Hello everybody,

A friend of mine soon will move to Lagos and i want to help him in finding a suitable internet connection. I must admit that i've read quite some posts in this board section but i'm getting a bit confused so i'd really appreciate it a lot if anybody could help me.

What are the requirements ?

1) stable connection
2) reliable Skype (out) or SIP calls to and from Europe
3) tolerable response times (pings) so that web surfing and live streams of at least 512kbps will work
4) real flatrate and not limited/charged by volume

Up to now i've found this comparison:
http://www.jidaw.com/nigeria/nigeria_internet_service_providers_rating.html
But is this really representative ? And further on this does not answer any of my questions above.


Would anybody be so kind to help ?
Thanks very much in advance for spending time.

Best regards from Stuttgart.

Hi,
U mite not get any broadband dat can give u 512kbps unless u want to pay tru ur nose and use vsat.But i can try and recommend some really interesting companies dat can give u as much as 256kbps upward.
Gime a call 08034025906 or just send me a mail tunde300us@gmail.com.
later

try starcomms izap
u need to be in a covered location (ask the starcomms people)
it's very ok for skype (even video)

Thanks very much to both of you. I'll let my friend know as soon as he will be in Lagos.

Best regards.

dis i wit mtn(dose'nt mean u'll eva see dis speed even in ur dreams)

init4dmoni:

dis i wit mtn(dose'nt mean u'll eva see dis speed even in ur dreams)

So are most affordable connections in Lagos worse than the screenshot you've posted ?

The downstream looks very fine but the upstream and pings are just terrible if we speak of a ADSL connection. Not to be misunderstood, i really appreciate your effort in showing me this test but in the past i had done some comparisons with that and measurements over ftp regarding the up-/downstream as well the response times over the command shell of XP. Often i had seen big differences. Just an example:

My private connection here has been measured as:





These values just show the current situation of the server we're downloading from or uploading to and depends a lot from how busy it is.

But real downstream on my ADSL2+ Annex B is always roughly 10Mbps and real upstream roughly 1Mbps which is by far not the quickest but very stable offering constant speeds and pings. For the moment i am happy with it and don't need any quicker.
ping www.google.com gives me 40ms.

Best regards from Stuttgart.

The technical terms you guys use here makes me wanna run away to
the moon or somewhere like that, hardly can understand your jive,
abeg decode.

i'm using mtn and i get at least 100KB/s(the 3GB limit is a real problem)
dat screen shot is as rear as dey get
we dont have adsl here
everything is wireless and so u can't really expect the speeds to compare with adsl
as for latency the minimum you can get is 200ms
this screen shot is a more common speed

here's anoda speed test
if ur a heavy uploader i'm not sure it's going to be possible here
uploading any post(with attachmets of up to 200KB) take me a few seconds(4-6) and i've done video calls to my sister in the US and it dosen't lag atall (most times)
anyway for people like me who rearly upload anythin its good enough
THERE IS A 3GB LIMIT, don't 4get dat

With those screen shots u guys are showing i am really scared cos 8mb/s is just all that some ISP's have in nigeria and just one person is getting it in germny
The best i have seen is atually 400kb/s and it was during the night at a cafe where they use VNO and that was only possible when other cafe's have all shot down and they are left to use the whole bandwidth.
I have never used MTN to browse b4 but does it really go that fast 1.4mb/s?

@init4dmoni:
Thanks a lot for your screenshots and all the other information. I wasn't aware that there is no terrestrial broadband infrastructure at all in Lagos accessable to private households. The upstream indeed is a bit restricted as i see and also there is a bit of lag but much better than 2way satellite. The 3GB monthly limit which you've mentioned, is this only an issue on MTN connections or do also other providers like Starcomm's izap implement it ? What happens if you're getting above this limit ? Do they lower extremely the speed of your connection like on many satellite providers or what ?


@tunde300us:
I know how upset you guys must be with the situation of internet access there since my brother in rural Greece (island) has similar problems for many years now. It was not my intention to compare my connection (there are far worse and far better inside of Germany) with yours. That would be rather unfair since here in Germany and other surrounding countries there have been made regular plannings and huge investments in terrestrial infrastructure the last 20 years. The screenshots made by me just should show up that these measurements differ from reality a bit.

By the way what is VNO ?


Best regards from Stuttgart

@tunde

mtn can be really fast and can get to as much as 3.6MB/s Downlink and 2.0mb/s uplink. But this is ofcourse limited to your being in an aera with 3G and connecting through a likewise modem. Asides that, what you get is gprs speed and the likes,

again, whats u mean by VNO, gonna do a research on it after this post.

Hello Mr.,

Why dont you do more reserach on The New 3G(Broadband)Internet product from Multilinks Telcom.

FEATURES:
1. Mobile Broadband Service provisioning High Speed Internet Access for a wide range of Application and Customers,ranging from professionals,mobile executives to students.

2. Always on access providing speeds comparable to DSL(Available wherever there is EVDO coverage)

3. Backward compatible to 1x

4. You get the fastest,fully mobile wireless data solution available.

5. Quicly download complex files,load web pages andview attachment at typical speeds 5 times faster than before.

6. Powered on EVDO Rev A. Technology.

7. Plug and Play Business functions, games and internet access anywhere.

8. Offers peak broadband download speeds up to 3.1 Mbps.


This product offers the highest broadband speed currently in Lagos and some parts of Nigeria.

Best Regrads.

pls i need help in gettin a dependable and reliable internet connection.
i use visafone silver which sucks. i reside in shomolu very close to bariga which is within the cdma 1x coverage area and work in VI/Ajose Adeogun where the visafone head office is located and the speed is even faster at home. at home i can get 7kb/s and at work 2-4kb/s for downloads day and night though for some minutes on rare occasions it reached 42kb/s.
and i use a macbook.
i am considering mtn's 3.5g usb N10,000/month but the GPRS speed bothers me. my office is within the EDGE area. I am doubtful of starcomm's izap 'cos somolu/bariga would probably be cdma 1x.i deserve better value for my data bills.my dad uses starcomm's dial up and it aint encouraging either. have u also noticed that visafone platinum is not on the visafone website.it used to be advertised in their flyers.

got this from mtn's website


DATA SPEED
Signal Peak Speed Average internet browsing speed
GPRS 115 kbps 33 – 35, 8kbps
EDGE 384 kbps Not Yet Fully deployed
3G 384 kbps 100 - 240kbps
3.5G (HSDPA) 3.6 Mbps 800kbps

dude! anything is better than dose speeds
i can vouch for the the multilinks telecom(there's a thread for their service:look for it in pg 2 of computers if you want to researh futer) although their price is a on the high side
mtn will definetley work in vi but i dont know about ur home
i stay in lekki(phase 2) and the mtn neva goes below 600kbps and can reach peeds of up to 2mbps some days
i downloaded a 700mb file in 1hr15mins around 3am dis morning (dats one of my best )
P.S.avg dwnload speed of 155KB/s=1244kb/s
cnt believe u can browse the internet with 8kbps

@inze nd deepbluesky
I think i tried to explain wat VNO is when i was making that comment.The cafe i was had 6 branches around the eastern part of nigeria and they all share bandwidth from a pool of bandwidth ie 2mb,so when the other 6 cafes have closed around 10pm,only one of them run night so what u get is all the 2mb allocated to the only cafe that is still on night.