Frogfoot or Openserve?

Frogfoot or Openserve?

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Mobus

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I have both openserve and frogfoot in my neighborhood in pretoria. Whom do I choose and why?

As for ISP, I will probably stick with Axxess eitherway. Currently have mtn lte with them. Would just be easier to "upgrade" as I still "owe" them for the lte router.
 
Go with Frogfoot most likely, as all fibre connections on it will be cheaper and faster. But you should search to check if people in your area are having issues with Frogfoot. Check out the feedback threads here on MyBB for all the major ISPs. You could end up in a nightmare situation if you go through the entire signing up process only to discover that Frogfoot is garbage in your area.

I have the option of both Frogfoot and Openserve, and I stick with Openserve because it's 100% reliable and has none of the serious issues reported regularly by locals on Frogfoot. It also stays up during load shedding, whilst most of the Frogfoot network in PE does not. But this is probably not consistent with Frogfoot elsewhere in SA.
 
Openserve definitely more reliable, although more expensive. Not sure about the local packages , but definitely at the high end . OS 200/100 R1497 FF 500/500 R1497 FF 200/200 R1097 . Have had OS for almost 2 years, and it was a OTA installion, right next to my telephone line :) , and I can't remeber a single issue due to OS. Not talking about cable breaks, etc. Have FF installed for almost a month now, and this morning it's dead

Luckily I've kept my OS line , albeit at the slowest 10/5 package, so I'm not totally screwed.

/Update : A reboot of the FF ONT resolved the issue :) Hopefully this is not a common occurence
 
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Frogfoot only had issues in PE and George due to backhaul issues (see the threads here on MyBB) but Atomic Access said Openserve is about 40% more expensive than Frogfoot or Octotel. Sonny suggestion is if you not in PE or George, go with Frogfoot.
 
Thanks for your inputs. I am looking at entry-level fibre <=20mbps, where Frogfoot isnt neccesarily the cheapests.

I compared a few ISPs and the prices are very competitive. Openserve is sometimes cheaper than frogfoot though not by much. And Frogfoot has the benefit of symmetrical up & down (20/20 vs 20/10), which can be a big plus with zoom meetings .

The best deals I could find between axxess, cool ideas, cybersmart, super sonic, afrihost, vox and mweb:
Mweb & openserve 10/2 R399
Mweb & frogfoot 10/5 R549
Vox & Frogfoot 10/10 R589
Afrihost & openserve 10/5 R597
Cool Ideas & openserve 10/5 R599

Mweb & frogfoot 20/2 R659
Mweb & openserve 20/4 R699
Afrihost & openserve 20/10 R797 (supersonic R795, vox R799, axxess R805)
Vox & Frogfoot 20/20 R770 (afrihost R747 plus R997 installation, cool ideas R809, axxess R825)

In summary mweb on openserve (or frogfoot) gives the absolute lowest prices but you sacrifice upload speed (and possibly support levels). Vox gives you the best symmetrical fibre price on frogfoot, decent pricing on openserve plus supposedly good service levels (according to MyBB isp survey end 2019).

So I'm leaning towards 10/10 via Vox on frogfoot at this stage. Just waiting on power during loadshedding confirmation for my area in PTA.

Where are you based @Luke7777 ?
 
i have a good friend who works in middle management for VOX.
She hands down will recommend openserve - not because they are out of the ordinary, but they have a more robust well maintained network.

She says frog foot is cheap and all, but they have very little after sales support and maintenance (from an ISP POV) is extremely slow - and they are perpetually having to chase up on them or get bland answers.

You will get a lot of anecdotal people going "Well they have been absolutely fine for me" be as that may be ... just passing on the info I have.
 
Luke7777 said:
I'm in Menlo Park, Pretoria (If you hover over my avatar, you'll see that too :))
Click to expand...

Can't hover on the phone :laugh: (edit: oh wait you can one-tap the profile pic)

How does FF do installation to your home and how long did it take from ordering?

I have O/S fibre terminating on the telephone poles (OTA) in the back yard and a FF "man hole" on the side walk upfront between me and the neighbour.
 
Mobus said:
Can't hover on the phone :laugh: (edit: oh wait you can one-tap the profile pic)

How does FF do installation to your home and how long did it take from ordering?

I have O/S fibre terminating on the telephone poles (OTA) in the back yard and a FF "man hole" on the side walk upfront between me and the neighbour.
Click to expand...
Yip, my OS and FF locations is exactly the same as yours. OS was pretty quick.. ordered on the Friday, installed on the Tuesday with a 4 man team within 2.5 hours (one on the pole, one in the roof, one on the ONT, and the last one coordinating and handing tools to whoever needed it ) :) FF ordered on the Saturday, installed the next Saturday. I asked them not to trench, so they went with ducting along the boundary wall. Rain interrupted the installation, so they came back the Sunday morning and completed the job.

If I was you, I'd go Openserve, especially looking at the packages you're interested in. Installation is free as opposed to FF which is R997 and covers only the first 30m from your boundary wall to where the ONT will be . R50/m after that

Not sure how bad lightning is in your area, but I never had an issue with my OTA OS installation
 
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Mobus said:
Thanks for your inputs. I am looking at entry-level fibre <=20mbps, where Frogfoot isnt neccesarily the cheapests.

I compared a few ISPs and the prices are very competitive. Openserve is sometimes cheaper than frogfoot though not by much. And Frogfoot has the benefit of symmetrical up & down (20/20 vs 20/10), which can be a big plus with zoom meetings .

The best deals I could find between axxess, cool ideas, cybersmart, super sonic, afrihost, vox and mweb:
Mweb & openserve 10/2 R399
Mweb & frogfoot 10/5 R549
Vox & Frogfoot 10/10 R589
Afrihost & openserve 10/5 R597
Cool Ideas & openserve 10/5 R599

Mweb & frogfoot 20/2 R659
Mweb & openserve 20/4 R699
Afrihost & openserve 20/10 R797 (supersonic R795, vox R799, axxess R805)
Vox & Frogfoot 20/20 R770 (afrihost R747 plus R997 installation, cool ideas R809, axxess R825)

In summary mweb on openserve (or frogfoot) gives the absolute lowest prices but you sacrifice upload speed (and possibly support levels). Vox gives you the best symmetrical fibre price on frogfoot, decent pricing on openserve plus supposedly good service levels (according to MyBB isp survey end 2019).

So I'm leaning towards 10/10 via Vox on frogfoot at this stage. Just waiting on power during loadshedding confirmation for my area in PTA.

Where are you based @Luke7777 ?
Click to expand...

Now that you have done all that research let me just point out 1 extra thing you want to keep your eye on. The claw back fees with various ISPs that you have listed.

Mweb - 12 Months
Vox - 12 Months
Cool Ideas - Nothing
Afrihost - 6 months or R999 cancellation before 6 months
Axxess - 6 months or R999 cancellation before 6 months
Supersonic - 24 Months depreciated monthly
 
Go with openserve in Africa. I say this due to loadshedding. Openserve pops are robust with very good battery backup. Legacy from Telkom monopoly. Even though we are on business fibre on Frogfoot their pops are not built to last Stage 4. Engineers driving around with generators during load shedding. Look how few threads are on here about openserve. Almost none.
 
Do note Vox ups their price every year.
Don't pick Mweb, they have very little redundancy.

If you ever plan on getting a faster package, go with FF, if you're sticking to the 10Mbps packages, pick Openserve.

Do note FF has around 1/2ms less latency since going straight to Teraco instead of Openserve IPC.
Haven't had issues with load shedding on FF, but they did have issues with having to replace some batteries in both Parklands and Milnerton in Cape Town (which I think they fixed).

I used to have 100/50Mbps + 20GB with Afrihost and a 300GB fat pipe from Vox. That shouldn't be a path to take anymore as Openserve recently redid their pricing.
 
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Johnatan56 said:
Do note Vox ups their price every year.
Don't pick Mweb, they have very little redundancy.

If you ever plan on getting a faster package, go with FF, if you're sticking to the 10Mbps packages, pick Openserve.

Do note FF has around 1/2ms less latency since going straight to Teraco instead of Openserve IPC.
Haven't had issues with load shedding on FF, but they did have issues with having to replace some batteries in both Parklands and Milnerton in Cape Town (which I think they fixed).

I used to have 100/50Mbps + 20GB with Afrihost and a 300GB fat pipe from Vox. That shouldn't be a path to take anymore as Openserve recently redid their pricing.
Click to expand...

You learn something every day. Did not think about the extra latency due to IPC.
 
I also have both FF and Openserve where I live (Menlo Park). Longish story ahead

Last year we had Frogfoot the whole year and we were getting frequent disconnects where I had to restart either the Router or the ONT and by frequent, I meant like 4-6 times a day. The start of this year it did start to happen less (assuming upgrades were made) and it is generally fine.

Then the frogfoot line went dead and took like 2-3 days to get fixed because Vodacom (ISP) refused to do anything about it and didn't really care.

That is when I asked the landlord If I can install my own separate line on my own expense, I then installed Openserve, but ordered another Frogfoot line before that because of their pricing. I ordered on the 13th of February and did not get a response ever so I emailed Afrihost on Thursday the 19th of March to change my order from frogfoot to openserve and that I agree to the increased price. The following day someone from Openserve called me to schedule installation on Monday. On Monday I had a meeting that was unscheduled and wasn't home and asked them if they can arrive at 11. They arrived at 11 as I asked and completed the installation quickly and did everything neatly, apparently, Openserve fibre was installed a few years back so they could use the old cables and the installation took less than an hour and by 1 PM I had internet access.

So with the story above I was already pleased with Openserve and it did not disappoint, my internet has been flawless since the day I installed it, Had a few evenings where latency was a bit higher than usual, but that was really quickly resolved and the internet still worked fine. For some reason the Openserve internet also just feels snappier, that might be ISP related though, but Openserve's internet just feels way smoother and consistent to Frogfoots.

So from my point of view, the extra money you pay is well worth it to install Openserve. Please note that 2 different ISPs is used Frogfoot/Vodacom and Openserve/Afrihost... Thus it is not exactly a fair comparison

TL: DR -> Openserve FTW unless you need > 200mbps then frogfoot is your only choice
 
lightpixel said:
You learn something every day. Did not think about the extra latency due to IPC.
Click to expand...

That was always the case with IPC going via Rosebank and then ISPs had to pay a premium to Openserve to transit that traffic to Teraco. I think this is still the case except they now include the transit to Teraco and allow ISPs a bundle pricing to include everything to pick up traffic at Teraco.

They also made some changes and latency to Terco is not bad. You looking at bout just over 3ms or so to Terco JHB from Centurion/PTA East.

teraco_tracert.png
 
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