Cloud hosting seems to be the craze lately with just about all new Internet Startups starting their business with these virtual hosting servers, but in South Africa cloud hosting is a relatively new term with only a hand full of hosting companies offering it.

What are cloud servers you ask? Well to put it simple its exactly like a physical dedicated server, but where it differs is that it gets its resources like CPU power, RAM and HDD space form a pool of available hardware.

Why get yourself a cloud server? Cause you get all the privileges you would as when you get a dedicated server like choosing your operating system and deciding what software to install and the server’s configuration, but instead of paying large amounts of money for a physical machine with more resources you would need you can customise your cloud server with a minimum amount of resource and then as your site or service grows additional resources can be added on the fly without any downtime.

Another great thing about cloud hosting is the setup and server migration times, because there is no need for a technician to physically go out to the data center to set up your cloud server it means you could have your cloud hosting server up and running in a matter of minutes.

In South Africa cloud hosting is relatively new with RSAWEB being the only hosting company in South Africa to offer local cloud hosting up until now, but competition is heating up and two new players are now also offering cloud hosting servers with another few set to launch theirs during the next few months.

At the moment the only companies offering cloud hosting servers in South Africa are RSAWEB, Afrihost and Gamco, I have compared the different packages and this is how they stack up against each other:

As you can see even if you are just running a small website but would like to have more control over your server, Cloud Hosting will make it happen while not costing you an arm and a leg.

The South African ADSL market has seen significant change the last couple of days, but what is all this capped and uncapped ADSL all about and what should you get?

First MWEB stunned the local ADSL market with their introduction of really cheap uncapped Internet, and then just days later Afrihost followed suit by undercutting MWEB and introducing even cheaper uncapped ADSL. But what is the difference between this uncapped and capped ADSL and what should you use?

To put it simple uncapped ADSL allows for unlimited browsing, email, videos etc whereas capped ADSL only allows for a certain amount of data to be used. Typically uncapped ADSL will be used if you are a heavy downloader or like to watch YouTube allot or stream Internet radio whereas capped is ideal for more critical applications like browsing, Skype, gaming, remote desktop, VPN’s or Emails.

Uncapped ADSL makes use of high content ratios that allow ISP’s to give it to the users at cheaper costs, although capped ADSL also makes use of this content ratios the uncapped ratios is significantly higher than that of capped. What is content ratios you ask? Think of it like this, say the ISP has 10mbps bandwidth available to them, a content ratio of 10:1 will then see that 10mbps being shared amongst 10 users. If all 10 users start using high bandwidth applications at the same time theoretically they will only have 1mbps available to them even if they all have 4mbps lines.

As you can see the higher the content ratio the slower your Internet can become, and this is where capped ADSL beats uncapped ADSL for critical applications.

Conclusion is if you only use the Internet for browsing, email and gaming I would suggest sticking to capped ADSL at around R29 per GB it is still a steal, but if you are more into downloading large amounts of data or streaming YouTube constantly then I would urge to you go for one of these new uncapped accounts. I am in no way saying that services like gaming, Skype etc wont work on uncapped, I’m just saying that it works better on a capped account.

Afrihost launches SA cheapest uncapped ADSL from R197/month

Afrihost, the broadband Internet service provider (ISP) that sparked South Africa’s ADSL price war with its R29 per GB offer, has announced pricing for its first uncapped ADSL products.

Users will be able to source uncapped ADSL from Afrihost from as little as R197 a month for a 384kbps line. For uncapped data on a 512kbps you’ll pay R297 per month, and for uncapped data on a 4096 kbps line you’ll pay R497 per month. Prices are for bandwidth only and exclude line rental costs through Telkom.

“When we launched our R29 per GB offer almost six months ago, we knew that South African users craved more affordable ADSL. At the time, most ISPs charged around R70 per GB (and many still do) so our move really shook up the ISP industry,” said Gian Visser, CEO at Afrihost. “But we knew that many users wanted more. Over the past few months, we have been testing an uncapped product, which we are now ready to introduce to the market.”

Afrihost is surprised that another ISP has beaten it to the punch with an affordable uncapped ADSL offering, but is now ready to respond with a set of products that are now the cheapest on the market, added Visser. “Our intention when we introduce our R29 offer was to put pressure on the incumbents to lower their prices, and I think we can safely say that we have achieved that goal,” said Visser.

The Uncapped 4096 kbps product is available for purchase through the Afrihost website or Client Zone with immediate effect. Sign-ups will be limited for now, with accounts granted to users on a first-come, first-served basis.

Users who signup for the uncapped package in the initial beta testing stage will lock-in this package and price in for as long as they are Afrihost customers (although the company is not planning on increasing prices). The other uncapped offerings will be made available once the company has comprehensively tested the performance of its uncapped service and the impact on the Afrihost network.

Visser said that the uncapped service does have some restrictions and disadvantages that the capped packages from Afrihost does not have. The uncapped packages allow only one connection for each account while the capped packages allow many simultaneous connections from different locations for each account.

If you are accessing your ADSL account from several different locations (e.g. from home AND work), you will need to opt for a capped account or buy uncapped accounts for each location. The uncapped ADSL service will run off a higher ‘contention ratio’ than the capped ADSL service – which will be true of all ISPs in South Africa that offer uncapped services. This means more users are allocated to a certain chunk of bandwidth in uncapped than is the case with capped services. If many users are simultaneously making use of the network, then uncapped will be slightly slower than capped. “What that means is that people who value network speed and performance – especially during office hours – over cost may still find a capped package to be the best option for them,” said Visser.

According to Visser, with bandwidth priced at R29 per GB on a capped package it makes sense to move over to an uncapped offering if:

• You’re on a 384 kbps line and use more than 7 GBs a month
• You’re on a 512 kbps line and use more than 11 GBs a month
• You’re on a 4096 kbps line and use more than 17 GBs a month

“Unless you literally move hundreds of GBs per month this service will be uncapped for you with no catches at all,” said Visser. “However, we will take action on the minority who through their usage start affecting all of our other clients’ internet experience.”
The uncapped service is designed for humans who want to use the internet as much as they want – for some downloading, streaming media, browsing, and more. It is not designed for computer programs that are setup to continuously download 24/7, 30 days a month.

Great news is Afrihost is catering for those that has been bumped to the 8mbps trial, you can also obtain a 8mbps uncapped account from Afrihost. You can register your uncapped ADSL account from Afrihost here.

While the rest of the world has been enjoying cheap uncapped Internet for long now, South African has been milked for every cent they have just to use a couple of gigs a month. This all has changed drastically the past week.

The past week the South African Internet market has been shaken up again and this time it is huge. It all started out as a campaign I have been following for a few weeks called “Free The Web” on Facebook and that is just what MWeb did, they set the Web free.

MWeb introduced uncapped Internet accounts the past week for as little as R219 per month for 384kbps and R539 per month for 4mbps data only options. MWeb also launched all in one packages starting from R349 per month for 384kbps to R899 for 4mbps.

The service is shaped but good news is that there is also an unshaped option available for businesses ranging from R499 to R1999, this service includes a Cisco router and 5 static IP addresses.

Just a day after MWeb announced the new standard for uncapped internet in South Africa other ISPs started following with OpenWeb partnering up with MWeb to offer their customers the same special, another entrant is @lantic/vox which beat the price of the all in one uncapped packages.

Good news is that Afrihost who previously shook up the Internet market with the introduction of their R29 per GB ADSL announced that they will also be introducing uncapped packages any day now, they have been looking into it for a while now and MWeb just beat them to it said Gian Visser CEO at Afrihost.

I like what I am seeing happening in the local Internet market, and just like Afrihost has set the standard of sub R30 per GB prices, MWeb has now set a new standard for uncapped Internet and other ISPs will just have to follow to stay ahead in the local Internet market.

In what I believe is another attempt to take away market share from the bigger ISP’s like WebAfrica, Afrihost has now launched several high-cap ADSL accounts.

At the end of last year Afrihost started the broadband price war by introducing ADSL accounts at a mere R29 per GB, way lower than what the other ISP’s at the time was asking. Now they are targeting the power users, the guys using 50GB+ every month.

Afrihost today launched their ADSL Power Plans which allows purchases of high-cap accounts for only R9.50 per GB. This price compared to WebAfrica’s high end packages is a steal, WebAfrica charges R44.50 per GB for their high-end caps, that is even more than the normal Afrihost accounts.

Heavy users or businesses interested in obtaining one of these high-cap ADSL Power Plans from Afrihost can sign up here and get a all time low rate of only R9.50 per GB.

Late last year Afrihost took the ADSL market by surprise by introducing the lowest per GB rate available in South Africa.

Afrihost introduced its R29 per Gigabyte offer and everybody jumped ship almost instantly including me and since then I haven’t had a problem, until my Credit Card expired leaving my details invalid at Afrihost. I did the right thing and paid my account via EFT and faxed proof of payment through but unfortunately they still suspended my account.

I didn’t notice it immediately as I was on another account due to being capped the previous month, but around the 4th after switching back to my Afrihost account I found out that my account was suspended. I phoned the Afrihost support line and after about 20 mins of holding on I was eventually put through to someone that could help me and update my Credit Card details.

The waiting period had me very upset and I expressed my dissatisfaction on twitter where Afrihost CEO, Gian Visser, picked it up and contacted me. Today I was contacted by Gian Visser and was pleased to find out that they credited my account with a few extra Gigs for the inconvenience caused.

Over all I can not complain about Afrihost, their ADSL offering is superb. I never have a problem with line speed or latency, in fact I get better speeds and latency than on my normal SAIX accounts. As for the long waiting for support, I guess they were just very busy at the time as previous calls to their support line got me through almost instantly.

Afrihost is still running their R29 per GB ADSL offering but it could end at any moment, so I would suggest that if you are not already making use of this cheap ADSL offering get to it. If you sign up for the Afrihost offer now your price of R29 per GB will be locked in forever, oh and have I mentioned that Afrihost has a two for one top-up offer regularly where you can top-up your account with 2 GB worth of data for the price of only 1 GB.

Thank you Afrihost for the extra gigs, I will put it to good use.

By now every body have heard of, or signed up to the limited R29 per GB ADSL offer from Afrihost.

This offer by Afrihost, known for its hosting, has set the wheel rolling to drive broadband prices down in South Africa. Although Afrihost is only offering it as a limited promotion, if you sign up during the promotion you will always be charged R29 per GB for as long as you are a customer.

Now Afrihost has again disrupted the local internet market by slashing their price by another 50% if you top up. If you are a Afrihost customer you can now top up at R14.50 per GB. This is the cheapest per GB price for international bandwidth South Africa has ever seen, it even comes close to what other ISP charge for 1 GB local only bandwidth.

If you haven’t by now signed up to the cheapest ADSL in South Africa, what are you waiting for? Sign up here for cheap international ADSL bandwidth, or if you are looking to host a website why not visit Afrhost site to sign up for one of their great hosting packages.

PS. I dropped my long time ISP WebAfrica and switched over to Afrihost about 2 month ago and haven’t looked back since, saving me a total of 50% on my 5GB cap at home.

In a country like South Africa where broadband prices is sky high one player in the ISP market stirred up things recently with their R29 per GB offering.

Afrihost mostly known for their hosting has caused a great stir in the local ADSL market by dropping the price of ADSL bandwidth to an all time low of only R29 per GB. Users are not hesitating laeaving their current ISP to get their hands on this great offer by Afrihost.

I personally cancelled my 5GB account from WebAfrica and purchased one from Afrihost for a mere R149, where WebAfrica was charging me R290 for the same amount of bandwidth. The nice thing about the special from Afrihost is that once you signed up for the R29 per GB price your price will remain the same as long as you are part of Afrihost.

Bandwidth for these accounts are provided via the Internet Solutions network that makes use of the SAT3 undersea fibre cable.

If you are frustrated with the high broadband prices in South Africa, and ISP’s ripping off the consumers please go and support Afrihost and sign up for their R29 per GB ADSL accounts. This is by far the most cheapest broadband price currently in South Africa.