Fibre optic upgrade

[ians]

Afrihost has offered one of my customers a fibre line with a modem and router....cool...now they have super fast internet...or do they...a 10 meg line?

I have a 10 meg line from Telkom (phone line)...we wont go into details...all i am gona say is i have a rubber mallet and a 30 mm thick steel plate in my office for when i have to deal with telkom...one good thing is I only have to pay half the bill every month because the line is forever down...thanks to the private contractor (open serve) who look after the line ...between the ads on youtube and most other social media platform and the buffer signal i get to watch the odd movie.

Do i spend more money and upgrade to a fibre 10 meg line?

Some of my concerns with regards to the afrihost fibre line...you only get about 8 m of cable onto your property ...then you pay R150 per metre for the additional cable to get it to your lounge(this is what i am told) The other issue is the line installations...man i thought alarm people do a crap job...they have nothing on fibre line installer...i am not familiar with fibre cables...but i would assume a monkey hanging between your house and the trees on your property would damage the cable...would you not need to enclose the fibre cable in some sort of protection...clipping the cable down a face brick wall then through the wall and up the inside.

Anyone familiar with data setups for home and small business...please educate me.

Why would i want a fibre 10 meg line...i would have thought a 1 gig line would be worth the fibre installation...i do realise it cost more the faster the line.

How much abuse can a fibre line endue?

Considering the special tools required for fibre terminations...repair costs to the customer?

Cost to relocate points?

Fibre to the moderm...then cat 5 or 6 to the rest of the house...or is wireless now fast enough to view movies etc without buffering?

How would you link 3 TV's in one house...if they are older models and are not smart TV's?

From my experience with the 10 meg telkom line...the modem/router is ok to view stuff on a tablet or phone.

There seems to be a trend of people cancelling DSTV and moving over to fibre for better value for money (there sports channels...with plenty ads available legal or not)...then there is netflix...i suppose if you into watching brain dead movies...it is cheaper than DSTV.

There are also so many pirate download sites for the people who like watching series.

Is it worth the cost to upgrade to fibre with unlimited data (normally capped or throttle at 999 gigs)?

[ians]

it seems when you start to ggogle ...it gets rather interesting with regards to "free setup" and "installation cost"


"My complaint refers to their claim of "free installation" on the Vumatel website. They say this refers to a technician coming to my house and setting up the free WiFi router. Seriously? They gave me the router with the cellophane still sealed on the box. Nothing was set up, and the firmware was not upgraded. What I thought it meant was that they would cover the cost of the Vumatel installation, of R1710, like other ISPs do. There is no clarification on their web site either, but they do claim to pay the Vuma monthly line rental."

[ians]

it sounds like my free 10 meg line installation from telkom...2 open serve contractors arrive at my house to do the free installation...they glue a line along the wall and fit a plug socket...when i asked about the "setup" ...the reply..."sorry we dont have any stock of the modem/routers...i must go collect it from the Pavilion telkom store once i receive an sms...a week later...then 3 hours on the phone to 10210 to set it up myself ...thank goodness the public are such suckers...it makes work easy for service providers.

a week later no internet...the monkeys jumped on the line from the pole to the house and pulled the cable out the junction box on the pole...after a week (just before Christmas) i found out that open serve was on Christmas shutdown until mid Jan...so i got my ladder climbed the pole and repaired it myself and secured the line properly...a couple weeks later i got a call from open serve to say they could attend to my problem...then the billing confusion began (still not sorted out...and its mid June)

[IanF]

Ian
I am with cool ideas on Vumatel at home. And it just works. We watch streaming TV all the time or have google music going. At work we got Iconnect with high speed and capped package, this bought out by Cellc and so far so good. I love getting the big 100MB file now, it is just so quick.

[ians]

My Telkom special was R799 per month for a normal telephone line with unlimited data (999gig)

What i learnt from this experience...

The free installation...wasn't possible because they had no stock off the items offered on the special...so i had to drive to the store collect the product and waste hours setting it up myself.

You get what you pay for (free installation) a really crappy cable installation...at least open serve is now a private contractor to telkom...so you dont get the "we dont run cable on your property...you must get a contractor to install pipes with draw wires"...and no different to the private contractors who install fibre line onto your property...you get what you pay for... free installation...not sure if they improve the installation if you pay the R150 per metre if the installation is further than 8-10 m...which i would assume is the case in most free standing properties.

Your free telkom to telkom numbers are not "all" free...you will find the public are getting smart and porting away form telkom...using private companies to "look after thier line" so you get billed for the call....i did complain...the response...I must contact the person to find out if they are ported away from telkom...it is not Telkoms responsibility to inform you that you are going to pay for the call because it is ported...as with cellphones ...however as i informed them...if a mobile number is ported you are made aware that it is ported by the 3 beeps before the line connects.

[wernerdp]

We had Open Serve to do an installation , they are not allowed to climb into the roof , so ended up doing it myself .
Secondly I dont think Open Serve is such a private company , look where there bakkies come from , and yes your new president have lots of shares in that company .

[Dave A]

Sounds like I got lucky with my Open Serve and Telkom ISP free installation.

I had two Open Serve teams racing each other to execute delivery.
The install team had to run the line through the roof, which they did without a hitch.
The installation included delivery and setup of the lightbox and modem.
The overhead line has survived being used and abused by monkeys on a pretty regular basis.

My only complaint is connectivity is an occasional issue - where I have to reboot the modem to get things operational again. Seems pretty trivial relative to some of the reports above.

Kinda agree about the Open Serve observation - seems like another instance of SOE capture, although in this case at least the contractor is delivering.

[ians]

Kinda agree about the Open Serve observation - seems like another instance of SOE capture, although in this case at least the contractor is delivering.

Light box?

Better hope the monkeys dont damage the line between the 16 December and 16 January...Open serve are on annual shutdown...or as in my case...lucky i have step ladders...a punch down tool...cable ties and a few other network tools and testers...they also normally leave the exchange in front of my house open ...and there is no bill for the time the line is down

Now i just need to figue out how to fix the water pipes...no water in our area since this morning.

[Leesajohnson]

Fiber optic installation is good for high-speed internet connectivity. A technical person will guide about the Fiber optic installation process.

[rawoke]

Fibre 10mpbs is plenty ! NetFlix for HD streaming requires 5mbps.. Just stay away from Afrihost... I hear now good stories there ! (Including personal experience)

[AndyD]

I still run 4 meg copper ADSL and I have no problems streaming netflix etc.

[ians]

The ques are getting shorter at the telkom stores...no longer "we are experiencing high call volumes" ...they are moving over to fibre and offering free wireless phones...could it be a desperate attempt to try win back customers who are moving to other companies faster than they realise what is happening.

News article Telkom subscriber declines...the writing has been on the wall since the first lot of trenching for the new fibre network started...i dont think Telkom go slice of the cake this time.

Anyone else getting smart with the shared wireless internet... considering you can get speeds of over 100Mbps using wireless technology...sharing your 4 or 10 Mbps with your mates like most people are doing with their DSTV 5 users option...i person installs an uncapped *FUP free service and simply hooks up wireless transmitter on the roof and a receiver on the mates roof.

IT is a no brainer for neighborhood watch groups which have cameras around the hood and want patrollers to have access to the cameras while on patrol or to transmit back to a control room...the bigger the more.

This crap of having to pay for a fixed line you the household to share ...sounds great until you leave home...then you back to buying data...start adding up all the bills every month...suckers are paying.

[pedruid]

Ian
I am with cool ideas on Vumatel at home. And it just works. We watch streaming TV all the time or have google music going. At work we got Iconnect with high speed and capped package, this bought out by Cellc and so far so good. I love getting the big 100MB file now, it is just so quick.

What do you use for your landline?

[IanF]

What do you use for your landline?

At work we still have a landline, at home we just use cell phones.

[pedruid]

At work we still have a landline, at home we just use cell phones.

Thanks, my cousin in Uk does the same.