A view from the UK

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malcvxer

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I'm a Brit building a house in Cape Town. I intend to work down there for part of the year. I need (idellay) ADSL and have been checking out the various websites re ADSL in South Africa. Like everyone here I'm appalled at the dire situation on broadband in SA. SA has lots and lots going for it but Telkom (and I guess, the government as a regulator) are doing the country no favours here. If I want ADSL I'm looking at 500-660r per month - including the time when I'm not there!!!
As many will know - for most people in the UK now ADSL (of up to 8 meg uncapped) can be had for free!!! (well it's not actually free becuase you have to tie into a phone or satellite deal of some sort but that's pretty small beer. Even stand alone can be had for 100R!!!
It does look like it MAY get better - but all too little too slowly. There doesn't look like a better (cheaper) solution to me. Looks like I might have to put up with dial up and just tear my hair out when I'm down there - unless anyone has any other bright ideas?????
Yours sympathetically - I will never complain again about British Telecom!!!
Malcolm
 
No bright ideas but dial up is the worst idea. Your options would be 384 asdl and prepaid Bandwidth from Webafrica. At least then you would only be wasting the line rental when away in the UK and not ISP charges.

The other option would be to buy a voda(com/fone) hsdpa data card, and then get prepaid airtime. Currently with vodacom you would be paying R2 / mb, but hopefully by the time your house was build prepaid data bundles would be available reducing your cost to 50c - R1 / mb.
 
3G would be your best bet. (ranges from 384k to 1.8Mbits)

It's an inial outlay of about 240 quid for the data card, then you pay between 50 SA cents and 2 Rand per MB for your usage... that is of course considering that you don't want to be tied into any contracts etc.
 
More from Britland

Some good ideas guys - thanks.
Usage would not be too great in terms of upload and download - no games - muisc etc. Mainly email, spreadsheets and VOIP. I don't want (need) a phone in the house either. 3G looks an interesting possibility - is the coverage OK in Cape Town?
 
malcvxer said:
Some good ideas guys - thanks.
Usage would not be too great in terms of upload and download - no games - muisc etc. Mainly email, spreadsheets and VOIP. I don't want (need) a phone in the house either. 3G looks an interesting possibility - is the coverage OK in Cape Town?
Click to expand...

Vodacom/Vodafone currently has the best coverage country wide, there are 3 bands of coverage:

3G HSDPA: 1.8MBit/s
3G: 384KBit/s
GRPS: 45KBit/s

It's an automatic fall back system, and 3G coverage is actually very good, HSDPA is ok and wherever you can't get those to you'll be thown onto GPRS, which is painfully slow, but at least you can still get mail.
 
Just my luck!! Just when I thought I cracked it! The Vodacom map of Sunset Beach Cape Town shows an very small island of NO coverage - with apparently perfect coverage all around (including in the sea) within 200 yards! Looks like GPRS only right now. Very puzzling!
 
GRPS: 45KBit/s?
u shyting me! i get 20 for a few sec then goes down to like 12.
F*** telkom and vodacom im gonna move next year to the uk I cant take this no more
[edit]cell phone bill = SAR750 [/edit]
 
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malcvxer said:
Just my luck!! Just when I thought I cracked it! The Vodacom map of Sunset Beach Cape Town shows an very small island of NO coverage - with apparently perfect coverage all around (including in the sea) within 200 yards! Looks like GPRS only right now. Very puzzling!
Click to expand...
Avoid Vodacom GPRS for now. It is very unreliable, especially on weekends (Voda day off). Try MTN first. Buy a starter pack from Pick'nPay then you get an extra R10 free when you recharge with even the smallest amount (currently R15). The speed isn't great, but you get more data coming through than you paid for.:p

Then there is always Virgin, which has the cheapest rates, but I think they have had a lot of complaints lately.
 
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