Best internet I’ve experienced in South Africa – But watchout if your Frogfoot fibre goes down

I’m using a fibre package from Cool Ideas over the Frogfoot network on the West Coast.

PROS: 1) By FAR the best quality internet I’ve ever used in South Africa. Very low international latency and consistently good throughput up and down locally or internationally. 2) Staff are helpful and responsive providing good support.

CONS: 1) A bit pricier than mainstream competitors, but then you get what you pay for and I’m happy to do so. See “PROS”. 2) Being fibre, Cool Ideas (as with all ISPs) rely on the infrastructure providers like Frogfoot, Openserve, Vuma etc. I recently lost my connection due to a Frogfoot issue and had to wait 5 days to get it resolved. As I work from home, this meant having to reply on expensive mobile data.

I felt Cool Ideas could have done more to chase Frogfoot as nobody had even arrived on site from Frogfoot till the 5th day PM. The issue was resolved promptly thereafter.

In the end I’m a Cool Idea’s client not Frogfoot’s client, and they should have done more in my opinion. It cost me time, frustration and money but it was fixed and has been excellent ever since. This is the only reason for the loss of one star.