Choose between OpenServe, Vumatel and Vodacom

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radicool

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Our townhouse complex has been approached by OpenServe, Vumatel and Vodacom in the past month to lay fibre. They each promise they're the best solution, but nobody seems to be able to say why. Can anybody help me out with deciding which of the 3 to choose?

Vumatel have also said "We have also recently got Telkom to run off on our lines in areas where they didn't want to lay fibre due to us already being there. As well as Vodacom if you go and look at www.vumatel.net you will see that they also offer Vodacom packages that run off Vuma fibre.", but I think they're talking about the ISP portion, and all 3 are open networks?

Do the different providers have different technologies (active/passive?) that make one better than the other? Or different speeds that make one better? Or better service if a line breaks and needs to be fixed? I know they seem to have different costs, OpenServe being more expensive, but not sure if there's a reason for that.
 
Vumatel for sure. They have the most providers on their lines
 
I'd say stay away from Vodacom. Eith them you are limited to using Vodacom as you ISP. With Vumatel and Openserve you can make use of different ISP's on their physical infrastructure.

Vumatel seems to have the better choice ito ISP's though.
 
Vodacom have apparently opened their infrastructure. But they definitely look like 3rd place. With Vumatel in the lead... Anybody disagree?
 
I'm currently with Afrihost on a capped VDSL package. They won't be offering capped packages on their Fibre products, apart from OpenServe (it being a Telkom company). If I had a choice I'd have opted for OpenServe. Why so?
1. I prefer capped to uncapped - no AUP, FUP, or any other UP.
2. AH have been bumping up the cap fairly regularly - currently have the double data special, which might become the new package limit.
3. They have a news (nntp) server, which is a serious plus for me.
4. They are unmetered from 23h30 to 07h00 however have recently extended this from 00h00 to 18h00.
5. They have 1 month's rollover
... so all of the above means I never run out of data on my 100GB cap.

The con with OpenServe - Telkom :(
 
steel_dog said:
I'm currently with Afrihost on a capped VDSL package. They won't be offering capped packages on their Fibre products, apart from OpenServe (it being a Telkom company). If I had a choice I'd have opted for OpenServe. Why so?
1. I prefer capped to uncapped - no AUP, FUP, or any other UP.
2. AH have been bumping up the cap fairly regularly - currently have the double data special, which might become the new package limit.
3. They have a news (nntp) server, which is a serious plus for me.
4. They are unmetered from 23h30 to 07h00 however have recently extended this from 00h00 to 18h00.
5. They have 1 month's rollover
... so all of the above means I never run out of data on my 100GB cap.

The con with OpenServe - Telkom :(
Click to expand...

Ancient way of thinking. You are stuck in the ADSL ways.

on VUMA, you can get the providers, who offer uncapped and unshaped with no AUP, FUP or any other UP.

And I am talking from experience.

GO with VUMA
 
VUMA use Active Ethernet which is considerably better in the long run (dedicated lines per unit).

Voda and Telkom use GPON which can be split 1:64, meaning you could share a line with 63 other people.

Simple choice, IMO.
 
Check the recent survey results as well. Vuma is the clear winner
 
There's vodacom fibre in my estate although I'm not on it. The only good thing is turnaround time. From agreement to digging to final installation was less than 6 months
 
radicool said:
Vodacom have apparently opened their infrastructure. But they definitely look like 3rd place. With Vumatel in the lead... Anybody disagree?
Click to expand...

The question is how deep do you want to go before deciding on a provider? Are you only wanting to compare service offerrings or are you interested in the underlying infrastructure and FTTH technology used?

If the latter then:
(1) Who has the fibre in the ground (or on the pole behind your property)? Vumatel, OpenServe or Vodacom?
(2) Is there more than one fibre provider in your area?
(3) Which technology do you favour? AON technology or GPON?
(4) How many fibre cores will each draw into your home?
(5) Will they allow you to decide where the ONT equipment will be installed in your home, or will they dictate where they will be prepared to place the ONT?
(6) What is the long term contact for the basic infrastructure?
(7) Will you be allowed to get ISP services from more than one ISP over the infrastructure?
 
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I would choose Vumatel first, Openserve second. Vodacom only if I had no other choice.
 
Vumatel uses Active Ethernet, which is superior to GPON used by the other 2. They also don't charge for bandwidth based on IPC like OpenServe does. There is no question that Vumatel would be the best choice, and by a large margin.
 
Stay away from Vodacom Fibre:

If you can, stay away from Vodacom Fibre:

Vodacom does not allow you to use your OWN router, or login to the router they provide.

So you won’t be able to change your SSID, do Port forwarding, block certain IPs, setup VPN/CCTV cams,
It also means that your security is setup by someone else, that in effect now has full access to your network.

I would like to use my own router, as my ASUS router outperform their router by far when it gets to area coverage.

Yes, they say they will do all the forwarding, SSID etc. for you when you log a support call, but in my case I need to do a couple of tests initially and change my SSID from time to time, and cannot wait two days for Vodacom support to do my changes, every time I need to run a test.

Other than that, I must admit the service so far (3 months) has always been up, I my up and down speeds always as promised.
 
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