Asking for a friend (genuine!)

[C_hristo]

A good friend of mine is wanting to go the adsl route....Cape Town Blouberg rant
Will access wi fi with laptop, pc and three phones.

- Better to hire landline with ADSL?
- Which ISP? Million dollar question
- better to go for uncapped 8mpbs or 10 mpbs?

- Wouldn't true wireless access (no telkom to have to deal with) be better?
- approximate set up costs?
- uncapped or unshaped?
- does it work when it rains? (kinda like dstv when it rains)

- better to rather wait for FIBRE? If and when it ever reaches Tableview, Cape town ?

 

[Lishen23]

Better to hire landline with ADSL?
Depends on his usage, high usage then ADSL is best


- Which ISP? Million dollar question
At the minute? Probably Afrihost, they're shaking things up

- better to go for uncapped 8mpbs or 10 mpbs?
Go for capped, as I said Afrihost are running quiet an amazing capped promotion right now.

- Wouldn't true wireless access (no telkom to have to deal with) be better?
Depends on multiple factors, could actually end up worse, again back to it depends on what he needs the internet access for

- approximate set up costs?
DSL? Initial setup cost is basically limited to the cost of the modem/router, you can pick that up for as less as R600 if you go with a cheap one


- uncapped or unshaped?
Capped definitely, again, Afrihost capped is mind bogglingly unbelievable right now


- does it work when it rains? (kinda like dstv when it rains)
Again depends on various factors, lightning is a big no no for modems, should always try to switch it off then or at-least have it hooked up to an UPS or something, if you go on a higher option like 10mbps or 20mbps and you're far from the exchange then maybe rain will affect things, but most likely it should work all the time. I'm on 20mbps and problems are few and far between.

- better to rather wait for FIBRE? If and when it ever reaches Tableview, Cape town ?
Again depends on what your friend wants to do. I'd argue no. You can cancel your phone line and DSL with a months notice, so you're not tied to anything. Once fibre comes it's easy to jump ship.

 

[fundutzi]

A good friend of mine is wanting to go the adsl route....Cape Town Blouberg rant
Will access wi fi with laptop, pc and three phones.

- Better to hire landline with ADSL?
==> 1. Get phone line {+- R170/month} and 2. DSL connection from Telkom, not an ISP! {2Mb/R165, 4Mb/R299, 8Mb/R399, see telkom for more}
- Which ISP? Million dollar question
=> This is easy to try different ISPs {Must have DSL connection with Telkom as stated in 2.}.
This forum say Crystal is very good, try Afrihost for better price. It is as easy as changing a username and password to switch.
- better to go for uncapped 8mpbs or 10 mpbs?
=> He probably only needs 2- 4Mb. 8-10 is over kill for what you specified. Latency {stability} is far more important than speed most of time.

- Wouldn't true wireless access (no telkom to have to deal with) be better?
=> Never ever take Wifi if you can get some wire connection, in this case DSL.
- approximate set up costs?
=> The router. Cheap ones +- R900{Afri, WA, Better ones +- R7000.

- uncapped or unshaped?
=> Buy capped.
- does it work when it rains? (kinda like dstv when it rains)
=> Cables work almost always. Wifi is a religious matter.

- better to rather wait for FIBRE? If and when it ever reaches Tableview, Cape town ?
=> Get internet ASAP. DSL will serve him well.

 

[Johnatan56]

A good friend of mine is wanting to go the adsl route....Cape Town Blouberg rant
Will access wi fi with laptop, pc and three phones.

- Better to hire landline with ADSL?
- Which ISP? Million dollar question
- better to go for uncapped 8mpbs or 10 mpbs?

- Wouldn't true wireless access (no telkom to have to deal with) be better?
- approximate set up costs?
- uncapped or unshaped?
- does it work when it rains? (kinda like dstv when it rains)

- better to rather wait for FIBRE? If and when it ever reaches Tableview, Cape town ?

Fiber will take a while, think at least end of 2017, early 2018.
http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthr...le-View-and-surrounding-areas-community/page3

Supposedly most of the LTE-A towers from Telkom are congested here, but that's hearsay, not sure.

I am currently on a 10Mbps line with Afrihost, not having issues. I am in Table View.

 

[Zoomzoom]

But the bottom line is that you still need a line from Telkom. And by the time you pay for the line rental etc, you might as well look at some of the packages from Telkom as they do work out considerably cheaper by the time you add all the bits together when you do it all separately.

 

[C_hristo]

Thanks for all the feedback.... Much appreciated!