Capped vs Uncapped. Advice pls.

[YeOldeOke]

Not being in ZA but trying to help my daughter who's been struggling with 3g for years, it's a bit difficult trying to sort the chaff from the crap.

She's in the golf estates between Centurion and Midrand/Halfway house.

She will be doing some P2P downloading, but not any spectacular amount.

I am used to cheap, fast and uncapped/unshaped (what a cuddly word for a nasty habit) ADSL, so need advice from those experienced in these techniques used by the ISP's.

From what I've read here capped sounds like the better option in trying to obtain more reliable speeds? Is this right?
The uncapped sounds a bit moody and unpredictable?

She's looking at a 1MB 50GB package. Dependent of course on the vagaries of the Telkom exchange etc., what sort of download speed could she hope to average?


Breaks my heart. I'm looking here at the basic FTTx 30MB uncapped/unthrottled/unshaped/unraped package now for R385/m. And I'm not even close to a city.


Any advice appreciated.

 

[Way69]

Hi there,

If it was my money I'd go adsl\ uncapped but that depends on how much she can spend though. I was using an open web 4meg account and was quite happy with the speeds.

I'm now using an 8ta 3G account due to there being no ADSL in my area and the data disappears faster than I can load it (I'm inclined to believe that they're stealing my data).

If she wants 50GB a month then the most cost effective solution is an uncapped ADSL account. Have a look at the openweb accounts...

 

[YeOldeOke]

The 50GB is flexible. As I say the downloading will, at least for the foreseeable future, not be anything to write home about.

Cost-wise the 50GB 1MB package seems fairly reasonable in ZA terms, which is the only reason the 50GB is mentioned.

Stability is the more important factor, coupled with acceptable speed. Mostly will be used for a small e-business-type environment. Decent and STABLE connectivity and decent VOIP.

Did I mention stable?


It's the 'shaping' on uncapped that worries me.....

 

[rrh]

An uncapped WebAfrica 1MB home account is R179/month, a capped 50GB home account is R399/month.

That said, the main difference between home capped and uncapped accounts is the fact that capped accounts are not shaped during the day, whereas most uncapped accounts attract some form of shaping during business hours.

This might well affect your daughter's home business activities.

 

[falcon786]

I used to be on capped and was in the same boat as you/your daughter thinking whether to get capped or uncapped since my 10gig cap on my 8ta 10gig promo became too little.

I've moved to a telkom 1mb uncapped line and the speeds are excellent even during working hours I get 0.87mbps download speeds,which is not bad at all for a 1mb line.

Don't bother with capped,I know some isp's uncapped packages are heavily throttled but I haven't had that experience with Telkom ISP during the past 6 odd months with them its been full speed right through the month,I average between 20gb - 60gb per month.

I believe they only start shaping you after 100gb.

Oh and if your daughter likes her 1mb uncapped experience with telkom internet then she should get them to switch her to the 12 month contract and get a 2mb uncapped line at close to the price of the 1mb uncapped line with the 25% discount for signing a contract.

Where are you from btw?

 

[Chevron]

Not being in ZA but trying to help my daughter who's been struggling with 3g for years, it's a bit difficult trying to sort the chaff from the crap.

She's in the golf estates between Centurion and Midrand/Halfway house.

She will be doing some P2P downloading, but not any spectacular amount.

I am used to cheap, fast and uncapped/unshaped (what a cuddly word for a nasty habit) ADSL, so need advice from those experienced in these techniques used by the ISP's.

From what I've read here capped sounds like the better option in trying to obtain more reliable speeds? Is this right?
The uncapped sounds a bit moody and unpredictable?

She's looking at a 1MB 50GB package. Dependent of course on the vagaries of the Telkom exchange etc., what sort of download speed could she hope to average?


Breaks my heart. I'm looking here at the basic FTTx 30MB uncapped/unthrottled/unshaped/unraped package now for R385/m. And I'm not even close to a city.


Any advice appreciated.

You can get reliable uncapped with this:
http://www.afrihost.com/site/product/business_adsl?src=website_nav

 

[whatwhat]

Yeah, Telkom Uncapped or Afrihost Business uncapped.

 

[YeOldeOke]

I've moved to a telkom 1mb uncapped line and the speeds are excellent even during working hours I get 0.87mbps download speeds,which is not bad at all for a 1mb line.



I believe they only start shaping you after 100gb.

Oh and if your daughter likes her 1mb uncapped experience with telkom internet then she should get them to switch her to the 12 month contract and get a 2mb uncapped line at close to the price of the 1mb uncapped line with the 25% discount for signing a contract.

Where are you from btw?

Live on Koh Samui. A small island in the Gulf of Thailand.

Why does the mention of Telkom send shivers up my spine? In very hot weather? Have they improved since I left 10 years ago?

Your speeds sound fine for what she needs it for. Stability and reliability. It has to be there every day, all day, without fail. I come from the computer industry, and I know youze guys don't mind messing around with stuff, but the ADSL is a tool, and just has to be there. All the time. No messing around, no tuning, no hopping around between ISP's, no having to send logs to analyze problems. If that needs to be done by the customer more than maybe once in 2 years, the ISP is not doing it's job and the service sucks.



So the shaping is not from the getgo? Depends on bandwith usage?


Thanks to all for your input and suggestions.

 

[falcon786]

Live on Koh Samui. A small island in the Gulf of Thailand.

Lucky old barst@rd,lol can I come stay there also I'm green with envy. One of my friends cant stop raving about Thailand and living on a small island there must be even better!I'm assuming you're retired?

Why does the mention of Telkom send shivers up my spine? In very hot weather? Have they improved since I left 10 years ago?

They have definitely improved in leaps and bounds but not near international levels yet.

Your speeds sound fine for what she needs it for. Stability and reliability. It has to be there every day, all day, without fail. I come from the computer industry, and I know youze guys don't mind messing around with stuff, but the ADSL is a tool, and just has to be there. All the time. No messing around, no tuning, no hopping around between ISP's, no having to send logs to analyze problems. If that needs to be done by the customer more than maybe once in 2 years, the ISP is not doing it's job and the service sucks.

Yep we use it for for our main business internet access for banking emails etc,its been so reliable that I haven't even considered changing to the business uncapped which is supposed to be a better service.The beauty of taking it both out with telkom instead of an ISP is that you don't get shoved from pillar to post which a relative experienced because telkom and the ISP were blaming each other in the event of a problem.

So the shaping is not from the getgo? Depends on bandwith usage?

The be honest I haven't experienced any shaping at all yet but my normal usage is well under 60gb per month(normally 20gb) there are reports of users getting shaped/throttled after 100gb of data is consumed.

Thanks to all for your input and suggestions.

You're welcome

 

[YeOldeOke]

Lucky old barst@rd,lol can I come stay there also I'm green with envy. One of my friends cant stop raving about Thailand and living on a small island there must be even better!I'm assuming you're retired?

Sorta retired. With the emphasis on tired. Would love to return to ZA.

Tell you what. Send some money and I'll send you a coconut.

 

[falcon786]

Sorta retired. With the emphasis on tired. Would love to return to ZA.

Tell you what. Send some money and I'll send you a coconut.

Haha I'm sure you will,its the diving ans snorkeling I'm most interested in together with island type lifestyle.

 

[YeOldeOke]

Just dropped into the Telkom uncapped thread. Sounds like the same story to me.

If you wanna call the thing uncapped, make it uncapped. Sounds to me more like the network gets overloaded because too many users get stuck on for the bandwith available. That's a real backyard way of running a business. So it gets 'shaped' if you exceed 'fair usage' on a product advertised as uncapped. Donner maar dis crap.

What's 'fair usage' on uncapped.


Is it just bad planning, greed or poor management?


How does my ISP manage to give me 13Mbps uncapped, unthrottled, unshaped, reliable ADSL for R285/m incl line? I can get FTTx 30Mbps for R385. No threats, complaints about 'fair usage'.

Population? Not really. This ain't China, Japan, Singapore or Hong Kong. When I left ZA it was AHEAD of Thailand in ADSL, bad as it was.

 

[Chevron]

Just dropped into the Telkom uncapped thread. Sounds like the same story to me.

If you wanna call the thing uncapped, make it uncapped. Sounds to me more like the network gets overloaded because too many users get stuck on for the bandwith available. That's a real backyard way of running a business. So it gets 'shaped' if you exceed 'fair usage' on a product advertised as uncapped. Donner maar dis crap.

What's 'fair usage' on uncapped.


Is it just bad planning, greed or poor management?

I think you should look at my post again. No throttling, shaping or usage limits. It just works.

 

[YeOldeOke]

I think you should look at my post again. No throttling, shaping or usage limits. It just works.

Afrihost is top of my shortlist. Not a 'business account' though. I'd expect sufficient performance for normal usage including VOIP (this IS 2013?) from a standard home account.

 

[YeOldeOke]

Then, of course, there's this cute little thing about a 1Mb/2Mb/xMb line. Increasing charges, of course. What for I'm sure there'd be some 'explanation'.

I've had my line for 10 years. Same line. Same cost. in that time my ADSL went from a dicey less-than-1Mbps to 13 Mbps. No charge.

Cry ripoff.

/Rant.

 

[Chevron]

Then, of course, there's this cute little thing about a 1Mb/2Mb/xMb line. Increasing charges, of course. What for I'm sure there'd be some 'explanation'.

Well think of it like this. The faster you line is, the more backhaul is needed at the exchange.

 

[YeOldeOke]

Sorry. Before I close the rant.

Thai music is the PITS.

//Rant.

 

[Electric]

Do they still celebrate the clouds in Koh Samui?

 

[YeOldeOke]

Well think of it like this. The faster you line is, the more backhaul is needed at the exchange.

You'd think if they can get it working reliably, anybody can?

 

[YeOldeOke]

Do they still celebrate the clouds in Koh Samui?

Been here ten years. Never heard of a cloud celebration. Water, food, anything basically. But not clouds.

I have 3 new years eve's.