Just a heads up @Sweepslag - Cool Ideas had another big DDoS attack this weekend. Didn’t impact me personally too much - was too nice a weekend to be indoors and online - but the MyBB thread and their Twitter stream is full of very upset users, many who are claiming that they’ll be canceling today.
Twice in as many weeks is not good. Not at all. Like all things SA ISP related, buyer beware, I guess.
Check @PsychoFish’s comment here: Beating Off 3.0. It’s something he’s said before and again this morning, and @SIGSTART talks about it in depth in the linked article.
This is what worries me, I wasnt home this weekend so didnt use my pc, but I agree, if it wasnt such a hassle to switch isp’s in my house I would.
See, here’s my bugbear. Most ISPs I’ve dealt with in a professional capacity and most (except a handful of them who deal only with corporate clients) tend to use Consumer-grade and/or enterprise-grade network equipment.
Now, on a technical level any equipment than can do Layer 3 (https://www.computerworld.com/article/2469896/network-hardware-solutions-the-network-layer-understanding-layer-3-of-the-osi-model.html) will suffice. Where the differences come in is the Route Switch Processor (RSP) of these devices. Most Carrier grade (and the top-tier enterprise grade) equipment will have active/active redundant RSPs. Carrier grade equipment also provide lower latency and throughput (generally referred to as “near line speed”) and tends to be rated from 2 Tbps to 1Pbps (that’s 1 Petabits per second). The best you’ll get from Enterprise grade equipment is around 160 Tbps.
tbf to them the attack was 4x the size of previous attack. They go completely of the net at any stage for me. Speed was an issue during the attack but that is to be expected.
They are putting more measures in place to deal with it more effectively. Long statement was emailed to customers today.
Statement:https://help.coolideas.co.za/announcements/article/cool-ideas-statement
I went through this but a month ago and also did the research on MEW and MyBB and hellopeters and everywhere, even messaged a few folk directly. In the end I decided on Cool Ideas, mainly for the price, their total uncapped policy, and that they are a fibre only provider. I’ve been with them a month and super happy. Might even be upgrading for more speed. “That speed is enough for what I need”…heh
Thanks for all your feedback folks, it’s way more than I could have asked for. I wish I could say I was in two minds about this, but I’m probably in several 
Luckily there’s no hurry to make a decision just yet, so I’ll be patient for a bit longer and do some more homework. Please keep posting your experiences, I think it’s helpful to everyone.