Broadband Player To Offer Voice

[rpm]

http://mybroadband.co.za/nephp/?m=show&id=442

 

[Sneeky]

"We will compete head-on with other voice operators," says WBS chief operating officer Thami Mtshali. "We have the scope to undercut them. Our plan is to offer affordable voice telephony."

This is really good news for the consumer

 

[mbs]

If these okes had any sense, they'd link-up/partner with the USAL players and community mesh networks to provide 'back-bone' services instead. Besides avoiding a potentially damaging competitor war with the other players for the provision of services to consumers, they'd at least be securing a niche market, which from a positioning point of view would also help to rectify their piss-poor image with the consumer public at large. One saving grace - they have at least not been as moronic as Sucktech, with a stated position of wanting to take-over the dial-up market, as I understand it!

 

[Decotey]

I bet they are going to screw this up just as badly as they screwed up their "broadband offering"

 

[guest2013-1]

Ah ****, I knew it, another SENTECH. Sentech when they crashed dismally last year August confirmed to the concerned users group at the time that they TOO are preparing to enter the voice market.

No wonder WBS's internet facilities have been slipping as well...

Now we have 3 Telkom's.... Don't believe me? Try calling either of their "customer support" desks...

 

[guest2013-1]

Who would want to hear a kids voice on a resctricted server?
Yes, i know im 15, but what if someones voice didnt break yet?
imagine an 18-year-old playing on a kids-only server since his voice didnt break!

If you have nothing solid to contribute under the NEWS discussion of this site, please don't comment in the first place. Keep it to the off topic section if you can't offer valid input.

 

[w1z4rd]

Who would want to hear a kids voice on a resctricted server?
Yes, i know im 15, but what if someones voice didnt break yet?
imagine an 18-year-old playing on a kids-only server since his voice didnt break!

Yes, please dont post unless you can contribute

 

[ignacio]

what is decent latency/ping time for a quality VOIP experience? I thought the wireless soultions were horrible in general in this respect... is that what they are going to be fixing?

 

[slimothy]

This is really good news for the consumer

it would be if it wasn't wbs, guess what the BS stands for in thier name, i trust WBS to bring quality service like I trust michael Jackons to not bone kids

 

[bb_matt]

It would seem fairly obvious to me that if you cannot get the following criteria right :-

1. Quality of service across your entire network
2. Customer service - actually treating your customers as an asset instead of a cash cow
3. Billing - being able to bill your clients timeously and correctly

That you haven't got a snowballs chance in Hellkom of running a reliable voice service.

/me waves at WBS who probably have someone reading this - hellooooo !

 

[slimothy]

and its not even like i'm bitter, i've just been down this road with them. iBurst is a fantastic product and im glad i got mine from a reseller and not direct from WBS, but WBS to offer quality voice services? pull the other one.

Problem with WBS is the following:

Crap customer service, bad communication all round (which is ironic for a communications company)
They never finish anything, they will start an initiative find out it has bugs and abandon it (still waiting for thos enew towers to roll out WBS, whats it been? 5 months over the specified date?)
They make decisions on a whim, "Hey lets block ALL SMTP access", "Hey lets put in a badly configured proxy" and I can imagine them saying "Hey lets block users from using the letter 'e' in phone conversations"

Lastly, they make thier customers thier enemy, this forum is only proof, tonnes of users switched to slower or more expensive services after iBurst because WBS just attacks thier customers, and hurls words like abuse, criminal, irresponsible at them when an error was made ON WBS' SIDE. I am currenctly a iBurst customer because I stil get my speed from time to time, and I would consider myself an optimist but there is no way in hell I would go through WBS with VOIP, sure they're lookong for new faces to pull thier old tricks on but word does spread, especially with voip, just a friend calling me and having a bad experience with the call and telling me WBS is behind it is reason enough to stick away, I pity those who are gullible enough to fall for this scheme.

WBS are once again climbing into an arena they have no business being in, stick to lotto machines you imbeciles

 

[ic]

WBS is installing equipment in its base stations that will ensure quality of service in voice dialling. The system, which will use voice-over-IP (VoIP), will be offered as a value-added service to WBS's broadband Internet clients. It will also be made available as a standalone option to consumers and will even be available through public payphones.

The only way i c this working is if WBS eases up on their draconian shaping & lower contention ratios by installing more base-stations...what is more likely to happen is that their own VoIP will not be shaped, whilst "free" VoIP like Skype will be shaped to death to force iBurst customers to purchase WBS' own "value-added service" instead...

I also assume that this relies heavily on number portability, or will WBS obtain a "Cellular Network" licence from ICASA and operate under the guise of a Cellular Network Operator......if so, what will the interconnect charges be like - considering the horrendous highway robbery price of additional bandwidth on iBurst...?

WBS has built a suitcase unit which it hopes to sell to commercial payphone operators, most of which currently use the cellular operators' networks.

When I first read that I mistook it to mean a telephony device the size of a suitcase - perhaps that's what it means, but perhaps it's a unit that USAL operators can use to linkup their own payphones to the WBS iBurst network...

If these okes had any sense, they'd link-up/partner with the USAL players and community mesh networks to provide 'back-bone' services instead...

Methinks that's the market WBS wants to capture - well at least it looks that way, if so I say good luck bcos any telephony is better than no telephony, but i 4c a bunch of tickie boxes "Powered by iBurst" being ignored in favour of USAL tickie boxes that actually do work - powered by cellular or whatever...

 

[RichardG]

I wont bother in gettinng that Service it will be Cr@p over wireless to even get such service when capped.

 

[Davidj81]

Its a pity that they didn't allow themselves to be bought out. A buy out by one of the overseas companies or one of the big local ISP's would probably do them the world of good. They should let themselves be run by people that know what they are doing in the IT areana.
It sounds to me that WBS saw an opportunity that was way out of their area of skill and decided to go for it. Some of the mistakes that they have made are just gross incompetance.
Whoever is making these buyout offers, do us a favour and don't stop offering them until WBS decides to sell!