Best town with internet outside of Cape Town?

[Nod]

Which town outside of Cape Town have the best, or at least most stable internet (ADSL) connection?
I was thinking of Paarl, but I'm not too sure.
Any other recommendations from people living outside of Cape Town?
I require a stable connection for work purposes.

 

[louisek]

I believe Paarl is quite good. Other boland towns like Worcester are pretty hopeless

 

[chrismine]

George....

 

[joeyhza]

Quick question out of curiosity - are you willing to only move to a town/suburb because of a stable internet connection?

 

[pampoenskyf]

Stellenbosch for sure

 

[portcullis]

Quick question out of curiosity - are you willing to only move to a town/suburb because of a stable internet connection?

We researched this about four years ago when we first started running fibre into complexes and apartment blocks.

At the time, we approached a master homeowners association in Somerset West governing 10 complexes / body corporates. Three complexes allowed us to run fibre to houses / apartments there and then. The other seven though they were clever and didn't - one even took our proposal to one of our competitors who has since gone out of business.

Two of the complexes are very close to each other in terms of apartment size and demographics. One had fibre into units. One doesn't In the complex that has fibre, two bedroom units sell for R800K. In the complex that doesn't have fibre, more of less the same design units sell for R650K. In the complex that has fibre, 2 bedroom units are let out at +/- R5.5K a month. In the complex that doesn't have fibre, 2 bedroom units are let out at +/- R4K a month.

People are prepared to pay a premium for fast, reliable internet connections.

 

[Nod]

Quick question out of curiosity - are you willing to only move to a town/suburb because of a stable internet connection?

As I mentioned, it is also for business purposes, so a stable connection would be required. I'm also looking to live somewhere with a slower pace. Work is hectic enough.

 

[Fulcrum29]

Helderberg region, I have stable 10mbit connection, using Mweb. Areas such as Somerset West and Strand anything between 4mbit to 10mbit averaging mostly 6-8mbit and quite stable. I politely asked my connections at Telkom to help me out to achieve 10mbit… Gordon’s Bay has bad connections, these I know about, closer to the N2 achieve greater results. Stellenbosch is stable enough and probably better than Helderberg, do not know much about Paarl since most went the wireless route.

 

[portcullis]

@Fulcrum29, I agree with you regarding Gordon's Bay, but don't agree with you regarding Strand.

From what we've been able to gather from our contacts in Telkom - being wholesale clients and all that... - we understand there's no direct cable between the main Somerset West exchange and Strand. It seems that the cable runs along the N2, to Gordon's Bay and then doubles back to the Strand Exchange. They are running fibre down Main Rd from Somerset West to Strand. Hopefully for ADSL users, the Strand ADSL problems will be solved once that connection is in place. We are eagerly awaiting it, as we have an order in for a Metro Clear between our NOC in Somerset West and our big wireless POP in Strand.

Telkom can give us Metro Clear in Sir Lowry's Pass, but not at Old Cape Mall in Gordon's Bay.

Areas in Somerset West where we have no clients due to ADSL doing what it's supposed to do are:

La Concorde / Monte Sereno / Parel Vallei.
Heldervue / Braeview / Steynsrust / La Montagne.

In the other suburbs, there's a reason why so many houses have antenna on their roofs...

There are a handful of other locations, where if you are really lucky, you will decent ADSL, but that doesn't solve the problem of the Tikkoppe and their love of copper cable.

@Nod, do you want to buy or rent? What's your budget?

 

[Fulcrum29]

@Fulcrum29, I agree with you regarding Gordon's Bay, but don't agree with you regarding Strand.

From what we've been able to gather from our contacts in Telkom - being wholesale clients and all that... - we understand there's no direct cable between the main Somerset West exchange and Strand. It seems that the cable runs along the N2, to Gordon's Bay and then doubles back to the Strand Exchange. They are running fibre down Main Rd from Somerset West to Strand. Hopefully for ADSL users, the Strand ADSL problems will be solved once that connection is in place. We are eagerly awaiting it, as we have an order in for a Metro Clear between our NOC in Somerset West and our big wireless POP in Strand.

Telkom can give us Metro Clear in Sir Lowry's Pass, but not at Old Cape Mall in Gordon's Bay.

Areas in Somerset West where we have no clients due to ADSL doing what it's supposed to do are:

La Concorde / Monte Sereno / Parel Vallei.
Heldervue / Braeview / Steynsrust / La Montagne.

In the other suburbs, there's a reason why so many houses have antenna on their roofs...

There are a handful of other locations, where if you are really lucky, you will decent ADSL, but that doesn't solve the problem of the Tikkoppe and their love of copper cable.

@Nod, do you want to buy or rent? What's your budget?

Hi Portcullis,

I cannot go in depth regarding detail entailing DSL connections. DSL connections in Strand, what results do you achieve? Also which areas in Strand, basically put we do not have actual borders between Somerset West, Strand, Gordon’s Bay and Sir Lowry’s.

I know one commercial area in Strand which can achieve stable 10mbit, another person (Telkom associate) whom has 8mbit in his household and me with 6mbit, in Somerset West I achieve 10mbit, and all these connections are stable. I’m not in direct IT anymore, only outsource services to a very limited degree.

That fibre running down Main Road visits Neotel…

 

[Other Pineapple Smurf]

....

Areas in Somerset West where we have no clients due to ADSL doing what it's supposed to do are:

La Concorde / Monte Sereno / Parel Vallei.
Heldervue / Braeview / Steynsrust / La Montagne.

...

Those are all areas with poor line of site of your towers due to the topography of the area. You cannot even get MNet in those areas (non satellite) and 3G is beyond crap. I've roamed those areas with my Neotel device and an iBubbles one and wireless is a no go unless you have enough towers in the area.

 

[portcullis]

Hi Fulcrum29

We have no DSLs. Instead our Helderberg basin NOC has a gigabit connection direct into the Neotel POP to provide internet access for our clients in the Helderberg basin.



We have a couple of Metro Clears for connecting that building to complexes or smaller POPs, with more to follow. We are slowly but surely moving our backbones off wireless into fibre. ISM is heavily congested. People no longer respect the licenced 5.9GHz band, 17GHz is congested and 24GHz (UBNT AirFibre) has been reserved for garage door openers and car reverse radar in SA. 8 or 15GHz equipment prices and ongoing licence fees cost more than a point to point fibre connection.

Backup is (unfortunately still) via wireless to our "fancy" internet connection at Teraco. Keeping the remaining wireless backbones up is a fulltime job for two guys.

Neotel's Somerset West POP is the end of the line for them. It's almost impossible to get Neotel to run fibre to any location. I doubt the digging in Strand is for Neotel.

Our NOC is located where it is because after two years of asking Neotel to run fibre to either our old NOC in Main Rd (opposite Checkers), or our Strand POP (opposite the exchange) we gave up and decided that if Neotel won't go to Cape Connect, Cape Connect will go to Neotel.

I think that as long as somebody is happy to have a 1Mb ADSL connection and they are happy with the congestion between the main Somerset West Exchange and SAIX, they will be fine. Those "slow" connections seem to work better than the "faster" ones.

What gets to me is when I see clients who put in ADSLs as backups to their wireless links, whos' 10Mb ADSLs sync at 6Mb, with actual throughput of 5Mb. Then you 1 km down the road and the guy's got 10Mb, syncing at 8Mb with actual throughput close to 8Mb. As I said, I find the whole thing to be depressing.

Where are you in Somerset West?

Maybe some of our competitors who have ten or 20 ADSLs will join the conversation and share their thoughts regarding the ADSL network.

 

[portcullis]

Those are all areas with poor line of site of your towers due to the topography of the area.

Those areas can either see Hanskop, Strand Beach Rd, Firgrove or Bottelary.

Edit, I've been informed of a farm on the slopes of Helderberg that connects to our access point on Simonsberg with a 31dBi antenna.

 

[Other Pineapple Smurf]

Those areas can either see Hanskop, Strand Beach Rd, Firgrove or Bottelary.

Edit, I've been informed of a farm on the slopes of Helderberg that connects to our access point on Simonsberg with a 31dBi antenna.

Thats quiet a distance to connect to which makes the cost of connecting to your infrastructure quiet expensive. You just need to keep in mind that in Somerset West we trust WiFi like Puritans - its all the devils work, as we have had endless problems with other providers. Your maps don't help much as its no indication of signal strength.

I'm sure your infrastructure is impressive as I can connect to you via my laptop WiFi inside our flat in Drama Street - for iBubbles I had to use an antenna. If all I needed was just off the shelf wifi cards, I would switch over from 8ta for our small business in Village Walk.

 

[portcullis]

Hi Cbrunsdonza,

People like Mathew Calder - ex Helderberg Wireless, B&I, Converged Wireless Solutions and of late Sonic Wireless, have given our industry a very bad reputation. It's amazing how much damage one person can do - and continues to do - to an industry.

However, for every cowboy, there is also somebody who's honest, reliable, knows exactly what's going on, monitors his network 24x7 and stays abreast of problems / interference with other networks.

I don't suppose you are the C Brunsdon who's been connecting to our Somerset West 1 hotspot with two laptops and an iPad for the past two years?

We have a hotspot on the roof of Fountain Square, next door to your shop. We have two hotspots in stores, ready to go, that we've had to pull out of Nomzamo as they kept on stealing the cables. OK, you can all laugh at the wireless guy complaining about cable theft...

Anyway, they are looking for new homes. As in "free to good home". We are specifically looking for more spots along the main drag so send me a PM if you want free kit to connect to us.

 

[Fulcrum29]

Hi Fulcrum29

We have no DSLs. Instead our Helderberg basin NOC has a gigabit connection direct into the Neotel POP to provide internet access for our clients in the Helderberg basin.

View attachment 33520

We have a couple of Metro Clears for connecting that building to complexes or smaller POPs, with more to follow. We are slowly but surely moving our backbones off wireless into fibre. ISM is heavily congested. People no longer respect the licenced 5.9GHz band, 17GHz is congested and 24GHz (UBNT AirFibre) has been reserved for garage door openers and car reverse radar in SA. 8 or 15GHz equipment prices and ongoing licence fees cost more than a point to point fibre connection.

Backup is (unfortunately still) via wireless to our "fancy" internet connection at Teraco. Keeping the remaining wireless backbones up is a fulltime job for two guys.

Neotel's Somerset West POP is the end of the line for them. It's almost impossible to get Neotel to run fibre to any location. I doubt the digging in Strand is for Neotel.

Our NOC is located where it is because after two years of asking Neotel to run fibre to either our old NOC in Main Rd (opposite Checkers), or our Strand POP (opposite the exchange) we gave up and decided that if Neotel won't go to Cape Connect, Cape Connect will go to Neotel.

I think that as long as somebody is happy to have a 1Mb ADSL connection and they are happy with the congestion between the main Somerset West Exchange and SAIX, they will be fine. Those "slow" connections seem to work better than the "faster" ones.

What gets to me is when I see clients who put in ADSLs as backups to their wireless links, whos' 10Mb ADSLs sync at 6Mb, with actual throughput of 5Mb. Then you 1 km down the road and the guy's got 10Mb, syncing at 8Mb with actual throughput close to 8Mb. As I said, I find the whole thing to be depressing.

Where are you in Somerset West?

Maybe some of our competitors who have ten or 20 ADSLs will join the conversation and share their thoughts regarding the ADSL network.

I’m based in Gordon’s Bay, have offices in Somerset West and Strand, wireless link from Somerset West. I mainly specialise in e-commerce, but do IT consultancy for various IT companies (many which are not known to our market) and only those I walked with for a very long route, which is focused on product development, audits and engineering.

Connectivity is still largely an issue regarding backups. I must say that backup through a dedicated wireless medium is still a winner. Another issue is transferring (or syncing) of data, we have client requirements of up to 20mbit and more internationally. But this is all another topic…

To get back to the thread, Paarl and its surrounding areas is mostly covered by various wireless companies, only few deliver excellent service. We all know those working out of a garage; remember that some of these will prosper as long as the service levels are obtained drawn with the client and will succeed at a later stage. Some companies just suck, why..? Ask the people whom manage it.

As for Cape Connect, this company came a long way and personally they are up to the task for wireless services. Believe me, I know everybody (service providers) in Helderberg, Stellenbosch, Paarl, Wellington and Worcester and most of the companies based in greater Cape Town.

As for which Town/City provides the fastest most stable DSL, this depends on area within those locations.

 

[portcullis]

I’m based in Gordon’s Bay

We have many problems with wireless in Gordon's Bay. Almost every second house on that mountain side has sectors on it. Some are used by us, Netx, Amobia, Snowball, GB Sec and GBay Internet. Some are used by guys with ADSLs in their bedrooms who really know their stuff, who manage their traffic and get a number of people connecting happily and who will one day have licenses and will go on to be upstanding members of WAPA in a couple of years, but then there are the people who seem to think they are WISPS because they own a high site, who don't understand even the basics, but who have heard they can make money selling internet to the peasants down on the flats. It's these guys with their "I own a big house on the side of a mountain, I'll do what I want, go away peasant" attitudes that drive people to ADSL.

Connectivity is still largely an issue regarding backups. I must say that backup through a dedicated wireless medium is still a winner.

Blatant advert: We have several companies who host their backups in the Victoria Centre NOC. We either give the client their own cabinet that they can do with what they want, or we sell them some rack space in a cabinet, or we sell them some space on an owncloud network that we host.

The facility has backup power, environmental montoring and all those nice things you'd expect at a facility like Teraco.

Another issue is transferring (or syncing) of data, we have client requirements of up to 20mbit and more internationally. But this is all another topic…

That is a problem... The best we've been able to do is 8Mb full duplex for a guy to Australia. Even that link has it's moments. Upstream traffic providers also maar limit traffic... Their favourite excuse is "The internet is a network of networks. The congestion is upstream from us."

In my opinion, the best location for ADSL services in the Western Cape has to be as close to the Durbanville exchange as possible. If you can live with the CY drivers, you will have fantastic connectivity. The guys on the 40Mb trial are getting 38Mb downloads all day long.

 

[Nod]

If everything works out, then I will do some project and support work from home. I suppose Durbanville is also not a bad place to be as it is far enough from CPT to not be really in it.

I have no budget yet. Those details will be discussed with my bosses in January.

I will be working via different VPN connections to customers around the world, and the connections should be stable, as the work can be delicate at times.

The suggestions so far is more or less where we were thinking of looking in any case, but it is nice to have some kind of confirmation from people that know.

 

[Other Pineapple Smurf]

If everything works out, then I will do some project and support work from home. I suppose Durbanville is also not a bad place to be as it is far enough from CPT to not be really in it.

I have no budget yet. Those details will be discussed with my bosses in January.

I will be working via different VPN connections to customers around the world, and the connections should be stable, as the work can be delicate at times.

The suggestions so far is more or less where we were thinking of looking in any case, but it is nice to have some kind of confirmation from people that know.

Well as for fixed line reliability, Stellies is very good especially Technopark. My previous employer was in Technopark Originally and then moved to Somerset West residential area and we seldom had Telkom issues. We where constantly connected to our Amazon servers and loosing connectivity during our fragile restart processes had to be avoided.

I also never had a drop at night from my home in Somerset West when working on our servers.

But do your risk analysis properly as a single provider increases your probability of not being able to do your job. You should also look into a failover option like 3G and then Northern Suburbs becomes a problem as newer areas suffer from congestion especially at month end.

 

[Nod]

Thanks for all the input. It is much appreciated.

How is the internet (fixed line) in other small towns like George, Knysna, etc?
At least the 3G coverage seems ok, but I suppose congestion over holiday periods will make 3G worthless?