Best small town uncapped Internet options?

[stevemarais]

My family lives in a picturesque small town in the Western Cape but their Internet connection is awful. They are currently on mweb adsl. After some poking around online it seems that there are better options around but it's not clear what the best options are for isolated small towns in SA. Can anyone offer some clarity or insight?

 

[Johnatan56]

My family lives in a picturesque small town in the Western Cape but their Internet connection is awful. They are currently on mweb adsl. After some poking around online it seems that there are better options around but it's not clear what the best options are for isolated small towns in SA. Can anyone offer some clarity or insight?

What are the line stats? Are you sure it's not a faulty line? Are you complaining about the speed of the connection?

Other options are to check if any WISP provider offers their service in your area or check the coverage of your cellular providers. What is your average monthly usage and budget?

 

[Kloofvreter]

What town is this?

 

[I O U]

My family ..... their Internet connection is awful. They are currently on mweb adsl.

You don't state whether Telkom or MWeb controls the ADSL line.
If Telkom, you should be able to sign up for various free 1GB accounts, which you can compare against MWeb's (not so sure if MWeb controls the line, whether you can sign-up and test other ISPs ; others on this forum may know).

eg. http://www.afrihost.com/landing/freegb/
Axxess also have free 1GB / month (sister-co of Afrihost), so do / did Web Africa, Gridhost, Vox - try some or all out. Note that some of them may require you putting in Credit Card details as well.

After comparing, your family should be able to determine if it's MWeb or the line itself (assuming all of them are terrible & have issues).

To me, a good test is to stream some YouTube vids ; if the progress bar moves slowly or fast on eg 480p or 720p, to me that's a good indication of how the ISP's performing - case in point - my Vox connection doesn't always do so well, but downloading I get full line speed speeds through them, so I think they're certainly controlling aspects of the usage.

Finally, if they're on a cheap MWeb uncapped, and these free 1GB capped accounts perform much better, then it means they should obviously do away with uncapped, and get one or two capped accounts.

 

[Johnatan56]

You don't state whether Telkom or MWeb controls the ADSL line.
If Telkom, you should be able to sign up for various free 1GB accounts, which you can compare against MWeb's (not so sure if MWeb controls the line, whether you can sign-up and test other ISPs ; others on this forum may know).

eg. http://www.afrihost.com/landing/freegb/
Axxess also have free 1GB / month (sister-co of Afrihost), so do / did Web Africa, Gridhost, Vox - try some or all out. Note that some of them may require you putting in Credit Card details as well.

After comparing, your family should be able to determine if it's MWeb or the line itself (assuming all of them are terrible & have issues). A good test is to stream some YouTube vids ; if the progress bar moves slowly or fast on eg 480p or 720p, to me that's a good indication of how the ISP's performing - case in point - my Vox connection doesn't always do so well, but downloading I get full line speed speeds through them, so I think they're certainly controlling aspects of the usage.

You would still be able to compare, same infrastructure, just change the details on the router...

 

[I O U]

You would still be able to compare, same infrastructure, just change the details on the router...

Thanks - think there was a time when a line controlled by the ISP meant you could only use them for data.