anyone use iburst with mac?

[julialeft]

How does iBurst work with Apple Mac - any satisfied users out there? How does it compare with Telkom ADSL and what's the coverage like in the Claremont/Rondebosch area?

 

[nic777]

I have to guess that it will work fine.

iBurst and ADSL use the same point to point protocol: PPPoE and most operating systems, including Mac, support this.

In fact, if you have some form of ADSL setup wizard in Mac, you could use that to setup your iBurst.

EDIT: I'm not a mac user, but a Linux user.

 

[malx]

satisfied (Well, kinda)

As a mac geek and web junky, i can say that this is probably the best team-up i could suggest. look, not to say that everything is perfect with their service, but I have experienced very little down-time (a few minutes over 18 months) and there help-desk are typical PC-usuals who either assume that you haven't exhausted their FAQ section or other material before calling them, only to be told exactly what was on the FAQ.

only problem though is that it doesn't work with the new intel machines, since rosetta doesn't translate the driver yet. Japan are working on it, and shouldn't take too long. certainly not as long as waiting for ADSL.

not sure about sentech, but aside from the hefty relative price and unstable nature, i doon't think it plays with mac.

you could use the desktop version with either usb or ethernet connection, and i find the latter to be a little faster when i have another usb device connected. but i've clocked 1mbs on both. before there were 800 too many users per tower... it even works beautifully for a small network coupled with an ethernet router, and more impressively with an airport network.

so yes. it works. and there are a few happy customers i know personally. as for coverage, look on their coverage map: http://www.iburst.co.za/mapsystem/index.html didn't look too bad in areas, and there should be more towers going up soon - but don't quote me on that

 

[Ekhaatvensters]

A friend of mine has Iburst in claremont. Depends exactly where you are around that area i geuss. The signal there is okay, with an antenna its fine. But definatley viable in general.

Ive also hooked up a mac to my own Iburst connection before and it works perfectly. That was via a router though, but direct connection with ethernet should be much the same.

 

[julialeft]

iburst on mac

Thanks for the replies, good to know.
So, any idea what I'd have to invest in to use it with one desktop mac for now and 3 of them in a couple of months? I'm assuming I'd need the desktop modem and an antenna? Is this all? And what if I wanted to use it in the office AND on a laptop? Would I have to get 2 modems?
And what would happen if I was in an area not covered by the network - how would I connect then?
Thanks
Julia

 

[Ekhaatvensters]

Well if you were in a area not covered, then you wouldnt be able to connect at all. but they are putting up alot more towers in Cape Town, something liek 18 more planned.

If you want to connect to more than one PC, or a laptop, just get yourself the Desktop ethernet modem and buy a router (probably a wireless router for your laptop) This way you can spread the conection out to as many PC's as you want, and keep the modem where the signal is best.

 

[julialeft]

this may be a very stupid question

but is the iburst desktop ethernet modem actually different to the ADSL ethernet router supplied by telkom dsl? or is it possible to use this one with different settings?

 

[malx]

there are a couple of points you have raised, and hopefully between us we can help. i think the easiest way to address them all is to look at what iburst is, as oppposed to hellkom's offering. iBurst works as a wireless broadband connection, where ADSL (in it's simplest form) needs a cable; like cellular telephony versus a landline. think of your iburst modem is the cellphone equivalent here. now, if you think of a network as similar to a switchboard, the cable comes in, splits, and gets routed to the relevant extension; and this would be equivalent to a router. unlike your personal cellphone though, a wireless broadband connection can be 'split' to allow other computers on a network use of the single internet connection, with the iburst modem being that access point. sorry if i'm oversimplifying, but i think it helps here.

so, like with cellphones, if there's no reception, there's no calls / access to iburst. if there is, you would need a modem connected to your computer directly if it was only you connecting. if you wanted to allow multiple computers to connect simultaneously, you would need them to be connected as a network, with the router connected to the iburst modem. as said here before, you could use a combination router allowing for fixed and wireless computers to access the network and internet connection, and i would recommend the airport extreme or express for this for total wireless networking if all your machines are macs with airport cards installed. alternatively, there are inexpensive 4 or 8 port gigabit routers which are useful for large network transfers.

while this might seem like a lot of variables, you have on your side that you are using a mac, and things are much easier. i have just put together a network of two iMacs and 2 portable powerbooks using an airport extreme, connected to them. and it's perfect.

hope that essay helps

 

[undefined]

I have both the Desktop & PCMCIA Modem and both work perfectly on a Mac. No different from a PC. It takes less than a minute to setup with the Desktop Modem using Ethernet & not much longer with the PCMCIA Modem, because you need to install some drivers first.

Don't get the PCMCIA if you plan to get a MacBook Pro, they use a new smaller slot, see my post about this.