Want to know which service provider to use for your uncapped ADSL? Tired of your current “UNCAPPED” which is 1. capped, 2. throttled and 3. bound in legal jargon?
To make it clear, in SA there is no such thing as Uncapped, you will get a generous lice of marketing with each “Uncapped” account with some there is a little less bullshit.
I have used a couple of South Africa’s bigger uncapped ADSL suppliers for my bandwidth and of them I have to recommend MWEB’s Uncapped ADSL, I’m was on a 384K line and it used to cost me R219 per month for bandwidth only. I have been with them since 1st March 2011.
I’m now upgraded for Free to a 1MB line thanks to Telskum and my bandwidth is also 1MB at R199 monthly.
Pre 1MB experience [I have experienced no slow-down whatsoever, no matter how much I download and I download over 50GB a month, which is a lot for a 384K line.]
I have previously used Axxess from November 2010 until end Feb 2011 with a peak of 45GB and plenty of times when I was throttled so bad I could hardly use the line.
Prior to Axxess I used Afrihost and had similar minor issues as with Axxess. Unfortunately I never captured my account usage.
I have a friend who on their 4MB uncapped ADSL line pulls between 800-900GB a month on his MWEB account. That’s a new 1TB drive every month.
Since I wrote this article, my mate was banned from MWEB. Apparently by following MWEB’s sales pitch and “Downloading as much as he liked” he was using too much bandwidth on his “Uncapped” account.
[I’m keen to pass this on to the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) for comment.]
Before MWEB or anyone else squeals that I’m not covering the whole story. MWEB do have an “Acceptable Use Policy” (AUP) that states
We reserve the right to establish policies, rules and limitations, from time to time, concerning the use of any service. You must comply with any bandwidth, data storage and other limitations we may impose, in our reasonable discretion. Failure to comply with these rules will result in your service being restricted, suspended or terminated, in our reasonable discretion.
Huh! how can the AUP be in conflict with the agreed as advertised purchase? How come these agreements are always so one-sided.
| Month | Data Sent (MB) | Data Received (MB) | Total (MB) |
| May, 2013 | 27958.16 | 24699.20 | 52657.36 |
| April, 2013 | 42609.39 | 108988.49 | 151597.88 |
| March, 2013 | 37279.46 | 121181.36 | 158460.82 |
| February, 2013 | 39203.24 | 99820.61 | 139023.86 |
| January, 2013 | 30300.97 | 80470.81 | 110771.78 |
| December, 2012 | 12396.39 | 81318.71 | 93715.10 |
| November, 2012 | 6436.84 | 47242.72 | 53679.56 |
| October, 2012 | 9223.59 | 38665.28 | 47888.87 |
| September, 2012 | 3284.80 | 26985.58 | 30270.37 |
| August, 2012 | 2932.30 | 41151.93 | 44084.22 |
| July, 2012 | 2841.23 | 31240.43 | 34081.66 |
| June, 2012 | 3606.25 | 32082.45 | 35688.70 |
| May, 2012 | 5482.21 | 14147.82 | 19630.03 |
| April, 2012 | 2458.03 | 31032.27 | 33490.31 |
| March, 2012 | 3124.05 | 43975.03 | 47099.08 |
| February, 2012 | 4752.22 | 22698.42 | 27450.64 |
| January, 2012 | 2142.16 | 28763.06 | 30905.22 |
| December, 2011 | 3136.77 | 44946.06 | 48082.83 |
| November, 2011 | 6263.69 | 22974.23 | 29237.92 |
| October, 2011 | 2465.14 | 35026.77 | 37491.91 |
| September, 2011 | 2499.90 | 52686.39 | 55186.29 |
| August, 2011 | 4231.31 | 41429.83 | 45661.14 |
| July, 2011 | 2017.37 | 35619.63 | 37637.00 |
| June, 2011 | 2936.82 | 61433.82 | 64370.64 |
| May, 2011 | 4508.72 | 58069.16 | 62577.87 |
| April, 2011 | 3257.49 | 55522.80 | 58780.29 |
| March, 2011 | 4137.66 | 49436.80 | 53574.46 |
Axxess used to be a little cheaper at R199 per month with the option of 2 concurrent users.
Websites
- http://www.mweb.co.za/ – 087 700 0777 – technic@mweb.co.za
- http://www.afrihost.com/
- http://axxess.co.za/
By the way I thought it was fraud to not sell/supply what you advertise?! Am I misunderstanding the meaning of the word Uncapped? Why is it that so many Uncapped accounts are capped/throttled and no-one is so much as slapped on the wrists.
Have been having issues with Axxess in the last 2 months or so … thanks for the tip about MWEB’s uncapped. Do you have to enter into a contract with them or is it on a month-to-month basis like Axxess?
Hi Michelle, fancy that, I wrote that post this afternoon. No contract, on month to month basis. Please let me know how you get on with using them, I’ve been completely happy with all aspects of the service thus far. Cheers, Grant
Okay enough of this shit! “Abuse” of one’s connection is an ARTIFICIAL term invented by South African ISP’s to shift blame away from the abysmal services they offer (specifically the concept of shaped and unshaped services). I have lived and worked in several places around the world and have used fantastic broadband internet that was much faster than most of what SA ISP’s can offer, at lower prices, and have met many people from many different countries and guess what? NONE of them have ever heard of the term “shaped” or “unshaped” or “abuse” regarding internet services. They also haven’t heard of a condition whereby one has to by slivers of (overpriced) internet time (essentially the “capped” and “uncapped” concepts SA uses), they have all always been familiar with “always-on”, “uncapped” internet.
That illustrates how far behind SA has been ( and still is) in the ISP industry. There is no excuse: if SA really wants to be a player on the international scene it needs to have an internet service that matches those available in so-called 1st-world countries.
Month to month for uncapped at MWEB? But when I went through the online signup process, towards the end they require debit order to be signed? What did I miss?
Are you still happy with MWEB uncapped?
Hi Geno, I’m happy with MWEB, after trying most of the other ISP’s and crappy “broadband” SA has to offer. It is a monthly debit order, maybe you can do EFT. You may have to contact them to find out more.
Thanks, Jade! Love your name by the way. I have to agree, South Africa has archaic control issues. It seems like we have apartheid policies over bandwidth or should I say bandnarrowing. It seems the powers that be keep us paying more for way less than we would get elsewhere. Screw regulation, open things up and let committed, interested, honest individuals drive the market – instead of the fat cats. We have a unique African style “connection” policy.
So basically we screwed? What then can we do to put pressure on them? And its got to be remember that maybe its not them but telkom that places these restrictions. In other countries there is competition. Hence the offers they have. Here we have none.
Unfortunately the “them” in this case is under the protection of the
mafiagovernment. The create and bend/break the rules as and when they wish. We need to look to transparency and open systems that no individual or organisation has control of. Telskum are trying to ensure their longevity and in so doing screwing over the South African people. This is part of the go slow on bandwidth roleout, when we have plenty bandwidth, calls will be over data not by time and all the telecommunications scum will have to find some work for a living. I suggest seeing where you do the same thing in your life, that is – trying to maintain control and position. Kinda reminds me of the teaching the man to fish versus feeding him. Telkom control the feeding. All we can do is go back and ask “can I have some more sir”.I too have been having issues with Axxess over the last few months. In the beginning I was able to pull down about 70% of the totals listed in the article, however things seemed to take a dive about 3 months ago for no apparent reason. I at first blamed Telkom, and leveled all my frustration a tthem. I rearly get more than 275kbps on a 4 meg line – after hours!!
I understand the star system that Axxess implements based on usage has obviously kicked into effect (this I found out later on after a lot of question asking, and not taking no for an answer from the people at Axxess HQ Command Central).
I too am questioning the legitimacy of offering an ‘uncapped’ product and them essentially throttling (or as I like to think of it as ‘transparent capping’) it after a few months. I think that providers need to rethink their sales vocabulary and stop deceiving the public. If a service provider is not able to service 1000 (or whatever number you like) clients at an uncapped full line speed, then they should not offer the service as such (it is a simple calculation : line speed x seconds in the day x days in the month = X measured in volume (Megs/Terabytes, etc) . . . .
Here is hoping that we (the consumers) stand together on this point. Just tell me upfront what the limitations are . . . then I can make an informed decision!!!.
The theoretical max would be about 1265 GB (1024 MB per GB) although you would not actually be capable of transmitting that amount of data, taking into account TCP/IP overhead. (example using a 30 day month, no shaping, no prioritization, and no throttling)
Calc: (approximate) 4Mbps x 60 (seconds) x 60 (minutes) x 24 (hours) x 30 (days) = 10,368,000 Mbits or 1,296,000 MB’s . . . therefore . . . 1,296,000 / 1024 = ±1265 Gigs = ±1.2 Tb . . . . so lets call it 1Tb max per month on a 4 meg line.
I Have yet to even come close to 1/3 to 1/2 of that using any of the providers in the RSA 🙁
Thank-you for an excellent article and comments everyone! Whilst it does open my eyes to the misfortunes of our country (ie, throttling, ‘transparent capping’ as GeoManiac put it — very good description!) it does at least confirm my suspicions that Axxess and Afrihost are not worth trying out, and MWEB is the way to go.
I am currently on a ‘Telskum’ (also so true!) 1MB line for 10GB Blended Cap a month, and am getting very frustrated with the limitations of being capped so soon, or having to ration out my cap over the course of the month. Did some research and for the data only, it would only be R50 more to get what we South Africans can have “as Uncapped-ish as possible” through MWEB’s 1Mbps line on Data Only (R199 per month) as opposed to my current charge for R149 per month on Telkom’s AllAccess 10 GB Standard. Definitely worth the difference. For just R50 more I too shall be testing just how much one can really download on Uncapped ADSL. 😉
After a little thinking on my part I used Excel to double-check some options and realised I can pay just R25 more.
Further Maths for anyone wanting to compare prices between the two:
Telkom AllAccess 10 GB Standard
Telkom Data Cost Telkom ADSL Line Rental Telkom Line Rental Current Total Cost
R 149.00 R 165.00 R 148.37 R 462.37
MWEB 1 Mbps Uncapped ADSL Data Only*
MWEB Data Cost Telkom ADSL Line Rental Telkom Line Rental Perceived Total Cost
R 199.00 R 165.00 R 148.37 R 512.37 (R50 more only)
MWEB 1 Mbps Uncapped ADSL Data + Line*
MWEB Data Cost MWEB ADSL Line Rental Telkom Line Rental Future Total Cost
Combined R 339.00 R 148.37 R 487.37 (R25 more only)
R199.00 Data Cost R140.00 ADSL Line
Anyone wondering where I got these amounts from:
Telkom: http://www.do.co.za/broadband/offerings/telkom-internet-plans/capped/all-access-10gb-standard/
MWEB: http://www.mweb.co.za/productspricing/2/Home/adsl3g/UncappedAdsl.aspx
Absolutely brilliantly worded and more true than I have heard in a long time. It is about time someone gave these greedy vultures some good medicine. Yeh, I was with 8ta, CellC, Vodacom and MTN. I tried them all but never on ADSL, only wcdma/hsdpa/3g etc etc. And, yes, those pesky contracts are the same wherever you go, the customer always gets bullshitted and then kicked in the rear. Anyways, now I just use my DSTV and ride the internet with a few very illegal hacks. The way I figure it, if they can catch me, well then they can try prove it. And since our Judicial system is the same as our ISP’s service ethics, I doubt the case will even reach court before I am 90 years old. Yeh, it was not that difficult to do, however, covering ones tracks has to be routine and this can get rather irritating. I am wanting to post my method/’hack’ so that other South Africans being milked by all this misleading Internet Jargon and false promises, can get one over on these fat cats chilling in their new penthouses. I am only trying to find a way to get the hack to many people without the big dogs catching on and blocking the exploit.
Oh well, one day I will find a way. Strange thing though, this technology and accesabillity our ISP’S are charging us a fortune for, should actually be free, I mean completely free, we only need pay for the device. The talk of our infrastructure slowing down or not supporting that many downloads is absolute hogwash and the technology has been around for many, many, many years. But instead, we, the sheep, are fed this hogwash and brainwashed with ISP jargon and concepts that are impregnated within our minds through various means. So, we do what sheep do, we follow, thinking ‘they’ know what is best for us, and, ‘they’ know the correct pricing. Nonsense, we are being charged so much for something that is essentially free like the air we breathe. And, 3/4 of our nation is below the poverty line, disgusting and totally unacceptable. I do not care how many lawyers they have, how many Aston Martins they have in their driveways, nor do I care for their cleverly worded contracts, basically undercutting the law of Constitution. I will not stand for this and it is about time, we as South Africans stopped stabbing each other in the back to get ahead and make more money, and stood together as one, united against these pigs. This is the only way we can overcome greed and corruption. Heck, imagine we all staged a protest and stopped paying our taxes, all of us together, I reckon we would quickly see reform when mr Jack cannot fly to Paris and buy his 300kg wife a diamond necklace. Anyways, enough from me, one day we shall surely be free.
“If the ANC does to you what the Apartheid government did to you, Then you must do to the ANC what you did to Apartheid.” Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela.
Well, if you gonna get throttled nothing is going to help me cause I average 200 – 400 gigs a month. 0_o
Hi Andrew, looks like Afrihost is your best bet. I see someone managed 883GB in a month on a 4MB line.
I was fired as a customer from MWeb as well. The “abuse” department mailed me warnings to an address (the MWeb address you have to create for access) which I do not use for email. Then they proceeded to cut me off on a Friday afternoon, nice for the weekend.
After some phone calls my only option was to beg for reconnection or upgrade to a business package at excessive costs. Some research later, I merely asked for a refund of my prepaid amounts and signed up with Afrihost.
Afrihost was a smooth process, very friendly helpdesk and they even publish their top users (in a good way). Furthermore moving to Afrihost gave me a saving of of R150 for a 4mb uncapped. Speeds have been maintained and I am very happy.
Fired for doing just what their marketing claimed you could do …
I’m tired of the lies, deception and dual standards. They can happily talk everywhere about uncapped and then kick you for testing their marketing. And this Acceptable Use bullshit, uncapped BUT. Here, buy this car it’s shiny, can do 160km downhill, Sold, it’s yours, now you can’t drive it on the first Monday of the month or the last Thursday and it may randomly go slow on you, but it’s your’s …
Sadly in this country the ONLY way to actually have truly uncapped is by paying some ridiculous amount for a business uncapped / unshaped or a platinum type account that will most of the time set you back 1500-2000 bucks. Otherwise your line will be useless in the day , i recently left mweb since my skype would constantly time out trying to connect… throttled to the point where speedtest.net couldn’t even load to do a speedtest lol. Stay very far away from mweb if you are going to make use of the “uncapped” part , go with a business type of account of one of the other ISP’s , and if you were thinking of the “premium mweb adsl” just don’t , don’t go there. And ALWAYS make sure you mail or phone them to ask the real truth about their fair usepolicy.
As someone who was living in Ireland for a while with a 16mbit/s connection, I will offer an actual account of my experience with an overseas ISP. The effective download speeds I typically experienced was about 1.5 mbyte/s.
At one point, they started sending out an email which basically said that I was using too much in accordance with their acceptable use policy. So, I looked up their AUP and it was pretty much like MWEBs with little more than words with subjective definitions. Now, the problem is that I look at that and think: “Okay, so how much is too much?”
I wrote this back to them and stated that in my opinion, I was not using too much, so they would really have to be more specific about what they consider to be “too much”. I also complained to the Irish Advertising Authority about their website advertising being misleading.
They must have eventually understood the errors in their ways because a couple of months later they actually clarified on what they considered to be too much. The amount was 130GB with an extra 50GB costing something like 10EURO extra per month. I also got a letter back at some point from the Irish Advertising people who had duly looked into the matter.
Now, my opinion on MWEB’s case is that it is unacceptable that they claim it’s unlimited, when it is in fact limited, also, their AUP is even more unacceptable in that it only uses subjective terms like “reasonable” in regards to limits. What they need to do is be transparent about the limits on their service and then people can make an informed decision about whether or not they want to pay for the service.
As for your friends case, if he honestly thinks it’s fair to use his line that much and still pay the same amount as a person who only uses a 100th of that, then he is both selfish and delusional. I live in a complex and don’t pay for my individual water because it’s included in the levies. However, if I chose to arbitrarily leave my tap on all day long “because I can”, then what ultimately happens is that everyone in the complex has to have their levies increase to cover the cost of the water. Everyone else in the complex would be paying for my selfish disregard for the amount of water I use.
People need to be realistic about bandwidth limits on the internet, because it really is the same, if too many people try to max out their line all the time, then more money has to be spent by MWEB on network infrastructure which translates to increases in the rates for all their customers. However, I emphasize again that MWEB really needs to clarify on how much is too much so that people can decide if it’s worth the cost or otherwise plan their internet usage accordingly. So, I approve of MWEB cutting off your abusive friend, but I don’t approve of their doing so without having a transparent definition of their limits.
In regards to the quality of this blog posting, to be honest I find it very subjective about your highly limited experience and people should be sure to treat it as such, overall it was quite uninformative and felt like random ramblings on your part. I happened upon it while to trying to find out if anyone else had recently had download speed problems with using an IS ADSL account as I am only getting about 600kbit/s when I normally get about 2.75mbit/s.
Thanks for sharing your experience, as you say the post is subjective and limited but when you include other peoples experience and opinions it gains some perspective and validity. I disagree with your analogy of leaving the tap on, due to 1. fresh water being a limited resource, and bandwidth is not a thing as such, volumes are constantly increasing with demand 2. although we all share the same ‘system’, ISP’s are trying to add as many users as feasible for the bandwidth they have and count on low volume users outweighing the ‘fat cats’. 3. in this case the tap is designed to stay open – I agree that transparency on both sides would clear up misconceptions and abuse by either party. A possible option is too offer a free service with a very low cap, this would help get South African’s connected and give people an idea of how much data is used for e-mail, general browsing and services like youtube.
I consider my usage fair, although I’m probably on the heavy side when it comes to averages. In terms of my experience with MWEB, their service seems to be deteriorating, and I don’t find their call centre or customer service fast, efficient or friendly.
To move account I have to give them a months notice – huh, how come it takes 2 minutes to sign-up and a month to get off?
This has been an informative thread – Thanks. I find comfort in the fact that there are other people kicking up a fuss about Axxess. I’ve been with them for over 2 years and for my sins I pay for a ‘Uncapped’ 10Mps line and get about a 220kbs download speed in the evening. It’s insane. I download on average 8 Gigs a month.
Now that I have some time I’m going to sort out a transfer to either Screamer (seems overpriced though) or MWEB. Which brings me to my question – Grant are you still happy with MWEB? If so would you recommend capped or uncapped? I’m going to increase usage up to about 40Gigs a month mostly through streaming music from Spotify and such.
Hi Ryan, I’ve been looking into moving to Afrihost, they seem to be on the ball and actively improving all levels of service. For you I would recommend a capped account, it will be the cheapest option and give you unthrottled access. A 50GB package is R400 per month, then you have your Telkom & ADSL line costs. At the moment you get a free 50GB per month with that account. You could drop to a slower line to reduce costs too. Other option is to look at the cellular options, they are getting better and better and you don’t have multiple costs, just one fee and depending on location, speeds can be impressive.
Hi grant need your help we currently using telkom adsl 1mbps line but gets throttled when bandwith depletes our service provider is vitality which other service provider can you recommend for about 220 a month cause this is what we are paying at present for so called uncapped.
Hi Moe, that price is about standard for most of the ISP’s for a 1MB uncapped account. I’m leaning towards Afrihost then MWEB. Depending on your monthly bandwidth volume, uncapped accounts can sometimes work well. Yes, you are capped but they are often unthrottled accounts.
Just a quick question regarding the best of the best when it comes to 4mb uncapped. Which would you suggest at THIS (30 July 2013) moment… AFRIHOST….or TELKOM?
I haven’t looked at Telkom in a while but I’m loath to support them. My first choice right now is Afrihost.
A chocolate tea pot comes to mind when I think of Axxess – they’re useless.
I’ve spent a week trying to get connected but they can’t seem to do their basic tasks right never mind try deal with customers. They have more departments than the government and probably lack the it infrastructure in their own offices to communicate between their own teams.
For R700 a month, rather invest in a flock of pigeons to courier printed material between you and google HQ – they’d probably do a better job!!
AVOID!!
Hey guys, im interested in using Afrihost as an ISP and the 2mbps uncapped shaped dsl looks like a good choice, so heres my question.
Can you download as much as you like (unlimited data) on a fixed monthly payment of R297pm or do they charge if you exceed a certain cap then charge you per gig or throttle you?
Hey Ethan, no matter what ISP’s say you always sign an AUP (Acceptible Use Policy) agreement, so they can always revert to that and throttle your account. That said, it looks like that is least likely to happen on Afrihost’s network for a number of reason’s. They upped the capacity of their network by 60% a couple of months back, so that means more bandwidth spread across their users. They also advertise their heaviest users to boast about their service.
No one I know who’s using Afrihost is being throttled, although most of them are on business ADSL which is less likely to be throttled.
I’m switching because I’ve just received notice from MWEB, “Your usage is currently exceeding these parameters. From 1 September, if you continue to show excessive usage patterns, you will experience slower connection speeds (while we manage your bandwidth usage). As soon as your usage patterns stabilise your connection speeds will return to normal.”
Remember to that you can always take your business elsewhere if Afrihost loses the plot.
Hallo.
I am a Pensioner and signed a 1 year contract wit MWeb for 1 Mbps. uncapped ADSL.
I am surprised that some people are so happy with MWeb.
Telkom was much better and faster. Nearly 900 mbps and the Ping was 10 ms or 15 ms. There was nearly no difference if I listen at 10:00 or 17:00 to radio!
I left Telkom because the don´t know what they are doing. I was twice switched off because I was in “arrear “. I had to connect BEELD (Tot u diens) and now I have over R1 200,00 credit with Telkom.
I still have to use Telkom because I am forced to have another landline for the ADSL also I never phone out. I have Telkom pre-paid and this was also switched off also I paid already for 12 months and the pre-paid line has nothing to do with ADSL!
Can I call Telkom stupid?
I am listening to http://www.simfyafrica.com (Fourways, South Africa ) and took a R620,00 subscription for 12 months.
With Telkom I could, at least some times, listen to SIMFY AFRICA. With MWeb I am always interrupted! SIMFY AFRICA has written, on my behalf to MWeb. MWeb told SIMFY that I am on a uncapped shaped account and between 10:00 and 17:00 it shall be possible that I shall be interrupted.
I should get a unshaped account MWeb said. But I can not see that MWeb has a unshaped account.
I have also written to MWeb. No answer!
My ADSL line is also still with Telkom. Also I have written twice to MWeb.
No answer! No I pay R30,00 monthly more because I don’t get the R30,00 from Telkom anymore and also not from MWeb because I pay MWeb only for the Data R199,00 monthly.
My oldest son has also written, in English, to the Representative of MWeb. No answer.
It seems to me that MWeb does not answer e-mails written in Afrikaans, as Telkom does. I received, after many e-mails to Telkom, an e-mail: “Please write in English because we cannot understand Afrikaans”. I am surprised that the Boer/Afrikaner and Coloureds as well as German and Nederland’s Afrikaans speaking Immigrants are not boycotting Telkom and maybe MWeb as well!
My second language is Afrikaans and English is my third language. I am much better in Afrikaans as in English.
Zulu and Xhosa are the biggest languages in South Africa. The third language is Afrikaans and not English!!! English is the fifth language in South Africa. Check it on the Internet.
I am also listening to Internet radio stations. With Telkom I could do it, but with MWeb I am, between 10:00 and 17:00, always interrupted. May favourites are on the USA http://www.radiomaximus.com as well as on the German http://www.radio.de. All the stations are interrupted, except of South African stations like Boervolk radio. Jacaranda Afrikaans. Lekker FM etc.
But yesterday I could not even receive Boervolk Radio. Also on tuneIn and Shoutcast as well as vtuner and http://www.phonestar.de all the stations are interrupted.
Thanks to MWeb I cannot listen to Internet radio anymore and also not to SIMFY AFRICA.
Is there no Internet Service in South Africa with unshaped ADSL Internet?
Or shall it be better to get Wireless Internet without Telkom?
Been with MWEB for years now, but lately they are more a scam than an ISP.
My usage of less than 40Gb per month on an uncapped account got me throttled to a speed where THIS page took over 4 minutes to load.
Axxess Africa have me throttled\managed at 34 gigs usage on a public holiday on the 24th of the month on a 4096 “uncapped” winners!!!!!! Open Web here we come!!!
Thank you for this article.
I’ve had some real bad experiences with Afrihost throttling a 1Meg uncapped after about 15Gig downloaded in 2010 or 2011. Been with Mweb ever since and happily so. I did pull in good amounts too per month, most was 170GB or so. But now I want to cancel my Mweb account and open another (yes, I have my reasons) but it seems like Mweb do not like to like to give their new users the option of paying via credit card anymore? Perhaps that way they have more control? It sure is harder to cancel ones bank account than to cancel a credit card and get a new one in case Mweb starts up some dodgy billing.
Oh.. well.. looks like I will be giving Afrihost a try then instead. Based on your comments I’m optimistic that they have improved since my last encounter with them..
Interesting comments and article. I have been with mweb on an uncapped 4 mb line for a few years now. My usage for the last 12 months is as follows:
Month Data Sent (MB) Data Received (MB) Total (MB)
November, 2013 1830.12 12532.11 14362.23
October, 2013 1611.66 23041.52 24653.18
September, 2013 7979.04 44118.48 52097.52
August, 2013 4055.21 49454.36 53509.57
July, 2013 3555.99 31185.15 34741.14
June, 2013 7433.79 18879.80 26313.59
May, 2013 1020.95 22848.80 23869.76
April, 2013 2094.79 58497.35 60592.13
March, 2013 1327.12 33053.12 34380.24
February, 2013 1534.42 27872.20 29406.62
January, 2013 1432.16 25273.80 26705.96
December, 2012 2204.10 69151.03 71355.14
November, 2012 2916.41 57154.01 60070.42
TOTAL 38995.77 473061.72 512057.49
As you can see it fluctuates, but I have never been asked to curb my usage.
Download speeds vary depending time of day, how many devices in my home are online and so on. My only complaint is that other ISP’s have upgraded line speeds inline with Telkom’s line speed upgrades but not Mweb. So now it’s the same price from mweb for a 4 mb as it is for a 10mb line from most other isp’s.
Obviously one has to determine that the synchronization speed your modem gets matches the advertised max speed of your package
Hi,
yeah i just registered with axxess, in the first week i pulled down bout 165gig, now 2 weeks later so far only 175gigs and my line has just been throttled to may 150 kbs and i have an f*ing 10mb line, it says in big words 10mbps uncapped on their webpage, and what do you know they don’t mention being throttled at all, and recently i find out that apparently that the uncapped means 10mbps browsing speed, who the f*CK browses at 10mbps, i didn’t get the line to browse the internet at 10mbps i got it to download and i can barely do that and i’ve been with axxess for 3 weeks
curious as well bout the terms and conditions, there doesn’t seem to be anything in the terms and conditions of axxess that say we will be throttled after reaching a certain amount is there nothing people can do in order to get what we paying for?
The ISP’s in South Africa seems to panic about the new forced upgrades to line speeds
and seem to try and piss off their uncapped users to either dump the service or upgrade to a more expensive package to avoid taking a loss in their extortionate profit margins.
They do deserve to be forced by Telkom to give us better service , much like Saddam Hussein deserved to be ousted by George Bush and his armies.
Some observations with AXXESS.
I have just switched to Axxess 10mb uncapped, which is by far the cheapest at the moment @ R375 p.m. , although it will be revised (“or not” sic) in Jan 2014.
MWEB, Afrihost and Telkom are all shaped according to their websites with regard to uncapped accounts. Axxess website does not say anything …..but it is unshaped.
What bugs me is that they (Axxess) won’t/can’t tell you anything except that they will throttle you if you are higher than the average. Does this mean the average for your line speed or average out of all uncapped users? By definition this means that they are throttling half of their users! By definition also, the only way to get more bandwidth before being throttled, is to encourage other users to download more, which is sort of self defeating if the other users directly affect your download speeds …..but great for the ISP’s.
I have not been throttled with usage of 30gb in one week, we shall see. How does one even know what the average is, as it is not published. As far as I know, one just gets throttled, no warning beforehand.
Although throttling is only meant to be on Peer to Peer, HTTP download and NNTP traffic, I have read other users accounts where they have been throttled on everything.
I guess the only thing in a our favour is that the ISP’s are trying to win customers rather than p*** them off and hopefully in reality only target the top 20% rather than the stated 50%.
I might also add that I have been an Axxess customer for over 4 years now with capped and prepaid accounts and have always found their service very helpful, day and night. Having said that, I wouldn’t hesitate to switch if a better deal or service comes along.
Would be interested to hear other’s uncapped experiences.
I have just been told by the technical support team of MWeb that my uncapped, 2mbps account has been throttled for the foreseeable future. What they refuse to tell me is at what limit does accounts get throttled. Understandable I guess as the ‘uncapped’ agreement they enter into with their customers does imply ‘no limits on data usage’. Bit of a predicament for Mweb seeing that they are indeed limiting the use of data.
An agreement to provide an uncapped service at a particular speed should offer exactly what is promised. If a service provider is not able to supply a service without restrictions then they should be transparent about the terms and define the parameters to the consumer.
If you go into a restaurant and order a half chicken and then only get served a chicken leg you will be furious and demand the rest or withhold payment. The same principle should apply to Mweb and any other ISP.
Has anyone noticed that Axxess is running on MTN’s Business backbone???? whats up with that?
Afrihost own Axxess and they are on MTN’s backbone.
I’m on the 4 MB uncapped premium account with mweb and I was throttled after only downloading 160 GB. I have been throttled for about 3 months. So you can stay throttled on a 4 MB line while throttled down to a 1-2MB line. other than that I have been happy with the service that I have gotten from them. They just need to sort out this AUP BS 🙂 .
Hi Guys, I have just moved my service from MWEB to Telkom and oh boy, mistake. I upgraded from a 1 to a 2 meg line, using adsl mostly for live streaming TV, and then email and general internet browsing averaging between 130 – 180 Gigs pm. What service provider and package would be recommended currently costing R199 pm. Between approximately 16h00 and 22h00 it goes like 5 min TV and 4 min buffering taking take approximately 2 hrs to watch a 30 min episode, This is driving me up the walls.
I was hunting hosting companies… (sick to death of the problems with Hostcow !!) when I came across this site.
I really enjoyed every one’s comments, input, humour and experiences. To add my own, I now all of a sudden feel I’ve been screwed holy by cybersmart and Hostcow webhosting. Think I will go with Afrihost to combine the ADSL feature since I’m paying cybersmart for such plus additional fees to ASDL and then Tel Com. I never watch movies on line, just the occasional Utube 3-4 minute video. Emails, Facebook and ofcourse my emails from my website. All this is costing me at least R1000… grrrrrrrrrrrrrr…. see why I feel I have been abused by internet servers?
Afrihost has a business unshaped package that I’m going to try out. I have been using the normal 10mps uncapped package. Which is totally useless if you are shaped and throttled. The rest of the household enjoys near uninterrupted real time internet, but my downloading is shaped to 12% . I can almost feel the adrenalin creating free radicals in my skin from frustration…I logged a call to complain and the dude told me to rather use the business uncapped, which has no shaping. I’m gonna keep calm and try that tomorrow. Hope it works so I can DL to my hearts content..
Hi Claudio, please let us know your experiences. I’m on a 4MB Afrihost line with heavy throttling on any torrents. You can sometimes get around this by adding encryption to your torrent client, changing your torrent port or by using a VPN.
What an interesting and informative discussion this is. However only a few ISP’s have been mentioned; Afrihost, Telkom, Mweb, Cybersmart and Axxess… What about Webafrica?
Has anyone got any comments or an opinion on Webafrica for Home Uncapped Internet 2mbps or 4 mbps packages?
I would really appreciate any feedback. Thanks.
This post and comments were very helpful in explaining this BS agreement. My 2mbps line was recently throttled after I noticed that my download speed was reaching a max of 20Kbps instead of 200kbps (Unfortunately Telkom hasn’t upgraded our area so im stuck with this speed), anyway I called their lovely call centre 5 times and spoke to 4 idiots who didn’t know what I was talking about when I mentioned the word throttling. Eventually the last person I spoke to told me, after logging into the account, that I had reached the maximum data usage for a 2mbps uncapped user which was 200gigs and that I was abusing the “uncapped” package.
I have been sitting for a couple of days now to try and decide which ISP to join. Tried Afrihost, line speed no more that 30kps downloads. Tried MWEB 2 meg line – throttled on the 12 of June after downloading 70gigs. Was told I would be unthrottled by the second week in July. So I cancelled MWEB. Seriously??? Uncapped does not means a thing. So now I’m trying to find a new ISP. Buzybuy had a nice one but I never heard the name before. So maybe I should just try Telkom and see? Anybody have an ISP out there that actually is worth trying??? Please help!!
Hi Theresa, the ISP’s keep patting themselves on the back and they sometimes are decent, at least for a while, then they get cocky and complacent. I moved from MWEB because they sucked and now Afrihost is trying to match their suckiness. I’ve never heard of Buzybuy. How about Openweb???
Hi there read all most all comments one here very interesting, last year i got adsl, crapkom was my isp too good grief i sat nearly 5 months with no internet as such could not even open facebook uncapped my ass!!! So now recently i was with afrihost capped 2mb line and all went well until shitass mtn bought them and anything mtn touches i make like a tree and leaf… so anyways now signed up with web africa uncapped 4mb and uhm it’s garbage!!! Getting worse speed then i had with a 2mb line so i’m very pissed off and getting sick of this crap internet in this here great country that has been turned into a pisshole
To anybody that is thinking of changing to Afrihost, please dont.
I was with them for 3 years and from the start the service was good. However their service went from very good to very bad. I had a 4meg to 10meg line with a 100 gig,s capped package. I made the mistake of migrating my adsl line to them. Once they have your adsl line they have you by the balls. They manipulate your line , I landed up with a average line speed of 2500kbits/s and a download speed of 300KBytes/s and this on a good day. This after paying them for a 4/10meg line and capped package!?
I have sent them many screenshots of speed tests to prove how pathetic the line speed was but to no avail. They dont respond or if they do they supposedly recreate your port and the speed picks up for a day or two and then goes back to a snail pace.
I have requested that they migrate my line back to Telkom and I am thinking of giving Web Africa a try. However I will not migrate my line to any service provider, as it is a risky business doing that. I will keep my adsl line with Telkom even if it costs more. That way if you are unhappy with a particular service provider you can change very quickly without the headaches of migrating your line everytime.
Hi Harry
I have to agree, it seems like whichever ISP is on top is bound to drop the ball and become about as useless as the worst. Initially I was happy with Afrihost as they where competitive price wise and especially service wise. Now they are just about the most expensive and service has diminished dramatically.
It does seem like Webafrica is about the most consistent over the years.
Good luck and may the bandwidth be with you…
Hi Grant,
Thanks for the message, its appreciated.
I have now proved beyond any doubt that Afrihost throttle your line whether you are uncapped or capped. I changed to Webafrica and immediately my speed went back to normal. The only other problem is that I have to wait until the end of October 2014 for my adsl line to be back with Telkom, and I have a very sneaky suspicion that Afrihost are going mess with my line until then.
Hi, just came across this post and thought i would give my 2c. I am with Gamco on a 2mb line upgrading to a 4mb line now, they do throttling which sucks but they only throttle you during business hours during which most people don’t use their home service, however they throttle you on a basis of if you are in their top 20% of data users for the speed group then only throttling is applied, and they make it clear that is the way it works further then that there service is great and i have seen download speeds of just shy of 300kbps and use an average of +600GB of data per month without any hassle just shaping during business hours which is acceptable for me
I would like to add that the throttling is on a 10 day rolling window, and they are a bit more expensive then other providers
Hi there :
Its late and I have to sleep now, but I am very glad to have discovered this handshake page , I will also be following this sexy site from now on and contribute my experiences with isp changes to add to the average stats of isp experience .
see you all soon .
spykerhond
so glad there is no cecorships but true objecttive commenting
i have found very helpfull in making my next isp change .
keep up the real thing
good night and see you all soon
by the way telkom throttles you after 120gb /month on 2mbs uncapped to 384kbs. THE VILE BASTARDS
I heard it was 150GB
Erhm…. I pay for uncapped mainly due to the fact that I need to use more than 10tb a month if i could. I need to review videos, upload them, scrim etc etc… It’s not that the other person is using less and i’m being selfish for using more (which is as advertised what I’m paying for) it’s that they aren’t using what they paid for and really shouldn’t have the same line then…… Plus ZA is just miss macro-ing their money. Honestly have 0 faith in this country and I’m an optimist. There is hope but I couldn’t care less, this country honestly needs to not do what it’s doing. I honestly believe if half of our government played Starcraft their intelligence and use of money would inflate at the same rate inflation would deflate. Seriously should be sued though for that lack of information, especially when it said on the “cap management tool” site told me I should have been informed of the whole power use equals “abusive user” which leads to throttle. That I might add I did not get the memo to….