Recommendations for truly uncapped unshaped high speed connection in Joburg?

Aloha from Maui Hawaii!

I'm going to be relocating to Johannesburg this August and was hoping
you could give me some tips on local High Speed Internet Solutions.

I generally use 50gb+ a month and want to steer clear of any providers that throttle p2p usage.

What kind of upload speeds can I expect from the various 512 and 1024 packages I'm seeing advertised?

Also, what are the pros/cons of wireless vs. ADSL in the local market?

Any recommendations on specific providers and packages would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Dante

MauiTime said:

Aloha from Maui Hawaii!

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'loha and welcome, Dante ..here's hoping you enjoy it here!

I'm going to be relocating to Johannesburg this August and was hoping you could give me some tips on local High Speed Internet Solutions.

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Ah, the sensible weather city , good choice. As to this first question, it's probably for the best to prepare you: what we call/wish for as 'high speed' is almost certainly not what you'd call high speed. That said, you may find yourself having to choose between your criteria and settle for (say) three out of five, as in:

I generally use 50gb+ a month and want to steer clear of any providers that throttle p2p usage.

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..for the least unreasonable amount of money, (Sentech's MyWireless is probably the winner here; at least in terms of not being p2p throttled and bringing you closest to the 50GB/month aiming point at a nominal 40GB/month (when it works well enough to get in range of that target, that is). That said, I don't really follow the various ADSL packages out there (so I'm preparing to be flamed by those that do!), but in due course you can expect to hear chapter and verse from the rest of the (revolting) peasants when they finally stir. In the meantime, all I can really suggest is that you check the various options listed online.

What kind of upload speeds can I expect from the various 512 and 1024 packages I'm seeing advertised?

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Compared with Stateside, approaching glacial. I know a properly working top-end MyWi account will do p2p at nigh on 40-50KB/s and round about half that for upload. Again, I can't speak on the ADSL/Wi-Fi packages as they slice their ratios differently; the rest of the gang will fill in the gaps presently.

Also, what are the pros/cons of wireless vs. ADSL in the local market?

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Trying (harder than you know) not to be too cynical here: wireless (in the form of MyWi, itBust or Wi-Fi) means you face a range of possible frustrations that at least have the single benefit of NOT having to cope with Telkom! For ADSL, best to bone up on your Zen-calm skills before attempting it. But if you've been lurking on this forum for any length of time you should have a sense of this anyway.

Any recommendations on specific providers and packages would be greatly appreciated.

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As the first reply I'm going to stick my neck out and punt for MyWireless (IF you're in range of a tower) as it's going to be the quickest to deploy and stands a halfway decent chance of getting within smelling distance of your hopes and expectations. Sure, there are ADSL options that may look very attractive, but they all have the fatal flaw of actually getting that shiny new ADSL line first!

Oh yes, let's not forget the disclaimer: I sell/install MyWireless solutions in greater Johannesburg, so it could be argued that I'm biased! (which means I could hook you up if you go this route). Anyhow, give it a few hours and you should have more data to chew on than you know what to do with!

Best of luck in your great connectivity hunt!

MauiTime, hope you don't get too disappointed from the state of the internet when you come here

I respect the bdt suggestion, but my personal preference would be ADSL (if money are not an issue for you), once installed, which can take anything between 1 month and few years, it is quite reliable I would say, almost as reliable as in developed countries. The price is a different story though. For 50 gigs over 1 Mbit connection, it wil cost you somewhere around R4,000 or just little less, so be prepared to fork out the quivalent of abuot US$500-600 per month just to have a normal reliable internet connection.

swordfish1 said:

I respect the bdt suggestion

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*tips hat to the honourable opposing counsel*

but my personal preference would be ADSL (if money are not an issue for you), once installed, which can take anything between 1 month and few years, it is quite reliable I would say, almost as reliable as in developed countries.

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Aye, when (actually, 'if' as ADSL has even more onerous range restrictions than radio-based solutions); then there's that pesky waiting period which, as you rightly say can be decidedly non-trivial! As to reliability: yes, it can be ...and I'll concede that when its working properly, it should outdo MyWi. But that's 'when'; and I watch how the ADSL bunnies regularly go into a frothy over excessive downtime. Also, I've got a Midrand MyWi customer (he gave up hoping for an ADSL opening after an eight month wait!) who also has a Sandton office, and I get to hear chapter and verse about the ADSL there playing silly buggers.

The price is a different story though. For 50 gigs over 1 Mbit connection, it wil cost you somewhere around R4,000 or just little less.

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And here we have the crunch-factor ..if cost is an issue, that is. If not this point is moot, but you can't argue that R4000 is definitely some way further on than ~R1500/m.

Note on the whole unshapped thing...

There are numerouse companies offering uncapped internet, usually including a Cisco router... these solutions are uncapped and unshapped, however international traffic is routed via satalite so there are 4 - 600ms latencies and no chance for online gaming / decent comunications.

Looking at the ADSL route, which is what I know best:

Installation:
Line installation: R275
ADSL line installation: R404
Router: R650

Monthly:
Line Rental: R90
ADSL Line Rental: R680
ISP Fees: Unshapped account 50GB access (Capped): R6000.00 with unused MB's carrying over. Otherwise there is the pay per MB option at about 11c per MB.

AFAIK there is no true unshapped uncapped ADSL option for ADSL, the closest it comes is ADSL over fiber for around R5000.00 per month.

So either way you look at it it's expensive...

The upload speed on 512KBits and 1Mbit DSL is 256k, however you can usually push about 350kon 512k and 512k over 1Mbit

I've only trialed IBurst, which IMO was terrible (VERY unreliable and quite slow) and I have heard all the rumors about Sentech... according to them when I contacted them (many moons ago) they class you as a heavy (abusive) user if you do more than 25GB a month for more than 2 months in a row. I know for a fact that Sentech users seriously suffer on the P2P side of things though.

bdt, I should have said "if you can get ADSL within a reasonable time frame, then go for it"

re reliability, for about a year now, the only downtime I had was due to a stupid ISP authentication problems (couple of hours in total), so I guess mywi has long way to go when it comes to being online 24x7

Friend of mine has mywi, and he use to have issues with some special apps/protocols, I don't think they shape them or anything but they just don't work at all (or well) on mywi. So you have some issues with mywi too ... My personal opinion is that if you can get ADSL and you don't need mobility, then the choice is clear, ADSL, otherwise obvioulsy mywi is a good option, better than a dial-up/ISDN and cheaper (I think) than the R400 per gig GPRS/3G/EDGE ...

Thanks so much for the replies thus far, which of course lead to many more questions...

my personal preference would be ADSL (if money are not an issue for you), once installed, which can take anything between 1 month and few years,

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A few years????? Please tell me that this is only referring to areas that don't already have ADSL service available!

Being that connectivity is such an issue for me I won't even consider moving someplace that isn't within range of a Telkom exchange that is ADSL enabled. Provided that I do this how long can I realistically expect to wait for ADSL installation to my home office?

I'm going to be in Joburg for anywhere from 7 to 12 months and don't fancy spending half that time waiting to get connected.

It looks as though I'm only going to be able to afford a 512 connection based on the quotes I'm seeing. I have a total monthly budget of about R 2,300 to invest in my connection

There are numerouse companies offering uncapped internet, usually including a Cisco router... these solutions are uncapped and unshapped, however international traffic is routed via satalite so there are 4 - 600ms latencies and no chance for online gaming / decent comunications.

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Gaming isn't a concern but I am planning on using Skype heavily for communications with people back home. Will a 4-600ms latency be problematic for Skype calls, and if so, are there any solutions that don't have as much latency in my price range?

AFAIK there is no true unshapped uncapped ADSL option for ADSL, the closest it comes is ADSL over fiber for around R5000.00 per month.

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So does this mean that the offers I'm seeing for uncapped and unshaped ADSL are misleading? So far I've found the following...

From Eject.co.za:

The Uncapped ADSL is a cost effective, fast and permanent connection to the Internet, with no limit or cap on bandwidth usage, allows for hosting of webserver and email servers on-site using Static IP addressing, no traffic shaping is enforced, and is essential to high usage home and business users. A choice of 512 kbps or 1024 kbps download speeds are available.

(their service does use the Cisco router)

Pricing valid from 1 April 2005 - VAT inclusive:
Uncapped Business ADSL 512 Once Off: R 1710.00 Monthly: R 1539.00

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From www.uncapadsl.co.za:

THE UNCAPPED Express 512 IS ADSL SOLUTION

Package Features
NO Cap
NO Setup R750-00
POP3 E-Mail Accounts
NO Port Shaping
Fixed IP - NONE
Uplink Provider - IS
Concurrent Connections - ONE
Service Availability - Anywhere in South Africa

Monthly Cost R 1300-00

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Imaginet also has an uncapped unshaped offer on their site BUT it says that they are currently no longer taking new accounts due to "performance issues on the Internet Solutions network" and link to this news item.

Am I to assume then that the above uncapadsl.co.za offer is out of play as well because "IS" is mentioned in the name?

Not sure who provides the network services for the EJECT offer.

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MegaWeb offers an uncapped service for R1,539 per month. Anyone know what their shaping and P2P policy is?

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Well this is about as clear as mud now.

I have heard all the rumors about Sentech... according to them when I contacted them (many moons ago) they class you as a heavy (abusive) user if you do more than 25GB a month for more than 2 months in a row. I know for a fact that Sentech users seriously suffer on the P2P side of things though.

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On cost alone the Sentech 40GB 512 package certainly looks attractive but I am definitely not going to use them if the above rumors are true. If I pay for 40GB I'm going to be using every last drop of it. Can anyone confirm this? What happens once you are classed as an "abusive" user?

My personal opinion is that if you can get ADSL and you don't need mobility, then the choice is clear, ADSL, otherwise obvioulsy mywi is a good option, better than a dial-up/ISDN and cheaper

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Well I definitely don't need mobility and assuming (hopefully not wrongfully) that I can get ADSL... now I need some recommendations based on the following criteria:

- R 2,300 per month total budget. (for line rental fees plus actual service)
- 512 connection to a home office
- TRULY unshaped service that will not get throttled for doing p2p
- Practically all my time will be spent using international traffic

My ideal is still a truly uncapped service, but I'd consider rationing my useage if better international service, uptime, and consistent speeds were available from a provider with a (real) 20-40GB package.

MauiTime, hope you don't get too disappointed from the state of the internet when you come here

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Well that seems inevitable at this point. I appreciate all the replies though. If I didn't know all of this up front I'm sure I'd be tearing my hair out in frustration when I get there. At least now I'm setting my expectations considerably lower.

Thanks again for any and all opinions which can help me navigate this seemingly crazy marketplace.

Dante

Nope you're not misreading anything, Internet Solutions does provide uncapped unshaped, however international connectivity comes by way of satellite. So if latency isn't an issue for you then that's probably the best way to go. Approximately R1500 per month for the account. If latency is an issue then uncapped over fibre is a bit more. Add the Telkom charges (after August 1st) R362 for 512k or R516 for 1024k, so you're looking at a monthly total of about R2000 for uncapped unshaped 1024k ADSL.

so you're looking at a monthly total of about R2000 for uncapped unshaped 1024k ADSL

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Do you mean for uncapped unshaped 512k ADSL?

All of the above services I've checked into run R 2500 to R 3000+ for 1024 ADSL service alone.

If you know a reliable provider that can offer 1024k for under R 2500 including Telkom charges please share!

If latency is an issue then uncapped over fibre is a bit more.

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Again, I'm not really sure if it will be an issue or not... I'll be using Skype quite a lot to save on international phone calls. Is the latency using IS Satellite services enough to make business calls problematic?

Lastly, which providers offer competitively priced uncapped unshaped service over fiber? The only one I've found so far is ODS with R2500/512kand R5000/1024k options BUT according to this post they're not REALLY uncapped.

Can anyone offer specific provider recommendations based on the budget and needs spelled out above? I just don't even know where to begin with all the conflicting issues/options in the SA market.

Thanks again,
Dante

My mistake, meant 512k. A list of ISP's offering uncapped accounts can be found here http://www.hellkom.co.za/ispprices.php?type=adsl&op==&cap=uc

Looking at the costs of internet in this country would make you realise what this site is all about So maybe help spread the word overseas and hopefully some external pressure on our government could help us because it seems like our government aren't willing to change anything anytime soon

Thanks for the replies Highflyer and ic... I'd say I feel bad for you guys, but soon enough I'm going to be feeling bad for myself right along with you.

I've gone over the Hellkom site, but am still hoping for some first hand recommendations because many of the sites don't address the shaping issue at all, and some claim to be uncapped but really aren't upon further investigation.

So having digested all the replies thus far the following questions remain...

1) Is there any truth to the Sentech rumor of throttling after 25gig usage when subscribing to their 40Gig 512 package?

2) Will IS Satellite service latency be problematic for VoIP to the States using Skype?

3) Provided I move into a place within range of an ADSL enabled Telkom exchange how long can I realistically expect to wait for a connection from the time I place the order?

4) Am I correct in assuming that fiber based ADSL is the only way to avoid connection problems internationally during bad weather?

5) Which companies offer fiber based 384 or 512k ADSL in either uncapped or 10Gig+ capped packages? (see, I'm lowering my expectations... though I'm afraid they still may not be low enough )

Many thanks once again for the welcome and the informative replies.

Dante

MauiTime said:

1) Is there any truth to the Sentech rumor of throttling after 25gig usage when subscribing to their 40Gig 512 package?

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Not in my experience ..and that's based off spending a LOT of time at a site that has a 512k account that usually has p2p running 24/7. In the time that he's had it (somewhere between 6-12 months at this speed) he's managed to exceed the 40gig allocation enough that he generated a call from them citing excessive use and declaring a 'yellow card' warning only once.

Their resolution process requires two consecutive (AFAIK, based on what I've heard from at least one other client I support who, according to him, REALLY gets stuck in) yellow cards before a 'red card' is issued and you get invited to leave. So, apparently, all it takes is getting two yellows, behaving for the third month and then getting stuck right back in again .. and rinse.wash.repeat.

3) Provided I move into a place within range of an ADSL enabled Telkom exchange how long can I realistically expect to wait for a connection from the time I place the order?

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It would seem anywhere from (say) a few weeks to many (oh SO many) months. Sorry dude, but it's best not to sugar coat this one.

4) Am I correct in assuming that fiber based ADSL is the only way to avoid connection problems internationally during bad weather?

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Oh, so there are now fibre exchanges with ADSL hooked up? ...huh, go figure. Clearly I'm not up to speed on recent developments (as, I suspect, Hyde Park, JHB. Can anyone tell me if ADSL is available in HP now?)

ic said:

MauiTime, by fibre-based ADSL, do you mean international connectivity via submarine cable e.g. SAT-3 [as opposed to satellite]?

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I'm assuming that's what it means but I could be wrong. Here's what the Imaginet FAQ page has to say about it (regarding SAIX vs. IS):

The principle difference between them is that SAIX uses fiber-optic cable to connect the ADSL customers on its network to the rest of the world, whereas IS uses satellite connectivity to provide ADSL customers on its network with access to international sites. In most cases, the difference is unnoticeable. Only when one wishes to make use of latency-sensitive services is the difference significant. For example, playing online games on overseas servers is highly latency-sensitive, and IS’s satellite connectivity will not perform as well as SAIX’s fiber-optic link.

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Based on this I'm assuming that all of the sites offering fibre options are brokering SAIX service so...

In bad weather do SAIX connections hold up when IS international service slows or fails? What's the general word on SAIX service quality/speed?

As for the installation time for ADSL, I'm... simply speechless.

When you order an ADSL line do they let you know how long a wait you're in for? (more importantly is what they tell you even remotely reliable???)

It sounds like I could come and go before they even get around to this!

Seems like I've got 3 options that I can see...

a) Try to locate a flat for rent that has already had an ADSL line run to it from a previous tenant. (would this work?)

b) Order an ADSL line as soon as I know my address,
do a voodoo dance and sacrifice a few motherboards to
the installation gods, and get Sentech to hold me over until ADSL
arrives. (if ever)

c) Sell my computer and devote my reclaimed time to meditation in an effort to regain my SA Internet addled brain.

It doesn't always take forever for an ADSL installation. Mine took a 3 weeks (a few years ago), and more recently a friend of mine had his done in 2.

The really long waits usually happen when the exchange isn't ADSL enabled or there are no more ports on the DSLAM.

We use skype frequenty without too many issues over a standard shapped capped SIAX solution, however our clients who use skype for more than one or two users opt for unshapped service.

It might be worth your while to look at a high download solution and a unshapped solution seperately... i.e. two seperate accounts, this will be the most cost effective. IMO uncapped ADSL isn't worth it because even IS complains if you pull 50GB a month, and site that the solution is designed for SME's and not heavy downloaders

you could even do the following:

1x IS 2 / 28GB account for local P2P & IS New Server Downloads
ISP's:
Openweb R171 (R229 if you choose to use thier proxy after you're capped)

1x shaped SAIX 10GB account for international surfing and dl'ing
ISP's:
Web Africa: R570
Nurve Soltuions: R570

1x unshapped pay per GB accounts for skyping
R125 per GB Web Africa (unused traffic carries over to the next month)
R125 per GB Nurve Solutions (unused traffic carries over to the next month)

The installation times really varies, your best bet would be to try find a place with DSL already installed, so all you have to do is wait about a week and a half to two weeks for them to transfer it into your name.

SA has a habit of making it very difficult for foreign nationals to get any kind of service [contract] in SA.

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Thankfully this won't be an issue. I'll be living with my fiancee who is an SA resident so any contracts will be under her name.

Thanks for the multiple accounts suggestion Carlhead. I may consider that, especially if outages and bottlenecks tend to happen on only one of the two (SAIX vs. IS) at a time.

1x shaped SAIX 10GB account for international surfing and dl'ing

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I was under the impression that a shaped account wouldn't be useful for p2p which is what eats up most of my bandwidth... torrents for films and Soulseek for rare and hard to find music.

Still hoping to hear answers to the following:

1) How is Int'l Skype service using IS Satellite based service? (gaming is not an issue for me... single user Skype is the only place where latency might matter)

2) Is SAIX more reliable for international service (not as weather dependent as IS for connectivity at reasonable speeds).

If they have downtime and speed bottlenecks just as often as IS (but for other reasons) then it really doesn't make much of a difference in the long run does it?

Thanks so much for all of the help. There have been some great suggestions and with just a few more answers I think I've got a pretty clear direction for navigating this connectivity minefield.

MauiTime said:

2) Is SAIX more reliable for international service (not as weather dependent as IS for connectivity at reasonable speeds).

If they have downtime and speed bottlenecks just as often as IS (but for other reasons) then it really doesn't make much of a difference in the long run does it?

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SAIX is far more reliable than IS, I have SAIX at home and IS at work, I am 24x7 online, I am yet to see SAIX completely down, something frequently happening with IS (especially international).

To be honest, if reliability is an inportant factor for you, I won't even consider IS, I will go for SAIX, and in the unlikely event of SAIX going down, I will switch to EDGE/3G temporarily. It will happen probably less than once a year so it shouldn't be an issue.

MauiTime said:

I was under the impression that a shaped account wouldn't be useful for p2p which is what eats up most of my bandwidth... torrents for films and Soulseek for rare and hard to find music.

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Yeah shapped accounts are useless when it comes to internationl P2P, however local bandwidth isn't shapped. International torrents you should be able to route over an unshapped port like 81, so that's not an issue... Kazaa, Edonkey and the like work as well as they ever do... it's mainly direct P2P applications like DC++ which really suffer....

We're in the process of trying to setup an unshapping proxy, as our international servers get 2500GBytes of bandwith per month, which is going to waste, but we'll need some assistance here.

MauiTime said:

Still hoping to hear answers to the following:

1) How is Int'l Skype service using IS Satellite based service? (gaming is not an issue for me... single user Skype is the only place where latency might matter)

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Thinking about it logically I would say it would definitely be an issue, I haven't tested it myself, but I have one client who is moving to an unshaped account for Skyping, they use about 18GB a month (so uncapped would have been cheaper).

MauiTime said:

2) Is SAIX more reliable for international service (not as weather dependent as IS for connectivity at reasonable speeds).

If they have downtime and speed bottlenecks just as often as IS (but for other reasons) then it really doesn't make much of a difference in the long run does it?

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As much as I would love to support IS over Telkom, I've found the uptime and reliablity of SAIX accounts far far better. UUnet / Verizon is good too, but they've priced themselves out of the market.

Thanks swordfish1 and Carlhead for helping with these last few points.

International torrents you should be able to route over an unshapped port like 81, so that's not an issue...

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So just to make sure I'm clear, are you saying that I can download international torrents using an SAIX shaped account without any throttling by simply changing the port that my torrent client listens through?

If so, will this cause a problem if they see the lion's share of my 10GB monthly allowance being routed through an unshaped port like 81?

Other than torrents the only other p2p client I use heavily is Soulseek which I believe falls into the category of "direct p2p applications". Can this also be routed through an unshaped port like 81 or will I have to depend on an unshaped pay per GB account for the stuff I can only get from Soulseek?

If I'm understanding everything correctly, the multiple account scenario is beginning to look more and more attractive.

Up until now I had been looking solely at unshaped uncapped options where pricing was based on 512k vs 1024k connection.

Now that I'm reviewing capped options too I notice that speed is rarely mentioned anywhere. Does this mean that these packages are all available at 1024k for the same price provided I pay Telkom the R516 for that line? (if they can even offer that speed to my location)

Lastly, I'm planning I'm bringing my G5 iMac (ethernet) with me. Would any of the options we're discussing be impacted by this for some reason?

Thanks once again for all of your help. There's no way I could have figured this all out without your collective insights.

Cheers!
Dante

MauiTime said:

Thanks swordfish1 and Carlhead for helping with these last few points.

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No Problem

MauiTime said:

So just to make sure I'm clear, are you saying that I can download international torrents using an SAIX shaped account without any throttling by simply changing the port that my torrent client listens through?

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Telkom priorotises certian ports and slows down others on shapped accounts.

Thus if you can get a program to use any priorotised port, it is effectively unshapped...

MauiTime said:

If so, will this cause a problem if they see the lion's share of my 10GB monthly allowance being routed through an unshaped port like 81?

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No one actively monitors what traffic you do and though what port, so it's not really an issue.

MauiTime said:

Other than torrents the only other p2p client I use heavily is Soulseek which I believe falls into the category of "direct p2p applications". Can this also be routed through an unshaped port like 81 or will I have to depend on an unshaped pay per GB account for the stuff I can only get from Soulseek?

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I'm not sure about soulseek, but if you can specify ports you shouldn't have any issue.

MauiTime said:

If I'm understanding everything correctly, the multiple account scenario is beginning to look more and more attractive.

Up until now I had been looking solely at unshaped uncapped options where pricing was based on 512k vs 1024k connection.

Now that I'm reviewing capped options too I notice that speed is rarely mentioned anywhere. Does this mean that these packages are all available at 1024k for the same price provided I pay Telkom the R516 for that line? (if they can even offer that speed to my location)

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Yeah accounts aren't speed dependant... well except for Cybersmart accounts, but we won't worry about that.

I've found Telkom's speed quite reliable, most people get what they're paying for or more.

MauiTime said:

Lastly, I'm planning I'm bringing my G5 iMac (ethernet) with me. Would any of the options we're discussing be impacted by this for some reason?

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Apart from making it easier to setup, ummm.... no

MauiTime said:

Thanks once again for all of your help. There's no way I could have figured this all out without your collective insights.

Cheers!
Dante

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Hey, I look at it as good advertising... if my clients doubt me, they can come here and see if I know what I'm talking about....

Just hope I don't say too many stupid things