Cheaper home ADSL:

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Waaib

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I all, I need some advice. If there is already a thread on this please point me to it. I've searched the forum but not found what I'm looking for really. I'm not too techie so might type wrong names and terms for things. Please excuse this.

I have ADSL at home from Telkom. They supply the line and my bandwidth. I've had it for about 3 years. 384k, 3gb per month. We normally top up with at least 1 extra gb each month. It's used for email and some browsing and line speed is not really an issue. Reliability is the most important thing and in 3 yrs with Telkom I've never had a single reliability issue.

I also have a completely separate Mweb internet and email account that my email addresses run on and have done so for the past 10 years or so.

Looking at the article on cheaper bandwidth in the news section and the ads running on the site it looks like I could be getting a better deal but how do I calculate it? I think I'd like 5gb per month.

On my current Telkom bill that would be:

Closer 4 option: R405.26 - includes ADSL line (I think)
3gb data - R130.70
2Gb - Top Up - R129.52

Mweb is email R145 per month.

What other costs should I include?

I wondering if I take the bandwidth from another supplier will I save substantially? Can I get bandwidth from mweb nad save more becasue I need to keep the email addresses that I currently have there.
 
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Ouch R145 pm for email, that has too hurt.

Basically your costs are worked out as follows :

Analog Line rental
ADSL Line/service rental
ADSL Bandwidth
Mweb rip off

so your current situation is :

Analog line rental R 131
so 384k line rental R 152
3gig Telkom account R 149
Mweb R 145

Total R 577 pm

Closer plan 4 just introduces more cost, but you get a lot of free telkom to telkom minutes included, worth it if you do a lot of calls.

You could also change to a Do Broadband Bundle 2

it would change the above figures as follows :

Analog line rental R131
Do Bundle 2 R258
Mweb R145
Total : R534

Alternatively on the 3gig Telkom account you could go to Afrihost for R29 per gig so you could get 5 gig's for the current R149 you are paying there.

Downgrade your Mweb account to an email only account, that will save you a lot, and while you are doing that setup a gmail account for yourself, and configure it to fetch your mweb email for you and tag it as being from mweb, start telling people your new gmail address, and slowly but surely people will stop contacting you via mweb, then in a month or 2 see who still emails you via the tag's on gmail to the mweb account and notify them personally and then can the mweb account.

In summary the biggest saving you could achieve is on that Mweb account, and on your bandwidth.
 
What you are looking at is saving on bandwidth and saving account costs from bandwidth. As clearly described above, you have several options.

If you wish to move away from Telkom completely, you open up your options to much cheaper providers who can give you more bandwidth and the same reliability for your money.

You will have to pay Analog line rental and ADSL line rental too.

Take a look at what warwickw stated: you can save money on everything you're spending but if you don't use Mweb for internet access, just send an email to Mweb Billing and ask them to downgrade your account to e-mail only which is only R55 p/m. You could also check out MyISP who offer 3GB for R60/m (Not sure about reliability though)
 
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R149 for 3Gigs of bandwidth? Do you realise Afrihost charges R87 for the same amount of data? There's a saving right there. And get rid of your mweb email address and switch over to Gmail. You don't want to be held hostage by using an ISP email account.
 
Nashua Mobile 1gb + 384line + Router for R135 PM (but there service really sucks)
then buy any extra you need from afrihost
and move you email to a web based email (gmail) then you not tied down to any ISPs
 
Do you use the free call minutes and after-hours free calls offered on the Closer 4 package?

If NOT, then you can effect some big savings.
 
Thanks Folks. We do use a lot of calls because my wife works from home.
Good idea top move to email only accounts / gmail.
Thanks again.
 
If you want to keep your Mweb email address for any reason you can downgrade your account from a dial-up(which is what I think you have for the R145) to a single GB account from Mweb for around R80-90 and still keep your email address and you also get that GB to use for your ADSL.
 
Also thereafter, POP your mweb into your gmail account and send emails as if you were using MWEB account through gmail--but also slowly move over to gmail when replying to people. That is what I do--use mweb email for a couple of months and then move to gmail full-time.
 
Tpex said:
Nashua Mobile 1gb + 384line + Router for R135 PM (but there service really sucks)
then buy any extra you need from afrihost
and move you email to a web based email (gmail) then you not tied down to any ISPs
Click to expand...

Are Nashua Mobile routers not locked?
Even if they aren't anymore - I'd still not touch that lousy/slacker company! :sick:
 
Smiley_lauf said:
Also thereafter, POP your mweb into your gmail account and send emails as if you were using MWEB account through gmail--but also slowly move over to gmail when replying to people. That is what I do--use mweb email for a couple of months and then move to gmail full-time.
Click to expand...

When gmail fetches mail from another isps pop and you reply to those emails from within gmail that mail is automatically send from google so the recipient will see your new gmail address. Makes migrating even easier ;)
 
Whatever you do, do not go near Nashua. I am with them now and been trying to cancel since forever, problem is their customer support is so bad i cant get through to anyone to cancel the account.
 
Sexier still is to register your own domain (I have a .com) for a couple of hundred rands a year and then you're completely independent of any ISP email address and can also switch any time you like from Google Apps (the mail service which I use) should they play silly buggers in the future. Google Apps also gives you webmail, which is useful when you're not permanently office based, or on holiday which is always an issue for a home business.
 
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