Telkom ADSL

Wizard

So I've got some bundle from Telkom that includes the landline, internet & stuff.
It runs on their "fast" option which isn't fast enough anymore (384)

I'm desiring some speed which I imagine is 1mb or 4mb.

Anyone who has tried surfing the Telkom site for information will know what a pointless and frustrating exercise this is.
Tried phoning them and got told my call would be attended to in 20 minutes.

So ...

a) Does anyone know what it would cost me to upgrade from 384kb to 1Mb on Telkom?
b) Should I be bailing out of this provider and going somewhere else?

G-Man

Hey Wizard, I have just done exactly what you are doing now, I have upgraded my 384 line to a 1mb.

At the risk of getting another post deleted, try http://www.webafrica.co.za/home/adsl/uncapped/

They offer a line discount as well so it works out a lot cheaper (ie you then pay them for the line rental, not Telkom, and obviously if you switch to them they would also become your ISP).

I'm not affiliated with WA at all, just really happy with their service

domhatch

G-Man wrote: Hey Wizard, I have just done exactly what you are doing now, I have upgraded my 384 line to a 1mb.

At the risk of getting another post deleted, try http://www.webafrica.co.za/home/adsl/uncapped/

They offer a line discount as well so it works out a lot cheaper (ie you then pay them for the line rental, not Telkom, and obviously if you switch to them they would also become your ISP).

I'm not affiliated with WA at all, just really happy with their service

correct. however, and it's a BIG however, you are still reliant on Telkom for the ADSL line itself. no matter your provider. Wizard, the Telkom website is a disaster, and the phone line is worse, but your best bet is either to go with another provider or to hang in there. i know there's an option to give them your phone number and they'll phone you back if there's a long wait in the queue.

good luck!
dh

DonovanB

I agree to finding someone else, I use cybersmart. Pretty good, always up. decent deals.

aubs1

domhatch wrote: ........ and it's a BIG however, you are still reliant on Telkom for the ADSL line itself. no matter your provider.
good luck!

Absolutely...... Telkom holds the Aces ...... ☹

sharonzaz

Have a look on the mweb site.
U can buy the data from them, uncapped
For really good rates.

I pay for a 4mb line uncapped about 1k

Ray

I was with Telkom and changed to MWEB. See, the big providers have got a lot more clout than the home DSL user. So when there is a MWEB problem and MWEB complains, it's not through the website or the helpline. It's straight to an account manager and telkom jumps a bit I reckon. Also, Telkom sells to the big corps at such a low rate and they resell to the public lowere than telkom does.

ezietsman

+1 on MWeb. Changed to 4mpbs from 384 (Afrihost). Vast improvement, always up (so far), most runs flatout so I'm happy. 10x times the bandwidth for ~2.5x the money.

AlanRatcliffe

Afrihost for me and they also handle my ADSL rental (cheaper than Hellkom too) - the only thing I still pay Telkom for is the normal line and phone calls.

Here's a good comparison of the different ISPs: http://hellkom.co.za/uncapped-adsl/ BTW, Openweb seem to be the ISP the guys in the know use for uncapped ADSL these days.

G-Man

domhatch wrote: correct. however, and it's a BIG however, you are still reliant on Telkom for the ADSL line itself.

Well, if my ADSL goes faulty, say at the exchange or anything, I phone WA and they log the call with Telkom on my behalf. I haven't spoken to a Telkom operator in nearly 4 years. ? So on my Telkom phone account there is no mention of ADSL services beacause WA handles all of that on my invoice from them.

NorioDS

I'm with the M-Web lot as well - very happy with their service ?

Wizard

Thanks very much for all of the input.
I can see some faster surfing in my future.

Based on this input I've checked out webafrica, mweb, afrihost & openweb.

If I were to compare the prices of uncapped 4Mb I get:

http://www.webafrica.co.za/home/adsl/uncapped/
Webafrica R 899 (including line)

http://www.mweb.co.za/productspricing/InternetAccess/ADSL/BigtimeSurfer.aspx
Mweb R 899 (including line)

http://www.afrihost.com/site/product/adsl_uncapped
Afrihost R 497 (presumably excluding line)

http://www.openweb.co.za/go_gold_uncapped.html
Openweb R 738 (presumably excluding line)

An interesting Afrihost option is their 50Gb capped option for R 475pm (excluding line) at 10Mbs
http://www.afrihost.com/site/product/adsl_capped?src=nav

Any further insights or preferences on these?
If I have read correctly, then the last option looks very appealing.

sharonzaz

If you're a big consumer, 50 gb will run out fast on a ten meg line.
For a little more ur uncapped.
I average around 300 odd GB per month.

domhatch

Wizard wrote: Thanks very much for all of the input.
I can see some faster surfing in my future.

Based on this input I've checked out webafrica, mweb, afrihost & openweb.

If I were to compare the prices of uncapped 4Mb I get:

http://www.webafrica.co.za/home/adsl/uncapped/
Webafrica R 899 (including line)

http://www.mweb.co.za/productspricing/InternetAccess/ADSL/BigtimeSurfer.aspx
Mweb R 899 (including line)

http://www.afrihost.com/site/product/adsl_uncapped
Afrihost R 497 (presumably excluding line)

http://www.openweb.co.za/go_gold_uncapped.html
Openweb R 738 (presumably excluding line)

An interesting Afrihost option is their 50Gb capped option for R 475pm (excluding line) at 10Mbs
http://www.afrihost.com/site/product/adsl_capped?src=nav

Any further insights or preferences on these?
If I have read correctly, then the last option looks very appealing.

just remember that anything 'excluding line' presumably means you have to sort out the line yourself. which means you're back to dealing with telkom. so you therefore have one of two options - a) you're happy to be back to dealing with telkom or b) you speak nice-like to your prospective isp and make sure they will be dealing with the telkom 'line issue' on your behalf.

you've done a whack of research so far, don't muck it up at this point! ?
dh

Wizard

just remember that anything 'excluding line' presumably means you have to sort out the line yourself. which means you're back to dealing with telkom. so you therefore have one of two options - a) you're happy to be back to dealing with telkom or b) you speak nice-like to your prospective isp and make sure they will be dealing with the telkom 'line issue' on your behalf.

I really, really like the idea of getting rid of Telkom completely.
This makes Mweb & WebAfrica immediately more appealing.

If you're a big consumer, 50 gb will run out fast on a ten meg line.
For a little more ur uncapped.
I average around 300 odd GB per month.

This is a tricky one.
I am currently capped at 16Gb and Mom, Dad & 2 teenage kids never currently hit the cap.
But ... that may be because I am at 384kb and it's just too hard to download more.
Difficult to assess how behaviour patterns will change given the opportunity.

I probably can't afford / justify the 4Gb, so will need to redo the sums at 1Gb
☹

FruitarGeek

Uncapped is going pretty cheap these days. Well relatively. Try Mweb or WebAfrica for uncapped deals

G-Man

Well I can say that you will definitely notice a speed increase going from 384 to 1mb, my upgrade only came through this week and I went from downloading 100mb an hour to 100mb in 20 mins (not a suprise seeing that it's 3 x faster, but I'm glad to see some real world corelation).

So not blisteringly fast but I am very happy. Now I can play my online games while my fiance browses her facebook and all of that and I don't notice any lag at all. Also my latency has dropped on local game severs from 100 - 200 to 50 - 100, which is great. Also Youtube videos now stream perfectly with the buffer gauge beating the play prgress bar, which for someone like me who, only a few years ago was still on dial-up, seems kind of surreal ?

But having said that, I am not on an uncapped package. I won a 130GB p/m package last year so I'm assuming I wouldn't be de-prioritised or throttled like the uncapped users are when they go bananas downloading the internet. Maybe read the fair usage policies and see which one sounds a bit more, er, fair before making your decision.

needleshy

i am now on the telkoms 1mb line, i used to have Afrihost but they kept thresholding me, one month they threshheld me so bad that i could not even recieve emails..... i called them and they said that i must look into changing my package to larger bandwidth to reduce my thresholding..... i thought that was pathetic that they sell uncapped internet then threshold you so bad that the connection is totally unusable.

I have now cancelled my account with Afrihost and switched to Telkom been on their uncapped for a while now and i have yet to be threshheld..... my laptop downstairs has been on permanent download for the past couple of months. I must say that the only problem i have with telkom is getting through to them which is an hour long wait on the phone, normally just choose the call me back option which they do a day later. Other than that all good here.

Wizard

G-Man wrote: Also Youtube videos now stream perfectly with the buffer gauge beating the play prgress bar, which for someone like me who, only a few years ago was still on dial-up, seems kind of surreal ?

This is still a fantasy for me ...

IceCreamMan

sharonzaz wrote: If you're a big consumer, 50 gb will run out fast on a ten meg line.
For a little more ur uncapped.
I average around 300 odd GB per month.

Do you store the internet on yr machine? ?