What is the best broadband option currently?

[FunnyWan]

Hi everyone,

Apologies if this question has already been addressed somewhere else on these forums but I've been thinking of signing-up for ADSL and wanted to know what the best option for broadband in S.A. is right now? :confused:

I've been on dial-up for the past 9 years :eek: and have been waiting for a decent (reliable) broadband option with no capping (or at least a decent sized cap of 20 to 30GB and up).

What would you guys go with and why?

[pupa]

A Move to a another Country,,,,,,,Even India could be advised

[FunnyWan]

Thanks ic.

Yeah, I've been keeping tabs on developments regarding the 1st Nov "doomsday".

The major thing holding me back from ADSL is that damn cap.

[rburley]

get 192 to start off with and if you not happy you can always upgrade for FREE, downgrading costs. If you have been used to dial up speeds for 9 years you will find 192 speeds awesome. And its cheap R279. I dont think it is possible to give good advice about a ISP until november, nobody knows anything yet.

[slowgo]

Hi everyone,

Apologies if this question has already been addressed somewhere else on these forums but I've been thinking of signing-up for ADSL and wanted to know what the best option for broadband in S.A. is right now? :confused:

I've been on dial-up for the past 9 years :eek: and have been waiting for a decent (reliable) broadband option with no capping (or at least a decent sized cap of 20 to 30GB and up).

What would you guys go with and why?

What a shame there is no smiley of me rolling on the floor laughing? :D

[FunnyWan]

What a shame there is no smiley of me rolling on the floor laughing? :D

What a shame there is no smiley of me showing you the finger. :cool:

rburley: If i did go for ADSL, I agree that going for 192 is probably my best option for now.

Not keen on waiting for Telkom to get their s**t together though so just trying to weigh it all up. :rolleyes:

[slowgo]

What a shame there is no smiley of me showing you the finger. :cool:

rburley: If i did go for ADSL, I agree that going for 192 is probably my best option for now.

Not keen on waiting for Telkom to get their s**t together though so just trying to weigh it all up. :rolleyes:

Ok I think you might have misunderstood my post. There is no decent (reliable) broadband option is SA. If you looking at doing P2P without going through some type of proxy you will be sitting with this scenario. Dial-up download P2P 8Kbs, 512 ADSL download P2P 2Kbs. So there you go. The question is what you want to do with your broadband, its great for surfing and surfing and maybe surfing. BUT then how fast do you need to surf? 56K would be just fine for this. The unshaped is not much better either. Surf slower P2P faster :D

[LordyHaHa]

You want to surf and have uncapped or big cap - go Wireless.
you want to play games locally - go ADSL.
You want to play games overseas - Go either but definatly not FPS :p

I got ADSL512 which I use primarily for gaming in SA (local traffic) and rarly bust more than 4 Gig's a month. On this I also do a bit of browsing, mail, etc.
I touched Torrents once and got nailed for 1.2Gig in a 24 hour cycle so I wouldn;t go back to them..
Else its fine - compared to my friends Wireless which he got recently - he can only play some local FPS's (COD) - others give him nasty lag and the thing has been down more than its been up.
In a skype conversation we had between each other there was a 12 to 16 second delay. I'm presuming its his side becasue skype on ADSL to ADSL is perfect normally (no delay).
Also his MSN would drop occasionally. BUT He wasn't capped so he didn't really mind as long as his torrent picked up after reconnecting ...

So different strokes for different folks - It all gets down to what you want to use it for...

[FunnyWan]

slowgo: Sorry about that, I did jump on horse too quickly. :D

Your point on "how fast do you need to surf?" is exactly why I've held out on moving to broadband as my only reason for doing so would be to pump lots of downloads via P2P.

Not sure I agree on those speeds though as some of the ppl on this forum have reported pretty decent speeds (30Kbs to 50Kbs). Maybe it's a location/setup issue.

[slowgo]

slowgo: Sorry about that, I did jump on horse too quickly. :D

Your point on "how fast do you need to surf?" is exactly why I've held out on moving to broadband as my only reason for doing so would be to pump lots of downloads via P2P.

Not sure I agree on those speeds though as some of the ppl on this forum have reported pretty decent speeds (30Kbs to 50Kbs). Maybe it's a location/setup issue.

Yes that is correct. Unfortunately it looks like the shaping option is now being enforced so it’s going down and down. I still have my dial-up and will keep it as a second option for certain applications. Quite a few times latterly I go over to it and get better results. I believe however that around November the story will change, you will have to pay per Meg over your cap. This might be the way to go if they take off the heavy shaping that is now applied. I am not one that likes the idea that I am paying for a service but still have to look at proxy services to get what I am paying for. Maybe it might be an option for you to wait and just stick around here and see how the chat goes and what direction it’s taking. :rolleyes:

[Chris]

hmm..well if you're a P2P user then ISDN would be the best option since there is:

A) No shaping
B) R7 for the whole weekend

[slowgo]

slowgo: Sorry about that, I did jump on horse too quickly. :D

Your point on "how fast do you need to surf?" is exactly why I've held out on moving to broadband as my only reason for doing so would be to pump lots of downloads via P2P.

Not sure I agree on those speeds though as some of the ppl on this forum have reported pretty decent speeds (30Kbs to 50Kbs). Maybe it's a location/setup issue.
PS, just tried LimeWire on 512 Bus Shaped. Downloading from 10 hosts 3KB/s :p

[Les_africains]

R7 for the whole week end ? where do you have that ?

I'm using IDSN actually but would like to switch to ADSL ( for more speed )

Will I be able to use Kazaa and Skype with ADSL ? Will it be much quicker than ISDN ?

[Ekhaatvensters]

I know I'm gonna get shot down for this, but have you thought of using I-burst yet?
It's not all that bad (at all) if you get a good connection, which is not as hard as often made out in these forums, what area do you live in JHB + PTA are covered very well and Cape Town isn't that bad either, keep in mind you can be about 7km from a base station and, with an antenna, receive pretty good results.

As far as shaping goes, I think you are better off with IBurst than Telkom, from what I've experienced, except maby some of the biggest P2P networks that are also pretty heavily shaped. However the cap issue will be a problem, bbut definately better than ADSL's cap (64k "unlimited" after cap) after November, and trust me you will only get DSL installed by November if you order now.

So just another option not to take forgranted due to all it's negative publicity on this site! You can always cancell and get your money beack after 7 days if it doesnt work for you.

[Les_africains]

how do you manage to pay 7R during the we ?

[Scooby_Doo]

how do you manage to pay 7R during the we ?


Telkom infinate call... R60 per month and then all calls monday - thurday 7pm to 7am capped at (i think its now R9) for the full twelve hours. Friday from 7pm to monady morning 7am (Weekend) calls capped the same way.... so you could be on the net for 60 hours and pay only R9 or what ever it is.

If u use 128k ISDN then you pay for 2 time R9 (or what ever it is) cuz u using 2 calls (2 64k lines).

Be warned that disconnecting will reset the call back to R0.00 and you will have to pay another R9 if u connect again.

[FunnyWan]

Ekhaatvensters: What are the costs and capping like for iBurst? :confused:

Scooby_Doo/Dominic Rooney: Is there capping on ISDN and what kind of speeds would I be looking at for P2P?

[Ekhaatvensters]

Standard 3gig package is R599p/m thats the final cost, isp and all included, as WBS are youre IPS. I'm taking it you dont know much about the service, so you should check out the forum, but dont take all the negativity too seriously, it is an ok service if you are in a good area close enough to the towers.

Shaping is not quite as harsh as telkom (except some P2P apps), they allow streaming at full speed which is quite nice except you'll eat your cap!
Once you use youre 3gigs youre capped to unlimited 64kb access, which apparently works quite well! Step up from Telkoms capping, which I have seen in action.
There are also 6 and 9 gig packages, with the 9gig being unshaped but 3 is generally enough and the most economical.

[Ekhaatvensters]

It may sound like I'm rootng for IBurst but in fact TelkomDSL may be a better deal??
If you get a excellent connection with IBurst and like the mobility though, it could be the best option currently.

[FunnyWan]

Ekhaatvensters: Do you know how I can check how good my IBurst connection would be? (i.e. List of towers or something)

[Ekhaatvensters]

You can look on www.iburst.co.za, they have coverage maps with the range and signal strength of towers around JHB, PTA and Cape Town. You should ideally be in the fair indoor region, or with an antenna the outdoor regions on the map can be fine.

However for a real indication you could just go on the 7 day trial with IBurst

[devnull]

this is simply not true, you should believe all the negative things that are written in this forum about iburst. If you are planning to do nothing but surf the web and maybe some email then yes it can be a great thing. But be warned they don't throttle you once you hit your cap they just cut you off, contrary to what the ad or the contract might say. they really don't seem know what they are doing at either technical, management or accounting level. they can't throttle you and blame you for it, they make the stupid decision to cut everyone off (because they can't manage their system) and when you finally have enough and cancel they will bill you for another two months it will take just as long to get your money back and perhaps like me six months later they will phone again and ask where can we send the invoice.

STAY AWAY YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!

[thisgeek]

I would personally only opt for a wireless service if for some reason I couldn't get ADSL.
And even then that would be a stretch. I'd have to be really desperate. :p

[Ekhaatvensters]

I have been capped about three days ago and was simply throttled, could download at 7-9kb from int. server (wit dl accelerator) none the less. Not simply cut off, and many people get capped very soon and the use a throttled service for a good part of the month, and surfing was, for me, very possible while capped. As I said even downloads were fine. Theses problems you list also obviously come from being labbled an "abuser", maby wrongly so, but if you stay within say a few hundred megs over your cap, or just maby even within your cap!!!, you shouldn't have to deal with these problems, so I dont know if that is much of a reason to stay away from I-burst, I also use an unshaped P2P and at least streaming is prioritised, unlike DSL.
But, yes DSL could easily be an better option. just dont discard I-burst if youre in a good area.

[R4tt3xx]

The high costs all-round for telecoms in this country cannot be justified, and with the new Telkom pricing the "digital divide" will just keep on widening.

[FunnyWan]

Thanks everyone for your posts. :)

It has helped me a bit but I must admit that I'm still not sure which route to follow to get me some broadband access. So...I've decided to try and add some clarity to this thread by listing my exact bandwith needs so that I can get some more detailed/specific answers.

Here it goes...based on the requirements below, what broadband option (and consequently which ISP) would you guys go with? :confused:

My Requirements/Intended Usage:

1) P2P. Lots of it!
2) As high a cap as is possible.
3) Flexible ISP account - No long term contracts.
4) General web browsing and e-mail access.
5) Skype (not a necessity but would be cool).
6) Always-on connectivity would be prefered.

I'm NOT too interested in online gaming.

Sentech is NOT an option - (because of bad previous experiences and long-term contracts). :mad:
3G is a waste of time (for me at least).

So it basically boils down to ADSL vs ISDN vs iBurst vs Dialup.

I know that 1st Nov will change the "picture" but your input in the meanwhile is still appreciated. :D

[Ekhaatvensters]

If youre looking for a high cap and lots of P2P, then Iburst isn't much of an option unless youre willing to pay alot for your high cap. TelkomDSL after 1 november can still just be feasable, but and Iburst contract will probably be available for +/- the same amount... so it's kinda up to you. Especially as you dont need online gaming, so DSL's low local pings arent that much help.

One more option would be one of the more reliable wireless ISP, eg. uninet, who offer slower probably less reliable connections, but have no cap at all! you can check out their site if this interests you.

[FunnyWan]

Mmmmm....will look into it.

I'm exploring all possibilities at the moment.

[Killkenny]

1) P2P. Lots of it!
2) As high a cap as is possible.
3) Flexible ISP account - No long term contracts.
4) General web browsing and e-mail access.
5) Skype (not a necessity but would be cool).
6) Always-on connectivity would be prefered.

I would suggest going with ADSL.

You can get a 10GB account with www.openweb.co.za for R699.00. It's a lot more expensive than the 30GB accounts used to be but hey... Also www.axxess.co.za claim that they have something up their sleeve that would mean that their prices will not change. But there's a good possibility that will never materialize. Both or these accounts are month to month, which gives you your flexibility.

I can't comment on the Skype situation because I have never used it.

And of course ADSL is an always-on connection.

To get around the port shaping for p2p you can get an openweb free proxy account. Works like a charm and it's FREE!

The only disadvantage I can see is the install time. With Telkom you never know when that could be.

Just my 2c.

Hope you come right!

[rustic]

Ekhaatvensters: Do you know how I can check how good my IBurst connection would be? (i.e. List of towers or something)

Hi FunnyWan,

Welcome, I agree with Ekhaatvensters, Iburt has had more than it's fair share of problems but lately I've been more than happy with my service. Just a couple of things to note.

*Iburst is not really any good at online gaming, depending on what, if anything you want to play. Latency varies (for me) anywhere between 100 - 700 local.
*Due to high latency, voip is not great.
*You're forced to use thier mail servers, which aren't very reliable. Although they have been better lately.
*p2p,torrent: like all sa ISP's is not ideal, although there are ways or "work arounds" to get better performance.
*Not sure what the new ADSL pricing/meg is going to do to the higher caps, have a look at www.hellkom.co.za for "rumoured details", but Iburst doesn't cater for 20-30 gigs at all.
*Try before you buy..... Some people have had a terrible experience.

I would get some body out to test for signal even if you are on the border and the coverage map says that the signal isn't very good. I'm not even on the coverage map, and i get full speeds.

Hope this helps a bit:D