Best option for home/personal use???

I've just started looking around and would really like some pointers, given my situation, about what options I need to look at. I'm sure this must have been asked a million times before, but I can't really find a useful one-stop answer (even very superficial) comparing iburst, 3G, ADSL etc. etc.

Basically, I have not had any kind of internet connection (in my personal capacity) for some time. Mostly I've gotten around this by doing anything I want on the internet from work, but this has some drawbacks (e.g. spending WAY too much time in the office)

What I'm looking for is high-speed access. When I say high-speed, I mean if I go to www.hotmail.com, I want the page to display immediately, not in twenty seconds, not in 10 seconds, but immediately. Let's make that somewhere under 2 seconds to be realistic...

I'm not interested in high traffic volumes, I'll probably only use it for casual browsing, Internet banking etc. I would be quite surprised if my total download traffic in a month will exceed 1 GB, but then again once I have it, I might start using more. Point is, volume of traffic will be reasonably limited.

I have one desktop at home, but mostly use my laptop and share the house with my girlfriend who also has a laptop.

A few points:
- Mobility is not essential for me, although it might be useful occasionally
- I don't have any kind of Telkom line at home
- I do have an MTN cellphone account, but it's a cheap old contract (not sure if 3G is available on any contract?) and my phone is ancient (definitely does not support anything like GPRS or 3G).

Any advice (or links to good resources on the web) would be much appreciated.

Sounds like the exact same situation I am/was is... do most of my internet related stuff at work, but do need connectivety as home as well since I do work a bit from home and need it also for browsing some non-work related sites etc. Until last week I used to use my cellphone's GPRS modem and a 100Mb package from MTN... never exceeded that, so my idea was to go a bit bigger, but not too big else I'm wasting Mb's (and $)! My setup at home also sounds similar to yours: 1 work laptop (with wifi), 1 home laptop & 1 HTPC (with wifi) and all 3 of them need to have an internet connection.

Was planning on going for a wifi router + modem with an ADSL line, but then got into a fight with Telkom when they tried to force me to fork out R404 for a self install. Also, I was looking at the 192 line speed option, which in retrospect would have been way too slow for my needs. The 384 would have been better then. All this plus the router would have cost me like ~ R1.2k just for installation (Telkom install + modem/router) and then another R560 pm (384 Telkom line + 3Gb account).

The other option was Iburst... A guy that also stays in my area confirmed that there is quite a good signal here and then at least I wouldn't have to deal with Telkom. Pricewise this would have been a bit steeper in initial outlay... ~ R2.8k (Iburst UTD modem + router) and then R300 pm (i-Go m2m). Read on the forum here that speeds and service sometimes seem to be a problem. Put me off a bit. No contract though.

Last option was 3G... initially a bit apprehensive about this as a always-on connection and cost factor. Then investigated and found it actually would suit me perfectly if I got the Linksys 3G router with it. Vodacom charges an arm and a leg for the router on contract (http://www.vodacom.co.za/packages/3g/router.jsp), so I bought outright at ~R1.6k (http://www.pcmall.co.za/moreinfo.asp?sku=WRT54G3G) and signed up for 3G 500 package for R350pm including the Options Quad band 3G card. Upside here is that I can also take the card with when I'm travelling. Regarding HSDPA fever, I might just be one of the few people that won't swap out... 3G rates are going to get cheaper and I'm not willing to pay the extra premium then for a further increase in connection speed... I'm quite fast enough allready, thank you. Been running this setup now for nearly a week and I'm very impressed. Still have some niggles to sort out though, e.g. like one of my pc's eating up my Mb's when I'm not around. And the router is currently hanging from a nail in one of my roof trusses... But all-in-all I'm happy Hope this helps!

I quick read through your post makes me want to say iBurst. It works out cheaper monthly (since you don't have a Telkom line) - just make sure you are in the coverage area.

In addition to the iBurst hardware, you should purchase a decent wireless router to make your life easier as well as protect yourself from virii and the like.

Its about a grand for a decent router - I'm just about to buy the d-link di-624

You can check out iBurst prices. You need to buy a UTD (desktop modem) to use it with the wireless router

Thanks guys, that gives me a bit of an idea.

nic777: if I've ever seen anyone using virii in a sentence then it hasn't been recently. Well done!

I've decided to record my thoughts on the three options here, for anyone who cares to comment, or for anyone in a similar situation to maybe benefit from. I'm also doing a bit more detailed analysis of various costs but will post back my findings later.

So far I've got the following pros and cons:

PROS:
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ADSL: Very few people who have it complain about speed and there's no coverage-issue. Also, because it's cables-based and those cables (for most part) lie underground external factors like weather are a bit less likely to influence connectivity. Then again there are external factors like roadworks and other random people with digging equipment that come into play.

iBurst: The people who have it and are happy absolutely rave about it and it looks like it's the best value for money (if you're one of those people). And of course mobility, although with the fairly limited coverage (especially compared to MTN/Vodacom that offer GPRS where 3G coverage isn't available) it's unlikely that you would be able to check e-mail from the kind of places where mobility would really be useful.

3G: Best option for mobility. Pretty low base cost. Generally people who have it seem quite satisfied.

CONS:
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ADSL: Telkom, telkom, telkom. I've managed to live a fairly happy life in the last 6 or 7 years since I last had the displeasure of a contract with Telkom and I'm not too keen to change that!

iBurst: Apart from the people who absolutely rave about it, there seems to be about as many who are dissatisfied. Sounds like it's mostly a speed issue, which in turn is a combination of coverage and congestion. I'm in Centurion (die Hoewes) about 2 or 3 blocks from the lake and the map seems to show that I should have "fair indoor" coverage (0.525 Mbps) with the planned coverage at the highest level (1 Mbps). However, congestion could be a problem. From what I've read people in Centurion seem to be pretty happy, but then Centurion is growing very rapidly, so it's quite likely that congestion will quickly become a very big issue and people in more heavily populated areas (e.g. Sunnyside) seem to be pretty unhappy with inconsistent connection speeds. So taking a pessimistic point of view, it is likely that if not now, congestion will become a problem soon.

3G: Cost (Base cost is pretty low, but per-MB cost seems a bit high, although if the data volume is not too high, the low base cost more than makes up for this, so not too sure about that one). Also Vodacom/MTN/Cell-C, for all their virtues don't seem to be doing a hell of a lot better at customer service than Telkom themselves. I've had cellphone contracts with both MTN and Vodacom over the past 10 years and have experienced rather horrendous customer service from both, although MTN has been marginally better (in my limited experience).

if you have sentech coverage you can add them to the list too... it seems their service has improved recently...

Somewhat off-topic sidenote, but the reference to people with digging equipment rang a bell. It looks like the Aussies are one step ahead of us on this one (as with most other things), check www.dialbeforeyoudig.com.au

3G seems to be the best for most people that require less than 1gig of data IMO.

Being also in Centurion [Lyttelton/Doringkloof] , i can at least say i am using Vodacom and MTNs broadband services without any issues and even though i have people using Iburst all around me, i never felt a good incentive to get that instead. The Vodacom/Mtn offerings improved dramatically in the 12+ months i've been using it [speed+price+options+coverage] and it STILL improving.... I didn't see much changes on the iBurst offerings. I could also use my 3G all over the country [holiday areas, airports, random visits to parents in remotish areas etc].

With Vodacom i get HSDPA reception and actually do get 800kbps+ . With MTN i can't tell if i their HSDPA is extremely slow or their 3G is faster than usual as i get about 300kbps on MTN [even though 3G 'theoretical' speed is 384kbps , i've never actually got close to that on 3G , which is why i'm uncertain about MTN]. Bottom-line MTN is still much slower than Vodacom using the same card in my current location, but 300kbps is more than sufficient for browsing and email.

MTN offer prepaid bundles [which is why i am using them at all] which are not calendar month restricted and a great add-on when my Vodacom bundle [contract] runs out too early. Technically if you buy the card "clean" for +-R2000 [i believe MTN's new cards will go for much cheaper than the Vodafone ones] you can easily just run on MTN prepaid bundles without any contract and never paying that R2 p/MB rate. This itself makes it quite alot cheaper AND flexible [not restricted to one ISP], if you use below 1GB .

My primary problem is lowering the R500+ i pay per month for Internet. Even if i get iBurst i will STILL pay R500+ per month, same with ADSL. 3G/HSDPA is currently the only option where i can pay R100 and have internet [100MB] , i am not aware of
any other offering that can go that low....even iBursts smallest package is R195 p/month for 210MB excl modem which is actually more expensive than Vodacom and MTNs equivalents of R220 for 350MB !

For less than 1 Gb usage, 3G/HSDPA is the way to go. I wouldn't consider any other option. But topping up or going out of your bundle can be extremely expensive.

If you do want to start using more bandwidth than 1Gb then Iburst delivers the best speed/cost ratios up to 9Gb.

ADSL gives you many ISP options, but the basic monthly costs are steep to achieve decent speeds. However, latency is lower.

One of the best deals for really heavy downloaders, is the Sentech Premium account, with a 40Gb soft cap.

Best you avoid contracts of more than a month at all costs - there's no saying what's going to be happening within the next 6 months let alone the next 24 months (as favored by the likes of Vodacom). Although this means generally having to buy your own equipment it offers a greater degree of flexibility.

BTW - plural of virus in the English language is generally considered to be viruses. No major dictionary recognises virii or viri. Virus is not a Greek word and viri in latin is already the plural for man - ie men.

Costs?
Line: 90.00
Telkom 192: 270.00
Web Africa 1G 75.00
Total: 435.00
Web Africa: buy as you need. Surplus carry over.

Total: 435.00

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...that's the problem..you still need to throw out almost R500 just to GET internet @ R75 p/GB . This overrides all the nice "R75 per GB" things , because it basically comes down to R435 for that first 1GB . Which means it's only viable [as with all the ADSL offerings] if you actually intend to use 2GB+ per month.

Catch 22, if you actually DO use 2GB+ your total internet cost might actually be higher than merely R500 p/month [i.e going into the R700+ region]. So even though your "additional" GBs are very cheap, it is adding on top of the unavoidable "passive"/"base" cost.....so you pay more -anyway- .

Getafix said:

Costs?
Line: 90.00
Telkom 192: 270.00
Web Africa 1G 75.00
Total: 435.00
Web Africa: buy as you need. Surplus carry over.

Click to expand...

I think antonbijl is looking for a broadband solution...

the best option for antonbijl will be iburst. they are placing more towers in congested areas. he could contact us or iburst directly

Fantastic1 said:

the best option for antonbijl will be iburst. they are placing more towers in congested areas. he could contact us or iburst directly

Click to expand...

I think your objectivity might be in question here.

APG said:

Last option was 3G... initially a bit apprehensive about this as a always-on connection and cost factor. Then investigated and found it actually would suit me perfectly if I got the Linksys 3G router with it. Vodacom charges an arm and a leg for the router on contract (http://www.vodacom.co.za/packages/3g/router.jsp), so I bought outright at ~R1.6k (http://www.pcmall.co.za/moreinfo.asp?sku=WRT54G3G) and signed up for 3G 500 package for R350pm including the Options Quad band 3G card. Upside here is that I can also take the card with when I'm travelling. Regarding HSDPA fever, I might just be one of the few people that won't swap out... 3G rates are going to get cheaper and I'm not willing to pay the extra premium then for a further increase in connection speed... I'm quite fast enough allready, thank you. Been running this setup now for nearly a week and I'm very impressed. Still have some niggles to sort out though, e.g. like one of my pc's eating up my Mb's when I'm not around. And the router is currently hanging from a nail in one of my roof trusses... But all-in-all I'm happy Hope this helps!

Click to expand...

Hmm......re-read your post and your 3G setup sounds good. Very affordable (considering our options) when you don't download a lot.

antonbijl, the suspense is killing me - whose is it going to be?!?!? (cue drum roll; pass envelope)

antonbijl said:

nic777: if I've ever seen anyone using virii in a sentence then it hasn't been recently. Well done!

Click to expand...

Not really well done:

http://dictionary.reference.com/help/faq/language/v/virus.html said:

Q. What is the plural of virus?
A. Viruses.

It is not viri, or (which is worse) virii. True, the word comes directly from Latin, but not all Latin words ending in -us have -i as their plural. Besides, viri is the Latin word for 'men' (plural of vir, man, the root the English virile). There is in fact no written attestation of a Latin plural of virus.

If you would like to pursue the subject further, see the excellent article "What's the Plural of 'Virus'?". If you have some knowledge of linguistics and Latin, you might be interested in the morphological analysis of the word from the Perseus Project.

Click to expand...

I bet not many of you know the plural of 'octopus' is actually 'octopodes' and not 'octopi'

But that's enough anal retentive spelling lessons from me for today.

cjh said:

Not really well done:



I bet not many of you know the plural of 'octopus' is actually 'octopodes' and not 'octopi'

But that's enough anal retentive spelling lessons from me for today.

Click to expand...

Sheez people, okay, I get!!

nic777, I still think it's cool. Maybe if we all use it we can convince the OED.

nic777 said:

antonbijl, the suspense is killing me - whose is it going to be?!?!? (cue drum roll; pass envelope)

Click to expand...

Me too, me too. A bit hectic at work so I haven't really had time to look around as much as I wanted to.

Here goes:

Instead of the more detailed, objective, micro-managed approach (which I have a rather debilitating knack of falling into), I've come to realise that I'm going to have to use a slightly more gut-feely, subjective approach on this due to the overriding constraint of time.

So instead of trying a process of scientific analysis to determine an optimal solution, let me rather try a slightly more effective process of elimination.