Which is cheaper/cost effective?

[AntiThesis]

We're scaling down an office in Paarl and we're looking at possibly using 3G to run a connection between Paarl and Fort Jackson.

Currently we're using a Diginet line from Paarl to Fort Jackson but want to get rid of it (scaling down). Our options now become either ISDN using Dial-on-demand or a 3G solution.

There will be one single user using the connection and my gut feel is that ISDN is going to work out more expensive.

Is 3G the way to go here?

 

[vodacom3g]

Sounds feasible.

There are two costs to consider.

1) Connection time - if on ISDN, this will cost you a lot during office hours, as it's still is dial-up. On 3G, you can stay connected 24x7.

2) Data usage - on ISDN you don't pay for data, while on 3G you do.

3) You must also consider throughput, i.e. speed of working. On ISDN you'll get 128/128, on 3G 384/64 and on HSDPA around 800/384.

So, if you need to be on-line pretty much non-stop and you're not going to send or receive massive files, 3G / HSDPA will be much more cost-effective. And you'll get a getter throughput.

 

[FireTelkom]

Vodacom 3G

You state that with ISDN you'll get 128/128. This is not correct. You will get with both lines of the ISDN in use 128/0 to 0/128 or 64/64. Communication on ISDN is a total of 64kbs per channel for up and down traffic combined. When using both channels at the same time, you also pay for two calls.

I do have ISDN at my house and decided to use 3G for internet access. I surf a lot more, download more and safe a lot on telephone calls. My internet calls alone before on ISDN (1 channel only) was more than R1500 per month. My ISDN line was (and still is) connected to a wireless router that would dial if no Wide Area Network is available and any computer requested connection with the internet. The setup now is that the Linksys 3G router acts as my broadband router with a network cable from any ethernet port on this router linked to the WAN port of my other router (with ISDN back-up). The computers access the internet still the same way with the difference that I will access the internet every day also to surf.

I am not even using a full 1Gb every month and average about 600MB. Telkom ISDN was therefor working out to more than R2.50 per MB.

Regards

FireTelkom

 

[AntiThesis]

Well we've pretty much decided to go with 3G as our company used to run ISDN for all connections (crazy europeans don't understand how expensive it can be) and since it used to be set for dial-on-demand the bills would run as high as R9k/month/line. Not great.

 

[vodacom3g]

You state that with ISDN you'll get 128/128. This is not correct. You will get with both lines of the ISDN in use 128/0 to 0/128 or 64/64. Communication on ISDN is a total of 64kbs per channel for up and down traffic combined. When using both channels at the same time, you also pay for two calls.

I stand corrected, I always thought 1 ISDN channel is 64K symmetrical and thus 2 channels is 128/128.

 

[Roman4604]

You state that with ISDN you'll get 128/128. This is not correct. You will get with both lines of the ISDN in use 128/0 to 0/128 or 64/64. Communication on ISDN is a total of 64kbs per channel for up and down traffic combined.

FireTelkom maybe you should do some 'learn Telkom'. Each bearer (B) channel on ISDN is 64kbps full duplex (up & down). So V3G you're right, on a BRI line you either get 64/64 using 1 channel or 2 x 64/64 using 2 which are then bonded at the PPP level to give 128/128.

If B channels weren't full duplex you'd have to do the 'walky talky' thing when calling an ISDN line (most large to medium business PBXs) ... "I'm looking for Mr.X, over".

 

[FireTelkom]

I may be wrong and will admit that my statement above is based on my speed experience. I will again do a speed test, but all previous speed tests showed speed of lower than 64kbs. My interpretation of this was that the send and receive counts up to 64kbs.

When using ISDN however, their is anyway very little traffic in the return direction accept when sending big emails. The service however remain expensive due to the fact that you pay for time - including idle time waiting for response from websites and you pay a penalty for slow internet during times of cengestion.

FireTelkom

 

[vodacom3g]

Since I live in an area declared by Telkom to not warrant ADSL (Plattekloof, Cape Town), for years before 3G, my connection to the outside world was via ISDN.

Using call-more, I could stay on-line for the whole weekend for only R14. Same every night, 12 hours for R14. One thing I found is that I nearly always got full-speed on all protocols, i.e. no shaping at all. Not sure if it's shaped nowadays.