I'm joining the other side (Not Sentech)

N

nonroker

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South Africa.
Telkom will be installing my ADSL next week Wednesday and my Sentech account is basically cancelled according to the helpdesk.

Can't wait to be able to get over 8KB/s intl again and to be able to play Quake online again :)
 
Welcome to the dark side....

Now you'll have all the speed you need to reach your cap in 1 day ;)
 
lol nonroker !

Yep, the 3gig cap and the R750 to R785 pm (depending on your ISP) cost is hectic, but you'll be able to play FPS on local servers to your hearts content. :D

I get a rock steady ping of 40ms to all local game servers.
International gaming still sucks, but that's always been the case, even on diginet lines.

I've found so long as I don't go crazy on downloading, 3gig can be managed with a reasonably enjoyable internet experience. I download only files 100meg and under, listen to streaming audio, watch some streaming news, ftp, email and surf and play online games and manage to stay within the 3gig cap.

It's effectively killed off my ability to download large things, such as Linux distributions, but then, under Sentech, it would've taken me 1 week to download a 3CD distribution. I now just buy them - cheap enough.

I find I get stats like this :-

Day / Download / Upload

1 None None
2 86.1402 MB 4.9865 MB
3 250.5729 MB 23.9316 MB
4 77.8033 MB 5.7414 MB
5 7.3413 MB 6.3504 MB
6 97.2202 MB 10.7809 MB

What I do is to check how many days compared to bandwidth used, I'm currently almost bang on target having used 570 MB

It does suck having to manage it like this, but right now, my budget is stretched to the limit so buying another 3gig in a month is not an option.


EDIT: Oh yeah, I suppose I don't need to tell you to avoid the Telkom modem / 24 month contract at all costs - it's a rip-off and takes your freedom away !

You can pick up el-cheapo USB DSL modems, but I'd highly recommend getting a DSL router - you can get those from R500 and up.
I just opted for a single ethernet port router, as I've got quite a few switches. My Planet ADE-3100 cost R600, works like a dream.
 
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bb_matt,

Get a linux box, setup dual homing. Download the local BGP routes from the IS route server. Share an account with a friend for local access and use your own for intl access. You'll be amazed how much longer the 3GB will last :)

Lots of linux distros can be downloaded from local sites like ftp.is etc.
 
I already bought a Netgear DG632 DSL Router :)

EDIT:
Another thing to remember about ADSL. Internet Solutions will be going public with their own ADSL packages that's not a resell of Telkom accounts like the other ISPs, so they can make their own rules etc. Hopefully the intl speed after cap on their Network will be better. They will also offer uncapped ADSL, 9GB, 6GB and 3GB packages as far as I know.
 
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nonroker said:
bb_matt,

Get a linux box, setup dual homing. Download the local BGP routes from the IS route server. Share an account with a friend for local access and use your own for intl access. You'll be amazed how much longer the 3GB will last :)

Lots of linux distros can be downloaded from local sites like ftp.is etc.
Click to expand...

i've got a smoothwall box running.

I only use the connection for myself at home.

Not sure what you mean by BGP routes ?
 
IS's got a public route server that you can get the local BGP routes from. That's all local networks that's advertised via BGP to IS
You'll be surprised how much of your 3GB cap is chowed by local sites, and we all know local still stay fast after the cap right?

So get 2 accounts, use one for local and other for intl, then you have 3GB intl cap instead of 3GB total at the cost of an extra account, which you can share with someone else
 
nonroker said:
I already bought a Netgear DG632 DSL Router :)
Click to expand...

Technically it is not a router :).

I initially ordered one as well but then the website and their documentation only mentioned it being having a NAT and not an SPI firewall.

So I changed my order to a DG834.
 
Hmm, I'll look into sharing another 3gig, but I don't see much point right now.
This is about the only site I surf locally and I limit my web design uploading/downloading to work unless it's an emergency. I also do very little email at home - I just download the headers to check the size of the mail and if there's a work related attachement, I just view it at work instead of home.

It's a damn shame there's no work-around for preventing local traffic from chowing up the cap. Royally shafted by Telskum.
 
tibby.dude said:
Technically it is not a router :).

I initially ordered one as well but then the website and their documentation only mentioned it being having a NAT and not an SPI firewall.

So I changed my order to a DG834.
Click to expand...

Erm, the DG834 is basically the same as the DG632, but it's got Wifi extra.

Both are routers....

This might come as a surprise to you, but they run linux. Both have the exact same firewall etc etc etc.

I don't need the Wifi, so I got the DG632
 
The big difference between ADSL and Sentech is with ADSL you have to manage your downloads... at Sentech we simply are auto managed... :p

ah well... fact is Sentech has improved and I still do more then 3Gb a month on Sentech... Sentech is beautiful for local but for int I highly reccomend ADSL.
 
I worked out that the MyWireless service I was receiving from August till November would get me around 5gig of what I wanted in a month if downloading 24/7

Note, I said, of what I wanted.
It's all very well to pick some wonderful local FTP site and say, there's a 700meg file of IMPI, a south african linux distribution - it downloads fast !

What if you want the cutting edge debian release only available from international mirrors ? - sit and wait and swivel.

You can kill the 3gig cap on ADSL in 24 hours, or not - it's your choice. It sucks, but at least there's some speed there ! :D
 
yeah and I agree totally... and its what I mean by Sentech automanaging us... because no matter how hard we try we cannot cap out if we tried assuming we head outside co.za.

Sentech is great locally... but wtf is there locally as compared to Int hence ADSL is still the best offer... The only thing is I cant get ADSL cuz of fibre optics... blah blah...
I heard of DSLAMS or some **** like that... are they around... I tried getting ADSL last year march and got the fibre optic story.
 
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