Telkom Fixed LTE - Works Everywhere!?

RedViking

RedViking

Nord of the South
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I am super impressed with Telkom Fixed LTE (up to now anyways).

I used to have fixed LTE with another provider. They were just pathetic. Locked to a single tower and to towers that are not maintained.

Eventually switched to Telkom Fixed LTE. Speeds are not always great, but generally I get average 5Mbps, depending where the nearest compatible tower is. If I am close to a tower, this is in the 30Mbps range. But it works. It is consistent. I put it in my dual sim phone. Just switch on my laptop and I have Internet.

At home in KZN I put the sim in a router with a poynting antenna attached, and this works great, even though not super high speeds. It's consistent.

I am visiting Johannesburg, to my regret, and my Telkom Fixed LTE works great here as well and can carry on with work without having to stress about a connection or extremely expensive mobile data.

My airbnb has fibre, but switched back to my Telkom as it is faster and consistent.

IMG_20220225_055313.jpg
 
@RedViking @Ramiro1993

My Telkom LTE is also awesome.... Got the original uncapped when it was launched years ago, that included installation of outside antenna etc....... I stay in Pretoria but when we go to Ballito every year, i take the B315 router with.... get there, do a reset and Bob's your uncle. Works perfectly, even without antenna on roof
 
RedViking said:
I am super impressed with Telkom Fixed LTE (up to now anyways).

I used to have fixed LTE with another provider. They were just pathetic. Locked to a single tower and to towers that are not maintained.

Eventually switched to Telkom Fixed LTE. Speeds are not always great, but generally I get average 5Mbps, depending where the nearest compatible tower is. If I am close to a tower, this is in the 30Mbps range. But it works. It is consistent. I put it in my dual sim phone. Just switch on my laptop and I have Internet.

At home in KZN I put the sim in a router with a poynting antenna attached, and this works great, even though not super high speeds. It's consistent.

I am visiting Johannesburg, to my regret, and my Telkom Fixed LTE works great here as well and can carry on with work without having to stress about a connection or extremely expensive mobile data.

My airbnb has fibre, but switched back to my Telkom as it is faster and consistent.

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I'd also like to know what package you are using...
 
hj2k_x said:
I'd also like to know what package you are using...
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I wouldn't think it matters what the package is, or whether on contract or prepaid.

But anyone can feel free to correct me.

I think what matters most is where you're based, the tower or towers you're connecting to, along with the device (make / type of router).

Telkom LTE is currently my backup to MTN (on Afrihost) - doesn't matter if I buy a prepaid 7.5 +7.5 GB, or 100 GB night data, I generally get speeds between 40 - 100 Mbps down and about 20 up (on Telkom).

What also counts is if using a router, to adjust and do speedtests for Auto vs 4G Only vs 1800 vs 2300 MHz spectrums.

Auto will at least drop back to 3G on the odd occasion 4G / LTE fails, which I've found happens from time to time on Telkom LTE.
 
Polymathic said:
So it isn't actually "Fixed "LTE
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I suppose one can say it's optional.
You can make it fixed by using only at one location, but can move it around the country and even send some data to a 2nd SIM card in a phone, for mobile use.

So very flexible, unlike, for eg. the Vodacom black Friday deals late last year ; don't think you can share any data with a 2nd SIM, on any of the 4 offers they had, even though they dished so much data out to a single SIM.
 
Thinking of switching to a Telkom Fixed LTE product myself from one of the ISPs although I have always tried to avoid using Telkom in the past. I have never had a good experience with their call centre or at any of their shops.

I think that you can share up to 10GB of data per month which could be useful.
 
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@Jake45 strangely, on the few occasions I've needed to get things seen to via their call centre, or Telkom shops, haven't tended to have problems.

I think if you use a prepaid product, then at most after a month if things go wrong, you can always switch (back?) to MTN, via Axxess or Afrihost is probably best in the case of MTN.

Afrihost is better currently, purely because they carry over both Anytime + Night data, whereas Axxess only do Anytime (MTN).

The 250 GB Telkom LTE is quite enticing, for R229 pm prepaid (for 19 hrs a day).

Might take it up in the next month or two, but for now MTN on Afri's Air Mobile is extremely stable & I usually carry over a full 40 + 40 GB every month, so for R199 have 80 + 80 available at the beginning of every month ... so no need to change right now.
 
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"I think that you can share up to 10GB of data per month which could be useful."

Also, @Jake45 :

Just be careful with trying to achieve this with Afri. or Axxess.

I've questioned Axxess on this before, because they have an option in their dashboard to send data to another SIM, but the stumbling block is that you can only send it to a SIM they provide you with.

Therefore, you currently need to spend at least R159 on a 2nd SIM which comes with 20 + 20 GB anyway, in order to send data to it from your main Telkom SIM they issue you with.

You cannot ask them to load a Telkom SIM you RICA yourself, onto their network, in order to send data to, from an Axxess supplied Telkom SIM.

OFF TOPIC, I KNOW, but thought it should be clarified.

Double check with them, for up to date info. on this.
 
@BCR: Many thanks for the advice. I haven't used the Telkom Fixed LTE service from an ISP before and thought I could just transfer data from the USSD menu of the router like you would with a normal Telkom SIM card which has a 10GB monthly limit. Clearly this is not the case! I was hoping to do this to save myself some money and not purchase any additional overpriced products from them. :sneaky:

Very happy that you clarified this for me as I would probably only have discovered this after purchasing the product! :)
 
Jake45 said:
@BCR: Many thanks for the advice. I haven't used the Telkom Fixed LTE service from an ISP before and thought I could just transfer data from the USSD menu of the router like you would with a normal Telkom SIM card which has a 10GB monthly limit. Clearly this is not the case! I was hoping to do this to save myself some money and not purchase any additional overpriced products from them. :sneaky:

Very happy that you clarified this for me as I would probably only have discovered this after purchasing the product! :)
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Pleasure, though it's worth a call to confirm this is still accurate info, in case they've changed things to accommodate user provided SIMs now ..... but I'd personally doubt it.
 
@BCR: I will check very carefully from now on! I did use the Afrihost/MTN Pure LTE service previously and was satisfied with it apart from some of the restrictions but switched over to Cell C Home Connecta Flexi prepaid due to the better pricing and 60 day bundle expiry. Unfortunately Cell C has just terminated all of the larger packages and reduced the bundle sizes so will probably need to change to a new provider quite soon. The Telkom prepaid uncapped offer is quite decent but I do use my Internet in the evenings so would have to make some adjustments to switch over to that product. Are you planning to use another service during the down time?

The 80GBpm March Big Deal from Telkom would suit me much better but that appears to only be available on a 24 month contract and I'm not sure whether I want to get a contract from Telkom.
 
Jake45 said:
@BCR: I will check very carefully from now on! I did use the Afrihost/MTN Pure LTE service previously and was satisfied with it apart from some of the restrictions but switched over to Cell C Home Connecta Flexi prepaid due to the better pricing and 60 day bundle expiry. Unfortunately Cell C has just terminated all of the larger packages and reduced the bundle sizes so will probably need to change to a new provider quite soon. The Telkom prepaid uncapped offer is quite decent but I do use my Internet in the evenings so would have to make some adjustments to switch over to that product. Are you planning to use another service during the down time?

The 80GBpm March Big Deal from Telkom would suit me much better but that appears to only be available on a 24 month contract and I'm not sure whether I want to get a contract from Telkom.
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I was aware of most of what you wrote, including the recent Cell C changes.
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I can't understand how they drew the conclusions they did, because people on this forum from what I saw or remember, seemed to be on either the 100 GB or 1 TB.

Maybe millions out there were on the smaller bundles ?

WRT Telkom, if I change to that 250 GB + 50 GB (10 Mbps then down to 4 Mbps) for R229 pm, as we don't require much data during peak hours I'd probably downgrade my MTN 40 + 40 GB to Afrihost's MTN 5 + 5 GB for R49 pm.

Main reason being, MTN fixed LTE is so stable (to now) for me that even after 2 hour load shedding stints, I switch the router back on and get a full 5 bars immediately and it stays that way.

Telkom, by comparison, struggles to get going and starts off at 2 bars, sometimes dropping in & out between 4G and 3G, so I want to keep my MTN SIM going, in case I find I don't need as much data as that Telkom package gives AND / OR there's (further) Telkom degradation because in my area, I don't think they're as stable as they used to be.

That way, can just up my MTN to either 40 + 40 again or go to 90 + 90 GB for R349, and just stop using / paying for the Telkom prepaid.

On the contract front, I'm quite / very weary of being committed to any the networks, because if your service suddenly packs up, you still need to pay them, while you beg them to resolve issues.

Prepaid or month to month gives me more peace of mind, even if not as beneficial from a data allocation perspective, but Afrihost / Axxess using MTN improved their's late last year.

I see in the MTN brochure this month (got one this morning), they're offering the month to month again (no credit checks etc) if you buy a router for R2,039 :

75 + 75 GB for R299
110 + 110 GB for R399
1 TB (Anytime) for R959

.... so one of those can be considered as well, as long as it's a Huawei and not ZTE router, which I think they were getting 'rid of' (ZTE) for R1,999 last year, and remember reading a few negative comments about.

If I needed a new LTE router, I'd seriously consider the R299 deal, but with 2 currently available & working well, the 90 + 90 GB for R349 from Afrihost is probably better.

Hope this has helped, and not confused the issues more, about deciding which route to take !
 
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@BCR: As part of the recapitalisation strategy I think that Cell C is trying to move towards higher margin products instead of low cost prepaid data. They have been having financial difficulties for a long time so I'm not sure that it will be easy to recover in the current economic environment.

I'm sure that they were selling a lot of Home Connecta Flexi bundles but probably weren't making much profit. This article mentions a million customers. I wonder how many will stay after the latest changes.
mybroadband.co.za

Cell C changes Home Connecta Flexi bundles — R89 for 6GB

Cell C has revamped its Home Connecta Flexi prepaid offering and launched several new bundles, including a 6GB + 6GB bundle for R89.
mybroadband.co.za mybroadband.co.za

Many thanks for all the information regarding the MTN monthly contracts. I do have two routers already (B315 and B618), only one of which is suitable for the Afrihost/Axxess/MTN packages but unsuitable I would guess for the MTN month-to-month products (old Rain B618 router)! I think that these cell companies are just exploiting consumers with all these additional requirements. Unfortunately consumers don't have any support from the government so I don't think we will see any improvements. It would also appear that Vodacom and MTN will be sharing most of the available spectrum in the future after completion of the spectrum auction!

Once again many, many thanks for the detailed explanation of all these different and unnecessarily complicated products! Let us know if you find any other deals of interest.
 
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Jake45 said:
@BCR: As part of the recapitalisation strategy I think that Cell C is trying to move towards higher margin products instead of low cost prepaid data. They have been having financial difficulties for a long time so I'm not sure that it will be easy to recover in the current economic environment.

I'm sure that they were selling a lot of Home Connecta Flexi bundles but probably weren't making much profit. This article mentions a million customers. I wonder how many will stay after the latest changes.
mybroadband.co.za

Cell C changes Home Connecta Flexi bundles — R89 for 6GB

Cell C has revamped its Home Connecta Flexi prepaid offering and launched several new bundles, including a 6GB + 6GB bundle for R89.
mybroadband.co.za mybroadband.co.za

Many thanks for all the information regarding the MTN monthly contracts. I do have two routers already (B315 and B618), only one of which is suitable for the Afrihost/Axxess/MTN packages but unsuitable I would guess for the MTN month-to-month products (old Rain B618 router)! I think that these cell companies are just exploiting consumers with all these additional requirements. Unfortunately consumers don't have any support from the government so I don't think we will see any improvements. It would also appear that Vodacom and MTN will be sharing most of the available spectrum in the future after completion of the spectrum auction!

Once again many, many thanks for the detailed explanation of all these different and unnecessarily complicated products! Let us know if you find any other deals of interest.
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Once again, it's a pleasure.
Happy to have helped where I could, though you're generally better at finding new deals, I've seen.

On the subject of telecoms operators screwing us customers, I feel a lot better using LTE (even though have a Frogfoot fibre line into the house already), having just read this thread :

A pity about the setup fee when migrating from another ISP

Have been with Afrihost for very many years and have heard good things about Cool Ideas. Wanted to sign up but see that there is a R999 setup fee or alternatively a claw back fee if cancelling within a year. While I understand the fee for new fibre installs, my infrastructure is already setup...
mybroadband.co.za mybroadband.co.za

Free SIM cards, no setup / activation fees, lower monthly costs for faster speeds (in my case).

Even 200 + 200 GB MTN @ R549 (Afrihost) LTE's only slightly more than the most basic fibre 30 down / 3 up i can get from them.
Think it's around R527.

Only Home Connect has a really cheap Frogfoot 30 / 3 at R388, but then to 30 / 30 sky-rockets to R688.

Btw, Axxess 200 GB Anytime + unlimited night data, so better than Afri's offer, but my main point is, for our purposes, LTE's a far better choice.
 
Apologies to @RedViking for my part in sending this thread down a (completely ?) different tangent !
 
BCR said:
I suppose one can say it's optional.
You can make it fixed by using only at one location, but can move it around the country and even send some data to a 2nd SIM card in a phone, for mobile use.

So very flexible, unlike, for eg. the Vodacom black Friday deals late last year ; don't think you can share any data with a 2nd SIM, on any of the 4 offers they had, even though they dished so much data out to a single SIM.
Click to expand...
Yap, I have it in my phone most of the time as second sim when traveling and then convenient to use as hit spot. At home I put it in the router as a fail over for my fibre.
 
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