iBurst vs Telkom ADSL

[desraid]

Since both has a common in 3GB cap, it will be interesting to compare.
Personally, I think iBurst is aimed at existing TelkomADSL customers,
and not to compete with another Wireless ISP Sentech. (I'm guessing it from the 3GB cap limit)

iBurst 1024K (Max) is R699 pm (UT-D, 2yr contract, price after soft-launch)
TelkomADSL 512K (Max) is +-R950 pm

iBurst is double the TelkomADSL in terms of speed at much less price.
Therefore when people see iBurst product description and find 3GB cap,
they will immediately think of TelkomADSL's 3GB cap.

For same 3GB cap with higher speed at cheaper cost...

Let's all try to think pros and cons about them!!

[mbs]

If that's their marketing strategy, they're doomed to failure. This presupposes that Telkrap clients would jump ship purely because of price and a higher speed, and are happy with the service. Biggest misconception under the sun, as the mere existence of this site proves. The trick is for them to offer a superior service, even if at the same price. Personally I think users don't really care what speed is offered (the popularity of the ADSL384 offering proves this, despite the existence of ADSL512), provided it remains constant, doesn't suffer from 'shaping' and 'contention ratios', and is supported by knowledgeable orcs - in other words, <u>service</u>. Hell, Marketing 101...

[lewstherin]

desraid you forget that you still get unlimited local at good speeds after the cap on ADSL. iBurst cuts you off. To me there's no contest - iBurst is crap.

<font color="blue">Telkom needs a leash, ICASA needs some guts, and the </font id="blue"><font color="red">SA consumer</font id="red"><font color="blue"> needs to make it happen</font id="blue">

[bb_matt]

also don't forget the traffic shaping, which I take to mean no good speeds on p2p apps, after all, what else would they shape ? [:)]

I've just got into work after 'trying' to surf at home with my Sentech MyCareLess modem and I'm back in internet heaven on a ADSL line.

ADSL is proven technology, iBurst have yet to prove themselves and as Sentech has shown, it's easy to screw up with new technology if your too incompetent to even keep your web registration services working !

Sadly, there's simply no competition for ADSL at the moment.

iBurst 'burst' that bubble again - well done ! - killed off half your potential customer base before even launching !

I'm not sure if it's greed, stupidity or both. [xx(]

[sihen]

lewstherin WBS does not cut you off after the cap has been reached, you are throttled down to a 64k.

[kaspaas]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by sihen</i>
<br />lewstherin WBS does not cut you off after the cap has been reached, you are throttled down to a 64k.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

64k Contended or guarenteed?

I guess it will be 64k with a contention ration of at least 64 which will give you just as bad service as Telkom ADSL's capped service.



South Africa needs World Class Broadband at World Competitive Prices.

[bb_matt]

Yeah - impossible to go anywhere !

When I first experienced the cap on my new work ADSL line, I didn't realise quite how bad it actually was - to all intents and purposes, totally useless.

Don't forget, iBurst also throttles local, so after your cap is up, your screwed unless you buy more bandwidth !

[lewstherin]

sihen even 64k throttled on local after the cap is unacceptable - considering I get full speed local on ADSL after the cap.

And what iBurst needs to remember is that ADSL offers the most stable, low-latency pings, so they should be trying to better what ADSL offers to overcome the shortfalls that accompany radio-based internet (ie. unstable pings, packetloss).

Basically iBurst has tried to position themselves as being on par with ADSL in terms of speed and bandwidth cap.
Given the choice of the two, I'll always take ADSL - its tried, proven, established.

I'm not wasting my time and money on a new product unless its proven to be significantly better value!

<font color="blue">Telkom needs a leash, ICASA needs some guts, and the </font id="blue"><font color="red">SA consumer</font id="red"><font color="blue"> needs to make it happen</font id="blue">

[reech]

It may well be faster - but all that means is you'll reach your cap quicker - same ****, different isp.

[chop]

I suppose that at first they want to attract the average customer, one that uses it for surfing the web downloading e-mail etc. In other words customers that doesn't use p2p and doesn't use massive amounts of bandwith.

I think this is a good strategy, as it will allow them to build up a user base, test their system and sort out little problems.

Sentech went for the big bang approach, aiming for high bandwith users, no cap, no shaping. They got a lot of customers but lost a hell of a lot of them because their system couldn't handle. These guys will never trust Sentech again.

They said they are going to release other packages later aimed at high bandwith users. So let's wait and see.

I do however wish they remove local from the cap.

[Luke7777]

chop, why would anybody that's just surfing or emailing want 24/7 access ? what will WBS prove by having 2000 surfers online ? that 2mb bandwith is enough and now they can go live? LOL Forget it, 24/7 access is for the medium/heavy/working from home users and the sooner they realise that the better. With the initial pricing they are as sure as hell not going to attract the "average" user, so there goes that theory. You want to offer casual/average 24/7 access, then price it accordingly, at say, R200 which will on average be double the dialup rates.

128K|21%|13SNL|36 Menlopark 2530

[MaD]

Caps caps caps...

3GB - rubbish.
6GB - not bad at all.
10GB - tons more customers.


<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">

[aborg]

Alarm bells ringing... Hope there is better offers next year.
WBS will choke under heavy usage cos they don't have enough bandwidth....period.

"Broadband in SA is like the holy grail - everybody knows what it is but nobody has ever found it"

[desraid]

They're like Alien vs Predator...

Both ugly and whoever wins, we lose! [xx(]

[Turtle]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by chop</i>
<br />I suppose that at first they want to attract the average customer, one that uses it for surfing the web downloading e-mail etc. In other words customers that doesn't use p2p and doesn't use massive amounts of bandwith.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
The "average customer" who just does web and e-mail is not stupid enough to fork out R600+/month for it. The subset of "average users" who can even actually afford R600/month simply do the math and quickly determine that that's a rip-off compared to dial-up which has everything they need anyway for 'only' a few hundred R per month. No-brainer. If they want to attract those users they've priced themselves out the market. Their product specs say "average user" but their pricing says "premium product".

[chop]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Turtle</i>
<br /><blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by chop</i>
<br />I suppose that at first they want to attract the average customer, one that uses it for surfing the web downloading e-mail etc. In other words customers that doesn't use p2p and doesn't use massive amounts of bandwith.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
The "average customer" who just does web and e-mail is not stupid enough to fork out R600+/month for it. The subset of "average users" who can even actually afford R600/month simply do the math and quickly determine that that's a rip-off compared to dial-up which has everything they need anyway for 'only' a few hundred R per month. No-brainer. If they want to attract those users they've priced themselves out the market. Their product specs say "average user" but their pricing says "premium product".

<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I need a 24hour connection as I'm downloading e-mails and constantly looking for info on the web. I don't want to dial in every 15 minutes, it will cost me a fortune. I also don't want to surf at 54k speeds.

Sentech's 128k connection is R500 but apparently it's even slower than dial-up and always giving problems. There just aren't that many options as we are being screwed left right and centre.

All I'm saying is that there are other people out there that don't need to download 20GB a month and need the portability. And this package is not that bad as it's faster than ADSL and also have a 3GB cap, except that local is limited once reach (which I don't like).

We don't know what the other packages are yet, perhaps they will have one that targets power users for R1000 or so with no cap. There are people out there paying nearly R1500 for Sentech's 512 package that deliver speeds that are half that.

The fact is that everyone is victom to Telkom's greed and they have us by the balls as they control nearly all the bandwith.

[desraid]

There are no 'real' advantages in iBurst at present.

But I'm sure many people will be looking into the service if WBS implement 7.5 GB cap.

Something like 1Mbps with 7.5 GB at R599...

Then i'll probably consider to switch over to iBurst and it will attract many!

[bb_matt]

If I knew for sure that the bandwidth available on the iBurst network could handle enough users and that iBurst would purchase more bandwidth to satisfy demands, then a 3gig cap WITH NO LOCAL CAP would be a better option for me personally than ADSL right now.

But I can't be sure and they are not offering local with no cap.

The biggest problem facing iBurst is the bad name Sentech has got.

Sentechs F*uckup in the industry has made people very wary of Wireless ISP's

What many ISP's such as Sentech don't realise, is that the technically clueless people out there always "ask a geek" before proceeding with an internet connection strategy - the same way as most of them "ask a geek" about fixing thier PC or advise on a new one.

These "geeks" all know that firstly, Sentech is rubbish and secondly, that iBurst are not offering anything better and that they could very easily become just another Sentech.

I really don't think I can trust anyone but the established ISP's right now and I think that's the general feeling in the IT industry, even with the excitement of deregulation.

[Perdition]

Agreed 100%, once bitten twice shy. I have no doubt that WBS will get customers, however it won't be as many as what they had hoped and until they adjust their way of thinking I will recommend to everyone I know to stick with their current setup or go ADSL if they want 24/7.

[DarkSkies]

My take on the whole ADSL/iBurst/Sentech etc. is that I can live with an International cap, 3GB is bloody low, 6 - 10 GB would be better, but don't tell us how we should or shouldn't use our connections to reach our cap. This whole bloody port shaping thing is rediculous, and unshaped account prices are rediculous as well.

While I use my unshaped account for international gaming, I don't see why they should block or deprioritize non standard ports on shaped accounts. If someone wants to waste their International bandwidth on p2p, let them. I mean he/she paid for the bandwidth already. Once they reach their bandwidth limit, cap them. Port shaping should only really be placed on unlimited/unmetered accounts where there are no caps and p2p could seriously be abused.

As someone pointed out above, most people don't really give a damn whether or not the connection speed is 1 Mb, that will only get you to your cap a whole hell of a lot quicker. We want a 24/7 connection that is faster than dual ISDN with a decent International cap, no local cap, and no port shaping. This is what advanced users and technology enthusiasts want and I am sorry to say that your "average home user" does not adopt new technology it's advanced users that drive it. Good examples are the early days of the Internet advanced users forked out the cash to get all the ISPs started, Mnet and DSTV was also launced with advanced users. I can remember the day I got my first DSTV decoder, the installation guy said I was the only one in the whole neigbourhood that had DSTV. Why?, because the decoder cost R5000.00 back when DSTV was launced. As a technology enthusiast I was willing to fork out the cash, the average suburban home was not.

Your average home user is not prepared to fork out R600+ a month to browse the Internet and check his email, not when he can get a dialup for 1/10th the cost. I am sorry to say that you will have to come up with packages that are a whole hell of a lot more enticing than ADSL. Right now ADSL might not be as fast as iBurst but it has advantages over iBurst. On ADSL you get low latency to local gaming servers, no local cap, and you have the OPTION of getting an unshaped account. Judging from Sentech's performance ADSL also allows you to download at close to your line speed.

Ok thats enough out of me, I wanted to write a short reply and ended up with a big rant. :)