinary YouTube videos, CNN clips and other streamed fare from the US.

So, South African "Broadband" isn't broad at all, it's really just dial-up without the modem noises of old. It feels like being in the 90's again. So maybe the product name should be changed to SilentBand?

A frustrated new user

R.
 
The only thing "broad" about our band is the fat backsides of the useless morons who are employed (or is it deployed?) at tilskim and !cuss-ah.

I also have an alleged 4Mb line (which rarely actually gets to 2Mb - and I'm less than 3Km from the DSLAM) and I have never successfully been able to stream anything except low bandwidth mini-sized carp.

Does anyone at the abovementioned (dis-)organisations give a toss? No. It's as bad as monouselesschoice - they are a de facto monopoly and they simply don't care.
 
robkowa said:
Hi all

I've just arrived SA from the UK. I ordered a 4 MB ADSL line from Telkom, and subscribed with Axxess (what with them having won "best ISP" recently). With moderate internet usage (some light video streaming, and occasional file sharing) I'm now at about 9 GB and stand to pay overall ca. R1500 at the end of the month for my internet. Truly amazing, given that in the UK you'd pay perhaps R400 flat for an entirely uncapped 8MB connection. In other words, you'd pay 3 times less for a service that has more than 3 times as much value. A factor of 9 altogether.

Worse, yesterday, I've discovered that my "Broadband" isn't actually broad, either: I payed R77 at the official UEFA site to get a decent stream and watch the UEFA Championsleague final in the comfort of my home.

Ha ha, how naive of me...! Little did I know that the 450kb stream, normally not too much to handle for a modest 512K Broadband connection, would stutter and buffer, and be entirely unwatcheable. I know, you'll tell me about contention rates, etc., and I know all that. Many people will have streamed that at the same time. Nevertheless, I'm paying R1500 per month, half of my rent, for a service which isn't able to deliver what its name implies: frequently, I find myself unable to stream ordinary YouTube videos, CNN clips and other streamed fare from the US.

So, South African "Broadband" isn't broad at all, it's really just dial-up without the modem noises of old. It feels like being in the 90's again. So maybe the product name should be changed to SilentBand?

A frustrated new user

R.
Click to expand...

Yeah, we know. :(
Welcome to SA. :)
 
Perhaps the most frustrating issue is not only the speed, but the inconsistency of it all

I have experienced this on a regular basis, so I do understand. I also have a 4MB line, and I am also with Axxess, but if Im totally honest most of the time I dont have a problem at all...

Perhaps its my location, Im not sure, but generally speaking I can easily watch CNN and watch youtube high def videos.

So while I do feel that overall speed is a serious issue, I feel the inconsistency is probably the biggest issue as you just dont know what you are going to get when you order a product!!!

I feel your pain
 
True, but some Brits have it just as bad...

In Basingstoke, for example, 50% of telephone lines are more than 6km from the exchange, and in Hampshire as a whole a quarter of postcodes get less than 1Mbps.

For those struggling on slow connections it can mean a very different surfing experience from those enjoying higher speeds.

"In some cases people aren't able to shop online, aren't able to view certain websites or use social media applications such as Facebook and Twitter and they can't watch the BBC's iPlayer," said Mr Salter.

For commuters it could impact the way they work.

"It prevents flexible working. If the problem is fixed it means a lot more people could work from home which offers a very real way to improve society," said Mr Salter.

New definition

To date it has been difficult to get an exact picture of where notspots around the UK are or even how to define them.

Under 1% of homes in the UK cannot get any broadband at all.

Many official bodies around the globe define broadband as anything more than half a megabit per second.
Click to expand...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8068676.stm
 
Aqua_lung said:
True, but some Brits have it just as bad...


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8068676.stm
Click to expand...

That's true, and some parts of the U.S. still don't have any broadband at all. But I'm not talking Wyoming here (or Basingstoke, which is worse, he he...). I'm in Westdene, central Jo'burg, in sight of the SABC and the two big communications towers. If it's this bad here, how is it in the Northern Cape?

R.
 
Wait a few months. The new SEACOM cable has just been completed, which should alleviate reliability and consistency issues and hopefully reduce broadband costs in the very near future.
 
I'll give credit where credit is due in that my 4mbit line really does perform like a 4mbit line. I have no speed issues at all really.

However... the price and teeny tiny bandwidth caps are really a joke.

Then again... to live in Africa you have to be able to take a joke.
 
TIA

If I'm not mistaken, our cr@p internet is the reason why this whole forum got started in the first place.
 
You should invest in an IS semi-shaped account from axxess and use it after 8pm at night. Most of the time, video streams at >100KB/sec for me. SAIX shaped accounts are the ones that are useless for streaming video, rarely exceeding 40KB/sec.
 
So true, and to add South Africa seems to be the only country i know of that uses capping.. this used to be done as well in Portugal.
Lotsa Love and huggles
♥
 
robkowa said:
I've just arrived SA from the UK. I ordered a 4 MB ADSL line from Telkom, and subscribed with Axxess (what with them having won "best ISP" recently). With moderate internet usage (some light video streaming, and occasional file sharing) I'm now at about 9 GB and stand to pay overall ca. R1500
Click to expand...

Well first thing you can do to help is to cancel with Axxess, not that they're bad but they don't really cater for 9GB+ usage. You can get a 10GB SAIX account for +-R490 at most other ISP's. WebAfrica would be a good example.

You can save even more by getting both the ADSL line and the data account from the ISP, for example at WebAfrica that would be R890 in total for 10GB and the 4mb line. So a whole lot cheaper than Axxess with an extra gig.

You can check a few other ISP's, saol.com would be only R855 for the same service as WebAfrica. And R832 from vitality broadband.co.za.
 
Last edited:
Mean_Monster said:
So what will we bitch about when we have 100MB/s Fibre connections to our homes? :confused::confused:
Click to expand...

That our 100Mb/s connection is slower and more expensive than the 6Gb/s norm in the rest of the world? And that we are still getting capped at 10GB a month which gets used up in like 10 seconds...
Oh ok maybe 10 seconds is exageration, 13 minutes 36 seconds at full tilt...
 
Last edited:
Mean_Monster said:
So what will we bitch about when we have 100MB/s Fibre connections to our homes? :confused::confused:
Click to expand...

By the time that happenes, we'll all be talking about false teeth, our fantastic pants that we can pull up to our chest and the really hot new bird you met at the dining hall of the retirement village
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X