Serious advice?

[Wino]

hello all
I am a total newbie to all this and would appreciate some serious advice on which form of broadband is generally considered the best option at present, with regard to cost, downtime, service and speed etc.

I live in Sunset Beach in Cape Town.

Thanks in advance.

 

[rustic]

Depends what you want to do but i would go for a wired connection. I have a wireless connection through Iburst at the moment and it's not really sufficient to do anything, but i'm probably a bit bias at the moment.
Thier service is non-existent.

Give Hellkom a ring, probably about the best option at the moment

 

[Wino]

Thanks Rustic.
When you say its not sufficient, what do you mean? Lots of downtime? Slow?

I'm starting to get the feeling from what I have read here that iburst is just no worth
it.
Do I really have to resort to telkom?
Is there anyone in Cape Town who can respond on teh service levels there?

 

[nic777]

I hear good things about Iburst connections in the southern suburbs , not sure about up north.

ADSL is not bad, even though you have to get it from Telkom

Have you looked into wireless ?!?! I heard something about a Table View community wireless project - wireless networks which share an internet connection.

 

[Wino]

Thanks Nic777
I'd like to hear more about the "Table View community wireless project ", if anyone can help.
Also, are the majority of unhappy iBurst users here big time users - like in running their own web sites etc?
I need to know what its like for SOHO users.

 

[native]

I hear good things about Iburst connections in the southern suburbs , not sure about up north.

ADSL is not bad, even though you have to get it from Telkom

Have you looked into wireless ?!?! I heard something about a Table View community wireless project - wireless networks which share an internet connection.

If you are to include Soweto into the Southern suburbs, then come and enjoy good speeds, [less contention- I think].
Apart from power failure in the area where the Basestation is being hosted.

Wino I will suggest go through a reseller and ask to test the device for couple of days, so that you can see the performance at different times of the day.

http://www.iburst.co.za/resellers.php

 

[slimothy]

ye speed is good out east too

 

[MrH]

Wino, You might have seen a few negative posts from me in this forum, BUT in general I'm happy with iBurst.

As long as you get a good connection it flies and seldom or never down in CT.

My only real gripe right now is the bandwidth manager that just cuts me off instead of dropping me to 64k after I reach my 3g.

As someone already suggested, get a reseller to come out and do some tests, and maybe let you test for a few days/nights and make up your mind from there.

 

[BTTB]

Uninet

Hello Wino,
Welcome to MyADSL.

Uninet

Send Mad a PM. He has used Uninet in that area.
Otherwise ADSL from Telkom I am afraid.

 

[Jerry]

Wino, in Lonehill I get 127k 99.9% of the time. There are just some 'good' spots & some 'bad' spots. If you're in a good spot, go for iBurst. There is nothing else on the market that is cheaper, if you compare the speed (1meg), the cap (3gig) & the cost (I think). That goes for ADSL, Sentech, 3G etc. Also, buying an extra gig is relatively cheap, ie. Sentech boasts that it will only cost you 20c per 1meg. Well that is R200 per gig - iBurst costs R159 per gig or 15.9 cents per 1 meg.

 

[Roman4604]

Wino, in Lonehill I get 127k 99.9% of the time.

Jerry I'm also in Lonehill & dont quite get your speeds. What tower do you connect to?

 

[Wino]

Thanks all
I have already approached iBurst, and they have confirmed that I am not in a 'good' area, but say they have an antennae that will boost the signal and solve the problem. Of course I have to buy this antennae as well as the UT and then it remains to be seen whether their claims are true enough.
They will not offer me a probation period at at all and if I am unhappy with the signal, then I have lost my initial setup money.

They have offered to send a techie out to demonstrate the setup, but this will be on his laptop and not my PC.

Can anyone suggest a good reseller in CT that I might contact?

Once again, thanks for the replies.

 

[Jerry]

Jerry I'm also in Lonehill & dont quite get your speeds. What tower do you connect to?

I seem to connect to the Fourways tower. Before that went up, I was connecting to Bryanston, but with 80k if I'm lucky. I use a UTD connected to my Mac via ethernet. Check your MTU setting (hehe, I know, I know, but it IS important) and your 'sweet spot'.

 

[shadley]

Hi Wino

I have the iburst antenna which you can have for half the price if you are interested since I do not need it in my area.

 

[slimothy]

tradepage is an awesome reseller, oh and I think I can speak for everyone when I say DO NOT READ THAT uniNet post.

I mean its like 128kbit or something crazy, why bother with that when you can get 1mbit for cheaper even if you are in the worst iburst area in the world with no antenna and you never multithread at all you will get faster speeds than that (much faster)

 

[Roman4604]

I seem to connect to the Fourways tower.

Thanks for the info, I've always used Kyalami (cause I can see it) ... will try swing my ext antenna toward Indaba Hotel .. just for interest.