Parkhurst : Neotel WiMax vs Fibre vs Telkom ADSL vs Any 3G?

[dylanharbour]

Hi All,

I've received good news that my new house in Parkhurst (moving in next month!) is feasible for Neotel Fibre or Neotel Wimax. (subject to site inspection)

I know that the copper cabling in the area generally sux, so Telkom lines are apparently worse than in other areas.

I'm considering Neotel vs Telkom vs 3G {Vod / CellC / MTN / 8Ta}.

Hoping to use the line for general browsing (for myself and my wife), home office (doing Web development) , Video Streaming (Netflix) and possibly large offsite photography backups.

Hoping to keep the price under R2k per month. Expected data usage 20GB - 50GB / month.

My options seem to be
1. Telkom ADSL + Afrihost ISP - Under R1k per month
2. Neotel Wimax (1mb @ R1299 excl vat, 2mb @ R1699 excl vat)
3. Neotel Fibre (1mb @ R1699 excl vat)
4. A combination of 3G providers, cheap for low GB's, expensive to try and make up an "uncapped" plan.


Any words of wisdom?

Also, has anyone had real world experience with Telkom ADSL in Parkhurst? I'm currently in Craighall Park and their line quality is disgusting.

[redcliff]

Re Telkom in Parkhurst, stay far away - Parkhurst connects to the Rosebank exchange (Craighall Park the same? or do they route North to Randburg?) and given the vagaries of copper routing et al, you are lucky to get a 2Mbit connection on your '10 Meg line' given the sheer length of copper (between 3,5km and 5km's of copper to exchange depending on which end of Parkhurst you at - get's worse the closer you move to the Craighall Park side).

After having my line swapped, having a second line installed (to compare) etc. I've given up on Telkom and went wireless about a year ago. Attenuation was terrible, I was barely able to have a steady sync at 1Mbit and the most worrying aspect was the variability. Some days it flew other days it would not even sync.

I'd be very keen to hear more about your Neotel experience, very surprised they are offering Fibre.

[dylanharbour]

Thanks, that confirms what I've been hearing from other people.

How is your wireless signal? Who did you go with?... and which side of Parkhurst are you on?

I'll keep you updated on Neotel happenings. The current owner has WiMax 5mb. The receiver is on a high pole outside the house, so I suspect the signal is not amazing, I tested it on Saturday and got about 2.6Mb from an Israel test server (The furtherest test server I had available on the speedtest app!). For a 5mb line, its a little disappointing.

[redcliff]

I'm on the Craighall side. Went with Amobia 3Mbit uncapped - it connects to a high site somewhere in the Randburg CBD.

I'm fairly happy (did a quick speedtest to a test server in Tel Aviv and got 2.37Mbit download i.e ±80% of line). I generally get close to the full 3Mbit on downloads.

[dylanharbour]

Redcliff you legend! Thanks for the info, I may just give Amobia a try, its significantly cheaper for a higher speed line.

Any idea what your ping was for the TelAviv test?

[redcliff]

Sorry, been a tad busy - I can't recall the ping but will check again tonight when back home.

[redcliff]

Tried a few of the Israel severs, ranged between 400 and 500ms