ISP offering good prices and a fixed IP address

T

TonTo

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Hi All,

I'm more than aware that good prices is a contridiction in terms when you think about the South African ADSL market!!

Being from the UK myself, I'm constantly suprised regarding the various issues, and debates that I read here. But as people say, such is life until something drastic changes. Maybe the government being bought out of Telkom shares will introduce greater competition in the market place?¿?

Anyways, to my question.

Basically I'm wanting to setup an exchange server for clients that I work with including our own company, and require a fixed IP address. However after calling Telkom I was informed that they do not offer this service :/ strange for me that they wouldn't, but true. Are there any ISP's out there that do offer this service? or is there a way around this that I'm not aware of?

Also who offers the best service with regards to a higher CAP. I'm currently always going over my telkom cap, although they are good at not hard capping my. But I have no idea how anyone can survive on a 3gig cap and do business.

I would really value your input on these matters.

Kind Regards
 
ISPs that use the "IS" network can sell uncapped + fixed IP for around R1500 for 512 and +- R2500 for a 1meg connection.

There are a few of them so do a google for it.


PS...

IS international bandwidth is by Satellites, and therefore can be painfull at times.
 
I use international bandwidth probably more than local, so that probably rules out IS. Although looking at their data centres, I assumed they used hard lines for their international connectivity?

Is it only through IS that I can get the fixed IP address?
 
IS = Internet Solutions = http://www.is.co.za

International Satellite Link: 512K @ R1500 pm and 1024K @ R2500 pm.
International Fiber Optic Link: 512K @ R3000pm and 1024K @ R5000 pm.

But without any SLAs offered it spells trouble for businesses that require a dedicated internet connection.
 
AFAIK, it is against the AUP of Telkom ADSL to host a web server / Mail Server.

(Not that I give a **** about Hellkom and its devil spawn, just a note).
 
If it is against their policy, what are most companies doing here regarding their mail?

Surely people here use Exchange servers?
 
TonTo said:
If it is against their policy, what are most companies doing here regarding their mail?

Surely people here use Exchange servers?
Click to expand...

From the AUP:
Examples of prohibited use include, but are not limited to, running servers (that put traffic on the network)
and hosting multi-user interactive forums, such as chat rooms.
Click to expand...
 
I still don't understand how companies handle e-mail?

Are all companies using pop/imap mail? I can't believe that is the case, especially in a small business / corporate setting?
 
TonTo said:
I still don't understand how companies handle e-mail?

Are all companies using pop/imap mail? I can't believe that is the case, especially in a small business / corporate setting?
Click to expand...

I understand the confusion. Let me put it this way:

It is against the AUP to download "illegal"* content (such as Lost) - people do anyways.


* Yes, I know the copyright laws do not expressly forbid this, just an example :-)
Also, Telkom says we can (anyone else see the ad in their statement this month about downloading movies?)
 
So is diginet the only way I'm going to get a fixed IP address? because without that I can't run a server on it anyways :(

Plus that will then mean that I need to have an ADSL connection, with a ISDN dialing up for mail sending and retrieving, I might as well have a catch all account through with aliases and download them using a linux box!!!
 
No u can do it with IS but u said its not what u want.... not too sure on their fiber option with fixed IP... (U can do anything on the line... telkom say no P2P but people still do it) As well be warned that telkom says ADSL is a best effort service so if the line goes down and ur email users get all upset, its your fault.

Be warned depending on the diginet line u want u will be looking well into the thousands.
 
TonTo said:
So is diginet the only way I'm going to get a fixed IP address? because without that I can't run a server on it anyways :(

Plus that will then mean that I need to have an ADSL connection, with a ISDN dialing up for mail sending and retrieving, I might as well have a catch all account through with aliases and download them using a linux box!!!
Click to expand...

Almost all SA companies handle thier email though an ISP. If you're looking to setup an in house exchange server, IS uncapped is really the only option on DSL (as they give you 5 fixed IP's), alternately there is Diginet which is restrictively expensive.

Perhaps you should consider a hosted exchange (i.e. shared Exchange server hosted in a Datacentre) It's pretty cost effective, especially from an implementation point of view. And the management and support is also outsourced to the ISP.

PM me if your're interested in that option.
 
So would you set up an Exchange server to download POP3 e-mails?

I was looking into / considering doing that, but it seemed a bit pointless to use an exchange solution to do this. And it also seems to me a waste of expensive bandwidth, and a royal pain in the bum to manage, to have everyone downloading their own POP3 e-mail from an ISP. But if that is the way things are done, then I guess that will have to do.

I'd like to hear more regarding the shared exchange server solution. How do you then connect to the exchange server for your clients? and how can I associate those accounts to my SBS 2003 box? As they won't be in the same domain as the rest of my network, unless you need to create a VPN solution to enable this?

I'm probably talking poop, but please enlighten me.

I'm currently leaning towards Exchange with POP3 :(

Thanks again for all the amazing responses
 
TonTo said:
So would you set up an Exchange server to download POP3 e-mails?

I was looking into / considering doing that, but it seemed a bit pointless to use an exchange solution to do this. And it also seems to me a waste of expensive bandwidth, and a royal pain in the bum to manage, to have everyone downloading their own POP3 e-mail from an ISP. But if that is the way things are done, then I guess that will have to do.

I'd like to hear more regarding the shared exchange server solution. How do you then connect to the exchange server for your clients? and how can I associate those accounts to my SBS 2003 box? As they won't be in the same domain as the rest of my network, unless you need to create a VPN solution to enable this?

I'm probably talking poop, but please enlighten me.

I'm currently leaning towards Exchange with POP3 :(

Thanks again for all the amazing responses
Click to expand...

99.9% of SA business either use just strait POP mail downloading or they have a small linux server which downloads all thier mail. When there is an onsite Exchange box and a dynamic IP address, they would configure the Exchange box to download the email from a "catch all" box and distribute it to the relevant users.

The best thing to do if deploying Exchange server in an ADSL environment is go for a IS uncapped adsl situation, so you get the 5 dedicated IP's and can utilise Exchange to the fullest; you can then make the entire infrastructure web facing with a DMZ and firewall most likely handled by ISA server.

I've only setup exchange servers which are co-located in our DC... The hosted exchange route is handled by Internet Solutions. Send an email to carl at nurve dot co dot za and I'll send you the product documentation. If you decide you are interested in going that route I can put you in contact with the right people at IS.
 
Excellent,

I'll be winging a mail in your general direction in the near future :D
 
If you have a smallish company, with say 20 / 30 users, who all rely on email, espcially between each other (for whatever reason), you'll save quite a bit on bandwidth, and your ADSL cap for having an internal mail server. A Linux one will probably work out much cheaper, since you need to pay per seat licences with Exchange, and believe me, once you have like 25 users, it becomes expensive. You most probably want to look @ Mail Marshall, spamcop, spamassin, or somethig similar as well to keep them nasty spammers "crap" out of your network too. And defenatelly get a decent anti-virus on the mailserver, and good firewall in between the mailserver and ADSL router.
 
LordMerlin said:
If you have a smallish company, with say 20 / 30 users, who all rely on email, espcially between each other (for whatever reason), you'll save quite a bit on bandwidth, and your ADSL cap for having an internal mail server. A Linux one will probably work out much cheaper, since you need to pay per seat licences with Exchange, and believe me, once you have like 25 users, it becomes expensive.
Click to expand...

There are also free Windows based POP3/SMTP mail servers such as Mercury.
 
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