ALL YOU CAN EAT - Opinion
Dear fellow MyADSL/MyBroadband users,
I was recently asked to test the All You Can Eat / http://www.allyoucaneat.co.za unlimited ADSL offering and see how it performs when compared to an ordinary capped ADSL account. The answer in short is that there is no difference at all.
Ping times to overseas and local game servers are virtually the same. The limitations in terms of port shaping appears to be the same as that of Telkom and using popular Internet tools like MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Skype are not limited at all. Bare in mind that this opinion is written from a comparison point of view in relation to ordinary capped ADSL.
Peer 2 Peer tools like Shareaza and Bittorrent work 100%. Pings to local game servers are the same as they were on capped ADSL and the same goes for overseas game servers. Playing on overseas servers in my opinion are not an enjoyable affair on capped ADSL and the same goes for All You Can Eat seeing as the speeds are the same. The experience differs from game to game and strategy games can still be played depending on where in the world you are aiming at. FPS games will inevitably end in your total annihilation and you will be dead before you even know it!
There is one noticeable difference between capped ADSL and All You Can Eat’s DSL offering and that is the number of sessions you can open on one account. With All You Can Eat, you are only allowed to open one session at a time and if you want to distribute the connection between multiple PC’s you will have to do so by using varying methods ranging from Internet Connection Sharing or setting up your router to handle it for you. I would not recommend ICS but that falls outside the scope of this opinion. Suffice it to say, one session per user only!
Because this is an uncapped ADSL offering one has to push it beyond the 3GB cap limit of ordinary capped ADSL to see if it stays as beautiful as it is. The truth be told, it does so wonderfully and this might be the reason these guys are so shy in revealing just how they do it. Be warned that should you opt in and start using this service, downloading will become an addictive business! Imagine a world of endless game demos, music downloads (keep it legal please), free software and the like without having to count your bits and bytes! It is a wonderful world indeed, but where is the drawback you ask? The drawback to this service lies in uncertainty. We do not know how they do it. We do not know how long they will keep on doing it. We have these fears because compared to other uncapped services these guys just seem too good to be true. Unlimited ADSL for R480 per month! You must be joking, right?
The normal price of this service is R980 and knowing this, one can gather that the R480 price will not stick around forever. R980 is more in line with what we are used to compared to other uncapped ADSL offerings on the market. Strange and sad that we get a little worried when things go too cheap too quickly. Imagine if all these offerings were around R480 per month without having to be special offers! We all spotted the problems in terms of All You Can Eat’s contract. The contract does seem a little one sided and a 12 month contract is something that anybody would have to think about twice before jumping into a service like this.
All You Can Eat has told me that they are revising the contract to make some concessions on the terms of service in order to put some of the consumer fears to rest.
In short…
All You Can Eat is a good service and all in all comparable to ordinary ADSL in terms of performance and better in that there is no filthy cap! My one reservation is the fact that this service is so new that we do not have a large enough base of known users applauding or complaining about the service yet. Whether the service quality will stay the way it is at the moment, is an open question and one that All You Can Eat will have to answer in the long run if they plan to stay in business. These guys seem to be the Kulula.com of the ADSL world. I hope they are!
Please note that there seems to be an industry understanding that 30Gigs can be concidered a cap for so called "uncapped" Internet. This is according to new information something that applies to most service providers and it is suggested you check on this before you sign with any of the uncapped or high volume service providers.
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