Welcome to our brand new monthly newsletter!

Have you ever wandered through an industrial estate, glancing into the open doors of factories and workshops and wondered "what do they do there?". There's a hint of some massive machine, the sound of metalwork, or a whoosh of steam. Perhaps the smell of something delicious baking, or a tang of chemicals. Maybe there is no sound at all - a secretive silence of tech at work.

Our client base is much like an industrial estate. We can't see into your doors, but we just know you're doing interesting stuff in there!

At the same time you're supporting us as our clients, and we would love to support you too by keeping business "in the family".

Please let us know how our business can do business with your business by answering a short survey here.

Meet the Team

If you've needed help and given us a call, you have likely spoken to Aldo.

Aldo is our Operations Manager whose chief responsiblity is client support. He is originally from Paarl and has been married to Tamzyn for 6 years - together for 16.

In his spare time he enjoys road trips and documenting our beautiful country - either by car with his wife, or via motorbike. He plays the guitar and has a considerable collection of these, including some that have been modified with active pickups. He enjoys music, technology and anything car related.

When he was a kid he wanted to be an astronaut and is still fascinated by our solar system.

Company News

In October we launched a bolt-on LTE connectivity backup solution for our home fibre clients on our own network. This provides an additional Vodacom or MTN LTE router, uncapped 20Mb/s Fixed LTE data plan, managed Cape Connect fibre router and additional free support options for clients who run a business from home, work remotely, or just need a belts and braces backup in the rare eventuality of their fibre service being offline. Details of this solution are listed on our Facebook page.

Black Friday

Keep an eye on our Facebook page for a Black Friday special later this month.

Tech Talk

Megabits vs. Megabytes: What's the Difference?

The computer industry loves tech jargon, which can seem uniquely designed to confuse you. Case in point: Megabits and megabytes. Both refer to units of digital information, but the difference, although subtle, causes plenty of confusion.

It all starts with bits and bytes. A bit is the most basic unit of information in computing. It can be a one or zero, true or false, yes or no. A byte is a collection of eight bits. Why eight? It takes eight bits to produce one unit of text, like a “C” or “-”. Bytes are how we measure the size of files like movies, images or documents. Bits are also measures of size, but they’re used in relation to speed. You’ll almost never hear someone talk about “bits” unless there’s a “per second” right after it.

We need to add “mega” to the equation because bits and bytes are so small. “Mega” simply means “1 million.” One megabit is 1 million bits, and the same goes for megabytes.

A lot of the confusion around megabits and megabytes happens when they’re abbreviated. A megabit is written as Mb, while a megabyte is MB. Internet speeds are always referred to as Mbps, Mbp/s or megabits per second. Megabytes per second is almost always used to refer to how quickly a storage device can transfer data, like when a hard disk reads data or a file is uploaded to the cloud using an ethernet connection. Megabytes per second is written as MBps or MB/s.

To summarize, a generic speed test measures Megabits per second (our packages list an "up-to x Megabits per second" speed limit) - while a file download shows in Megabytes per second of data transfer. We'll be diving into speed tests in a future newsletter to explain exactly how they work and what they show.

Shot of the month

We're often out on site at odd hours and in strange places, but these give us the most awesome views. Here's this month's picture perfect photo.

From the Archives

Did you know: Cape Connect was the first ISP in South Africa to run a FTTH (Fibre to the Home) network in a residential estate, way back in 2008? The Vines, Heritage Park, Somerset West was first to market in what quickly became an avalanche of companies running fibre in residential estates. We've been doing this for 16 years!

Back in your inbox on 1 December.

Michelle Bainbridge

Chief Internet Artisan

Cape Connect Internet (Pty) Ltd

PS If you need our contact details at a glance, scan the QR code below.