Anyone using snowball ?

[sparklehorse]

I'm interested in trying out these guys and was wondering if someone here can add some opinions. As far as I can tell the only downside compared to adsl is reliability and initial costs - so I am interested if anyone know how reliable the service is.

http://www.snowball.co.za/

 

[ajax]

Brick (from this forum) is using them.

 

[brick]

snowball comments

hi!

They're OK. In terms of speed you get a little more than you pay for, if you consider 64k as what you're paying for. They seem to allow short burts up to 50kb/s, then throttle down to about 6-8k/s, avaraging about 15kb/s (equivalent to 128k connection) on big downloads.

They don't cap, but get iffy about bandwidth use if you are a heavy user. They wouldn't give me any hard and fast rules, but they said 15G a month is too much, which is what one guy was doing. I think I do about 5G a mo, so I'm doing better than ADSL at any rate.

Reliability has been good, if not great. However, if you call them with a problem they are very responsive, so I am satisfied. Besides, no other way I'm going to get always on internet for ~R400 PM in SA. If you are in Stellenbosch, they are the only game in town. That I know of at least.

Cheers
Neilen

 

[Decotey]

Beware of contracts

 

[sparklehorse]

Thank you all for your comments - especialy Brick

Looks good, although I wish these companies would start realising that advertising unlimited traffic means no limit on the amount of data transfered. Instead of 'nicely' asking you not to download that much and effectivly enforcing a cap.

 

[martin]

I assume this service in only available in Stellenbosch then?

 

[sparklehorse]

yes

 

[brick]

Actually, they told me they were also covering part of Paarl or something. They definitely seem to be a Boland Operator

Cheers
Neilen

 

[eugenevdm]

Snowball Coverage Areas / Shaping

I would like to clarify some issues in this discussion.

Snowball covers Stellenbosch, Somerset West, Strand, Gordon's Bay, and Hermanus. At present we do not cover Paarl.

There are no contracts with our home user packages, and a 30-day money back guarantee.

Of course we shape. That is the only way you can make this business model work. If you are willing to sign a contract for R 5000.00 a month for tier-1 one-to-one 64K bandwidth we will supply it gladly. That is the reality of how much bandwidth costs in South Africa. And believe me it's not the ISPs making money but rather a legacy of having only one telecommunications provider for so long. Shaping the bandwidth ensures that everyone on the network has equal access, and that one hog does not spoil it for everyone.

If you only want to pay R 399.00 and you don't want to sign a contract you will get what you pay for.

Please do not hesitate to contact me should you have any further questions regarding our company or services.

Eugene van der Merwe
Managing Director
Snowball Effect (Pty) Ltd
Cell: 082-413-4338
Office: 021-880-2228
eugene at snowball.co.za

 

[sparklehorse]

Welcome to the forum . It is good to see companies represented here.

I did sign up with Snowball and so far the service has been really good. If you live in the Stellenbosch/Strand region I can recommend their service.

I don't think anyone mentioned a problem with shaping
As long as it is reasonable.

I have a problem with isp's advertising 'NO CAP' or 'Unlimited Traffic' to make the package look more attractive when in reality they can not provide unlimited traffic. If you advertise unlimited traffic you can't complain when the user takes advantage of this.