Afrihost compared to Axxess bandwidth costs

AndyHiggins

AndyHiggins

BidorBuy CEO
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R6,900 versus R950 - can it be true? We are a company that uses about 100GB in bandwidth per month for our office with a staff of about 30 people. Currently we are paying R6,900 for 100GB from Axxess (it says "Prepaid Shaped 100Gb" when I buy it and this is set to automatically top up when needed). I see that one can get 100Gb (50Gb + 50Gb) on the current Afrihost special for power users for R950 per month (it says it is a semi shaped connection).

One difference between the two packages may be that after a month unused bandwidth with Axxess does not expire but we use 100Gb within a month in any case. Am I comparing apples with apples here? Any thoughts (or alternative suggestions) would be appreciated.
 
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Maybe you could do a short trial using a smaller Afrihost account such as the 5 or 10GB one before committing to the larger one.
 
steviebogos said:
How about uncapped?
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Yes - for increased speed during our peak times we are busy putting in a second line (to be load shared with our current line) that is uncapped. However that is costing us something like R2,700 per month from Vodacom so I suspect if we are only paying R950 per month (assuming the special lasts) for 100GB this option would still be cheaper for us, no?
 
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If the Afrihost deal does not work out, go to IS, you will get a uncapped Shaped account for R3000 a month for your business (4Mb). Still better than R6900. I got a shock the other day when I asked for our adsl bill at the office, R12 000 - R15 000 average a month, we use around 200GB give or take, and paying around R70 a gig at telkom. Talk about getting raped! Changed over immediately
 
For a company that spends 7k a month on bandwidth you should really not be looking at consumer grade offerings. Phone IS/neotel/SAIX and get some business grade connectivity from them.
 
HavocXphere said:
For a company that spends 7k a month on bandwidth you should really not be looking at consumer grade offerings. Phone IS/neotel/SAIX and get some business grade connectivity from them.
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I would almost agree with you there, but they are only using 100GB a month, which should equate to a maximum of R3000 for a 4mbps uncapped account, or R2900 for Afrihost 100GB standard bandwidth (ignoring the current special). They are using shaped bandwidth after all. If it was unshaped then it's a different story...

The only reason they are spending 7K on bandwidth is because they are not well-informed about all the changes happening in the ADSL market.

My advice: Get a 4mbps uncapped account. Vodacom Business accounts (resold by many ISPs) seem to be the current best performing (i.t.o. price, reliability and speed).

Alternatively, go for a bonded ADSL solution. You can bond 2 or more ADSL lines (up to a maximum of 4 or 8 I think). There are several companies doing this. Vox Telecom does it with their Fishbone service.

Start doing some research. Axxess are raping you through the ass with those costs.
 
ToxicWazte said:
My advice: Get a 4mbps uncapped account. Vodacom Business accounts (resold by many ISPs) seem to be the current best performing (i.t.o. price, reliability and speed).
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Agreed - bandwidth usage doesn't tend to reduce, only increase, and if you're used to paying R6,500 per month then you might as well pay R2,449 for the Vodacom 4MB Uncapped and not have to worry about it.
 
Do not go with IS uncapped. at R3200 for a 1mb line it is the most useless piece of *** ever. Our Neotel uncapped is good speeds, we sit at about 2mb. Vodacom uncapped does seem to be one of the best options.
 
30 users, load sometimes gets a bit too high for 1 modem? http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Load_Balancing_over_Multiple_Gateways
That's the way to go. Routerboard RB750G for around R600 and you've got yourself a licensed Mikrotik router that can bond, shape, VPN, split routes (intl/local), etc. Why pay Vodacom R2700 when you could do it this way? Why go with VOX and pay a fortune for a fishbone bonder and pay telkom for multiple phone lines when you could go this route? I know I wouldn't. :)
 
fragtion_ said:
Why pay Vodacom R2700 when you could do it this way? Why go with VOX and pay a fortune for a fishbone bonder and pay telkom for multiple phone lines when you could go this route? I know I wouldn't. :)
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Because there is a huge difference between Load Balancing and ADSL Line Bonding.

With load balancing, IP connections from various devices/computers are spread out over the different modems. Once a connection is initiated over a specified modem, it will continue to use that modem and line till the end of the connection. So each connection will still be limited to the max line speed of the line you are currently on. Also, each modem will get its own IP address. So websites and services that do authentication / security checks via IP Address (in addition to other forms of authentication, like cookies) will not work properly, as for each web request, it will be sent over a different modem, meaning each request will be sent from a different IP address, even though the cookie remains the same. One example is internet banking - it won't work properly with load balancing.

With line bonding, it is completely different. You can 1 IP address, the IP packets are split/divided up at the customers premises, and sent accross all 4 lines, then re-assembled at the ISP side, and then forwarded on to it's final destination. The same thing goes for incoming packets - they are received at the ISP side, split up and sent accross all 4 lines, then re-assembled at the customer premises.

The effect is that of having one huge pipe of 16mbps (4 x 4) downstream and 2mbps (512k x 4) upstream. Each IP connection can achieve this full rate (depending on various factors obvisouly, but it is possible), and will not be limited by the max download rate (4mbps) or upload rate (512kbps) of any single ADSL line.

So until we actually get a 16mbps ADSL line from Telkom, the only we to achieve something similar is with a bonded ADSL solution, or get another solution like fibre, diginet, etc.
 
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