Uncapped or Shaped. What to choose?

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RisseN

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So im a little confused by the myriad of broadband options becoming available lately. I currently have a 4MB Telkom ADSL line and use Axxess as my ISP. I have got a 6GB shaped account with Axxess for R354. Essentially the majority of my bandwidth is used for torrents. Over and above that there’s the usual internet surfing, email, skype etc. I also play games online from time to time,…but overall, the majority of the bandwidth is used for torrents. Given the opportunity, I would probably be able to go through around 20Gigs a month.

Since there are all these great uncapped and/or unshaped options becoming available im trying to assess whether or not there’s a better option. Any recommendations? (Id like to stick to R500 at the most) I like the idea of an uncapped axxess account (http://www.axxess.co.za/uncapped.php) for R496. I see it only allows for 1 concurrent connection. I presume that means that if im using a router, my wife and I will still be able to get online at the same time since we’re both going through the router? (just making sure). Also, that link mentions this option is not for heavy downloading, so I presume things like torrents are heavily shaped or throttled. Does anyone know if this throttling is only over peak times? 8am-8pm. How bad is the throttling?

Then there’s the new Lite package from axxess (http://www.axxess.co.za/lite.php) for R19 per gig which seems really good. According to the website this account is not shaped so I presume torrents will not have any sort of throttling? Anyone checked this?

So anyway, im torn between getting an uncapped (shaped) account for R496. Or a Lite (unshaped) account for R19 per gig. At that price I would probably get 20 gigs which would cost R380. Decisions, decisions. Any suggestions?

Thanks.
 
RisseN said:
I see it only allows for 1 concurrent connection. I presume that means that if im using a router, my wife and I will still be able to get online at the same time since we’re both going through the router? (just making sure).
Click to expand...

Yes, the router will only have one connection to the ISP, therefore you can have many computers connected to the internet via your router via its single connection.
 
Thanks for the replies. I think after reading through some of the uncapped feedback threads here im rather going to go for the axxess lite package. That way I can still get 20gigs per month, but it will be unshaped and hopefully fast. I have a 4mb line so I think it will be a waste of such a fast line if all that's going to happen is that im shaped and throttled so much that I may aswell not have the fast line.
 
Think again! Go with MWEB/IS uncapped. Even though there is HEAVY shaping, over the course of one month, on a 4mb line, you can easily torrent/ usenet over 200 gigs. That is significantly more than 20 gigs, and you can do that amount of traffic even if you limit your downloads to after hours or while you are sleeping. After 1 month or so you will have more 'content' than you will have TIME to ingest it all. Suddenly download speeds will be less compelling as you busy yourself with all the new stuff. It won't matter waiting an extra day for the latest episode because you have no cap......so you still have the option of burning countless hours on you tube and other bandwidth-heavy sites that are not shaped. Then of course there is streaming TV like Hulu, Steam games,demos and HD trailers as well as regular software updates and personal backups to cloud storage sites like dropbox that can easily comprise another 50-100 gigs of total monthly traffic. Suddenly, 20 gigs doesn't seem like a lot.

Even after all this, if you simply must have an unshaped connection for gaming or VOIP, there are countless cheap offers for a few unshaped gigs per month.

Whatever you decide, enjoy :)
 
Thanks Stamstein, that's a different way of thinking about this. Definitly worth considering.
 
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