Considering Rain

[Faziki]

Hello Guys,

After having a bad experience with Telkom Uncapped LTE... I'm considering Rain LTE.

I have a few questions.

Is the R 250 unlimited off-peak bolt on worth it?
How is your experience with the network and service (network service and customer care service)
Do they have a cap on the unlimited off-peak? (FUP) (My current usage is about 200 gigs)
How is the ping regarding gaming?
How long did you wait until you were activated on the network? (From purchasing the sim to getting on the interwebs)
Would you recommend this network to your closest friends and family? (if no then I know this network is BS)

The things I use most on the interwebs

Streaming (Netflix, Amazon Prime, youtube etc)
Maintaining my servers on Azure
Developing websites and maintenance
Gaming (I do on off gaming to keep myself out of trouble )
Doing research on the interwebs


I see that they offer Mifi once off routers.

They have theirs --> rain MiFi R790incl vat
And they have a --> Huawei E5885 R1540incl.VAT

How is theirs? good? I see its running Cat 4 LTE :/ if any of you can provide speed test on the RAIN MiFi router that would be excellent!
The Huawei is *Cough--> Expensive* but its running CAT 6 LTE and that is one reason why I would consider buying it. EDIT* it has an ethernet port!!!!

(yes.... people are going to ask why don't you just buy a standard router... BECAUSE I MOVE AROUND A LOT)


Any advice would be awesome!!

Thanks in advance

 

[irBosOtter]

I got the E5885 from them, fastest speed so far was when I was in Sedgefield, 44Mbps download, and 3mbps upload, in CPT its usually around 15Mbps up and down
The E5885 has a lan port, that's handy if you want to use it on your home network as the main or second router
Battery life is great seeing it has a 6400mAh battery

 

[rejodasi]

I have the E5885 too works good as it supports both bands offered by rain

1800MHz is overly congested in my area so I am constantly on the 2600 TDD MHz which has a low upload atleast in my area

speeds range from 1-3 Mbps down and 3Mbps up on 1800MHz and 30-50 Mbps down and 0.5 Mbps up on 2600MHz in the Bellville area

ping is almost always 38-40 ms locally (via speedtest.net) and around 200+ ms internationally

sim was delivered in 2 working days and rica took 1 hour thereafter.

it is a competitive deal overall but it really depends on the area mostly, customer service could defintley be better and communication overall... when rain is down you're mostly left in the dark as to why and how long it will be down... unless you check the forums and rain resellers who have outage alerts... check previous posts

haven't had my speed personally slowed down due to my traffic and usage but on some days my speed does fluctuate from 30 - 40 Mbps to 5-10 mbps, however P2P traffic seems to be shaped to 1MB/s... They do not have a cap on paper but they have sent e-mails in the past to warn "abusive" users who have used over 1TB of data...

The router is personally really great for on the go and at home usage especially if you just need to be online.

 

[joker08]

Get a sim card from them first, put it in your phone and test the connection in your area first.
I am Cape town southern suburbs and never get good speed with rain, not at my home or at the gym.
My monthly bill for rain comes to around r30, not because I am a low user but because it is painfully slow when it works.

 

[irBosOtter]

If you go for rain what will you do between 6pm and 11pm? Unless you are prepared to pay R50 a gig between those times....

 

[lotus123]

If you go for rain what will you do between 6pm and 11pm? Unless you are prepared to pay R50 a gig between those times....

Get a Telkom LTE SIM and load it with Mo' Nice data (price varies, but I'm getting 3.5Gb for R40 atm). You can either swap SIMs at 18h00, or set up a multi-router config to auto switch at 18h00 and 23h00.

The Telkom SIM is only for basic internet access (social, Youtube, browsing) during peak hours - the heavy stuff (downloads) is scheduled after 23h00.

 

[Jet-Fighter7700]

well worth it, pushed mine to almost 800 GBs in a month,
I have a spare B618, and its works great here in JHB.

I think for the amount you pay and what one gets, well worth the small outlay of R250 per month,

as always your mileage may vary, especially as they do throttle and adjust speeds to keep everybody happy,
Id say get it, use the unlimited data days to see how it goes,

and then decide, if its not working for you, can quit very easily, no contracts involved like with Telkom big deal ect ect..
got nothing to lose, but lots to gain.

 

[lotus123]

Other things to consider (learned this from personal experience):
1. The simple routers (including MiFi) are not high performance. Wifi strength/speed will be affected, and LTE reception gets impacted unless you're very close to a tower.
Creating a multi-router gateway and switching off WiFi on the gateway routers made a big difference.
2. An external antenna makes a big difference, especially on latency (i.e. "ping", so gaming is improved). My latency dropped from 60ms to 16 ms with an antenna. UL and DL speeds also improved measurably.

 

[backstreetboy]

Streaming (Netflix, Amazon Prime, youtube etc)
Maintaining my servers on Azure
Developing websites and maintenance
Gaming (I do on off gaming to keep myself out of trouble )
Doing research on the interwebs

It's for bona fide mobile use...

rain’s product is designed for bona fide mobile use. The network is a shared resource, therefore, rain reserves the right to manage users who may be using the product for its unintended purposes as well as users who are impacting the performance of the network and other users of. Please refer to the terms and conditions for further information on our usage policy.

 

[irBosOtter]

Get a Telkom LTE SIM and load it with Mo' Nice data (price varies, but I'm getting 3.5Gb for R40 atm). You can either swap SIMs at 18h00, or set up a multi-router config to auto switch at 18h00 and 23h00.

The Telkom SIM is only for basic internet access (social, Youtube, browsing) during peak hours - the heavy stuff (downloads) is scheduled after 23h00.

I have fibre at home so I don't really care, that question was aimed at the OP... but yes, he can do that

I also got a setup where I can just plug my device in at home and the firewall will automatically route traffic over that device and my fibre line, but barely do that as the speeds I get on RAIN in Durbanville are less than 100Kbps, so it's unplugged currently:

 

[lotus123]

well worth it, pushed mine to almost 800 GBs in a month,
I have a spare B618, and its works great here in JHB.

I think for the amount you pay and what one gets, well worth the small outlay of R250 per month,

as always your mileage may vary, especially as they do throttle and adjust speeds to keep everybody happy,
Id say get it, use the unlimited data days to see how it goes,

and then decide, if its not working for you, can quit very easily, no contracts involved like with Telkom big deal ect ect..
got nothing to lose, but lots to gain.

This is very true. You can test the waters with very little outlay, simply by using your phone to begin with.

I've not been throttled (at least I don't think so) but I have seen speeds vary wildly (from 1Mbps to 60Mbps). On average though the throughput is fairly consistent, and downloads normally go through very quickly, especially at night.

 

[Jet-Fighter7700]

can recommend the antenna especially if you get spotty signal in certain areas.

here is another question, what internal modems (like inside a laptop) can one use with rain?
Ive got some of these Huawei mu736 modems, is there a way to get them to work with RAIN?

 

[ArmatageShanks]

Thinking of doing the Rain thing as well, ideally with the sim in my phone but will have to find out if their bands are supported on my old phone.

 

[Nineteeneightysix]

The speeds are good but I'm offline at least 3 hours a day for the last two weeks. Usually early afternoon.

 

[marioat1]

Got the R51 sim today to try the 7 day free data. Speed not the greatest but streaming HD with no buffering, seems perfect for single device access thus far.
Let's see when I have the courage to attempt the telkom adsl cancelation gauntlet.

 

[Jet-Fighter7700]

Thinking of doing the Rain thing as well, ideally with the sim in my phone but will have to find out if their bands are supported on my old phone.

well worth it, with any luck you can root and rom your phone to support the LTE band in question. most of them support it anywya
unless you have an iphone

 

[ArmatageShanks]

unless you have an iphone

Never.

 

[Jet-Fighter7700]

Never.

was worried there for a second.
thought you crossed into the 1di0tphone side,

honestly ROM your phone, root it, and unlock its full potential,
I have 3 phones all of them running latest android pie version, even though it was never released officially.
so got nothing to lose and everything to gain.

 

[ArmatageShanks]

was worried there for a second.
thought you crossed into the 1di0tphone side,

honestly ROM your phone, root it, and unlock its full potential,
I have 3 phones all of them running latest android pie version, even though it was never released officially.
so got nothing to lose and everything to gain.

I have rooted my previos phones, I loved Cyanogenmod.

I'm sceptical to do it on my current phone though as I cannot find a Rom specifically for it, I'm not feeling brave enough to delve into modding another to try.

 

[Jet-Fighter7700]

I have rooted my previos phones, I loved Cyanogenmod.

I'm sceptical to do it on my current phone though as I cannot find a Rom specifically for it, I'm not feeling brave enough to delve into modding another to try.

awesome stuff,
load at least TWRP or CWM, if a rom exists, try it, or try a lineage OS one if it exists,

some of the lower spec phones dont have a ROM specific to them, but I have had luck before with modding via the SOC,
so look up your phones SOC (main processor) and look on XDA via that,

I modded before a innjoo fire that way, that had no specific roms to it.