Alternatives to Rain LTE

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Lemonfur

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Hi everyone, hope you are all managing through these tough times with the Coronavirus pandemic.

I am using a Huawei B618 Router, and a Rain SIM for internet access for the past year or so.

I am renting a place that unfortunately does not have an ADSL line, and the landowner does not want to install one for us.

Despite the internet access being capped and quite costly, due to easy setup + decent speeds, I have stayed with Rain as my ISP.

However for the past five days, the internet speed drops to unusable speeds at random intervals, with the ping fluctuating all the way to the 1000s. I have tried to contact support which was not very helpful, and now entirely unavailable.

I am looking for alternatives, and seems like Cell C and Telkom provide a similar service. Is there anyone that can provide insight to how these companies are compared to Rain? And is LTE the only alternative I have since Fibre/ADSL is not available?
I stay in Kenilworth, Cape Town if that is of any assistance in answering some of my questions.

Thank you for your time.
 
Try moving your router slightly whenever your speed drops or pings increase.
 
If its capped then rather consider MTN Supersonic LTE. Not sure of its availability in your area but since it is month-to-month you could try out both Telkom and MTN
 
mak2000 said:
If its capped then rather consider MTN Supersonic LTE. Not sure of its availability in your area but since it is month-to-month you could try out both Telkom and MTN
Click to expand...

With Rain, I am currently paying R550 for 55 + 55

I see that for R550, I can get 100 + 100 with MTN on axxess
And for R500, I can get 80 + 80 with Telkom on axxess

Which of the two are more reliable in the community's eyes? Or does it vary heavily based on the area you live in?

And how are you supposed to cancel your services when there is no way to contact rain (how is this a thing?)
And will I need a new SIM card delivered to me if I switch to MTN or Telkom? Even if I have an existing MTN sim card that I use for my phone?
 
Lemonfur said:
With Rain, I am currently paying R550 for 55 + 55

I see that for R550, I can get 100 + 100 with MTN on axxess
And for R500, I can get 80 + 80 with Telkom on axxess

Which of the two are more reliable in the community's eyes? Or does it vary heavily based on the area you live in?

And how are you supposed to cancel your services when there is no way to contact rain (how is this a thing?)
And will I need a new SIM card delivered to me if I switch to MTN or Telkom? Even if I have an existing MTN sim card that I use for my phone?
Click to expand...

I have Rain, and both MTN and Telkom on Axxess.

Use Rain for background streaming during day while working.
MTN by far has the best speeds and reliability, no doubt. Only disadvantage is being locked to a tower (can't use for travelling around or in phone).
Telkom is a great in-between, with favorable speeds. Only disadvantage is the odd package sizes and prices and slightly lower speeds and reliability than MTN but usually no problems.

Really loving the support from Axxess and the ease at which you can view usage, invoices etc online.

Stay far away from Supersonic, worst company I've ever dealt with. They don't even have a helpline number anymore and all Whatsapp support takes days to tend to.
 
I setup a Webafrica Telkom LTE package for my mom while she waits for fibre. IIRC, it's R569pm for 80+80gb.

Ultimately with LTE it comes down to whatever provider (Telkom/MTN/Rain) has better infrastructure in your area so you might want to get a few prepaid sims and test each of them.
 
Gtx Gaming said:
Move router closer to window and force band 2600mhz, might fix it for you
Click to expand...

I found this thread with the download link to enable 2600mhz, however the link is not valid anymore.

Do you see 4G+ or 4G with Rain?

So just a follow up thread. I'm playing with my B618 and some other network simcards. Keen to see what they up to in terms of LTE and LTE-A Now I can not recall seeing 4G+ with Rain once on my B618 :erm: Put a Cellc prepaid simcard in and aligned my antenna a bit to the closest LTE-A Cellc...
mybroadband.co.za mybroadband.co.za

Is there any other method to forcing a B618 to use 2600mhz frequency?
 
Good day

I am new here as well.

I have the B618-22d. I have a rain SIM card in it. R250 0ff peak.

I have average speeds around like 2+- Megs because of the area I live in. Obviously speeds are much more better in the am. Apparently I have a tower less then 1km from my house. I drove around and don't see it, I might be looking in the wrong area but I used my cell ID and the method posted here to find it. The results I got of the location of the tower are the same as a fellow MyBB forum member got for me as well.

I have bought the Poynting X-Pol-0002-V2 High Gain & LTE Antenna, I thought it was omni directional but seems its directional, please correct me if I'm wrong.

I wish I asked before I purchased but here are my questions

1. For rain what settings do I need to change/configure so my Router works best with my Network ( where do I select the 1800mhz/2600mhz on the router and other stuff)
2. Is the antenna worth it.
3. the best methods to get the best performance from the equipment I have. I know we can't do much about the tower.

Quote Reply
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Gtx Gaming said:
You need LTEVIEW application to select 2600mhz.

Antenna not worth if stay that close.

LTEView.rar

drive.google.com drive.google.com
Click to expand...
Gtx Gaming said:
You need LTEVIEW application to select 2600mhz.

Antenna not worth if stay that close.

LTEView.rar

drive.google.com drive.google.com
Click to expand...
Hi GTX gaming

Please excuse my ingorance but please could you give instruction using the LTEview tool to force 2600Mhz on B618. Ive tried selecting 2600mhz band 38 and 41 and just get the thumbs down .

Thanks
B
 
byrondzn said:
Hi GTX gaming

Please excuse my ingorance but please could you give instruction using the LTEview tool to force 2600Mhz on B618. Ive tried selecting 2600mhz band 38 and 41 and just get the thumbs down .

Thanks
B
Click to expand...
What mode 618 do you have? You might have the 65d
 
Hi GTX gaming

Just an update, managed to get a hold of a 22d and an Otto LTE-MD-11, forced 2600 Mhz, found a 3 bar signal and literally increased my speed 10 fold. Went from a constant sub 1 Mb/s during the day to around 12 Mb/s on an the Rain unlimited package. I've ordered an off peak sim and will be testing that speed once it arrives.

Thanks for your help!
B
 
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