Our SME clients often ask us for a recommendation for an uncapped ADSL provider in South Africa. Ordinarily our recommendation is based on our personal experience with service providers, but as we have not dealt with all the service providers, we decided to investigate which of the uncapped solutions for SMEs in South Africa was best, in our experience.
Naturally, the possible criteria are endless. The criteria we decided to test are:
- Customer service and response times
- Ping and latency
- Download speed
- Upload speed
- Packet loss
- Jitter
So this is how we did it.
We setup a blank Windows 7 machine, connected it directly to an ADSL router and upgraded the router to the lastest firmware. We then used Google Chrome, Flashget, and many other tools to do the tests.
We did the tests during office hours and after hours; and then got an average of the two.
Customer Service and Response Times
The companies we invited to participate in our review were:
- Afrihost
- Axxess
- DigiChilli
- GamCo
- @lantic
- Mweb
- OpenWeb
- Screamer
- Webafrica
We utilised the email addresses we found on the ISP’s website, emailed them and then waited for their response. In some instances the support staff came back to us and, in other instances, they escalated the request and the marketing manager/director responded to our request.
We emailed our requests on the 18th February 2011 and started testing on the 26th February 2011; which gave them six working days to respond to our request.
These are the responses we received, or did not receive as the case may be:
Afrihost
The support staff, escalated the request and we got our test account in 4 days.
Axxess
Support staff asked me to email the marketing director, who has never come back to us.
DigiChilli
They responded five days after our initial email saying that they would like to give us a test account, but nothing ever materialised. As a result, we were unable to include them in our test.
GamCo
They responded in about 3 hours with our test account.
@lantic
Their support staff called to say they do not do test accounts. We sent another email to their support staff requesting an email address for their marketing department, but at the time of writing we had not received a response to that request. As a result, we were unable to include them in our test.
Mweb
We received a response to our request after three days and were told to contact another person/email address, but our email to that email address and the successive email addresses provided, bounced back. At the time of testing we had still not received a response. However, as Mweb advertises extensively, it is one of the top of mind companies. As a result of this we took the executive decision to include them in our testing using one of our existing accounts with them. We could not do this with some of the other non-responsive companies because we do not have existing accounts with them. However, this was not to give Mweb an unfair advantage, but rather to be as inclusive as possible so that we could inform you to the best of our ability.
OpenWeb
Came back within 3 hours and gave us a test account.
Screamer
They responded to say that they no longer offer uncapped ADSL. As a result, we were unable to include them in our test.
Webafrica
Their staff were friendly and said that they would be introducing uncapped ADSL in the next couple of weeks. We will follow up with them, but for this investigation we were unable to include them in our test.
Winner OpenWeb and GamCo
Speedtest.net
If you are not familiar with speedtest.net, do yourselves a favour and head on over. They will test your internet speed by finding the closest server to you and then check the ping speed, upload and download speed.
So here are the results.
Ping (Latency) – Lower is better.
The time it takes in milliseconds for a small piece of data to be sent from your computer to the Internet and back.
GamCo – 18ms Office Hours – 18ms After Hours = Average 18ms
Mweb – 19ms Office Hours – 19ms After Hours = Average 19ms
Afrihost – 20ms Office Hours – 21ms After Hours = Average 21ms
Openweb – 23ms Office Hours – 21ms After Hours = Average 22ms
Winner GamCo
Download Speed – Higher is better.
The speed at which data is sent from the Internet to your computer.
Afrihost – 2.62Mbps Office Hours - 2.70Mbps After Hours = Average 2.66Mbps
GamCo – 2.66Mbps Office Hours - 2.63Mbps After Hours = Average 2.65Mbps
OpenWeb – 2.64Mbps Office Hours - 2.62Mbps After Hours = Average 2.63Mbps
Mweb – 2.62Mbps Office Hours – 2.61Mbps After Hours = Average 2.62Mbps
Winner Afrihost
Upload Speed – Higher is better.
The speed at which data is sent from your computer to the Internet.
OpenWeb – 0.43Mbps Office Hours – 0.43Mbps After Hours = Average 0.43Mbps
GamCo – 0.43Mbps Office Hours – 0.43Mbps After Hours = Average 0.43Mbps
Mweb – 0.42Mbps Office Hours – 0.43Mbps After Hours = Average 0.43Mbps
Afrihost – 0.43Mbps Office Hours – 0.41Mbps After Hours = Average 0.42Mbps
Winner OpenWeb and GamCo
Pingtest.net
Use Pingtest.net to determine the quality of your broadband Internet connection. Streaming media, voice, video communications, and online gaming require more than just raw speed. 
So here are the results.
Packet Loss – Anything above 0% is Bad
Much as it sounds, if you have anything less than complete success in transmitting and receiving “packets” of data then you are experiencing this problem with your Internet connection. It can mean much slower download and upload speeds, poor quality VoIP audio, pauses with streaming media and what seems like time warping in games — your connection may even come to a total standstill! Packet loss is a metric where anything greater than 0% should cause concern.
Mweb – 0%
Afrihost – 0%
Gamco – 0%
OpenWeb – 0%
No Losers
Ping – Lower is better.
This measurement tells how long it takes a “packet” of data to travel from your computer to a server on the Internet and back. Whenever you experience delayed responses in Internet applications – this would be due to a higher than desired ping. Similar to packet loss, lower is better when it comes to ping. A result below 100 ms should be expected from any decent broadband connection.
OpenWeb – 38ms Office Hours – 28 After Hours = Average 33ms
Afrihost – 41ms Office Hours – 36ms After Hours = Average 39ms
GamCo – 38ms Office Hours – 41ms After Hours = Average 40ms
Mweb – 38ms Office Hours – 41ms After Hours = Average 40ms
Winner OpenWeb
Jitter – Lower is better.
Once you understand ping, jitter should also make sense. Jitter is merely the variance in measuring successive ping tests. Zero jitter means the results were exactly the same every time, and anything above zero is the amount by which they varied. Like the other quality measurements, a lower jitter value is better. And while some jitter should be expected over the Internet, having it be a small fraction of the ping result is ideal. After hours and Office achieved the same results for all the providers.
GamCo – 2ms
Mweb – 3ms
Afrihost – 3ms
OpenWeb – 5ms
Winner GamCo
speedtest-rba.isdsl.net
Now to test the speed according to Internet Solutions. If you go to http://speedtest-rba.isdsl.net/ you will quickly be able to see whether or not your speed is up to snuff.
And here are the results.
Download Speeds – Higher are better.
GamCo – 329 Kbytes/s Office Hours – 339 Kbytes/s After Hours = Average 334 Kbytes/s
Afrihost – 330 Kbytes/s Office Hours – 323 Kbytes/s After Hours = Average 327 Kbytes/s
OpenWeb – 323 Kbytes/s Office Hours – 279 Kbytes/s After Hours = Average 301 Kbytes/s
Mweb – 322 Kbytes/s Office Hours – 273 Kbytes/s After Hours = Average 298 Kbytes/s
Winner GamCo
Real World Speed test – Higher is better.
All of these tests are fine. But what about actually downloading from a real site? We chose to download 5 different files from download.com and then compare the download speeds. This was spread out over a entire day to get the most accurate speeds. Also the speeds might change due to the traffic on the site. Each time a download was done, that is all that was happening on the computer, each ISP had 5 different files downloaded as not to use cache. And each file was downloaded from the same mirror.
Here are the results.
GamCo – 328 Kbytes/s Office Hours – 340 Kbytes/s After Hours = Average 334 Kbytes/s
Afrihost – 306 Kbytes/s Office Hours – 280 Kbytes/s After Hours = Average 293 Kbytes/s
Mweb – 285 Kbytes/s Office Hours – 291 Kbytes/s After Hours = Average 288 Kbytes/s
OpenWeb – 272 Kbytes/s Office Hours – 250 Kbytes/s After Hours = Average 261 Kbytes/s
Winner GamCo
BitTorrent – Higher is better.
BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file sharing protocol used for distributing large amounts of data. BitTorrent is one of the most common protocols for transferring large files, and it has been estimated that it accounted for roughly 27% to 55% of all Internet traffic (depending on geographical location) as of February 2009.
We were looking at this and deciding whether or not to test BitTorrent. But in the end the decision was to do it as this is what some of you are downloading. Do not just download BitTorrents as the company that you are dealing with might shape or cut off your account completely. If you have any questions, please speak to your company directly or read their terms and conditions.
The way we tested this was to download a 20mb file on the machine, reimage the machine and then redownload the file. We chose a file that had 4437 seeds and 307 leechs. This way we were not depending on someone else’s slow connection.
Here are the results.
GamCo – 331 Kbytes/s Office Hours – 353 Kbytes/s After Hours = Average 342 Kbytes/s
OpenWeb – 272 Kbytes/s Office Hours – 250 Kbytes/s After Hours = Average 261 Kbytes/s
Afrihost – 303 Kbytes/s Office Hours – 194 Kbytes/s After Hours = Average 249 Kbytes/s
Mweb – 19 Kbytes/s Office Hours – 93 Kbytes/s After Hours = Average 56 Kbytes/s
Winner GamCo
Prices
Afrihost – R497
GamCo – R499
Mweb – R539
OpenWeb – R738
Winner Afrihost
All of these exclude line rental and are valid at the time of writing.
Overall Winner
Well I think that without a doubt, I would say that the winner of this test is GamCo. Their prices are great, their speeds are amazing and their support people are phenomenal.
What do you think?
These tests were done in a very controlled environment. What we need from you now, is below in comments to tell us what your tests are. Who is your host? What have been your experiences with your host? Is the customer services good, bad or downright pathetic? What are you paying? What is the speed that you get with your host.
Afrihost
GamCo
Mweb
OpenWeb
The Updates about Mweb.
Update 8 April 2011 : This should be the last update. I cancelled my account with Mweb on the 8th March 2011 and they responded on the 9th March 2011, saying that they need a calendar months notice, fine. Then I emailed them on the 4th April 2011 to double check that the cancellation is still on track. They responded on the 8th March 2011 and said yes. I am glad that this is coming to an end. Thanks to all the support and emails from people that have also had problems with Mweb.
Update 4 Mar 2011 : Based on this review and our experience with the various service providers, we have decided to cancel our Mweb Account and move to GamCo. I have emailed Mweb, based on my previous experience with them, I am NOT expecting this to be quick and painless. I will keep you updated.
