Which ISP should we choose?

L

LogoLept

Member
Joined
Jul 24, 2019
Messages
16
Reaction score
0
Hi there everyone.

So MetroFibre has laid their fibre lines in our neighbourhood. All that's left to do is for us to choose a fibre package from one of the many ISPs on MetroFibre's website.

I have been reading numerous reviews on numerous ISPs. Most of the reviews are negative. The most positive reviews I've seen were 3, and they were on Vox. So naturally we have our eyes on Vox, but this is getting tiresome, and we have never had fibre before.

So if anyone could please recommend a good ISP we would be very thankful. Thanks in advance.
 
I would recommend Either Cool Ideas @PBCool or Afrihost @AfriNatic. I personally am with Afrihost and a friend with Cool Ideas and we rarely get issues, I had none so far and my friend had issues once in the 4 years he had fibre.

Just take note both of us are on Openserve and their network is pretty solid for the most part. So I can't say how they are on other networks, but both Afrihost and Cool Ideas have rep members here that are always willing to help.
 
Been with Cool Ideas on MFN for the last 2+ years , barely any issues. Only times I've been offline for a few hours was because of a fibre breaks (MFN are usually on the ball with that though).

Extremely low latency local/international gaming wise.
 
Kilerhotdog said:
I would recommend Either Cool Ideas @PBCool or Afrihost @AfriNatic. I personally am with Afrihost and a friend with Cool Ideas and we rarely get issues, I had none so far and my friend had issues once in the 4 years he had fibre.

Just take note both of us are on Openserve and their network is pretty solid for the most part. So I can't say how they are on other networks, but both Afrihost and Cool Ideas have rep members here that are always willing to help.
Click to expand...

Thank you for the recommendation ;)
 
I'm on Afrihost with Vumatel. I moved to Afrihost from Cool Ideas because of the DDOS issues they had. I'm about to move back to Cool Ideas now that their network seems to be more secure.

Afrihost has been an absolute disaster. I have never received my full line speed (100/100) (speedtest.net and broadband speed test, tested on ethernet with everything else off, receiving 60%-70% line speed even on local). The double speed promo was an absolute con, my speeds got worse when the promo started.

Just look at the Afrihost thread, always issues, always complaints. Stay away. @AfriNatic
 
JFT96 said:
I'm on Afrihost with Vumatel. I moved to Afrihost from Cool Ideas because of the DDOS issues they had. I'm about to move back to Cool Ideas now that their network seems to be more secure.

Afrihost has been an absolute disaster. I have never received my full line speed (100/100) (speedtest.net and broadband speed test, tested on ethernet with everything else off, receiving 60%-70% line speed even on local). The double speed promo was an absolute con, my speeds got worse when the promo started.

Just look at the Afrihost thread, always issues, always complaints. Stay away. @AfriNatic
Click to expand...

Have you ever done any troubleshooting with anyone? If you are on GPON you can just connect to the ONT and do some tests directly to the ONT to see how speeds are. We have quite a few 1Gbps clients and the speeds are really good for most clients. If a client does not get the speeds they are subscribed too we do our best to assist by logging faults with Vumatel.

If you want I can try my best to help out. If you have any ticket id I can follow up on I will.
 
AfriNatic said:
Have you ever done any troubleshooting with anyone? If you are on GPON you can just connect to the ONT and do some tests directly to the ONT to see how speeds are. We have quite a few 1Gbps clients and the speeds are really good for most clients. If a client does not get the speeds they are subscribed too we do our best to assist by logging faults with Vumatel.

If you want I can try my best to help out. If you have any ticket id I can follow up on I will.
Click to expand...

I have done tests with AH where I bypassed the router and connected directly to the ONT / CPE and then did some tests, can't rember exactly what I did. But then I believe I'm testing local only. And doing it that way, local was perfect. Connect via router on ethernet again and for a while local is perfect and international starts fine but over a few days / weeks its back to half speeds again, fluctuating between 40 mbps an 60mbps. I'm having a good day today... (im testing via wifi now so I expect on ethernet I'll hit at least 80mbps). The issue for me is that with CISP I was consistently in the high 90's on both local and international. Nothing has changed on my side, only my ISP.

1595444592768.png
 
JFT96 said:
I have done tests with AH where I bypassed the router and connected directly to the ONT / CPE and then did some tests, can't rember exactly what I did. But then I believe I'm testing local only. And doing it that way, local was perfect. Connect via router on ethernet again and for a while local is perfect and international starts fine but over a few days / weeks its back to half speeds again, fluctuating between 40 mbps an 60mbps. I'm having a good day today... (im testing via wifi now so I expect on ethernet I'll hit at least 80mbps). The issue for me is that with CISP I was consistently in the high 90's on both local and international. Nothing has changed on my side, only my ISP.

View attachment 879473
Click to expand...

I understand. Nothing have changed but could be OLT congestion or packetloss remember that Vumatel has doubled line speeds for free. People have been working from home using way more data and for longer periods of time.

If you drop me any ticket ids you might have or your clientzone email I can lookup and quickbase faults that have been logged and see what the feedback on those were. If there weren't any logged we can get some tests done so we can log it with Vumatel to see what info they can provide.

Testing Vodafone UK is not always the best speedtest to do as that traffic is handed over to us at Tercaco JHB from Vodacom transit.
 
AfriNatic said:
I understand. Nothing have changed but could be OLT congestion or packetloss remember that Vumatel has doubled line speeds for free. People have been working from home using way more data and for longer periods of time.

If you drop me any ticket ids you might have or your clientzone email I can lookup and quickbase faults that have been logged and see what the feedback on those were. If there weren't any logged we can get some tests done so we can log it with Vumatel to see what info they can provide.

Testing Vodafone UK is not always the best speedtest to do as that traffic is handed over to us at Tercaco JHB from Vodacom transit.
Click to expand...

I'll take a look for tickets number asap but that is another issue I must raise. The strategy from you guys to channel support through whatsapp chat is not working. For it to work, you need to have an agent immediately available to deal with the customer, its not feasible to come back to a customer hours later. That why a customer would prefer to call in but go look at your site, the support channel squeezes customers towards whatsapp support and you make it as hard as possible for a customer to call. It's understandable, contact centres are expensive to operate and live chat is much cheaper and easier to manage, but then you must be available on live chat otherwise its just annoying. I hope you give this feedback to your senior management, sometimes your support guys only come back the next day, whats the point of that?

I'll get a support ticket to you as soon as possible.
 
Thank you for all the replies.

@PBCool I'm having trouble viewing your fibre packages on your website. "Page not found - Cool Ideas"
 
LogoLept said:
Thank you for all the replies.

@PBCool I'm having trouble viewing your fibre packages on your website. "Page not found - Cool Ideas"
Click to expand...
New site launched yesterday, just search using your address.
 
JFT96 said:
I'll take a look for tickets number asap but that is another issue I must raise. The strategy from you guys to channel support through whatsapp chat is not working. For it to work, you need to have an agent immediately available to deal with the customer, its not feasible to come back to a customer hours later. That why a customer would prefer to call in but go look at your site, the support channel squeezes customers towards whatsapp support and you make it as hard as possible for a customer to call. It's understandable, contact centres are expensive to operate and live chat is much cheaper and easier to manage, but then you must be available on live chat otherwise its just annoying. I hope you give this feedback to your senior management, sometimes your support guys only come back the next day, whats the point of that?

I'll get a support ticket to you as soon as possible.
Click to expand...

I understand your frustration with Whatsapp. We have quite a number new Whatsapp agents coming online soon which should reduce the queue. A instant chat feature is just not possible as the whatsapp queue for clients can get extremely long. We are trying to streamline things and also get more agents online asap so reduce the wait times for whatsapp.

We see huge numbers at month end for billing related queries. We also see a very big peak in clients asking for help on whatsapp when here is area outages even if the status page does indicate the outage so we are trying our best to get things running as smoothly as possible.
 
RocketNet-Rep said:
Hi @LogoLept please have a look at RocketNet, we would be happy to assist.
Click to expand...

I second this. I am on Metrofibre through Rocketnet and have had a great experience.

From the initial setup and installation, where the team lead, I think his name was Mohamed, personally dropped off my router at my house as the couriers were out for the day. I appreciated that level of customer service.

I haven't had more than 6 hours downtime in the 18 months that I have been with them so they are extremely stable.

I get constant speeds with them but I mainly use the line for streaming so if you are into gaming, I might not be the best person to comment.

They do have a WhatsApp chat function but I have been lucky enough in that I haven't had to use it.

I paid in for the Tenda AC10 router and the android app makes the router management really simple.
ie: Limit speeds on selected devices, optimised the wifi by moving to a less congested channel, etc

With that being said, my company signed a deal with another ISP which gives us free installation and the first month free.
I am considering moving, purely from a financial view, as that's an automatic 8.3% saving on the annual fibre bill but I am still doing research and will keep an eye on this thread.
 
PBCool said:
PM me your address?
Click to expand...

I understand that we will have to provide our address to check if we have coverage, but I am not comfortable with just simply sharing where we live. I would first just like to see what fibre packages you offer.
 
LogoLept said:
I understand that we will have to provide our address to check if we have coverage, but I am not comfortable with just simply sharing where we live. I would first just like to see what fibre packages you offer.
Click to expand...
If the mapping feature isn't working with your address then try just search the road name or somewhere nearby. This will then list the packages available.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X