Rain 5G - Brackenfell

[SauRoNZA]

1. Anyone else possibly in Brackenfell area that is using their service and can post some Speedtest results to give an idea what to expect?

2. Does this mean it’s restricted to Full HD only somehow? I’m an all 4K HDR kind of guy and this would be a problem for me.

3. I understand there is C-NAT in place which means you can’t host stuff directly. This is a problem for me with Home Assistant especially. How are people getting around this? Yes I know a VPN outbound would work but that is likely problematic for a direct app connection. Maybe I must investigate that Windscribe Static IP option.

 

[cavedog]

Premium is not speed capped. It does whatever the signal and tower can handle for you so if you get over 30Mbps on premium you will be able to stream 4k.

 

[SauRoNZA]

Premium is not speed capped. It does whatever the signal and tower can handle for you so if you get over 30Mbps on premium you will be able to stream 4k.

So why do they specifically mention it?

I’m just scared there is some packet inspection going on messing with my traffic.

Can you verify you happily do 4K? And on which services?

Also what are your real world average speeds and latency like?

 

[cavedog]

So why do they specifically mention it?

I’m just scared there is some packet inspection going on messing with my traffic.

Can you verify you happily do 4K? And on which services?

Also what are your real world average speeds and latency like?

I don't see any issue with YT 4k.

 

[cavedog]

I really only had one issue with Rain 5G and that is being covered by more than 1 tower. I have 3 towers around me. 2 x are about 1.5km and 1x 700m. For some reason the signal stats are better on the towers further away so it like connecting to them and that causes slower than usual speeds at around 130Mbps. The closest tower has slightly worse stats but speeds exceed 280Mbps.

CGN never bothered me because everything works however I can see how remote CCTV monitoring can be an issue for some people.

Download and streaming speeds are always as expected with Premium 5G.

 

[cavedog]

Latency is very respectable to the UK from Centurion. Compares well with Fibre networks. There is some jitter as you can see but that just the way mobile network works. I have no line of sight to any of the towers and the closest one is just under 1km away so very good results overall.

Peak time can get slower than usual. That is usually when people start using it the most but I haven't seen it drop to below 100Mbps maybe briefly but using another server it's back to over 100 so speeds can vary but should not make the service unusable.

It really depends on your radio conditions and the tower. For me the multiple towers can be a headache but also a blessing because power outages means it just switches towers without downtime. It also switches when all the towers are online so there is a problem with that for me.

For R999 for a completely uncapped service it's a good deal if it works like mine does.

Better than fibre? Well maybe not depending on the coverage and obviously your fibre network operator but definitely a competitor.

 

[SauRoNZA]

Yeah fibre isn’t an option or at least seems like it’s never going to happen.

The upgrade from 20MB to 40MB VDSL I did in November with Telkom had the line upgraded instantly but after numerous Twitters and Faults even with the idiots now agreeing the PPPoE account is restricted to 20MB nobody is able to fix it or recreate it.

Then this last batch of load shedding has my line syncing at 17Mb again as appears to happen after every bout of load shedding.

So I’m fed up now and ordered Rain 5G based on your experience as I’ve got a very strong feeling I’m right in line of sight of a new tower that was recently put up here, but worst case I send it back within the 7 days if it doesn’t at least match my VDSL in it’s current atrocious state.

 

[SauRoNZA]

Out of interest @cavedog how does yours do during Load Shedding? Does it stay online?

Was one of my issues with VDSL even with UPS on everything else.

 

[cavedog]

Out of interest @cavedog how does yours do during Load Shedding? Does it stay online?

Was one of my issues with VDSL even with UPS on everything else.

The tower goes down. 4G stays up though. I'm guessing the 5G drains too much power. I have multiple towers covering me on different slots so mine stays on while the slots change over it just switches towers. MTN 5G also goes down during loadshedding sadly from my tests so 5G is a problem when it comes to battery backup at the tower.

If you are covered by more than 1 tower that is not on the same schedule then yes it won't go down. It should fall back to 4G if you have no 5G coverage. How good that will be is anyone's guess.

Worst case you pay for 1 or 2 months and then just cancel and send the unit back. There is no way to know for sure unless you test.

 

[SauRoNZA]

Oh I’m perfectly happy with 4G.

It beats no-G every time.

 

[SauRoNZA]

@cavedog their RICA doesn’t say anything about providing a printout of anything.

Can I safely assume I just need to show someone a statement? Since I have no printer at home.

 

[FrikkieSwag]

So why do they specifically mention it?

I’m just scared there is some packet inspection going on messing with my traffic.

Can you verify you happily do 4K? And on which services?

Also what are your real world average speeds and latency like?

I can happily verify that when I got RAIN 5G I was able to do 8K without any issues

 

[SauRoNZA]

I can happily verify that when I got RAIN 5G I was able to do 8K without any issues

Any comments on the RICA question above?

I don’t want to end up fighting with a courier guy for their lack of details on the website.

 

[cavedog]

@cavedog their RICA doesn’t say anything about providing a printout of anything.

Can I safely assume I just need to show someone a statement? Since I have no printer at home.

I can't remember if RAM wanted copies. I think they take pictures of it.

 

[SauRoNZA]

I can't remember if RAM wanted copies. I think they take pictures of it.

Yeah it’s weird since I have an older Rain sim that was RICA’d so I would think it’s already done.

Guessing it’s some stupid per sim process.

 

[SauRoNZA]

I was at first deeply unimpressed that there is absolutely no way that I could find on their website to contact them, when their fairly decent FAQ didn’t answer my RICA question.

However on Twitter they were very responsive and got back to me within half an hour.

Also just got the email and SMS from RAM to say they will be delivering tomorrow.

So far quite impressed.

*****

Telkom on the other hand ****ed with my line all morning without warning and by this afternoon I now had a line capable of 55 Mbit, but syncing at 25 Mbit and this while paying for 40 Mbit, which hasn’t been past 20 Mbit since I upgraded in November.

I guess I should he thankful for my latency being down to 19.3 from 26ms.

 

[SauRoNZA]

Wow this thing is a 4kg beef cake of a box.

And it’s not small.

Turns out I have 9 towers within 3km.

 

[cavedog]

Wow this thing is a 4kg beef cake of a box.

And it’s not small.

Turns out I have 9 towers within 3km.

Yeah it's a big box and heavy that's why they give you a carry handle.

Now we await your speedtests

Ohh did RAM require copies or just took photos?

 

[SauRoNZA]

Yeah it's a big box and heavy that's why they give you a carry handle.

Now we await your speedtests

Ohh did RAM require copies or just took photos?

They happily just took photos and by the time I finished breakfast got email to say it was live already which must have been at best 20minutes later.

 

[SauRoNZA]

Zero tuning, indoors with 3/5 bars signal.



My only annoyance so far is that unless I can't find it in the over abundance of paperwork is that you can't connect to it over WiFi directly out of the box as I've come to expect from all these things.