How reliable is LTE as a home office solution?

[CPTBoy]

I had a Telkom rep at my house just now showing me the speed I can get with LTE.

They brought a router and just plugged it in, and without any adjustment, I got +- 45mbps down and 7mbps up to a local speedtest server.

I am very tempted to move over to them, but obviously for a competitive price I will have to sign myself into a 2 year contract.

I work from home and need a reliable internet experience. Does the LTE service provide this, or is it finicky?

 

[AstroTurf]

I had a Telkom rep at my house just now showing me the speed I can get with LTE.

They brought a router and just plugged it in, and without any adjustment, I got +- 45mbps down and 7mbps up to a local speedtest server.

I am very tempted to move over to them, but obviously for a competitive price I will have to sign myself into a 2 year contract.

I work from home and need a reliable internet experience. Does the LTE service provide this, or is it finicky?

Depends on how many other people are using the same tower at the time.

 

[CPTBoy]

Depends on how many other people are using the same tower at the time.

Fair enough.

I was thinking more along the lines of total outages. Do they happen, and if so, are they frequent and for how long does it stay offline?

 

[AstroTurf]

Fair enough.

I was thinking more along the lines of total outages. Do they happen, and if so, are they frequent and for how long does it stay offline?

Whats nice with these things is if the LTE dies you still have edge/3g to back you up.
Can't specifically say anything about telkom though.

We at work do the following:
line for internet, if that dies backup is 3g.

 

[CPTBoy]

Whats nice with these things is if the LTE dies you still have edge/3g to back you up.
Can't specifically say anything about telkom though.

We at work do the following:
line for internet, if that dies backup is 3g.

Great, didn't even think about the fallback plan.

Thanks for the info!

 

[AstroTurf]

Great, didn't even think about the fallback plan.

Thanks for the info!

No prob

Also, a 3g PAYG sim is much cheaper than a contract in the end if it's a fallback.
Just get some airtime as needed

We have a contract now for the fallback as well but that's because contract seems to be a bit more speedy than PAYG for some reason.

Another thing, get a real line, call crystal web. They will get you great prices and very little crap in the clauses to worry about (except for falling skies).

 

[Teejaybee]

I have home office LTE via Telkom - works like a charm - never had any outages, disconnections or anything like that. When I was still on Vodacom 3G I used to get disconnected a few times a day. Now I never get disconnected. My speeds are a constant 13Mbps download and 7 Mbps upload. I do have 2 Poynting antenna's installed but it did nothing to improve my speed. My connection is stable though - never been happier.

 

[ijacobs3]

We been using it for the last year, it works awesome!

Didn't sign contact through, paid cash (R2600) for th router, and top up with R1800 as needed, and converting to 60+60

It is a bit more exspensive than adsl, but it's fast!!

 

[CPTBoy]

Thanks everyone for the feedback, I've decided to go with them.

 

[RichardG]

Thanks everyone for the feedback, I've decided to go with them.

If you going prepaid route please get hold of Telkom Mobile first that way a field technician can visit you and run speed test.

No complaints from my side - the router and network is stable and have it on 24/7 - only once a month I restart the router.

 

[CPTBoy]

If you going prepaid route please get hold of Telkom Mobile first that way a field technician can visit you and run speed test.

No complaints from my side - the router and network is stable and have it on 24/7 - only once a month I restart the router.

Yup, as my initial post said, they were at my house to demo.

 

[Gaz{M}]

If your signal every starts to get worse over time, there are plenty of excellent antenna's available to boost you right back up to high speeds. Give Telkom a call and they often send one over to you for free.

That said, I get 26Mbps with 1-2 bars on a tiny dongle, so Telkom LTE is very strong even with poor signal.