On an internet-less island

C

CR34M3

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Boksburg
I recently moved to Boksburg (Eveleigh) and after a month of moving in, I find myself running out of ideas for getting proper internet.

Plan A - FAILED: Telkom ADSL; was told they need to upgrade the infrastructure first. My neighbour in the complex has been trying for more than 2 years.
Plan B - (Failure Pending): WiFi Internet; Amobia seemed like a good company and I am on the edge of their coverage are. Technician came out for a site survey, but couldn't get on the roof :) - awaiting feedback. Although his opinion was; "It is a long shot..."
Plan C - FAILED: CellC Speed Stick; bought a CellC sim to test for 3G. No luck, I'm not even getting EDGE consistently. Average speed tests come up at 100kbps. Lets not even talk about disconnects.
Plan C2 - FAILED (too expensive): MTN 3G; speed tests average between 700kbps and 1Mbps. I'm not too bothered for speed, I just need a reasonable (5GB+) cap and MTN is too expensive for that.
Plan D - PENDING: Going to go borrow my parents' iBurst and see how coverage is this weekend.
Plan E - PENDING: Satellite something???

Does anyone have any other suggestions for getting internet? Preferably uncapped, otherwise a cap of 5GB or more.
How about satellite internet? Is that viable in South Africa? Do you need a special dish or can you use and existing DSTv dish for that?

This is frustrating me more than anything. From my balcony I can see the East Rand Mall and I can see the f****** Telkom exchange down the street -- so I'm not in the middle of nowhere... :(

Anyway, any suggestions will be appreciated.

Thanks

C
 
CR34M3 said:
I recently moved to Boksburg (Eveleigh) and after a month of moving in, I find myself running out of ideas for getting proper internet.

Plan A - FAILED: Telkom ADSL; was told they need to upgrade the infrastructure first. My neighbour in the complex has been trying for more than 2 years.
Plan B - (Failure Pending): WiFi Internet; Amobia seemed like a good company and I am on the edge of their coverage are. Technician came out for a site survey, but couldn't get on the roof :) - awaiting feedback. Although his opinion was; "It is a long shot..."
Plan C - FAILED: CellC Speed Stick; bought a CellC sim to test for 3G. No luck, I'm not even getting EDGE consistently. Average speed tests come up at 100kbps. Lets not even talk about disconnects.
Plan C2 - FAILED (too expensive): MTN 3G; speed tests average between 700kbps and 1Mbps. I'm not too bothered for speed, I just need a reasonable (5GB+) cap and MTN is too expensive for that.
Plan D - PENDING: Going to go borrow my parents' iBurst and see how coverage is this weekend.
Plan E - PENDING: Satellite something???

Does anyone have any other suggestions for getting internet? Preferably uncapped, otherwise a cap of 5GB or more.
How about satellite internet? Is that viable in South Africa? Do you need a special dish or can you use and existing DSTv dish for that?

This is frustrating me more than anything. From my balcony I can see the East Rand Mall and I can see the f****** Telkom exchange down the street -- so I'm not in the middle of nowhere... :(

Anyway, any suggestions will be appreciated.

Thanks

C
Click to expand...

Have you thought about using cell c and getting a high gain antenna? Th setup will cost you an extra R900 odd and you would still have to get on the roof to intall the antenna, but it might boost your cell c signal to acceptable levels. especially since you seem to be in a semi covered area.
 
I agree with the previous poster. Any other option will cost you well over 10000-00 a year ! Internet is very expensive in (South) Africa. Especially if you are in the middle of no where.
 
Madman88 said:
Have you thought about using cell c and getting a high gain antenna? Th setup will cost you an extra R900 odd and you would still have to get on the roof to intall the antenna, but it might boost your cell c signal to acceptable levels. especially since you seem to be in a semi covered area.
Click to expand...

+1
My CellC reception sucked too untill I build a corner reflector. Now I'm enjoying 2Mbps and no disconnects at all. Most stable 3G connection you could imagine. You should be able to get a decent connection with a high gain antenna. Take a look here and here.
 
My brother in law had no cellc signal at all....installed the boster now gets more than 1MB constantly...
that is really your best bet....
 
Thanks. Everyone seems to be in agreement -- I'll re-evaluate the CellC option.

About my other question -- is satellite internet pretty much a myth then? (in South Africa at least)
It would be awesome if I could leech of an existing dish (seeing as there's already a communal one installed)...
 
CR34M3 said:
Thanks. Everyone seems to be in agreement -- I'll re-evaluate the CellC option.

About my other question -- is satellite internet pretty much a myth then? (in South Africa at least)
It would be awesome if I could leech of an existing dish (seeing as there's already a communal one installed)...
Click to expand...

There was an article about satellite internet on MyBB a few weeks/months ago. The prices were ridiculous. I don't think it's really an option at this stage.
 
CR34M3 said:
About my other question -- is satellite internet pretty much a myth then? (in South Africa at least)
It would be awesome if I could leech of an existing dish (seeing as there's already a communal one installed)...
Click to expand...

Expensive and very high latency.
 
Try applying via Telkom Internet. Sometimes exchange capacity problems magically solve themselves if you do that.

Why is there no Vodacom on the list? Sometimes they cover areas MTN does not & vice versa.

Try finding a neighbor with ADSL & ask to piggyback on his connection. This might cause some legal & practical issues though.

Failing all that a high gain antenna is the best bet as said above.
 
Viva said:
There was an article about satellite internet on MyBB a few weeks/months ago. The prices were ridiculous. I don't think it's really an option at this stage.
Click to expand...
I read that satellite article... pricy... Therefore;
PLAN E - FAILED: Satellite something...

HavocXphere said:
Why is there no Vodacom on the list? Sometimes they cover areas MTN does not & vice versa.
Click to expand...
I think my problem stems from the fact that I am a high volume and not high speed user. For this same reason, Vodacom and MTN aren't really options as 5GB/month costs R989 p/m and R1067 p/m respectively.

HavocXphere said:
Try applying via Telkom Internet. Sometimes exchange capacity problems magically solve themselves if you do that
...
Try finding a neighbor with ADSL & ask to piggyback on his connection.
Click to expand...
I don't think space is really an issue, they just need to bring the cables up the street to my complex (it's about 100-200m).
The business college down the street has phones/internet but we don't. Like I said, my neighbour has also been trying for more than 2 years.

BlackBox said:
Especially if you are in the middle of no where.
Click to expand...
Haha, I take offence. ;)
I'm a few minutes drive from the airport, East Rand Mall, Emperor's...
If it was a farm out somewhere then I would understand, but not here...

The iBurst option might have some promise. If I take over my parent's contract (and get them CellC 5GB) I'll be paying R499 p/m for 5GB. That's R99.8/GB compared to CellC's R50/GB (on prepaid). But with the Midnight to Morning discount, I can get up to 12.5GB extra per month if I just regulate my times. This can bring the price down to a minimum of R28.5/GB, which looks good if I consider the extra R15/GB that I will need to pay for a high gain antenna on CellC.
Unfortunately this all assumes iBurst coverage...
 
CR34M3 said:
I think my problem stems from the fact that I am a high volume and not high speed user.
Click to expand...
Best bet is to find someone with 4/10mbit adsl and get them to download the stuff (&pay them in beers/whatever). Without ADSL high volume is simply not happening.

CR34M3 said:
I don't think space is really an issue, they just need to bring the cables up the street to my complex (it's about 100-200m).
Click to expand...
Yep. You're screwed. Complex + no cables is a guaranteed fail. Search the forums...there are at least 10 threads about people in that situation ready to murder someone (with a fork). At the very least you'll have to hire an electrician to pull the cables and then convince a Telkom tech to attach them to the network.
 
The day just gets better...

Plan B - FAILED: WiFi Internet.
My techncians have confirmed that your site survey has unfortunately resulted in a negative outcome. The antennas on the nearest site to you are not facing your direction because there are power cables in that direction.
Click to expand...

Even though it failed, the customer service from Amobia was great.
 
ponder said:
Time to move :D
Click to expand...
Problem: I moved in only 2 months ago -- lease contract is until end Dec 2011.

Has anyone heard of / use DSE Rescue? They've got a WiFi tower about 4 blocks from here and offer an uncapped connection for R899 p/m (apparently unshaped). http://www.dserescue.co.za/dialup/wi_fi.html
Now I know R899 is allot to pay per month, but I'm picking up their network with my laptop (no external antenna) so connection should be good. I'm just worried because they don't commit to a speed. Just "Speed dependent on network load . . ."
 
Slightly off-topic, but since it relates to the problem I'll ask anyway;

I have a WiFi ADSL router (bought on special when I was still thinking "ADSL HERE I COME!"), can I use it to connect to a WiFi ISP? I believe my connection is good enough so that I don't need an antenna, so if I can skip on installation costs then it'll be super.
 
Yes. What type of signal strength & quality do you get from their tower?

Why don;t you try them out for a month just to see what the service is like ?
 
ponder said:
Yes.
Click to expand...
Yes, you've heard of / use DSE or yes, I can use my WiFi router to connect to them? ;)
(UPDATE: did a bit of reading, doesn't look like my D-Link DSL-2640R router is capable of operating in bridge mode for the WISP connection)

ponder said:
What type of signal strength & quality do you get from their tower?
Click to expand...
I'm not sure how to measure it, but if I sit with my laptop on the balcony Ubuntu shows full bars for the connection.
 
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