Which ISP would you recommend (Openserve)?

[Bryn]

Hmmm. This is so damn tough. I've asked myself over and over, do I really need 100mb or will 40mb suffice? Do I really need uncapped? It's not as if I'm going to download the internet and my usage is never really more than 400GB a month. Although this was on 40mb fibre back in the day and 12mb ADSL this past 1.5 years. CISP does have excellent customer service though and I'll probably be a fool not to go for that R1.5k deal. Mmmm..decisions, decisions.

Depends what your needs are. Downloading games on Steam or GOG at 10+MB/s is really, really nice. Being able to upload backups at 50Mbps is also brilliant. If you don't have such needs then 20 or 40Mbit is probably fine.

And of course, it's effortless to upgrade a connection with Cool Ideas if you decide you want more. I'd strongly recommend being with them from the start rather than having to do a laborious ISP switch later. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what Afrihost or other ISPs promise if we know their networks have problems. Cool Ideas actually deliver.

 

[ekske1]

Super easy. Get 40/20 and see if its good, and then if need be upgrade to 100/50.

 

[Johnatan56]

Hmmm. This is so damn tough. I've asked myself over and over, do I really need 100mb or will 40mb suffice? Do I really need uncapped? It's not as if I'm going to download the internet and my usage is never really more than 400GB a month. Although this was on 40mb fibre back in the day and 12mb ADSL this past 1.5 years. CISP does have excellent customer service though and I'll probably be a fool not to go for that R1.5k deal. Mmmm..decisions, decisions.

You could just up your data cap, you have a R600 difference between your usage and the Cool Ideas package.
OpenServe is just terrible for uncapped. Would recommend uncapped on pretty much all the other providers.

I don't know why Bryn and ekske1 are advocating for R600 more uncapped a month when that's about an extra 800GB (on top of his base 400) of usage on Vox without taking rollover and midnight data into account.

 

[ekske1]

You could just up your data cap, you have a R600 difference between your usage and the Cool Ideas package.
OpenServe is just terrible for uncapped. Would recommend uncapped on pretty much all the other providers.

I don't know why Bryn and ekske1 are advocating for R600 more uncapped a month when that's about an extra 800GB (on top of his base 400) of usage on Vox without taking rollover and midnight data into account.

I am not advocating anything; just saying. Try product A and if that is enough then that is it, if not then simply upgrade to B.

I've not had any serious issues with my openserve uncapped as it actually runs better than what it was with cw. That's post shaun leaving the steering wheel at cw going on creating evo net.

 

[Johnatan56]

I am not advocating anything; just saying. Try product A and if that is enough then that is it, if not then simply upgrade to B.

I've not had any serious issues with my openserve uncapped as it actually runs better than what it was with cw. That's post shaun leaving the steering wheel at cw going on creating evo net.

Do you mean Telkom? Telkom ISP. CW does run on OpenServe.

And agreed, I left Afrihost for CW, when they had problems I jumped to Vox and it's been good here except for one/two evenings for an hour in more than a year.

 

[Bryn]

You could just up your data cap, you have a R600 difference between your usage and the Cool Ideas package.
OpenServe is just terrible for uncapped. Would recommend uncapped on pretty much all the other providers.

I don't know why Bryn and ekske1 are advocating for R600 more uncapped a month when that's about an extra 800GB (on top of his base 400) of usage on Vox without taking rollover and midnight data into account.

If he's a lightweight user then Vox is more cost effective, sure. But if he isn't then he will be far better served with a properly uncapped account that can cruise past 1 or 2TB a month without hassle. Not sure why you say Openserve sucks for uncapped? Mine is amazing, and at a price that isn't too bad.

 

[Johnatan56]

If he's a lightweight user then Vox is more cost effective, sure. But if he isn't then he will be far better served with a properly uncapped account that can cruise past 1 or 2TB a month without hassle. Not sure why you say Openserve sucks for uncapped? Mine is amazing, and at a price that isn't too bad.

The price. That same package you're paying R1.5k for is R1.2k on Vumatel, a 20% reduction. This doesn't count that some providers are absolutely terrible in regards to FUP (Afrihost, WebAfrica).
You can easily rack up more than a TB of usage on the capped accounts for e.g. Steam downloads by just scheduling midnight (use https://github.com/akorb/SteamShutdown to auto shutdown, really dumb Steam doesn't have an automatic one).

 

[Bryn]

The price. That same package you're paying R1.5k for is R1.2k on Vumatel, a 20% reduction. This doesn't count that some providers are absolutely terrible in regards to FUP (Afrihost, WebAfrica).
You can easily rack up more than a TB of usage on the capped accounts for e.g. Steam downloads by just scheduling midnight (use https://github.com/akorb/SteamShutdown to auto shutdown, really dumb Steam doesn't have an automatic one).

I'm happy to pay a R300 premium for having an acceptable fibre option at all. Most of my friends and family have no fibre option and in some cases get garbage quality ADSL.

 

[Johnatan56]

I'm happy to pay a R300 premium for having an acceptable fibre option at all. Most of my friends and family have no fibre option and in some cases get garbage quality ADSL.

Agreed, but price difference I'd take a capped product on OpenServe, which I did.

 

[---]

You being with openserve is the problem though.. They are the most expensive for internet packages, owned by Telkom, and you have a shared fibre line between you and 63 others.. So if a few people got a solid fast connection be prepared for some slower speeds during peek times

 

[Johnatan56]

You being with openserve is the problem though.. They are the most expensive for internet packages, owned by Telkom, and you have a shared fibre line between you and 63 others.. So if a few people got a solid fast connection be prepared for some slower speeds during peek times

?
If that's another comment in regards to GPON, I think you all need to research how GPON actually works and how you pretty much have no impact from the splitting.