advice please

L

Lizard

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Port Shepstone, South Coast KZN
I come to this forum hoping for some intelligent advice. Please bear with me while I tell my story. I live in "the sticks". I had a dial-up connection with a local ISP (plus Closer 2 with 80 hours free in call-more time). I applied to Telkom for an ADSL line but they said not available to this area. My ISP offered me a "special deal" on a Vodafone at R119 pm with cap of 250MB. I signed a two-year contract. I cancelled the 80 free hours with Telkom (that's a story on its own). The connection with the Vodafone is TERRIBLY slow (53.6kpbs). It now transpires that I am "off the 3G footprint" and am actually using GPRS which is why it is slow. I phoned Vodacom who said there is no hope of the 3G footprint being extended to my area within the next year. They said I should return the Vodafone to my ISP. All well and good, I feel I can cancel the contract as they are not providing what I am paying for, but where do I go from here? And at what price? I don't need anything fantastically fast as I don't play games or download videos but I don't want to sit for 10 minutes downloading a couple of photos from my grandchildren. The only benefit I have at the moment is that I can log on any time night or day. If I go back to a dial-up connection I will have to limit myself to call-more time. Advice please.
 
Hi Lizard
If you can't get ADSL and you can't get 3G you are pretty much stuck for always-on connectivity. The only option I can think of is ISDN - about the same price as dial-up (and you should limit it to callmore time) - but somewhat faster. You would order this through Telkom.

What speed did you get when you were on dial-up? Certainly not as good as 53Kbps.

ISDN is 64Kbps so it's not a great difference, and it's not always-on. Maybe GPRS is the best you can get. Until they roll out ADSL.

Check with iBurst and Sentech (unlikely but you never know) - check with MTN - keeping checking with Vodacom and Telkom.

Actually satellite might be an option. Does anyone know about satellite services? Expensive?
 
ISDN may not be a bad option. You have the option of using 2 channels, which will be billed as 2 calls, giving you 128kb line speed. You may also still be able to get the extended callmore option, but you'd have to call Telkom to find out.
 
The fastest dial-up connection I've ever used ran at a speed of 52kbps. Back then, it was amazing! GPRS runs at about 80kbps and if you just get 53.6kpbs, then it's not that bad. It's ok if that is all you can get as it is better than dialup at least. Maybe move your phone&pc closer to a window for better reception?

Just stay away from the WISP's...
 
Well let's see. There's always iburst and if there's no iburst footprint in your area try mtn. Their EDGE network is available wherever they have gprs, which is anywhere you get signal. They might even have 3G in your area already.
 
Thanks, guys. Tried your suggestions and so far the best option seems to be MTN - or staying with what I have got and putting up with the slowness. Now just let me go and read the small print in my two-year contract on the Vodafone.
 
WiMAX

I did phone Telkom to enquire about WiMAX but I got a very disinterested lady who told me to look at their website. I didn't see it at the website and then didn't pursue it. I will look again - or phone them again. It's the luck of the draw who answers.
 
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