Cape Connect - Help!

[flotter]

Hi guys and girls,

Does anyone use Cape Connect?

First of all, I have an ADSL 5MBit connection to my house (Winelands district on a farm). This the max I can get from the local exchange.

I want to get a high bandwidth connection - not for data volume, but for speed. I need to work from home and I need a faster connection for VPN and Skype.

The only towers I can see belongs to Cape Connect.

However, their product descriptions sounds suspicious (and speaking to their sales person made me lost the will to live ). I though I will give them the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise, so here goes:

The have Home Uncapped and WDSL Uncapped.

#1) HOME UNCAP: (R450)

Unshaped
Symmetrical
Up-to 4Mb Up / 4Mb Down

#2) WDSL UNCAP: (R375)

Contended
Symmetrical
Up-to 4Mb Up / 4Mb Down

Contended as per ADSL, the only contention being on the link to the tower.

1) So they claim a symmetrical, unshaped, zero contension line for R450 p/m ?

2) Does the sentence "Contended as per ADSL, the only contention being on the link to the tower." makes sense to anyone?

3) I really wanted a CAPPED option, so that I could get max speed capped, but less data. Is tower contention really an issue (snowball seems willing to allow max tower speed)?

Insights would be appreciated.

 

[belator]

Longstanding client

I used their wireless for six years. Two years ago I switched to their fibre when it came past my house.

I started with a 384Kb uncapped wireless and now have a 50Mb uncapped FTTH.

They've not offered capped wireless in all the years I've been a client.

WDSL connects to a sector on a mast. I spent my last year as a wireless client on that. Back then it was a 1Mb for R375. It worked fine.

There's only a limited amount of bandwidth that can be transmitted through the sector. That is spread amongst the users connected at that point in time. For example, if the sector can broadcast a maximum of 50Mb, but there are 20 x 10Mb clients connected to the sector at the same time, each user will only receive a proportional amount.

The same as ADSL. It's contended.

Home uncap is normally a point to point wireless link.

They put up a dish on the tower that connects to the dish on your roof. It's like a fibre through the sky. It's 1:1

Remember wireless is a best effort service. They can have a perfect link to you, but if another WISP broadcasts on the same frequency as them, from another tower, and crosses your link, it will decrease your link quality.

 

[flotter]

Thank you for your answer.

What I understand then is that both services bind on a backbone that offers symmetrical up/down bandwidth.

The Home option will get a dedicated antenna on the tower, while the WDSL uses a shared AP on the same tower.

The only reason I am suspicious about the symmetrical aspect is that if you compare their price to other symmetrical offerings, either all the other companies overcharge, they are mis-advertising or they really are 5X cheaper.

 

[belator]

The only reason I am suspicious about the symmetrical aspect is that if you compare their price to other symmetrical offerings, either all the other companies overcharge, they are mis-advertising or they really are 5X cheaper.

I think I may be subsidizing you...

When I stopped at their offices about a month ago to sign a new debit order, the guy I spoke to told me their wireless client base had decreased as they've been focusing on their fibre rollout. But, because each tower either has fibre to it (they've been digging since 2009) or a proper microwave link to a tower that has fibre, and they have huge pipes to Jhb, London and Singapore (or Hong Kong - I forget which one), it was time to get aggressive with wireless pricing and increase the wireless customer base.