Best alternatives to ADSL.

steaksauce

steaksauce

New member
Apologies if this has already been asked. I did go and check and did not find anything and would like some advice:
I live in Pretoria East (Ashlea Gardens) and for some reason there were no available ADSL ports at my exchange when I first tried getting the internet going. I then got the MTN uncapped deal but I'm sure that anyone who's tried this for gaming can tell you that it doesn't work very well.
Anyway my contract is going to finish one of these days and the last time I checked (a moment ago) there still aren't any ADSL ports at my exchange. I guess if it hasn't happened in the last 2 years then there won't be any system upgrades in the near future either.
So I'm wondering what, if any, are the best alternatives to an ADSL connection for gaming?
 
Didn't Telkom introduce some wireless thing at some point that had similar speeds / latency as ADSL? Maybe I'm confused. :confused:
 
steaksauce said:
Apologies if this has already been asked. I did go and check and did not find anything and would like some advice:
I live in Pretoria East (Ashlea Gardens) and for some reason there were no available ADSL ports at my exchange when I first tried getting the internet going. I then got the MTN uncapped deal but I'm sure that anyone who's tried this for gaming can tell you that it doesn't work very well.
Anyway my contract is going to finish one of these days and the last time I checked (a moment ago) there still aren't any ADSL ports at my exchange. I guess if it hasn't happened in the last 2 years then there won't be any system upgrades in the near future either.
So I'm wondering what, if any, are the best alternatives to an ADSL connection for gaming?
Click to expand...

Have you tried Cell C or 8ta 10 gb package or even WiMax I think its called from Telkom?
 
Ichigo said:
Have you tried Cell C or 8ta 10 gb package or even WiMax I think its called from Telkom?
Click to expand...

I've considerred 8ta and CelC but after using 3G for 2 years I'm sceptical. Wimax is apparently also not an option because I live in some kind of Telkom Black hole or something.
 
steaksauce said:
Apologies if this has already been asked. I did go and check and did not find anything and would like some advice:
I live in Pretoria East (Ashlea Gardens) and for some reason there were no available ADSL ports at my exchange when I first tried getting the internet going. I then got the MTN uncapped deal but I'm sure that anyone who's tried this for gaming can tell you that it doesn't work very well.
Anyway my contract is going to finish one of these days and the last time I checked (a moment ago) there still aren't any ADSL ports at my exchange. I guess if it hasn't happened in the last 2 years then there won't be any system upgrades in the near future either.
So I'm wondering what, if any, are the best alternatives to an ADSL connection for gaming?
Click to expand...

Hi Steaksauce,

maybe I can help, I work for mweb business, if you pm me your address and contact details I can try see if there are alternatives,

anyways let me know if you come right
 
JudeC said:
Hi Steaksauce,

maybe I can help, I work for mweb business, if you pm me your address and contact details I can try see if there are alternatives,

anyways let me know if you come right
Click to expand...

Thanks, I'd be forever in your debt if you can make the impossible happen. Well impossible according to Telkom...
 
WiMax is discontinued by Telkom.

If anything, they will offer you a fixed-wireless Telkom product which is essentially a Telkom Mobile product you can only use in your home (because the SIM sits in a router they supply, and you then use linked wireless phones in the house). They will install a router to serve your house and it's plausible that having an antenna attached will give you better signal than a standard dongle. You can of course install your own version of this setup including an antenna (a fair bit of technical stuff to consider with mounting an antenna, such as line-of-sight), and that gives you the flexibility of swapping between operators (but doing so will mean pointing you antenna off in a different direction each time, so it quickly becomes tedious).

In my experience, having tested various wireless services, if you can afford it, the best bet (at the moment and possibly until their network becomes saturated in your area) is probably Vodacom LTE. If you have a strong signal you get great downloads speeds and latency - comparable to and even beating ADSL depending on your signal strength.

I will be interested to hear what JudeC has as an alternative solution. Mweb has previously partnered with Cell C to resell their products, so will it be a solution around that, or perhaps some sort of Wi-Fi last mile network, which is also a plausible solution if Mweb has a neat break-out point in your area.
 
Does Neotel still exist / operate? Don't they supply some kind of stable wireless solution for their internet?
 
ViperGTI said:
Does Neotel still exist / operate? Don't they supply some kind of stable wireless solution for their internet?
Click to expand...

Have already tried Neotel. At the time I thought it was a bit expensive for an unstable service that seemed to have quite a lot of kinks and problems and their customer service really stank.
 
steaksauce said:
Have already tried Neotel. At the time I thought it was a bit expensive for an unstable service that seemed to have quite a lot of kinks and problems and their customer service really stank.
Click to expand...

James said:
If you're serious about using the Internet, I wouldn't touch Neotel consumer products.
Click to expand...

Damn... It has been how many years already since they've started? You'd think they'll have their stuff sorted out by now.
 
steaksauce said:
I've considerred 8ta and CelC but after using 3G for 2 years I'm sceptical. Wimax is apparently also not an option because I live in some kind of Telkom Black hole or something.
Click to expand...

CellC or 8ta is way better than MTN by a longshot you wouldnt regret it if you need internet access and gaming.
 
steaksauce said:
Apologies if this has already been asked. I did go and check and did not find anything and would like some advice:
I live in Pretoria East (Ashlea Gardens) and for some reason there were no available ADSL ports at my exchange when I first tried getting the internet going. I then got the MTN uncapped deal but I'm sure that anyone who's tried this for gaming can tell you that it doesn't work very well.
Anyway my contract is going to finish one of these days and the last time I checked (a moment ago) there still aren't any ADSL ports at my exchange. I guess if it hasn't happened in the last 2 years then there won't be any system upgrades in the near future either.
So I'm wondering what, if any, are the best alternatives to an ADSL connection for gaming?
Click to expand...

I dont know what your budget it is, but you could always look into this http://www.voxtelecom.co.za/products/YAHCLICK
 
ViperGTI said:
Damn... It has been how many years already since they've started? You'd think they'll have their stuff sorted out by now.
Click to expand...

Far from being sorted, it looks like they are going to bought up: Neotel for sale – Vodacom, MTN looking to buy: sources

Funnily enough, Neotel is pretty good in the backhaul side of things - their consumer products aren't great, and it's more like they had to provide these consumer products in order to retain the telecoms license in SA under the original SNO licensing terms when they entered. If the rumours are true and they are bought up, the new owner will inherit a pretty nifty national and metro fibre network and a chunk of the SEACOM cable (very simple way of putting it).

But now I'm taking the thread off topic :P

Roomys_ZA said:
I dont know what your budget it is, but you could always look into this http://www.voxtelecom.co.za/products/YAHCLICK
Click to expand...

We have YahClick in the office for backup Internet and it works very well - but it is not a gaming grade connection because it uses satellite. Latency will be terrible for any game type other than something turn-based. I'll provide a speedtest link in a moment.

Update: Okay, so much for that idea. The YahSat connection isn't resolving DNS and at 5.30PM on Friday I don't feel like trying to figure out why :P

But previously I was getting local speedtest pings of least 750ms+
 
Thanks for all the help guys +1 to everyone who had a hand in all the good advice.
*Update* Since I've posted this thread Telkom has been in touch again and it seems like my exchange was very recently upgraded to support up to 40MBps VDSL. (strange how it doesn't reflect the same info on the availability checker)
I will probably be speaking to them tomorrow to reserve a port so now I only have to decide on which ISP I'm going to be using.

Thanks mygaming!
 
steaksauce said:
Thanks for all the help guys +1 to everyone who had a hand in all the good advice.
*Update* Since I've posted this thread Telkom has been in touch again and it seems like my exchange was very recently upgraded to support up to 40MBps VDSL. (strange how it doesn't reflect the same info on the availability checker)
I will probably be speaking to them tomorrow to reserve a port so now I only have to decide on which ISP I'm going to be using.

Thanks mygaming!
Click to expand...

The availability checker hasnt been updated for a long time and still says my exchange is 4 meg even though its been 10 meg enabled for a quite a while now.

Hopefully Telkom can sort you out :D
 
steaksauce said:
Thanks for all the help guys +1 to everyone who had a hand in all the good advice.
*Update* Since I've posted this thread Telkom has been in touch again and it seems like my exchange was very recently upgraded to support up to 40MBps VDSL. (strange how it doesn't reflect the same info on the availability checker)
I will probably be speaking to them tomorrow to reserve a port so now I only have to decide on which ISP I'm going to be using.

Thanks mygaming!
Click to expand...

I was reading through this thread and was about to ask you if you were using the adsl checker or actually phoning telkom. They don't update their ADSL checker at all so to speak. According to the adsl checker I also don't have an adsl exchange, even though i have been running adsl for the last 2 years in my place.
 
Lots of interesting alternatives listed here.

I would also add in my 2 cents -- iBurst. i was with them a year or 2 ago.
 
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