iBurst softlaunch prices

A

anakin

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Here is the package released at the iBurst open day today for the softlaunch, i.e. test phase before Full Commercial Rollout end of March 2005:

Package: I-Go Everywhere

Month to month contract, client purchases modem:
UTC modem (PCMCIA) R2100 incl
UTD modem (USB, ethernet PPPoE) R2800 incl
Monthly costs R599 incl (from now till end of March 2005, R454 incl)

24 month contract, includes free modem:
Free UTC, R679 incl per month (from now till end of March 2005, R454 incl)
Free UTD, R699 incl per month (from now till end of March 2005, R454 incl)

The following applications will be burstable to 1Mbps (consult expected speeds in coverage maps on www.iburst.co.za):

Browsing
Email
Ftp
VPN
Streaming

Other applications may be restricted to 64k.

Port shaping will be introduced during the course of the softlaunch.

Cap: 3Gb monthly usage cap, additional bandwidth can be purchased once cap is reached
Prices of additional bandwidth will be released shortly

No activation fee

10Mb mailbox with 5 aliases.

E&OE. I think this is the gist of it. Exact details will be up on www.iburst.co.za shortly. I hope I have not misreported anything - I'm working from memory.

I expect a heated debate, but remember, this is an up to 1Mbps product at R454 for the course of the test phase. Not a bad deal.

<hr noshade size="1"><center><i><font size="1">
My views are mine, and mine alone.<br /></i></font id="size1"></center>
 
What's the thing with the 3GB cap? Has Telscum set a trend?



<font color="navy"><font size="1"><b>Where others have progress, we have Telkom.</b>
Hellkom website - www.hellkom.co.za</font id="size1"></font id="navy">
 
I think the current beta testers need to nip this 3Gb crap in the butt ASAP. iBurst obviously trust the tester's opinions that's why they are "the chosen ones", it is time for them to make themselves heard. For 3Gb it is still pricey.
 
You're capping local as well?

How sad. You just cost yourself a whole boat load of customers.

International caps are understandable but local caps arn't.

Good luck with your business ...

Personally I'll stick with ADSL.

The only +ve's I see are:
Monthly rental option

Game over -'ves for me:
Hard caps
Speed capping non-core protocols

So much for the market liberalisation. With the SNO a distant dream and all the players like Telkom, Sentech and iBurst clearly price fixing and colluding the consumer is farked yet again.

Guess wimax + private mesh networks + sat feeds will be the only way to free ourselves from the clutches of these companies.


-Information anarchist-
www.sentechhatesfreespeech.org.za
I support:
www.hellkom.co.za
www.poopband.co.za
 
And the retarded port-prioritization?
What is the point of a 3Gb cap on a 1mbps line? I can hit that in under 6 hours. Do me a favour.
Is this an international-only cap or local and international? Will the bastards be able to tell international and local apart?
 
Guys

Remember, this is an introductory product packaged at an affordable price, whilst the network is in test phase. I would think more products will become available down the line, once the tests are over, for the different types of users.

Chopsky, yes us bastards are able to differentiate international from local. But for this package, it is a total cap.

<hr noshade size="1"><center><i><font size="1">
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<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by anakin</i>
<br />Guys

Remember, this is an introductory product packaged at an affordable price, whilst the network is in test phase. I would think more products will become available down the line, once the tests are over, for the different types of users.

Chopsky, yes us bastards are able to differentiate international from local. But for this package, it is a total cap.

<hr noshade size="1"><center><i><font size="1">
My views are mine, and mine alone.<br /></i></font id="size1"></center>
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Dude ... help a man out here I fail to see how you expect to attract customers:

ADSL: 3 GB international (+local) cap, local unlimited after cap, 384k line speed, very low stable pings (&lt;20 ms), no signal problems, R450 + R750 install cost (line + modem) = ~R700pm

iBurst: 3 GB international (+local) cap then line goes dead , 1024k line speed, crappy unstable pings, signal problems, R2800 (+ R2-3k for decent external antennae) install cost = ~R700pm

Sentech: ~10 GB soft cap (wtf ever that means), 128k-256k-512k local,??? international, crappy unstable pings, signal problems, R3500 (+ R2-3k for decent external antennae) install cost, 12 month contract = ~R650-R850-R1500pm

I don't see the deal ... [?][?][?][?]

-Information anarchist-
www.sentechhatesfreespeech.org.za
I support:
www.hellkom.co.za
www.poopband.co.za
 
I was there as well. Not excited at all.

The pings on the demo machines were all over the show. Not stable slow, medium or fast. Three consecutive pings could be classed as slow, followed by fast and then medium. And this was about the pattern. If it is already like this before many users are signed up, what will happen when the system gets loaded?

The way Q's were answered, well, lets keep quite.

With Vodacom 3G (launch + packages to be announced 9 Nov), WiMax and MTN 3G all most probably happening during the next year, I'll pass iBurst for now.

Vodacom + MTN won't have modem costs (included with cellphone upgrade). And they are geared for "usage billing". Also, they don't have to roll out a new network, they already have it in place. It only requires upgrading.

Personally I'll wait at least till June 2005 before I decide to part with a few thousand bucks for equipment that will be outdated the next day.


South Africa needs World Class Broadband at World Competitive Prices.
 
&lt;20:19:24&gt; * hArTh changes topic to 'MyWireless - So bad it even makes Telkom look good -overboard , its just so unbalanced, i get 55k now and on weekdays 0.05k | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telkom | I****Burst &lt; Sucktech &lt; Telkom &lt; ant pooh - we cant win'

nice IRC topic

-----------------
Wireless is only good for pimping SAPS bitches. "eee radio, eee totti"

[ www.jeeva.net ]
 
I was there as well and must agree with kaspaas. They talk about Broadband and have graphs with Broadband indicated as being above 400Kbs, but will not give a minimum speed. Maybe I havn't looked in the right place but I can not find their terms and conditions on their site. Has anyone who has signed up seen them?
 
why capping AND port shaping ?

guys, i sure hope next year this time we all have some decent broadband !
 
Billy

The reason they don't give a minimum speed at this time is cause the product is still in test phase and this is still not commercial rollout, that will only happen in Q1 2005, where I'm sure that other products will be available maybe even an uncapped product.

Its amazing how people can rant and rave, yes it would be amazing if we could have internet access at 50mb fibre running to our houses with no cap or port shaping of any kind, but come on be realistic here.

Harth

Actually Telkom's 384K package are as follows.
2Gb cap R650 that is R450 for line rental and R200 for 2gig account.
That give's R650 for 2gb total cap.
Agree with stable pings portion.

Iburst 3Gig cap at R599
Up to 1mbps line speed
Yes you still need to buy the modem at R2100

My personal experience are as follows.
Pings with good signal 10km from basestation averages around 50-75ms pinging www.is.co.za with 0% packet loss.
 
"...,but come on be realistic here."

How is offering *nothing* better than the competition being "realistic"?
Seriously ... how do you expect to attract customers? What is your selling point?

"Actually Telkom's 384K package are as follows.
2Gb cap R650 that is R450 for line rental and R200 for 2gig account."

***Nonsense*** the 384k/512k lines are completely independant of the ISP packages.

I use 2x 3GB ISP accounts with my 384K line and I get 3 GBs of international bandwidth per account and unlimited local access thereafter.

You can use a 2GB ISP account with a 512k line too if you like.

I say again, the ADSL line type and the ISP account type can be mixed and matched at will.

How can you people put together an offering if you dont even understand what your competition offers?

"Pings with good signal 10km from basestation averages around 50-75ms"

Thats not what I've heard from 3 other beta testers.

Not trying to flame you okes here ... but really, I don't see the hook in your offerings.

-Information anarchist-
www.sentechhatesfreespeech.org.za
I support:
www.hellkom.co.za
www.poopband.co.za
 
harth

True you can mix and match but still 2x3gb thats R500 plus R450 thats R950 6gb cap, thats 384K for 512K you pay R680 line rental.

Now IBurst is 1mbps for R599 and additional bandwidth can be bought, but prices will be available shortly, I expect the additional bandwidth prices will be comparable or even better than Telkom, and don't forget the convenience of mobility which ADSL does not offer with seemless handovers between towers.

I'm not trying to be difficult here I'm merely a beta tester expressing my views, but lets at least give WBS/IBurst a chance here before shooting them down at point blank range.
 
I'm with you hArTh! how stupid this is turning out to be, but I guess that is just typical of how competition in SA works - ask the same price for a similar product and hope the public is dumb enough to fall for it (eg cellphones companies, bank services, car prices all follow this idea). It really isn't rocket science to figure out that if you get out of this R650-ish for 3Gb lame idea the public will prefer your product over the other guy's. STUPID!
 
Goobie

This is only the initial stages still and not commercial rollout, there will be other products for people who use it to download allot when they launch commercially in Q1 2005.

Im sure they will have products for all needs and types of users.
 
Everyone hold your horses - I might have misunderstood something related to caps issue. But I need to get hold of WBS tomorrow for confirmation.

<hr noshade size="1"><center><i><font size="1">
My views are mine, and mine alone.<br /></i></font id="size1"></center>
 
Yoda,

So the selling point is mobility? That all?

Shooting down at point blank range? The offering has been described and I've asked what the selling point is.

People arn't complete fools you know they can and do compare offerings rather carefully. Especially when shelling out hundreds of Rands a month.

If I'm not convinced I expect many others will come to the same conclusion.

I'm still at a loss to understand how iBurst expects to attract customers ... [?]

-Information anarchist-
www.sentechhatesfreespeech.org.za
I support:
www.hellkom.co.za
www.poopband.co.za
 
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Yoda</i>
<br />Goobie

This is only the initial stages still and not commercial rollout, there will be other products for people who use it to download allot when they launch commercially in Q1 2005.

Im sure they will have products for all needs and types of users.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

So you are saying we will be offered "better deals" later?

Hmmm ... odd marketing strategy that. I always assumed companies put their best foot forward when launching their products.

Very odd marketing strategy indeed.

Telkom and Sentech's broadband products seem to get progressively worse rather than better. And iBurst is going to buck this trend? Hmmmm ...

-Information anarchist-
www.sentechhatesfreespeech.org.za
I support:
www.hellkom.co.za
www.poopband.co.za
 
Interesting pricing............

Personally i think we have all been bitten once...........

iBurst good luck but with those packages......... I WONT BE SIGNING!!!!
 
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