Mweb VS Afrihost VS Openweb

kaisterkai

kaisterkai

Expert Member
Joined
Dec 11, 2009
Messages
2,153
Reaction score
3
Location
Cape Town
I currently have a 384KB line with telkom..

want to upgrade to uncapped..

But dont' know which one to go for..

I think the above were the companies that are doing good on the uncap.. so i just want to know how the speeds are during busy hours and how the contracts work etc..

Thanks
 
It really depends on how you make use of the ADSL account.

Like my parents have 384kbps Mweb uncapped (shaped) and I'm downloading about 20GB+/month from the Mweb news servers - between 00:00 and 08:00 - and I usually get 40kB/s, which is the maximum download speed that you can get on a 384kbps ADSL line.

I also don't have any issues with gaming on it either, since I just game after hours as well.

The speeds with Torrents are OK, but not nearly as good as with the local Mweb news servers.
If you want to Torrent, then you'll have to look at the unshaped Mweb account, which costs considerably more.

Going away from Telkom is a good step forward, but moving to uncapped shouldn't be your only option.
Like I'm now going for Web Africa 384kbps with 1GB cap (all inclusive) for R99pm (R169pm after the first 3 months), with an additional 10GB IS Local Only from OpenWeb for R70. If your IS account doesn't disconnect, you keep the international connectivity on the IS Local Only account IIRC ;)

Having an IS account is in your advantage in terms of gaming, because then you peer locally with Telkom, Mweb & Web Africa users!

All my colleagues who have uncapped 384kbps accounts are with Imagine, and they're quite pleased with the speeds that they're getting.
 
I am with Cybersmart 3gig cap. But I find that it is too little data for me. I want to go uncapped but not sure how the shaping will affect me at that price. I have 384k line. If I go for uncapped which service provider would give me best value for money? My wife does browsing and she won't be to happy if I get shaped for all my downloads. I am sure I won't exceed 20gb a month.... Any pointers anyone??
 
less mweb users will give you a less congested mweb exchange , meaning higher speeds etc.
 
Consider Openweb. Torrents won't work though, but anything else flies. You should do around 20 gigs a month, heavy downloading in the region of 60, so other option is discounted capped (50gig) account.
 
Depends on what you are wanting to mostly do on your account. I have Mweb uncapped account and everything is fine on it and online gaming works quite well on it.

I have tried a couple of other options including Openweb and could not do online gaming on it at all but found that its download of files and torrents were a lot quicker than mweb.
 
janplank said:
I am with Cybersmart 3gig cap. But I find that it is too little data for me. I want to go uncapped but not sure how the shaping will affect me at that price. I have 384k line. If I go for uncapped which service provider would give me best value for money? My wife does browsing and she won't be to happy if I get shaped for all my downloads. I am sure I won't exceed 20gb a month.... Any pointers anyone??
Click to expand...

If you don't exceed 20GB a month rather get CAPPED from Afrihost.
 
Qwikslver said:
If you don't exceed 20GB a month rather get CAPPED from Afrihost.
Click to expand...
20GB capped account from Afrihost costs way more (like twice as much) than 384kbps uncapped accounts.

A 384kbps shaped connection is fine for downloading & browsing, but you can't do both at the same time, so you'll need to schedule the downloads.
Having an unshaped 384kbps connection won't allow you to download & browse at the same time either.

I'd recommend Mweb uncapped for heavy users (100GB+/month), and IS uncapped otherwise. My colleague was on Imagine's IS uncapped 384kbps account and he did like 30GB/month without having any shaping issues. Having an IS account over Mweb is at your advantage when it comes to joining local games, where latencies are of the essence - because Mweb is still not peering locally with Telkom.

You can perhaps also have a look at OpenWeb & Afrihost's offerings of the 10GB & 30GB IS Local Only accounts, and then combine that with like a 2GB Afrihost account for International access.

If you know you're going to use less than 5GB/month, then consider going for like the Cell C HSDPA package, which is like R3000 once off for 5GB/month for 12 months, and it includes the USB HSDPA dongle.
 
Also remember the 1gig Afrihost free. Those are suitable for gaming too.

@Pada: That intl on IS local is pretty hit & miss afaik. I recall at least one instance where it switched to local on schedule without a d/c.
 
@HavocXphere:
Those Afrihost Free 1GB accounts are 'Sold out': http://www.afrihost.com/site/page/free_1gb_adsl_account_signup

I haven't had a single loss of international connectivity on the IS Local only accounts so far this year, except for the 3 times that my ADSL line got upgraded/reset of course.
The other cool thing is that you get slightly more cap out of those accounts too. Like the 30GB account gives you about 32.5GB and the 10GBgives you about 11GB.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X