Finally, proper internet

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rudids

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I have finally gotten rid of iBust. After being threated with legal action, disconnected, throttled and capped I have finally ditched this poor excuse for broadband internet and moved to a proper broadband provider, albeit in another country.

Let me explain, I recently moved to the UK and acquired my new shiny 22Mbs uncapped and unshaped line for £19,50pm which let me tell you is awesome, but more importantly I wanted to share the fact that iBurst wouldn't be able to compete in the UK market if they tried.

There are plenty of Wireless providers out here who will gladly provide you with a 2Mbs+ connection uncapped and unshaped for a fraction of the price.

So after two years of abuse from iBurst I just wanted to say, F$cK You very much, and good riddance. :)
 
You lucky bastard...

Hey there Rudids

Well now that you are really on the information superhighway, spare a thought for us here in Africa.

Just a reminder so you don't forget how lucky you are!
 
Hi Rudids,

You are very lucky indeed! Enjoy the way the internet was meant to be enjoyed!!

Well, we all know Telkom has caused (and is still causing) incredible damage to this country's economy and the people.

We can only hope that someday a black person will stand up (sorry, it's not possible for a white person to do this in SA) and say - enough is enough.
 
rudids said:
So after two years of abuse from iBurst I just wanted to say, F$cK You very much, and good riddance. :)
Click to expand...

That company (shudder) irritates the living !@#$ outta me. I hate their entire organisation.

If they just didn't toot their own horn about their ability to provide service, and then *not* provide the said service.......
 
It mades me sick when I hear about UK or USA internet.

Keep it to yourself I am tired of hearing it with our government so involved in telecoms it doesn't seem probable that things are ganna get better here.
 
The reason for this is because SA doesn't have the infrastructure for the internet that's available in the States or elsewhere. Only 1% of our population, that's a mere 400 000 people, has broadband internet. The ISP's simply can't afford services like 8mb/s broadband mainly because of the lack of users in the country.
 
The only one you can blame for the lack of users is telkom ;)
 
Not entirely... The reality is that more than 35 million South Africans are poor, and can't afford broadband internet, or any form of connectivity for that matter. That's why our ISP's charge us so much every month, to cover all the costs.
 
but you should admit that it can come down a lot more. Other countries have shown this, and the more you drop the price, the more people can get broadband making it cheaper again.

There are a lot of middle class people who cant really afford ADSL/iBurst, or just don't want to spend so much money on it. But we do have the problem of a majority that is unable to afford a computer.. or even a Telkom land line.
 
GreatBigMouth said:
Not entirely... The reality is that more than 35 million South Africans are poor, and can't afford broadband internet, or any form of connectivity for that matter. That's why our ISP's charge us so much every month, to cover all the costs.
Click to expand...
The reality is telkom charges what it wants and everyone wanting to plug into the SAT3 cable is at their mercy. There is no incentive for them to do otherwise. The rates would fall drastically if neotel was allowed access to SAT3 - of which its thought to own a higher percentage of than telkom - and if the local loop was unbundled.

People want internet access - they just cant afford telkom's artificially inflated prices.

Then we have our regulator claiming it deserves= recent pay hikes while its equivalent in the UK has just announced the 1,000,000th unbundled line.

The reality is even the poor should be able to access internet whether is in their homes, schools, libraries or post offices. Government claims it is a priority of theirs but as usual that is just another empty promise.
 
The reason for this is because SA doesn't have the infrastructure for the internet that's available in the States or elsewhere. Only 1% of our population, that's a mere 400 000 people, has broadband internet. The ISP's simply can't afford services like 8mb/s broadband mainly because of the lack of users in the country.
Click to expand...

The obvious solution would be to reduce prices so more people can afford access, right?
 
Who's to blame

I blame companies like Iburst just as much as Telkom for the situation regarding broadband in SA. They are currently driving a action against WISP's using wifi frequencies, to have them stop their services to customers. Many of these companies, a lot of them small operations compared to Iburst, went out of their way, and sometimes with great financial difficulty, to provide their communities with affordable broadband access. Many of their customers are in rural areas, many farm schools, where there are no infrastructure, not even cellphone coverage. Where there are telephone lines available, the quality is so bad they can't even make a dial-up connection. For those that are able to connect, the speeds are so slow that they have to wait an hour to do 1 internet banking transaction, e-mails time out frequently and the line drops often. Telkom refuses to upgrade lines. There is also no 3G or HSDPA, just GPRS if they are lucky, and the speeds are too slow and the cost are too high to make it even worth considering an option for true 24/7 internet.

The likes of Iburst actually likes the current situation. It gives them them the oppertunity to profit without too much competition. Their self serving actions are going to cause the growth of broadband services to slow, especially in rural areas, deprieving many people from access to the internet, where other entrepeneurs were willing to provide them.

So how do you encourage competition? By making the barriers to entry for entrepeneurs, willing to provide these services, as low as possible. Easy access to radio spectrum and low license fees. Allowing the use of wifi technologies under self regulating bodies as is the case in the USA. Because the customer equipment is cheap and available anywhere, that makes the barriers to entry for customers also lower.

Why do we have to be always backward, compared to other 1st world countries? Because we chose to be so, and not willing to do anything about it, killing the spirit of those that are in the process.
 
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