Lightspeed

So far there has been no need to manage the LAN, although we do have the capability to manage the network.

I am the major user in the building, and others are raving that they get 20mbps downloads etc. A german couple have german TV channels streaming all day. The businesses are raving about time saved downloading documents, sending emails etc. Basically nobody is complaining about the service especially given how cheap it is.

Once we hit 60 users management may be a problem, but at that point we will have enough money to contract for a 200mbps line.

Infact the connection is so under used that we are thinking of giving some of it away as part of the free WiFi project in the CBD.

Where is your office? :D
 
Where is your office? :D

I don't have an office, I live in the CBD, and its on Church Square :)

We are looking to give the Square 1mbps of bandwidth for web browsing, so depending on the amount of people accessing it the contention could be as low as 1:10.
 
I don't have an office, I live in the CBD, and its on Church Square :)

We are looking to give the Square 1mbps of bandwidth for web browsing, so depending on the amount of people accessing it the contention could be as low as 1:10.

Thanks, think I will stick with my uni and home WiFi :D
 
Hi,

Sorry I'm a bit lazy to read the whole post.
Are there any users around the sandton area who have lightspeed installed in they complex?
My primary concern is the line stability and installation time.

Thank you in advance
 
So far there has been no need to manage the LAN, although we do have the capability to manage the network.

I am the major user in the building, and others are raving that they get 20mbps downloads etc. A german couple have german TV channels streaming all day. The businesses are raving about time saved downloading documents, sending emails etc. Basically nobody is complaining about the service especially given how cheap it is.

Once we hit 60 users management may be a problem, but at that point we will have enough money to contract for a 200mbps line.

Infact the connection is so under used that we are thinking of giving some of it away as part of the free WiFi project in the CBD.

Thanks for this thread!!

Did you get someone in to set up the LAN or did you do it yourself? What switches do you have?
 
Got our date yesterday.

DFA to deliver fibre from the curb on June 2nd. Then another 2 weeks until they have it in the building. Can't wait.
 
Thats great, I just started the process of applications and getting my complex connected. My body corporate and the trustees are very excited. Hope this company delivers and I won't look like a fool lol
 
Thanks for this thread!!

Did you get someone in to set up the LAN or did you do it yourself? What switches do you have?

We have an in house IT manager who was responsible for the roll out which was centered mainly around the programming of the switches. The switches was programmed by Duxburry- we only received really good service from them and I'm really impressed.

We are using Netgear programmable switches.
 
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So far there has been no need to manage the LAN, although we do have the capability to manage the network.

I am the major user in the building, and others are raving that they get 20mbps downloads etc. A german couple have german TV channels streaming all day. The businesses are raving about time saved downloading documents, sending emails etc. Basically nobody is complaining about the service especially given how cheap it is.

Once we hit 60 users management may be a problem, but at that point we will have enough money to contract for a 200mbps line.

Infact the connection is so under used that we are thinking of giving some of it away as part of the free WiFi project in the CBD.

Sweet yeah seems like you have a decent group of users. If everyone continues to use it they way they are you shouldn't have any issues.

If anyone from MyBB moves in things will change though. :)
 
Enterprise vs FTTB

Okay I thought I start a new topic.

We've successfully installed the Cybersmart offering in our building, 100mpbs product with 10:1 contention.

After programming the switches I managed to get this speed this afternoon.

View attachment 187326


Forgive my ignorance, but wouldn't the 200mbps with a 15:1 contention ratio option have been better value for money at only R1k more pm? ie. their FTTB (200mbps) vs Enterprise (100mbps)
 
Forgive my ignorance, but wouldn't the 200mbps with a 15:1 contention ratio option have been better value for money at only R1k more pm? ie. their FTTB (200mbps) vs Enterprise (100mbps)

the 200mbps line is R16 000pm I think, we should be upgrading to that within the next 6 or so months but the 100mbps 10:1 is R12 000pm


when we contracted with the ISP they only had a 10:1 or less 100mbps product


heres a screenshot of the actual test, you can see its pretty clean even with 30 or so users

speedtest.jpg
 
Hi All

Hopefully I will be joining the fibre club in the next few weeks. I was fortunate that one of the wireless ISP's in my area came to me and asked if they can run 200Mbit fibre to my premises and beam it the few hundred meters to their premises to connect to their network (located high up on the hill). They are paying +- R18k per month for it.

They now act as the anchor tenant, from which my 50mbit uncapped FTTH will also be provisioned. I will post the performance when I go online.

Most of the issues I hear come from the minimum commitment issue. At the moment its a sellers market, DFA and the other open network guys cant keep up with demand, and as such they charge higher fees for initial installation and the trenching contractors can afford to work 2 or 3 hours overtime each day (because capitalism). They are going for the low hanging fruit, with those close to their backbones.

Now the minimum commitment varies from area to area depending on 2 main factors:
1. distance from the nearest backbone node (the coverage maps show what areas they can service from that backbone)
2. and the distance of the nearest access nodes

How DFA installs is they bring the fibre from the backbone node to to the middle of the road where they install an access node (happens to be where my property is). According to the DFA guys, our side of the street would then qualify for the minimum fibre commitment requirement, and lower that commitment for the immediate area (since additional access nodes can be connected from the existing ones.

I am 80m away from the nearest backbone node. For us it would have been a R10k pm commitment over 24 months to get it installed, that seems to be the minimum amount for areas where no access nodes exist.

My best advice is to check if there is a business, or group of businesses in close proximity that would allow your neighborhood to qualify or lower the commitment requirements.

For a change, I am the lucky one with the backbone being so close, and a business to act as the anchor tenant. For me its a welcome change, I am 100m outside of the Telkom FTTH zone , edge only cellular access, 2mbit max ADSL with 3% packet loss, congested Telkom exchange, and don't have Line of Sight to any of the wireless ISP's. So yeah, I'm pretty stoked!
 
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Our fibre got dropped into the office yesterday and DFA is supposed to start today with construction to get the fibre to our manhole on the curb.

Getting so close to giving Telkom the middle finger.
 
Hi guys,

Currently in a complex with 100+ stands.
We are looking into getting fibre into the complex but not sure which package to get between FTTH, FTTB or FTTB++.
We would obviously need the service 24/7 and are looking at speeds between 100mbps-200mbps. I see some products are currently offered for 12 hours a day (for business customers).
We currently have 40 people on board and are covered on lightspeeds network map.
The question I propose is; Which package do you think would be most suitable for us taking into account the FUP, content ratio and having the service 24/7.
Our budget per stand is around R300-R900pm.

Thanks in advance.
 
Well its been two months now as a stand alone customer of the 50 Meg 10:1 Cybersmart Lightspeed service. All I can say is WOW! Massive performance and service from Cybersmart. Well done to Laurie and the team managing this. Every time we had loadshedding and the batteries on the UPS ran out I would get an SMS and then a call from Cybersmart to notify me of this and asked if we were aware - I even got one at 3am one day till I told them its OK guys everything is cool.

I'm a notoriously difficult customer to keep happy because I only expect the best. So if they can keep me happy they can keep you happy. My suggestion: get the cash and group of people together and get this now. Soooooo worth it.

PS - I download nzb or torrent now and again and I get about 20 - 50% of line speed which means about 1.5 Meg to 2.5 Meg per second. All common sites open instantly e.g. facebook and youtube. Others up to 3 seconds. I always have the lowest latency in Battlefield. Life is good with Lightspeed
 
EDIT: Murphy's law, got a call from tech I did exactly what I tried earlier while on the phone with him and it starts working. Support was quick too on a Saturday - kudos Cybersmart.


They came and did the install while I was on leave, now I'm back but have no idea how to get it connected to our equipment. The left me with some IPs, none of which work and some Observium hostname which doesn't resolve to anything (I don't even know what an observium is).

They could improve on the information they leave their clients. This is all the left me:

Code:
Observium name:  x.lightspeed.co.za (50mb at a 10:1 contention)
 
IP Address:  196.x.x.x/30
Live IP:  196.x.x.x/30
 
Additional IP: 
Range   :               196.x.x.y-x/30
Live IP   :               196.x.x.x/30 (gateway) and from x is assignable

Anybody have an idea how to get this connected up to my pfSense box? I've tried a bunch of different combo's with static IPs and gateways and nothing works, albeit I am a complete noob with this.

Waiting for somebody to get back to me now, but thought I'd give a try here while I wait.
 
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yeah, it sounds to me like they gave you incomplete information.

a tip for testing their details, is to plug your laptop directly into their Router and to set your laptop's network interface to those details. That way, you will know if their details work and if the problem relates to your PFsense.

The observium name is simply the network monitoring system they use. it seems they have you details to access it, to monitor your connection.
 
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