Internet options in Mahikeng

[repitah]

I am at wits end trying to provide support/services for a small branch in Mahikeng. The current internet and voice infrastructure is a quite old hat and other (smallish) branches are being modernised with positive results.

When trying to go via the "big" providers (TB/BCX and Liquid -- government presence over the last 20+ years), I get the run around / cannot get wayleaves / no microwave (nor offnet) / extremely pricey / etc. The plan was to ditch DSL and ISDN but that struggle has been going on for years, with several account managers, previously listed issues or solution proposals that were grandiose.

Current avenues explored or exploring:

• The copper-lines are not great and skills to repair seem retired, retrenched or very far away.
• RAIN was ok-ish, but slow/dead regularly (still a "big" improvement over copper).
• MTN (LTE/5G) made the branch manager very happy, but billing seemed to misallocate a payment and the contact person we had is no more, so 3 days and counting of emails to the "businesscustomercare" with multi-hour response times and no internet (might get resolved by/over the weekend).
• HeroTel was suggested, but 10/3 speeds is the max they seem to offer (unless they have a business offering. Was a WUG user moons ago and not sure I want that for a business if a tree/dense cloud/tetradactyl gets in the way).
  • maybe will get them as a backup/secondary internet line .. "Hey sales person, please move the blue cable from grey box to greyer box, but leave the side with all the holes and the many blinky lights alone"

Basic info:

• Really just looking for basic but fast-ish & low-ish latency internet to handle 10 people
  • a few of them are likely watching YouTube in 4k+ because they are humans...
• Site is near a cemetery, "large" mall and hotel chain in Golf View
• Cloud services are managed by corporate so internet is important (please don't try sell/suggest more services... not interested)
  • Virtual meetings ARE a thing, particularly with corporate

Please don't PM, as it would be great if others could also search and find the answers. Maybe there is another regional/national/international company trying to solve the same problem. Maybe there are new players in town that I cannot see on the ISP coverage maps. HOPE...

 

[ajax]

Stick with MTN but rather get the service from Afrihost. Their support is MUCH better than MTN's.

 

[PBCool]

Stick with MTN but rather get the service from Afrihost. Their support is MUCH better than MTN's.

I would say this, but during extended load shedding it may be a problem.

Comsol probably have options but then again licensed business services.

 

[repitah]

Thanks. I may ask the branch manager to get one of those options and bill back. Unfortunately whenever providers see corporate they start the hard sell / big fish route (I'm grumpy on a good day and hate cold callers).

I used to rate limit streaming/etc back in the day, but really not worth the time/money/effort. Bandwidth is cheap until you step out of a big enough city.

Home products I am a bit wary of because of the caps/FUP and it just takes 1 blissfully ignorant user to ruin that.

 

[repitah]

I would say this, but during extended load shedding it may be a problem.

Comsol probably have options but then again licensed business services.

Tah. Comsol looks interesting. Microwave does tickle me as an option (works quite well in another province known for coal trucks).

 

[MentellusMaximus]

Best way be to do it elsewhere.