Internet In Argentina

[beepokerking]

Hi i work from home so having the best possible internet is important to me, ive heard nothing here about fibre optic so i assume Argentina doesnt have that. I saw a telefonica offer for 10mbs for $160 pesos a monthh, does anyone know if this is the fastest you can possibly get?

Are telefonica and fibretel the two main companies who will offer the fasted speeds?

Thanks

 

[2GuysInPM]

iPlan has fiber service here, but they target businesses. I know of one residential building here in Puerto Madero that uses them to provide internet to all their condos, and its a fast 20mbps connection.

Fibertel (cable modem) has the "Evolution" package with 30mbps download/3mbps upload for $320/mo.

One thing to keep in mind is that these speeds are measured on their local networks and within Argentina. Once you go out to the international pipe the speed rates may drop.

For us, we got two connections and a load balancing router to distribute and fail-over if we loose one connection. One is Fibertel (6mbps), and the other is Telefonica Arnet (3mbps DSL). Works well for us, and fast enough to work, Skype, and stream HD content from iTunes.

 

[SarahAnn]

Whatever you do, don't get Telecentro. We terminated internet contract with them recently and yesterday, took the modem back to their office in Caballito. There was a crowd of angry people returning their modems because the service is hopeless. To make matters worse, the office had had a power cut so people had been waiting all day to return the useless box. The box having eventually been handed over, they charge us for another month. The only phone contact that fuctions is sales !..... talk about a litany of complaints.

 

[Somewhereinba]

Speaking of internet, what is everyone paying for the TV/Internet package?

 

[Gringoboy]

We have Cablevision HD and Fibertel Evolution 30Mb and pay around $600/month.
It's reliable, very rarely goes down and the customer service is one of the best I've come across here.

 

[CaitlinBea11]

I just saw a promotion on the Fibertel website (http://cablevisionfibertel.com.ar/) for 12 megas wifi at $180 for 6 months, if you apply online.

 

[Gringoboy]

That's worth a shot and also ask what the price will be after six months.
We did something like that and at the end, the card stopped paying, we phoned Fibertel who were worried about losing a customer and promptly extended the deal for another six months.
I'd call that a result.

 

[thorsten]

beepokerking: if you are looking for an apartment, I'd suggest you try it out onsite. The problem here is that you cannot easily say company A offers good service and B is shit. As we are "colleagues", I had the same problem. Im my previous flat, I had fibertel and it was a huge pain. If it worked it was pretty fast, but I got like 5-10 timeouts a day. The technican came 3 times, always found a flaw and "fixed" something (the exchanged the line, the router and changed some network configuration on the provider side), obviously without fixing the real issue... Then I moved to my new apartment which also has fibertel, but it works like a charm - if there is no blackout
So if you have a chance to "test" the apartment's internet, take a notebook and let it ping for a couple of hours a server like google and see if you are losing packages (as speed is not a primary concern, stability is).

 

[scotttswan]

Telecentro is terrible if you are having problems. they oversell their lines.

our building constantly had people coming and swapping everyone about in the box to give whoever complained that month a strong enough signal to get what they were supposed to.

I think a few neighbours gave up and cancelled as we now get perfect reception.

I highly recommend getting 2 lines and either load balance it or use one for backup / downloading and the other for general use. Of course none of this will help if there is a power cut! Maybe get a 3g dongle as a final backup? I've had a little luck tethering with clockworkmod's tether app on android. The normal tethering is blocked.