4mbps downgraded to 1mbps user experiences

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Spyk3r

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Hey guys,

I have read all the topics about the best Isp's and who has the best prices for 1mbps uncapped etc etc.

What I am interested in is your opinions of 1mbps wrt browsing, streaming, vpns etc. I have a 4mbps line atm and am considering downgrading to 1mbps, but I'm concerned that the drop will be too much. Please keep in mind, I'm talking about browsing and gaming moreso than downloading. 100kB/s is good enough for patches etc.

Who has dropped from 4/10mbps down to 1mbps and are you happy about the savings and are you unhappy about the speeds?

Thanks :)
 
The savings are minimal while its still fine for gaming (local fps and int mmo's) its pretty crappy for downloading.
I get annoyed when I have to wait too long for a patch to load before getting into a game but then thats just me I spose.
 
Spyk3r said:
Hey guys,

I have read all the topics about the best Isp's and who has the best prices for 1mbps uncapped etc etc.
 :p
Snip
Who has dropped from 4/10mbps down to 1mbps and are you happy about the savings and are you unhappy about the speeds?

Thanks :)
Click to expand...

I am not on 1MB but here is what i have learned on the forum, for browsing you will not find much difference as accessing a website rarely gives you full speed of your upto 4/10MB line. So browsing should feel almost indifferent.

Wrt streaming, you may feel it (720p or 1080p on YT).

Gaming, unless you hosting a game, there shouldn't be a major drop in performance but this is subject to network conditions at the time you play. Some weeks it may feel really great (MWEB) and other times like you been downgraded in service while still paying a premium.

A good suggestion from forumites , ask for a test account with the provider you intend going with and test at hours you are likely to be doing the activities you intend to do to get a basic idea of how it is going to be. For the subject of this topic (1MB) you can just limit your current 4MB line down to 1MB to get a real feel of the speed difference (if any). Using a software like Netlimiter can help you achieve this. lmgtfu :)


Current popular uncapped / gaming providers (in no particular order)

MWEB Uncapped
WA (WAGE Servers are zero-rated when gaming) all accounts support this feature, just to add STEAM downloading / gaming is zero-rated aswell.
OpenWeb Gold / Plus Uncapped

Good luck and keep us informed on your experience / decision :)

Hope that helps :)

PS
I think the biggest reason for going down to 1MB is simply because there are many of us whom cannot get upto 10MB (same price as upto 4MB) so essentially we are losing out big time.
 
Last edited:
Yuu said:
I am not on 1MB but here is what i have learned on the forum, for browsing you will not find much difference as accessing a website rarely gives you full speed of your upto 4/10MB line. So browsing should feel almost indifferent.

Wrt streaming, you may feel it (720p or 1080p on YT).

Gaming, unless you hosting a game, there shouldn't be a major drop in performance but this is subject to network conditions at the time you play. Some weeks it may feel really great (MWEB) and other times like you been downgraded in service while still paying a premium.

A good suggestion from forumites , ask for a test account with the provider you intend going with and test at hours you are likely to be doing the activities you intend to do to get a basic idea of how it is going to be. For the subject of this topic (1MB) you can just limit your current 4MB line down to 1MB to get a real feel of the speed difference (if any). Using a software like Netlimiter can help you achieve this. lmgtfu :)


Current popular uncapped / gaming providers (in no particular order)

MWEB Uncapped
WA (WAGE Servers are zero-rated when gaming) all accounts support this feature, just to add STEAM downloading / gaming is zero-rated aswell.
OpenWeb Gold / Plus Uncapped

Good luck and keep us informed on your experience / decision :)

Hope that helps :)

PS
I think the biggest reason for going down to 1MB is simply because there are many of us whom cannot get upto 10MB (same price as upto 4MB) so essentially we are losing out big time.
Click to expand...

WOW! Thanks for all the info!

I just look at the pricing for 1mbps uncapped vs 4mbps uncapped... If we use MWEB as an example, they have All incl 4mbps at R899, and all inclusive 1mbps at R588, that's a R311 saving, and yes, the theoretical maximum I could download in one month is 250gb, but that is no longer necessary... I had uncapped last year and did close on 1.8tb in that time... Upload is the same for 1mbps as it is for 4mbps... So essentially I am losing out on 300kB/s between 1 and 7 in the morning which equates to 6gb roughly.

Tough decisions...

Thanks again for your input!
 
I have just recently been downgraded from uncapped to prepaid (royally sucks) but i came to the conclusion that it just isn't worth it anymore so will be downgrading the line come next month. Rather put the extra money towards my studies.

IMO if downloading tons of gigabytes is not something you will be worried about achieving then downgrading your line will be a decision that you will be very happy with.

Having said that, the next few months should be somewhat interesting ;-).


Spyk3r said:
WOW! Thanks for all the info!

I just look at the pricing for 1mbps uncapped vs 4mbps uncapped... If we use MWEB as an example, they have All incl 4mbps at R899, and all inclusive 1mbps at R588, that's a R311 saving, and yes, the theoretical maximum I could download in one month is 250gb, but that is no longer necessary... I had uncapped last year and did close on 1.8tb in that time... Upload is the same for 1mbps as it is for 4mbps... So essentially I am losing out on 300kB/s between 1 and 7 in the morning which equates to 6gb roughly.

Tough decisions...

Thanks again for your input!
Click to expand...
 
I recently downgraded from 4Mbps (~40GB IS cap) to 1Mbps Mweb uncapped, and so far the change was worth it, even though I'm paying like R30/month more than I used to.
I'm playing BF:BC2 and downloading stuff off news servers, and some web browsing.

I rarely stream videos, so I can't comment on that.
 
Pada said:
I recently downgraded from 4Mbps (~40GB IS cap) to 1Mbps Mweb uncapped, and so far the change was worth it, even though I'm paying like R30/month more than I used to.
I'm playing BF:BC2 and downloading stuff off news servers, and some web browsing.

I rarely stream videos, so I can't comment on that.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your feedback! The gaming and browsing didn't affect you at all? Did you notice the drop or not really?
 
The gaming wasn't affected at all. Browsing isn't slower either, but downloads are of course (100KB/s vs 420KB/s).

The only game that I've ever played that had issues on a 384kbps connection was CoD:Black Ops, when refreshing the server list.
On 1Mbps that problem doesn't exist.
 
Pada said:
The gaming wasn't affected at all. Browsing isn't slower either, but downloads are of course (100KB/s vs 420KB/s).

The only game that I've ever played that had issues on a 384kbps connection was CoD:Black Ops, when refreshing the server list.
On 1Mbps that problem doesn't exist.
Click to expand...


Thank you for your feedback. Greatly appreciated
 
I want to downgrade from 4mbps to 1mbps for two reasons, one because of the cost savings, but also because I never get more than 1mbps on my line in spite of syncing at 4mbps and it being a very good line.

Do Telkom charge a fee for downgrading the speed?
 
Jola said:
I want to downgrade from 4mbps to 1mbps for two reasons, one because of the cost savings, but also because I never get more than 1mbps on my line in spite of syncing at 4mbps and it being a very good line.

Do Telkom charge a fee for downgrading the speed?
Click to expand...

Apparently not. They did at some stage, but for the past few months/years they haven't... My line is on an all inclusive package, so I speak directly to my isp.
What my isp said was that they don't charge for it, and my line although with telkom is theirs as it is wholesale...
 
I recently downgraded to 1Mbps from 4Mbps and Telkom didn't charge me anything for it.

They even billed me pro-rata for the 4Mbps line rental, which means that if you're downgrading on like the 10th of the month, that you'll be paying 1/3 of the R413 4Mbps line rental cost + 2/3 of the R326 for the 1Mbps line rental.
 
For R87 less downgrading from 4meg to 1meg is just not wort it. the drop in speed is too steep for still paying R326. if it was R300 i would have considered. i mainly use my internet for streaming and dl. i think once you go 4meg you never wana look back. I got a Redafrica 130GB account, so the moola works out ok. if you cannot afford then i guess you just have to sacrifice the speed.
 
But the above comments say that TK have not been charging for downgrading for awhile now, what did i miss? :p


Stevie G said:
For R87 less downgrading from 4meg to 1meg is just not wort it. the drop in speed is too steep for still paying R326. if it was R300 i would have considered. i mainly use my internet for streaming and dl. i think once you go 4meg you never wana look back. I got a Redafrica 130GB account, so the moola works out ok. if you cannot afford then i guess you just have to sacrifice the speed.
Click to expand...
 
Stevie G said:
For R87 less downgrading from 4meg to 1meg is just not wort it. the drop in speed is too steep for still paying R326. if it was R300 i would have considered. i mainly use my internet for streaming and dl. i think once you go 4meg you never wana look back. I got a Redafrica 130GB account, so the moola works out ok. if you cannot afford then i guess you just have to sacrifice the speed.
Click to expand...


Lol! Where have you been?? The rental is down to below 300 from August :)
 
Stevie G said:
For R87 less downgrading from 4meg to 1meg is just not wort it. the drop in speed is too steep for still paying R326. if it was R300 i would have considered. i mainly use my internet for streaming and dl. i think once you go 4meg you never wana look back. I got a Redafrica 130GB account, so the moola works out ok. if you cannot afford then i guess you just have to sacrifice the speed.
Click to expand...

You're lucky it has been reduced to R289
 
If I had a Red-Africa account, then I won't bother with a 1Mbps connection at all -> I would stay at 4/10Mbps!
 
That's why i'm loving it. Its such a pleasure streaming 720p HD movies and series on a 17" widescreen laptop flawlessly. I haven't tried connecting it on my 42" plasma. this is what internet supposed to be. get rid of dstv, sabc, etv and toptv. the internet is the future guys. nice to watch anything you want whenever you want.

WEBAFRICA FTW
 
Can't do anything with my 4mbps ADSL, completely useless.

It's even worse than my unreliable Cell C, which I am using at the moment - the Telkom ADSL is too slow to browse MBB, even with my perfect ADSL line!
 
Well for an update -

I phoned my isp and requested the line be dropped to 1mbps yesterday. When I got back from work, it had been dropped. Browsing remained the same, I couldn't see a difference at all. Downloads are a bit slow, running at 105-112kB/s. But gaming and all the things I had done on my line are running just as they were. I'm pretty happy at this point. Its just going to be painful waiting for updates and the likes to finish, especially when I'm used to waiting 1/4 of the time...

But overall, I can't complain. Just waiting for the isp to change my package to 1mbps as it still says I'm on the 4mbps package
 
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