Afrihost Mobile for farm

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herbertk

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So I am moving to a farm just outside of Leandra in Mpumalanga, now I need to consider internet connectivity!

I looked at VSat but it seems dang expensive and the fair use policies are ludicrous.

So far the best option I have found is Afrihost Mobile 20gig for around 900 bucks.

I will need to adapt my usage as on ADSL I am doing between 50 and 150 gigs a month...

Any other options you guys are aware of ?

EDIT : Not sure if there are any WISP's in the area ? Closest biggish town is Secunda and Standerton.
 
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herbertk said:
So I am moving to a farm just outside of Leandra in Mpumalanga, now I need to consider internet connectivity!

I looked at VSat but it seems dang expensive and the fair use policies are ludicrous.

So far the best option I have found is Afrihost Mobile 20gig for around 900 bucks.

I will need to adapt my usage as on ADSL I am doing between 50 and 150 gigs a month...

Any other options you guys are aware of ?

EDIT : Not sure if there are any WISP's in the area ? Closest biggish town is Secunda and Standerton.
Click to expand...
Best would be to give GPS cor ... so you can check vodacom,mtn,cellc,telkom coverage
 
Not sure I want to post the GPS coords in a public forum happy to PM to providers etc... MTN looks possible, Vodacom OK...
 
Also if you have a laptop and a MTN modem you can run a scan

Yes it does not show you how good the signal strength is. But you can work around it.
Capture.JPG
 
From what I see you should be able to go with a mtn/afrihost deal.

I would recommend getting a modem and testing it with a prepaid card. Try forcing it on the 2100 band first check the speeds else try the 900mhz band.

You are very close to the edge of the 2100 band
 
You will need to get a proper 3G router with external antennas to make the most of your connection. A USB 3G modem just isn't going to cut it.
 
DTBA said:
From what I see you should be able to go with a mtn/afrihost deal.

I would recommend getting a modem and testing it with a prepaid card. Try forcing it on the 2100 band first check the speeds else try the 900mhz band.

You are very close to the edge of the 2100 band
Click to expand...

Yeah I saw that... might just be lucky... there is a river and it is odd that the 2100 band breaks up around it... thanks for the input mate!
 
deweyzeph said:
You will need to get a proper 3G router with external antennas to make the most of your connection. A USB 3G modem just isn't going to cut it.
Click to expand...

I see microtik and Huwai do some... will have to get hold of one... oh the joys of living in the sticks...
 
deweyzeph said:
You will need to get a proper 3G router with external antennas to make the most of your connection. A USB 3G modem just isn't going to cut it.
Click to expand...
I agree.
not 100% true. But if you have the $$ go for it!

Double check first before you go buying... On mtn I am on the edge of the signal according to the map but I get -78dbi

Just my tower is has some congestion issues at night :D
 
herbertk said:
Any other options you guys are aware of ?
Click to expand...

I'm in the same situation you are. Have a look at Axxess too. They've got 10GB at R496, but it rolls over for three months whereas Afrihost doesn't. The big benefit with Afrihost is their Afrihost+ which, for R99 a month allows you double data, so essentially for R1086 you can get 40GB, which is more than you'll get anywhere else (that I've managed to find). The wifi guys around here charge similar prices to Vodacom, which is a lot more than Afrihost / Axxess, so they're not in the mix for me.

Both Afrihost and Axxess use MTN, and so you can switch between them quite easily.

If your signal is marginal, make sure you get a 3g Router that will take an external antenna, which can make a huge difference to your experience, as long as you're close enough to the tower - the towers are usually setup to allow 3G connections from within a certain range, and if you're outside that, even if your signal strength is good, you may not be able to connect. They can adjust those ranges on individual cells on each tower, but it's a mission to get the crew out to your place to test for signal and then request a config change. Also, the config changes sometimes get lost when someone else works on some other problem and resets things.

All in all, it works adequately - not the same as ADSL - but it works. There are often lags, and sometimes things slow down when the tower is busy, but it's a connection. I've helped three or four friends and colleagues in the same situation get setup on the same system, and although none of them are heavy internet users doing big downloads, it works.
 
herbertk said:
I see microtik and Huwai do some... will have to get hold of one... oh the joys of living in the sticks...
Click to expand...

You can order through Afrihost too, their prices aren't bad (well last time I compared). They have the LTE B593 for R2k. Not that you'll get LTE on a farm anytime soon :)
 
herbertk said:
So I am moving to a farm just outside of Leandra in Mpumalanga, now I need to consider internet connectivity!

I looked at VSat but it seems dang expensive and the fair use policies are ludicrous.

So far the best option I have found is Afrihost Mobile 20gig for around 900 bucks.

I will need to adapt my usage as on ADSL I am doing between 50 and 150 gigs a month...

Any other options you guys are aware of ?

EDIT : Not sure if there are any WISP's in the area ? Closest biggish town is Secunda and Standerton.
Click to expand...

I would definitely check out our coverage before I make any commitments about coverage. We definitely have a wide national coverage, but 1% of the country we don't cover (I think that's the right stat) could be a lot of actual square kms :(

https://www.afrihost.com/resources/network_coverage_map/?src=socmed
 
Colin62 said:
You can order through Afrihost too, their prices aren't bad (well last time I compared). They have the LTE B593 for R2k. Not that you'll get LTE on a farm anytime soon :)
Click to expand...

The Huawei B593 works great for 3G too. It's definitely not just for LTE.
 
Would something like this work for my brother who's living on a farm out in EC? He's struggling to get decent data connection, and I was thinking he could set this up as an AP where he's found the best signal in/around his farm house? Would he need an additional external antenna like a Poynting/Yagi as well?

Any ideas what he can do for voice - the same story - struggling to get decent signals for a voice call - something I'm a bit more worried about than data right about now...

But first steps after reading this thread is to check which service provider has the best signal currently... Lemme just get his co-ord's to get a better idea just who's around signal-wise...
 
chris2.0 said:
Would something like this work for my brother who's living on a farm out in EC? He's struggling to get decent data connection, and I was thinking he could set this up as an AP where he's found the best signal in/around his farm house? Would he need an additional external antenna like a Poynting/Yagi as well?

Any ideas what he can do for voice - the same story - struggling to get decent signals for a voice call - something I'm a bit more worried about than data right about now...

But first steps after reading this thread is to check which service provider has the best signal currently... Lemme just get his co-ord's to get a better idea just who's around signal-wise...
Click to expand...

If you're living on a farm you will an external antenna, no two ways about it. You will need to check the manual of whatever router you buy to see what the correct external antenna is. As far as voice is concerned, with the B593 you can plug in a normal Telkom telephone into one of the telephone jacks and then use the Telkom phone effectively as a cell phone. The sim card will need to be enabled for voice though as well.
 
herbertk said:
So I am moving to a farm just outside of Leandra in Mpumalanga, now I need to consider internet connectivity!

I looked at VSat but it seems dang expensive and the fair use policies are ludicrous.

So far the best option I have found is Afrihost Mobile 20gig for around 900 bucks.

I will need to adapt my usage as on ADSL I am doing between 50 and 150 gigs a month...

Any other options you guys are aware of ?

EDIT : Not sure if there are any WISP's in the area ? Closest biggish town is Secunda and Standerton.
Click to expand...

Look at Vodacom BC Lite Package R650 for 40GB it's a lot cheaper and a lot more stable, was on the 10GB afrihost/MTN package now for almost 2 months and heck I had the same crap I had with Telkom was a living nightmare, had to eventually ask or claim that double money back thing and package was cancelled.

MTN's network crashed like twice during the almost 2 months speeds at nights on there 4G network was what I got from Telkoms 3G network pathetic all the same, only issue with Vodacom those are 4G only if you looking at a 3G contract then Telkoms Mobile contracts would be a lot cheaper, if you are lucky then you will have no problems if unlucky you will have plenty of problems, all depends on area and tower and network. I would however steer clear of MTN via afrihost, it's sucks and even afrihost themselves know this if you have a problem then you report that to afrihost which in turn reports that to mtn, and then you can forget about any issue being resolved, I still have mtn case numbers provided to me by afrihost that have simply not been resolved nor has any attempt been made to contact me to inform me on any progress, it's a joke tbh.
 
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