Cybersmart replacement ISP

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kilobits

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Hey all...

Long story short... Cybersmart used to be yum. So yum that I recommended friends and family to use them. For years the yum was sweet... no problems really. Nice nomnomnom at nice price.

This month the yum turned yuk. No warning. The nomnomnom went vrot. Many phone calls about the yuk resolved nothing. The yuk was not with them, but all my side, my line, my exchange blah blah blah. Funny thing was that when I used other ISP's the yuk was yum again. Go figure.

Well... it now transpires that Cybersmart has turned the yum to yuk without actually letting any of us know. Any online activity is now useless. It never used to be like this.

So now I have a earful of very disgruntled friends and family who want me to fix the yuk. I have said that I for one am going to find another ISP... they want to do that too.

Soooooo... I need to know from people who are using Mweb, Afrihost, OpenWeb etc 384KB uncapped services. I would really appreciate your feedback or recommendations as we all have now handed in our months notice with Cyber(not so)smart.

None of us use torrents (well not from home anyway) or p2p. All use no more than 20GB a month. Main focus is browsing, youtube, facebook, skype and downloads from legit websites.

So... any recommendations / warnings would be greatly appreciated. I know it has probably been done here before, but I am to borked to search.

Thanks all....
 
Last edited:
Hey Graal

Long story short... Cybersmart offered excellent service on the 384K ADSL package. So good in fact that users of this package became salespeople for it. Friends and family were convinced to ditch their current ISP and go to Cybersmart. It all was just wonderful.

Mweb offered uncapped and rather than just jump ship I emailed Laurie. He replied that if my usage did not exceed 20GB per month, he would match the Mweb offer rather than have me leave. This I did and have been adhering to all along.

It was all wonderful. I could browse, watch youtube, stream audio, email, do my joomla stuff, do my vnc and teamviewer support, skype etc. As could all the others. All on our little 384K connections.

Then Seacom went wobbly, and I signed up for backup ADSL accounts. Cybersmart was soon chugging alone without hassles again.

All was wonderful.

Then came the 1st of May... everything stopped working. Sites would not load, skype would not work, audio would not stream and youtube was a blank screen. Anything downloaded would fizzle out after dropping to 6KB/s. Many calls were made to the Cybersmart helpdesk who maintained there was nothing wrong their side... it must be my side.

So, the troubleshooting and fiddling began.

However... when using another account, there was no problem. Everything just worked again. Only the Cybersmart account was useless.

And this is how it has been for 11 days.

It then emerged that Cybersmart were implementing a new throttling / shaping policy (all unofficial of course)... and this is the way it is going to be. They knew this and were happy to let myself and others troubleshoot errors on our side for the last 11 days. They then denied that there is any problem.

So.. I now am looking for a replacement ISP... for myself and others. Cybersmart can go and get knotted.



Graal said:
wat.
Click to expand...
 
i will suggest not buying from any IS lite package this is what afrihost, axxess offer etc.

go for something from mweb or openweb gold.
 
Maybe take a few smaller accounts (1-2GB) from a few ISPs & try them at various times. Then decide which works best for you.

AH offers a free monthly 1GB.
WA offers 3GB once off for max of 14days or 3GB finishes - whichever is first.
Then get a few paid for from others & compare.
 
I am actually looking at the openweb gold offer... it seems very yum.

hereticangel said:
i will suggest not buying from any IS lite package this is what afrihost, axxess offer etc.

go for something from mweb or openweb gold.
Click to expand...
 
Hey hey hey V! /waves

I think that this is good advice... but the family would not go for this.

They are like "you recommended this crap... you fix it fast"... * sigh *

So, I think that I will perhaps suggest they move their lines to Telkom, and try a few packages and use Axxess voucher thing as a stop-gap.

I am so pissed off with Cybersmart now. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr pfffffffffffffft.

Venomous said:
Maybe take a few smaller accounts (1-2GB) from a few ISPs & try them at various times. Then decide which works best for you.

AH offers a free monthly 1GB.
WA offers 3GB once off for max of 14days or 3GB finishes - whichever is first.
Then get a few paid for from others & compare.
Click to expand...
 
/waves :)
how are you?

I can understand your frustration (doubled edged) & theirs. Your ISP is not delivering & people that you know are thowing rotten eggs at you coz their net isn't working.

Maybe tell them: they have seen it work well & now they see it not work. They must realise you are not in control of the ISPs policies.

If they want you to recommend the best package now available they need to give you time to test.

From what I've seen it APPEARS that some ISPs work better in some areas than others.

I tried the 3GB trail account from WA(shaped) & didn't like it, but have heard others in other areas say it performed well.

I eventually took the 17GB AH unshaped special for R217. Keep in mind I was after speed & such more than quantity.

On this account my net has kept going even when others from AH shaped accounts & other ISPs have complained. It's a pity that it was a limited special coz I really would recommend it if it's available.


kilobitsperyear said:
Hey hey hey V! /waves

I think that this is good advice... but the family would not go for this.

They are like "you recommended this crap... you fix it fast"... * sigh *

So, I think that I will perhaps suggest they move their lines to Telkom, and try a few packages and use Axxess voucher thing as a stop-gap.

I am so pissed off with Cybersmart now. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr pfffffffffffffft.
Click to expand...
 
The thing with Cybersmart is that its an excellent ISP when things are going good for them, then when things go pear shape they are in the league of Neotel. Happened to me 3 years ago when they ran at of bandwidth one month and never told their customers.

I'm with Telkom now for the last year and very happy - if your looking for a capped solution, Telkom is the ISP I recommend.
 
I tested an open web account briefly last night.

I WAS with mweb .....

Moving on to the unshaped gold for the extra R100.00 I will no longer be pulling my hair out by the looks of it.
 
If you're only transferring 20GB a month an uncapped account doesn't really make sense actually, or in fact you could use an IS account, since their "uncapped" (lol) cuts you off after 30GB or so, I've heard.

If you want actual uncapped, your only option is Mweb, or the Openweb Gold, if your first name is "Baron Von" or your last name is "Oppenheimer". Apart from a few times when there were problems with them having to use backup due to SEACOM etc. the Mweb accounts run pretty much without shaping, always (at least the 384kbps ones). Especially if you don't use torrents, (which some people inexplicably still download directly) Mweb will be the one for you.
 
cbrunsdonza said:
The thing with Cybersmart is that its an excellent ISP when things are going good for them, then when things go pear shape they are in the league of Neotel. Happened to me 3 years ago when they ran at of bandwidth one month and never told their customers.

I'm with Telkom now for the last year and very happy - if your looking for a capped solution, Telkom is the ISP I recommend.
Click to expand...

Yup... it is the current attitude of "no problem here, check your line, your computer etc", "no, you are not throttled", "yes, we are shaping you now", "take it or leave it" and "it has always been like this" that finished them for me.

TJ99 said:
If you're only transferring 20GB a month an uncapped account doesn't really make sense actually, or in fact you could use an IS account, since their "uncapped" (lol) cuts you off after 30GB or so, I've heard.

If you want actual uncapped, your only option is Mweb, or the Openweb Gold, if your first name is "Baron Von" or your last name is "Oppenheimer". Apart from a few times when there were problems with them having to use backup due to SEACOM etc. the Mweb accounts run pretty much without shaping, always (at least the 384kbps ones). Especially if you don't use torrents, (which some people inexplicably still download directly) Mweb will be the one for you.
Click to expand...

I think the only reason for my 20GB "cap" on the Cybersmart uncapped is that I assured Laurie that I would not exceed that monthly. I think with a "truer" uncapped, it may be around the 30GB - 50GB mark. I am thinking about these options below....

isp-options.jpg


Anyone I have overlooked ?
 
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You forgot to add the R133 Telkom Tax, although I guess that's always the same. If you're considering the last 3 options on the list, maybe you should look at the new 1mbit connections, they're R700-something I think. Not a lot more money for 3x the speed.
 
TJ99 said:
You forgot to add the R133 Telkom Tax, although I guess that's always the same. If you're considering the last 3 options on the list, maybe you should look at the new 1mbit connections, they're R700-something I think. Not a lot more money for 3x the speed.
Click to expand...

1mb is R170 more than 384 but the cap is the problem ;)
 
cbrunsdonza said:
1mb is R170 more than 384 but the cap is the problem ;)
Click to expand...

Not as much of a problem as you might think, especially since there isn't one. :wtf: These are MWEB uncapped accounts. Caps are something you :

1) Wear on your head.
2) Pop in someone's ass, if you're a rapper.
 
@TJ99 ... I included the Telkom tax... 133+vat = 152. Unless I 'm doing it all wrong ... :[

@cbrunsdonza - I dunno... the 1mb just does not seem like good value at the moment. 384 has been fine thus far (excluding the 12 days this month of Cybersmart rubbish) and will do okay for me. For Gran & gramps it becomes a pricing issue.
 
kilobitsperyear said:
Hey Graal

Long story short... Cybersmart offered excellent service on the 384K ADSL package. So good in fact that users of this package became salespeople for it. Friends and family were convinced to ditch their current ISP and go to Cybersmart. It all was just wonderful.

Mweb offered uncapped and rather than just jump ship I emailed Laurie. He replied that if my usage did not exceed 20GB per month, he would match the Mweb offer rather than have me leave. This I did and have been adhering to all along.

It was all wonderful. I could browse, watch youtube, stream audio, email, do my joomla stuff, do my vnc and teamviewer support, skype etc. As could all the others. All on our little 384K connections.

Then Seacom went wobbly, and I signed up for backup ADSL accounts. Cybersmart was soon chugging alone without hassles again.

All was wonderful.

Then came the 1st of May... everything stopped working. Sites would not load, skype would not work, audio would not stream and youtube was a blank screen. Anything downloaded would fizzle out after dropping to 6KB/s. Many calls were made to the Cybersmart helpdesk who maintained there was nothing wrong their side... it must be my side.

So, the troubleshooting and fiddling began.

However... when using another account, there was no problem. Everything just worked again. Only the Cybersmart account was useless.

And this is how it has been for 11 days.

It then emerged that Cybersmart were implementing a new throttling / shaping policy (all unofficial of course)... and this is the way it is going to be. They knew this and were happy to let myself and others troubleshoot errors on our side for the last 11 days. They then denied that there is any problem.

So.. I now am looking for a replacement ISP... for myself and others. Cybersmart can go and get knotted.
Click to expand...

Hmm, thanks for the heads-up, I'm still looking for an ISP that offers an uncapped package I like. Can now safely remove Cybersmart from my list.
 
kilobitsperyear said:
@TJ99 ... I included the Telkom tax... 133+vat = 152. Unless I 'm doing it all wrong ... :[

@cbrunsdonza - I dunno... the 1mb just does not seem like good value at the moment. 384 has been fine thus far (excluding the 12 days this month of Cybersmart rubbish) and will do okay for me. For Gran & gramps it becomes a pricing issue.
Click to expand...

The 152 is the ADSL line rental. The Telkom tax is the land line you have to have, even if you don't want it, that's R133 VAT incl.

So for example the Mweb 384 =133+219+152 = R504 if you take the ADSL line from Telkom.

If you take the "all inclusive" option, it's R 349 (as per your table) + R133 Telkom Tax, = R482.

So to get the total costs of an ADSL connection, you have to add R133.30 to all your figures there.
 
Aah... I follow now.

But, I always had a phone, so the tax would be paid regardless of ADSL or not... that is why I do not figure it into this equation. For me the phone is voice and data... it is not just an ADSL portal.



TJ99 said:
The 152 is the ADSL line rental. The Telkom tax is the land line you have to have, even if you don't want it, that's R133 VAT incl.

So for example the Mweb 384 =133+219+152 = R504 if you take the ADSL line from Telkom.

If you take the "all inclusive" option, it's R 349 (as per your table) + R133 Telkom Tax, = R482.

So to get the total costs of an ADSL connection, you have to add R133.30 to all your figures there.
Click to expand...
 
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