Communication between WBS & iBurst Customers

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Teething Problems

As a potential Iburst customer, and i mean potential because I have difficulty in getting them to come out and do a demo, after viewing the posts I am getting rather nervouse !!!!

The posts re Iburst Service,ie: connection errors, pings timeouts and spikes and lags seem to suggest that our new kids on the block have the latest equipment but do not know how to put it all together to provide a seamless fast connection to their customers.

And if you look at the number of views to these posts, (approximately 3800) just on one item then one can deduce that the so called power users will all tell their friends and business conections and the death of Iburst will be stacked up with Sentech and Megawan.

Surely a new venture of the size and infrastructure of WBS (HAVING HOSTED THE LOTTO SERVERS) understand that a lot of nurturing of the market is neeeded if they are going to grow their new network foundling??

We as customers will all have queries from time to time and if these are not sorted stright away we just go elswhere after cancelling our debit orders, until someone can finally get it right!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Cant consult the ansectors on these one PLEASE HELP

1. Does anyone know how many users iBurst have
2. Radio Technicians
3. Network administrators/technicians
4. Helpdesk agents
5. Managers

If you are to offer a 24hour connection why dont you have a 24hour helpdesk, or the time helpdesk is not there it opens for downtimes, (Basestation down, problem with poor uunet, Authe... Server).
 
ic said:
LOL @ ancestors, good 1.
  1. Last we heard beginning of January was 1500+, I expect thas has reached at least 2000 by now, but that's just me gazing into my clouded crystal ball.
  2. Radio Technicians == Emil, AFAIK he is the only one, I challenge WBS to correct me here, I really do dare WBS to communicate :D
  3. Network administrators/technicians == Luis & some other Jedi that I've never spoken to before, but Luis mentioned in a thread somewhere in December I think.
  4. Helpdesk agents == 0, I think they are all Sales Agents working @ the helplessnessdesk.
  5. Managers == # of new mercedes in parking spaces.
I totally agree with the 24*7 Helpdesk idea, in my experience the most serious problems always seem to happen when the helplessnessdesk is not operating, or refuses to answer calls when they are supposed to be there.
Click to expand...


They're above 2000 now, you can take my word for it
 
Staff vs Users

noone said:
They're above 2000 now, you can take my word for it
Click to expand...
Correct me if I'm wrong
1. A company with 2000+ subcribers, how can it have one person in the call center while they know they are experincing problems with their unreliable network. (2000 users = 1 Call center Agents)
2. 18 Live Basestations (2 in progress) = 1 Radio tech
3. Anakin and Sugar (I think that's the name of the person) = iBurst high Latency

Is iBurst result of BEE?
 
While I was sitting at heir offices the other day I heard Mr "Snake" Ramlall telling some not so tech savvy person (mayb an investor) at the door as he was walking the man out, that "they have over 15000 subscribers"

We know the lie terribly to their customers ( I got lied to again last night), and we all know they dont listen to their custmers. So chances are they lie to their investors as well.

So yeah, I recon its time we react as a group, and get some definite answers out of them. I am tired of having to rely on my 56k modem.

Packet Response at time of posting here(Full signal strength):

Pinging is.co.za [196.4.160.2] with 32 bytes of data:

Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Reply from 196.4.160.2: bytes=32 time=120ms TTL=248
Reply from 196.4.160.2: bytes=32 time=50ms TTL=248

Ping statistics for 196.4.160.2:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 2, Lost = 2 (50% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 50ms, Maximum = 120ms, Average = 85ms
 
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AKAIK the radio expert is Sam, or least its his area of concern, he has helped me resolve some of my more technical questions and problems, imo he is the only person that can give accurate answers wrt coverage.

Not sure if he is still around but I doubt there is one less mercedes in the parking lot. ;)
 
Pan said:
While I was sitting at heir offices the other day I heard Mr "Snake" Ramlall telling some not so tech savvy person (mayb an investor) at the door as he was walking the man out, that "they have over 15000 subscribers"
Click to expand...

I spoke with Mr. Ramlall the other day who told me this. I would think you overheard him that they have a potential subscriber base of 15000, which isn't that far fetched.

Be careful of what you overhear and assume.
 
still no speeds of any worth - and the lone dimwit Orc whose supposedly there to answer the phone for all iBurst subscribers, disappears at 5pm on saturday.
they need to fix this crap..

Its clear that they dont have enough Orcs to man the helpdesk, and that they're frankly stupid for offering a 24/7 internet but not a 24/7 helpdesk.

Chief Operating Officers name and cell number: Thami Mtshali 082 565 8054

Do iBurst realise that it wont take too much to sink them - given that a lot of people were burned by Sentech's lies previously, and thus arent much interested in alleged 'problems' which cause little or no bandwidth to be available.
 
Just spoke to the helpdesk about my lack of speed, basically dial up speeds atm.
According to them I am the first person to mention this, and everything is fine.

Is that the scripted answer? :mad:
 
alchamy said:
According to them I am the first person to mention this, and everything is fine.
Click to expand...

If this so this is evidence that e-mail to [email protected] is a) only read during office hours, b) never read, or c) dev/nulled. It is certainly very rarely replied to!
 
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Also (sunday morning) just spoke to the helpdesk - 'portia' - who tells me that
a) its a network wide problem, and the lack of speeds is UUNET's fault
b) the disconnections do appear to be something on iBursts side
c) Luis is working today - but not expected in the office.
d) there's no one else around in the tech side, who can give any explanation, or time-frame of it being resolved..

I find referring to this website and saying that there are clearly many other users also with lousy speeds, stops them from trying the sentech thing of 'you're the only one with this problem'..
Maybe if any users have contacts at UUNET, we could find out if its a genuine UUNET 'fault' - or whether iBurst have started quietly trying to throttle the bandwidth, to save money..
 
What amazes me is that I just got off a call with Portia, she first told me again that the network is fine :confused:

Only after I got incredibly rude did she actually tell me that there is a problem, she then spoke to Luis who said that they have isolated the problem.

Not sure if I should believe that, like I said in my post on saterday morning when Auth was down, WBS turn around time is 4 days. They have a way of creating 50 problems trying to solve one.

I expect things to be resolved Tuesday, really hope I am wrong
 
well, all I can say thank _________
(fill in which deity is applicable)

g*d/krishna/buddha/vishnu/shiva/the g*ddess/nike/ganesh/cthulhu/gaia

that this site exists, as it provides a brilliant up-to-the-minute way of allowing us to
cross check the stuff we customers are told.
Without it, we'd all still be sitting at home with our Sentech modems, wondering why we're the only ones with a problem.

Like I've said before, the 30 day contract aspect, I'm hoping, will mean that iBurst dare not try and pull the same delaying/lying tactics that Sentech got away with for over 7 months..
 
Slow speeds as per the norm...

Yes I just had a lovely conversation with Portia where I was told (I think they think that the customer is an idiot - though maybe the customer is in this case for sticking with IBurst)

a.) Its something to do with my signal - I am about 2km from the tower with LOS - and I've never recorded less then 96% signal (or 5 lights on the LED) except in a thunderstorm.

b.) Its something to do with a tower being down in Durban - this might be a valid problem as I understand that users that normally connect to that tower connecting to my tower might cause more contention - but my slow speeds have been for the last 24 hours - and the tower hasn't been down for the last 24 hours.

c.) UUNet is having a problem... hmm according to them UUNet is always having a problem - I'd be interested to hear what UUNet's response would be to IBurst besmirching their name - very very very unprofessional!

I just asked for her manager to call me.
 
New religion

LoneGunman said:
well, all I can say thank _________
(fill in which deity is applicable)

g*d/krishna/buddha/vishnu/shiva/the g*ddess/nike/ganesh/cthulhu/gaia
..
Click to expand...

Anybody up for a new pagan religion where we sacrifice members of the IBurst support staff (they're not benefitting anybody) in return for better bandwith or at least satisfaction? :D

*Starts praying to the deity of Elusive Bandwith*
 
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What really facinates me is that Portia gives every person a different story, which means that she has no idea whats going on.

Perhaps we should send this thread to her boss, oops her boss has even less of an idea cause his out showing all his friends the brand new Mercedes (just 4 u ic), while his clients have no bandwidth
 
Hmm, if portia is STILL trying to lie at customers and persuade them that firstly 'there is no problem' - then she's dumber than she sounds - at least the Thabo guy keeps his story straight, mainly because he looks at the various threads on this site, and knows that whatever he says is being recorded here. And he doesnt like being caught out by customers who point this out. Good for him - good for us.

Well, its normal office hours tomorrow morning, methinks everyone should start phoning in and speaking to whatever techies/management types they can get hold of, and then detail the info here, so we can not only list the stories, but refer the assorted techies/management to this site, if there are big differences in the stories we're each being told.
 
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