iBurst competing with 3g HSDPA?

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geniosity

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Has ANYBODY heard if iBurst is going to try and "compete" with the 3G HSDPA from Vodacom? I believe towers have a max of 20 MBPS rates (I think), so increasing speed is not really feasible currently, but how about increasing the cap?

If I had a choice, I'd MUCH rather an increase in cap than in speed. And Vodacom is starting to look cheaper and more cost effective than iBurst at the moment.

Just a question/thought...
 
iBurst price per mb is from R 0.46 to R 0.12. I dont think that Vodacom will be able to come close to this in the near future. BTW Iburst speeds are really good in covered areas.
There rollout is average of 2 Base stations a week.
iBurst will become the future of Broadband Internet at affordable prices.
 
I dont think Vodacom is looking mch cheaper than Iburst at all, isnt it still R499 for a gig if you are on HSDPA?

And it is completley hardapped, remember that.
I think increasing speed is feasable, not shure how but maby a basestation upgrade will go on or just the rollout of new towers is going to help carry the load of a speed increase.

However I would also prefer a price cut or a bigger cap than hihger speeds, but higher speeds aare what draw new users into the system, not a higher cap. Talking about home type MWEB subscribed users here, not power users.
 
Totaly agree on the cap issue, but i-Burst are looking at bringing the 2mb/s speed in sometime soon. However, soon to i-burst might not be soon to consumers!!!!!
 
geniosity said:
Has ANYBODY heard if iBurst is going to try and "compete" with the 3G HSDPA from Vodacom? I believe towers have a max of 20 MBPS rates (I think), so increasing speed is not really feasible currently, but how about increasing the cap?

If I had a choice, I'd MUCH rather an increase in cap than in speed. And Vodacom is starting to look cheaper and more cost effective than iBurst at the moment.

Just a question/thought...
Click to expand...

@geniosity, one should not condemn any technology without reviewing the facts,

As I am aware, iBurst can handle currently 20MBS on 5 MHz of special frequency, and iBurstgroup has 10Mhz registered with ICASA. Therefore, there might be room for tower upgrades.
Also, correct me if I am wrong, but HSDPA can do 10MPS on 5MHz of spatial frequency, and I think Vodacom has 2Mhz (can't find there frequqncies on ICASA)
The two technologies are different, one can’t compare them
 
On the Australian Chilli website, they talk about Iburst rolling out 2Mbps in 2006, 4Mbps in 2007, and 8Mbps in 2008.

But I don't think these speeds can be achieved on the current hardware. I don't fancy paying for another UTD, so I will expect Iburst to swap out new equipment for old, as Vodacom did with their data cards.

But I agree with most on this thread, increase the caps, before increasing the speeds. At 1Mbps I can theoreticaly finish my 9Gb allowance in less than 24 hours. I don't need more speed (although it would be nice).

And please, Iburst, introduce some price differentials between peak bandwidth and off-peak bandwidth. Something like this would be a major feather in your cap (Hope everyone appreciates the pun).
 
i-Guru said:
@geniosity, one should not condemn any technology without reviewing the facts,

As I am aware, iBurst can handle currently 20MBS on 5 MHz of special frequency, and iBurstgroup has 10Mhz registered with ICASA. Therefore, there might be room for tower upgrades.
Also, correct me if I am wrong, but HSDPA can do 10MPS on 5MHz of spatial frequency, and I think Vodacom has 2Mhz (can't find there frequqncies on ICASA)
The two technologies are different, one can’t compare them
Click to expand...

I am not condemming. These companies may have the capability, but they aren't offering it. I got a couple of things wrong/overlooked, mainly the fact that Vodacom has a 1GB cap for R499, as opposed to 3GB for R699 (on contract).

But I still love iBurst. Coverage and connectivity is great for me. But Vodacom just seems to be better. I was trying to see if anybody had heard if iBurst was going to try and counter Vodacom's new campaign. But then, I suppose a counter to Vodacom would be an increase in speed as opposed to the much needed "cap raising"...

And, the Pun was excellent, Gatecrasher. :D
 
Oh, and when I say "seems", I mean "appears", thanks to the promotion. I'm still not impressed.
 
HSDPA still lacks the right kinds of hardware for decent fixed usage (i.e. gw for home networking), in the way a iBurst UTD (with PPPoE) allows.

We'll have to wait & see what the (HSDPA enabled) offerings from Linksys & DLink are like (external antennas etc.), whenever they're avaliable???
 
I for one would like the following from iBurst: increase the cap or increase te speed after cap (from 64k to 128k) or both. The speed before cap is fine. An increase in speed (to say 2mbps) will not really benefit most of us, all it will really mean is tha most of us hit the cap sooner, but increasing to 128kbps after being capped will (in theory) give us an isdn level of service.
 
Apprently there's a rumour that Iburst will be launching a 2Mbps package soon...
 
kingmonty said:
... An increase in speed (to say 2mbps) will not really benefit most of us, all it will really mean is tha most of us hit the cap sooner, ...
Click to expand...

Things like this will probably just mean that they'll be more eager to get us a higher speed, because we'll look keen on buying more bandwidth, or upgrading our packages... Don't you think? ;)
 
fishfly said:
Apprently there's a rumour that Iburst will be launching a 2Mbps package soon...
Click to expand...
Dont see the point atm ... rest of the network + interconnects hardly ever stresses the current 1Mbps air interface.
 
Seems a bit drastic. This weekend I couldn't get more than 800K. Maybe everyone was cleaning there 3Gigs out! :D
 
Swoosh said:
Seems a bit drastic. This weekend I couldn't get more than 800K. Maybe everyone was cleaning there 3Gigs out! :D
Click to expand...
You must be on a more 'chilled' tower to me. I cant get much more than 600 Kbps (more like 200-400 during primetime) off Kyalami.

My signal is definately capable at ~ -64dB, that like 15 green lights on UTD. The other night when the network crashed I must have been one of the 1st to reconnect and for 5-10 min I was pretty much flatlining 1 Mbps. Then all those other horrible people around me invaded MY tower :mad:
 
I think its about time iBurst start increasing the cap or lower their prices they still have the same price for their 9GB package since they launched their service , since then even hellkom lowered their prices to some degree .
 
Roman4604 said:
You must be on a more 'chilled' tower to me. I cant get much more than 600 Kbps (more like 200-400 during primetime) off Kyalami.

My signal is definately capable at ~ -64dB, that like 15 green lights on UTD. The other night when the network crashed I must have been one of the 1st to reconnect and for 5-10 min I was pretty much flatlining 1 Mbps. Then all those other horrible people around me invaded MY tower :mad:
Click to expand...

I have experienced that before whe Cape Town crashed a while ago. Ijust sat down on my PC as it reconnected and tyhe first thing I did was a speed test for some reason. Now it was during the day and I got 1.5mb/s!! And I am sitting with a connection that goes between 3 and 5 lights, some people with full speeds and great dB must have almost been able to do 2mb/s.

It slowed down later but still shws the capability of the current hardware to go over 1mb/s i hope. But I wouldnt mid the new UTD at all, and they can give our old ones to the new countrys busy deploying Iburst, like Kenya.
 
noemfie said:
I think its about time iBurst start increasing the cap or lower their prices they still have the same price for their 9GB package since they launched their service , since then even hellkom lowered their prices to some degree .
Click to expand...

Unfortunately I thnk this is because they expect a speed upgrade to 2mb/s will make their prices seem much more reasonable to most people. Remember the are more interested in getting home users onto their network, these people are less bandwidth intensive and will see ads saying that Iburst is THE fastest servce in SA and buy it.

Who wants to have techies and downloaders who are technically capable on their network? They just use as much bandwidth as possible and complain about you the whole time because they monitor every crash etc.
Thats us by the way.. we complain about every thing that happens at Iburst and expect everything from them. Its good for the industry but just a hassle for them..
 
I don't see how you can compare Vodacom / MTN HSDPA to iBurst.

iBurst
Cheaper Bandwidth Prices / Packages... BUT
Heavily Shaped.
Not that Mobile (Lack of Coverage)

HSDPA
More Expensive Packages .. BUT
No Shaping.
Pretty Mobile (Better Coverage)

They are targeted at completely different markets if you ask me.
 
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