Please help!

Sharpies

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Hi guys & girls,

I am in desperate need of some guidance on choosing a proper ISP. I have been with Plugg for more than a year now but have recently decided to change since all ISPs have updated their pricing except... Plugg. In all honesty I was very happy with the service but money talks and I almost felt like Plugg is stagnating while everybody else in the game is moving forward (another company comes to mind who I feel the same towards **cough**Vodacom**cough**).

In anycase... I like the 4Mb uncapped bundle so I followed a friend's advise to try Telkom's new deal. However, I have made the switch on 03/02/2014 (monday) in the Telkom store in Eastgate since I could not reach ANY consultants on Telkom's service centre (10210) for three days. This was the first red flag to go up but I thought maybe I am just being too impatient. Today is Friday (07/02/2014) and I still don't have any internet at home yet. I called the telkom store in Eastgate (because 10210 is just a waste of time since nobody is available to speak to you) and they said it should take maximum 72 hours (3 days) to activate.

Well I am still waiting and I don't want to wait forever so I am again on the look out for a proper ISP.

Now I have a few concerns, firstly I remember from a while ago that alot of people were complaining at the poor speed from ISPs that use the MTN backbone, so I would like to hear some true experiences from some of the customers that use an ISP that uses MTN's backbone. Secondly, I download about 100GB per month and the majority of that is from torrents. Could somebody tell me from what ISPs I need to stay clear of to avoid super slow torrents? Plugg has a semi-shaped service so I am looking for something similar.

If you use an ISP that you are happy with please comment so that I could include that into my decision.

I thank you all for the time and help.

Peace
 
Hey.

I’m currently on the none premium 4 Meg Mweb package, i download about 90-110 gig a month and i haven’t been throttled once, i think the max download over 30 days on the 4 meg is 120gig before they start throttling.

I mainly download torrents, i usually get 150-200kbps during the day and 400kbps in the evenings on torrents.

And as far as i know the signup and activation is pretty quick
 
Also worth reading comments incl from a Vox rep from this page onwards :
http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php/434391-lantic-R59-uncapped-bolt-on-feedback/page28

You should also be able to sign-up for a free 1GB/month Afrihost account (I have one of those as well, and it's generally fine) to try them out, and far as I can remember, they're on the MTN backbone. Same as Axxess is, as I think they're now part of the same company, but I stand corrected as not 100% sure !

http://www.afrihost.com/site/product/adsl_capped
 
Hey.

I’m currently on the none premium 4 Meg Mweb package, i download about 90-110 gig a month and i haven’t been throttled once, i think the max download over 30 days on the 4 meg is 120gig before they start throttling.

I mainly download torrents, i usually get 150-200kbps during the day and 400kbps in the evenings on torrents.

And as far as i know the signup and activation is pretty quick

Wow I'm surprised after reading this considering it's the non premium package which is dirt cheap! Thanks:)
 
Yea, i use to be on the 2 meg premium, i moved over about 3 months ago and i must say i was also shocked with the performance.

Maybe try out their trail account.
 
Some sage advice is to look at cancellation conditions.

Its exciting to sign up with a new ISP and to experience new issues, but when the dung hits the fan, you don't want to be stuck with a bad ISP for a month.

As for ISP choice - well every ISP has an issue if you follow these threads, just depends which issues you are prepared to live with.
Personally, I am with OW, capped unshaped for day and uncapped gamers for after hours and weekends.
If not for the soft cap, I would choose MWEB, and if I had make a second choice - 4Meg Business from Afrihost.

Remember trial accounts are a poor reflection of what you get after sign up - the former usually flies, the latter usually has some shaping - all according to price you pay for contention and latency.

Good luck on your quest and happiness with your choice. ;)
 
If I were you, I'd be extra careful when doing business with Openweb... in particular, Mr. Beep. Rather go for Afrihost if you want a good quality service that never interrupts your regular midnight fap session. Just make sure that Telkom's not doing weird **** to your line atm.
 
In the past few years i went with:

Afrihost business - excellent
Mweb premium - was ok until a few months ago
Openweb gold - got better value with mweb
cybersmart - tried them out when they had a special, only good for browsing and youtube.

I started with regular afrihost uncapped, until they shaped me horribly after joining with mtn iirc, I switched to openweb gold until they shaped me horribly, then I went with mweb until they changed their policies and shaped me horribly, tried cybersmart and the downloads were crap from the start. So I took the plunge and got unshaped afrihost, quite happy with it.... so far...

Got used to ISP`s being temporary. Like that mweb ad says: switch lanes when the other one is going faster.
 
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You will get the best experience if:

-Your SNR is high (above 20 if possible)
-Your Attenuation is low (below 30 if possible)
-Your exchange is not congested

If you meet all of the above, Afrihost business uncapped is best for you.
 
Okay thanks a lot for all the input guys, your comments have helped me look in the right direction.
 
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