What happens when you hit the cap on your ADSL account or your ISP’s submarine cable is broken? Here is a backup ADSL access plan to carry you over to the next month or add redundancy to get you up and running with another ISP.
Here I suggest a simple and cost effective solution to carry you over to the next month and your next dose of bandwidth.
Let’s presume you have reached your transfer limit and have been cut-off or that your ISP is down with another Seacom cable break. What you need now is a way to stay online without adding excessively to your monthly bill.
Free
- Afrihost – offers an account with 1GB/month free forever
- FNB – open an account with FNB and you could get 1-5GB/month
Prepaid
- Nexus Prepaid – R19/GB (no expiry), I’ve never tried this ISP
- Afrihost Prepaid – R24/GB (no expiry)
- Axxess Vouchers – R35/GB (3yr expiry), available from Engen, Spar, Pick’nPay, Checkers, Shoprite
- G-Connect for around 4.9c/MB (ADSL access) or R49/GB of un-shaped traffic. Pre-paid and lasting for 12 months it gives you the ability to get internet access via ADSL, 3G or Hotspot, rates vary for connection methods – I can only see this option ‘Top-Up’ when logged in to my account
- WebAfrica Shaped PrePaid, shaped account is R69/GB (no expiry) [If you sign-up, please use DAY02 when WebAfrica asks you for an affiliate ID.]
- FNB from 6.9c/MB or R69/GB of un-shaped traffic.
Setting Up
PPPoE Dialup Setup
Windows XP
- Click Start, click Control Panel, and then double-click Network and Internet Connections.
- Click Network Connections, and then click Create a new connection in the Network Tasks pane.
- After the Network Connection Wizard starts, click Next.
- Click Connect to the Internet, and then click Next.
- Click Set up my connection manually, and then click Next.
- Click either Connect using a broadband connection that requires a user name and password or Connect using a broadband connection that is always on.
- Type the Internet service provider (ISP) name that your ISP provided, and then click Next.
- Type the user name that the ISP provided.
- Type the password that the ISP provided.
- Type the password one more time to confirm it, and then click Next.
- Click Add a shortcut to this connection to my desktop.
- Click Finish to complete the wizard.
Windows 7
http://support.widomaker.com/pppoe7.shtml
http://www.home-network-help.com/pppoe-dialer-setup.html
or Router Setup
You need to change the Username & Password on your ADSL modem to change who bills you for your access.
Primary Account: your current ISP account
Top-up Account: Pre-paid account
If you have a Hub/ADSL modem you can usually access your hub by typing
192.168.1.1, 10.0.0.2 or similar [look under your router for details] into your browser of preference, if this doesn’t work you will have to check your product manual.
The default access details for most hubs are
username: admin
password: admin
Look under WAN settings, you should see PPPoE/PPPoA and underneath this
Username & Password.
Take down your current settings and make sure you know your password,
this will ensure that you can reset your details to your Primary Account
at the beginning of the next month.
Now, put in your Top-up Account details.
TIP: I setup my password details the same for my WebAfrica account as my
Telkom account so that all I am changing is the username.
Glossary
With Shaped ADSL your download and upload speeds are fixed whereas Unshaped ADSL allows to utilize you full line speed for upload or download. Unshaped ADSL is best suited for online gaming, online trading and similar activities.
Inspired by – my own need to keep my internet connection, up permanently and fee’s down and Peter Abrahams for getting me to type it up.