I managed to get my hands on what is probably the most expensive DSL connection in South Africa, coming in at R5000 per month for the ISP portion alone. Some might have already guessed but I am talking about Internet Solutions 1mbit Fibre DSL package., coming in at R5000 per month for the ISP portion alone. Some might have already guessed but I am talking about Internet Solutions 1mbit Fibre DSL package.
Right, so what we have is an uncapped, unshapped and the some degree guaranteed 1mbit link. This is set apart from other “uncapped” solutions at the backend, instead of running bandwidth via sat or overloading existing links you are placed on a fibre link to the rest of the world. The last mile however is still copper.
I will reserve my comments on the service to the end of this page, first lets have a look at the speed tests and latency.
As always lets start with the local telkom speed test (although it always seems a bit inflated) Performance is as expected and there are no real surprises.
Looking at local latency reveals nothing out the ordinary for wired solutions, however on a side note when pinging telkom owned addresses latency is erratic proving theories that there are some peering issues between IS and the monopoly.
International speed tests were interesting, although not 1mbit they were atleast constant and in all fairness there are too many hops along the way to blame IS (not that the speed is unacceptable)
International latency is fair and should be suitable for most real time applications.
Multithreaded downloads reach advertised speeds for the most part.
In all fairness to IS the speeds are what is promised and I cannot fault them in any way. Their service desk is also very efficient and although I only had a single query with them it was resolved within minutes and they do bother returning calls unlike most SA broadband providers.
Uptime is great, been running the service for around 1 month now without a single hiccup. Previously with DSL over sat some downtime was experienced and often the service slowed down to a crawl.
The below graph shows 14 days of traffic over the link to give everyone a better idea of the average performance (bear in mind that this is browsing only)
So what are the pros and cons of the service?
Pros:
1) Uncapped & Unshapped
2) Reliable
3) Great service desk
4) Far cheaper than Diginet based solutions
Cons:
1) Cost, its far from affordable for end users
2) IS retains ownership of the router.
3) Telkom is still in the loop for the last mile
4) Only 1mbit
In conclusion; this is what a DSL experience should be like, at a 10th of the price.