Hi all
I'm a resident in President Park Midrand, where we have no fixed line infrastructure. This poses a logistical and costing problem as I'm running a business from my premises. I have been using Vodacom prepaid 3G for the last year and I have been paying exorbitant fees for the service.
The challenge comes to accommodating for five staff members ability to connect to the internet. As a result you will understand why bandwidth costs are a great concern to me. In the past my 3G account has been in excess of R 1300 per month, this is ridiculous and some other alternative needed to be investigated as a solution. I have looked at many different solutions in the past few years. Some of these have been.
This review will look at the costs of Vodacom vs that of 8ta's new 10Gig "Go big" post paid contact over a period of 24 months. This review also excludes the "midnight surfer" addon that is offered at an extra R100 for 10 gigs bandwidth usage between 12am and 5am.
Vodacom 3g prepaid
I was using a Vodacom 3G prepaid sim card and purchasing data bundles in 2.3gig increments during the course of the month. Most of the time I would top up about 3 times a month. So the monthly fee would be R 1 167. At times though a 4th top up was needed. Below are 3 speed test results to show the services upload and download speeds as per http://www.speedtest.net
So in conclusion, the above speeds for an average of 6.9gig of bandwidth costs me around R 1 167.00 per month.
8ta 10gig 24 month contract
This is a new ISP service I have received today, so I'll be keeping a close lookout on it's performance as well as any cost overruns. I'm using a mac with a Huawei E960 gateway
The downside I have found with contracts is that there in no adequate monitoring integration on bandwidth usage. That being said, in this country it is on the other hand VERY easy to monitor bandwidth usage if you have a prepaid system as it just stops functioning at the appropriate time. Strange isn't it?? If there is a system that works accurately for prepaid customers, shouldn't there also be one for contract users?
I'm ranting here so let me continue with the review!
So after receiving my brand new 8ta sim card and waiting for the SMS notifying me that it has been activated, I popped in the sim to my gateway and took it for a spin.
My first stop was speedtest.net once again. Here are my results.
So in conclusion, the above speeds for 10gig of bandwidth with a fixed contract over 24 months costs me R 200 per month. Lets see how it goes, perhaps it's a good start and perhaps I'm being presumptions in hoping that the speeds will increase soon.
Only time will tell.
Warren in Midrand.
I'm a resident in President Park Midrand, where we have no fixed line infrastructure. This poses a logistical and costing problem as I'm running a business from my premises. I have been using Vodacom prepaid 3G for the last year and I have been paying exorbitant fees for the service.
The challenge comes to accommodating for five staff members ability to connect to the internet. As a result you will understand why bandwidth costs are a great concern to me. In the past my 3G account has been in excess of R 1300 per month, this is ridiculous and some other alternative needed to be investigated as a solution. I have looked at many different solutions in the past few years. Some of these have been.
- Vodacom 3G initially in 2007 - 2008, averaging about R 1000 p/m
- Telkom HSDPA postpaid in 2008 - 2009, averaging about R 1 700 p/m
- Vodacom 3G prepaid during 2010 - Aug 2011, averaging about R 1 200 p/m
- 8ta Aug, current ISP
This review will look at the costs of Vodacom vs that of 8ta's new 10Gig "Go big" post paid contact over a period of 24 months. This review also excludes the "midnight surfer" addon that is offered at an extra R100 for 10 gigs bandwidth usage between 12am and 5am.
Vodacom 3g prepaid
I was using a Vodacom 3G prepaid sim card and purchasing data bundles in 2.3gig increments during the course of the month. Most of the time I would top up about 3 times a month. So the monthly fee would be R 1 167. At times though a 4th top up was needed. Below are 3 speed test results to show the services upload and download speeds as per http://www.speedtest.net
So in conclusion, the above speeds for an average of 6.9gig of bandwidth costs me around R 1 167.00 per month.
8ta 10gig 24 month contract
This is a new ISP service I have received today, so I'll be keeping a close lookout on it's performance as well as any cost overruns. I'm using a mac with a Huawei E960 gateway
The downside I have found with contracts is that there in no adequate monitoring integration on bandwidth usage. That being said, in this country it is on the other hand VERY easy to monitor bandwidth usage if you have a prepaid system as it just stops functioning at the appropriate time. Strange isn't it?? If there is a system that works accurately for prepaid customers, shouldn't there also be one for contract users?
I'm ranting here so let me continue with the review!
So after receiving my brand new 8ta sim card and waiting for the SMS notifying me that it has been activated, I popped in the sim to my gateway and took it for a spin.
My first stop was speedtest.net once again. Here are my results.
So in conclusion, the above speeds for 10gig of bandwidth with a fixed contract over 24 months costs me R 200 per month. Lets see how it goes, perhaps it's a good start and perhaps I'm being presumptions in hoping that the speeds will increase soon.
Only time will tell.
Warren in Midrand.