Need some advice please

cryptic1

cryptic1

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Hi guys

I'm in the process of relocating to Pretoria and I'm in a bit of a dilemma:-

- My sentech contract (128k through Nowire) is up for renewal in a few months and is giving me speed issues atm :(
- ADSL is the way to go but with a 4meg line and a 30gig account @ R 1399 from Openweb :( - seems a bit pricey. Besides I don't know what the waiting period is.
- iBurst seems to be a viable option for now.

I've read the various threads and I'm fully aware of the unhappiness with iburst, but I'm sure there are upsides as well. I download a lot on my sentech contract (softcap), would u guys recommend iburst - reasons in either case please.

Thank you in advance :)
 
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What do you mainly use your bandwidth on?
How much are you willing to pay?
 
Our ADSL self-install took less than a week from the time we applied to the time it was running. Go to a telkom office to apply and keep phoning to find out the progress. We have the 512k line. It's much more stable than iBurst and at R69 a gig you can't get much better than that.
 
Yeah there is a lot of hate for iburst in this forum, i've been on it since feb last year and just finished my 12m contract - now on a month to month.

Personally speed is second to a permanent connection to me, but that said I do WAY WAY more than I would get on any other connection for the same price. Right now I'm downloading from usenet at 95KB/s in peak so no complaints today. There was quite a bit of problems last week but since Friday its been great - my average goes from 15Kb on a bad day up to +-115KB peak.

1. get a directional antenna, no matter how close you are to a base station
2. if you can, borrow someones iburst to test for a couple of days.
3. dont trust iburst installers/resellers cos they just rock up and do an iburst speed test which is not a proper representation.

I am 90% of the time happy, but the accounts and helpdesk destroy it EVERY time I have to deal with them. They are beyond incompetent. They need to add new words to the dictionary to describe how pathetic the human service can be.

iBurst (v). To deny, ignore and generally be as cumbersome and annoying to a customer as possible.

iBurst (adv). To screw up something that was working perfectly. (as with the new proxy/cache)
 
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Jhbgirl said:
Our ADSL self-install took less than a week from the time we applied to the time it was running. Go to a telkom office to apply and keep phoning to find out the progress. We have the 512k line. It's much more stable than iBurst and at R69 a gig you can't get much better than that.
Click to expand...

Hi Jhbgirl, what ADSL package do u have? I mean do u have a 10gig local account and u pay say R 250 for your line rental?
 
I had a G9 with iBurst and moved to a Do3 ADSL line. I used to get full speed on my iburst as well. All I can say that from a cost perspective and download material perspective, I found the Do3 plus a 30gig local account to be far better value than the G9.

I had done an analysis using WebAfrica prices but can’t find it now. So the below will have to do:

G9 = 9500MB international & local cap = R1099 (1Mbps)
Do3 = 3G international & local cap + 30GB local cap = R669 (4Mbps)

It really is a no brainer for me.
 
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No local account yet. Just buying gig's from Axxess as I need it since I'm still primarily on iBurst due to the contract.
 
The way I see it, for that 9500mb's you get from iburst, you can go up to a usage of 80GB before they start to make a stink about it (local AND international). You can do 80gb's even from a 1500mb account that costs you R469/month.

The 80GB mark I'm talking about comes from the disaster we had a few months ago when a few ppl got kicked off the network, there should be a thread about it somewhere around here.

And IMHO iBurst is perfectly usable after you reach your normal limit.
 
How much do you download? There is a local iBurst dc++ hub up and running, altho its still in its infancy it works pretty well. I have a Super Surfer or whatever its called and pay R469 for my 1500MB but can download 15 to 20 gig a month .. someone wanna compare that to an ADSL price? hehe
I find no more and no less complaints about iBurst as i do with any other ISP. If you're an FPS gamer you might find the latency a bit of a problem but i play RPGs with no problem. I have no problem with torrents or skype or general surfing and emailing with both imap/pop and webmails.
I'm also getting decent and stable speeds, even when capped, if I use flashget or some other 3rd party download tool.
I also have no problem skyping, even when capped.
Why does everybody go "ooo ooo 4Mbit/s adsl" all that means is you use your 3gig up faster and have to BUY more, yes BUY more .. I dont pay a CENT over 469 a month ...
Remember the Hare and the Tortoise? Slow and steady wins the race.
Its the 19th of Feb and i've downloaded 24Gig of stuff and its cost me R469.
 
Thank u all for your valued replies & advice :). But do u guys think it wise to share info about their 'soft cap' so openly? Might jus be to our detriment.
 
nothing here stated that is not already in the public domain tbh.
 
Let’s face it; all ISP’s in this part of the world deliver sub standard products with little or no SLA's - The ideal is to have an account with each so you can be permanently connected with good throughput and download speeds...
 
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