IBurst Doubts

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GougedEye

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I have been investigating IBurst as an alternative to ADSL. I must say that what I am seeing is leaving me feeling very unimpressed.

Let me see the costs are as follows.

Modem Cost R2800
Activation Fee R450
Monthly cost R600

Guarantee : Nothing

Firstly, the modem cost is crazy. Major profiteering going on here. When an ADSL modem can cost as little as R500 this is just crazy. You can sign a 24 month contract get the modem free and only pay R700 pm. That contract guarantees that you will pay R700 per month to WBS. The only thing it guarantees them doing is taking that R700. They can totally change the shaping, speeds etc. the day after you sign and there is not much you can do about it. Also if alternative broadband solutions become available, in the near future (it is possible), you won't be able to take advantage of them.

The Activation fee is nothing short of opportunistic robbery. What exactly do they do? Fill in a form perhaps? This is more than Telkoms installation fee, and at least they come and install ADSL.

The monthly fee is ok. A little better than ADSL. Same cap, same port prioritisation, worse latency. Basically comparable.

This just doesn't look like a good deal at all. I guess if you can't get ADSL, or you need to use it at multiple locations (home / office) then it's a good thing for you. Thats a relatively small sector of the market. I seriously doub't thats the extent of the people they are aiming at though.

Honestly, as a member of the long suffering SA public, this looks like Same S##t, different company. Even if you can swollow the modem cost (I can), this just doesn't fill me with any confidence in the future of this product. I have to say, this long before launch, MyWireless looked better than IBurst does now. And we all know where that went.

Or am I missing something?
 
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GougedEye, small edit required: "Monthly cost R600" should be Monthly cost R700 - you just know some prospective customer will get confused otherwise.

Activation Fee, allegedly R456 VAT inclusive, although Limnos posted [post=155886]Activation went up to R499![/post], well I totally disagree with WBS charging an activation fee, and I'm going to go & rant again in that specific thread shortly.

Apart from that, I generally agree, except that the cap allegedly won't be the same as ADSL bcos iBurst cap is supposed to be applied locally, not just internationally like ADSL.

Before I get flamed with comments like "wait until the cap is in place before judging", I say I have been waiting for WBS to communicate its customers, i.e. basically where's my email (in more ways than 1)???
 
Not defending iBurst

Cost wise iBurst works out cheaper than ADSL, depending from what side you look at it.

Correct me if I am wrong:

ADSL line: R 680
ADSL ISP: R 250 +-
Normal Telkom line: R80
Total = R 1010/month.

iBurst saving if you buy the modem R 410/month.

iBurst setup cost = R 3256 ADSL R 1000 +-

The difference R 2256

So after 5.5 months you are even.

Cap the same but pipe twice as big. It is up to you, I just hate telkom enough....
 
Very few people need a 512k ADSL line. Home 384 is a far better deal:
ADSL line: R 450
ADSL ISP: R 250 +-
Normal Telkom line: R80
Total = R 780/month.

Advantages:
-Very good consistant speeds.
-Very low stable latency.
-Effectively zero downtime.
 
Is iburst trying to chase away customers? In the begining one of the selling points was the fact that there was no activation fee
 
bb_matt said:
...try an IDSN solution...
Click to expand...
Ummm, no not for me anyways - been there, done that.

ISDN not really a solution - only a problem ITO monthly expenditure, all it achieved was rising monthly costs, & I'm sure Sizwe needs to thank me personally for part of his upcoming bonus payout.
 
Can't agree. ISDN line rental R220. ISDN ISP R150 = R370. So you have R330 left for calls. During "peak" times 40c/min = 825 mins of access ie 27.5 mins per day of 64k. If you want 128k then you have 13.75mins per day of internet access before ISDN becomes more expensive than Iburst. Currently on Iburst i am getting local downloads of 110KB/s (note Kbytes not Kbits) and International of 25-35KB/s. Only negative is p2p seems heavily shaped and almost completely blocked. If you want internet access only in callmore then consider isdn, otherwise its no choice. Give it a try for a week, when i called to enquire i was told everything would be reimbursted if i returned it within a week.
 
One good point for I-Burst. You can get the service and be up and running with an hour or two. ADSL waiting list can be up to 2 months!!!
 
Dave, you forgot to include Infinitcall - ~R60 pm. If you have a decent line and can stay connected most of the time then it works out to around R250 pm for calls (64k) and you're connected all night during the week and the entire weekend. It's a great option for those that work during the day and don't require super fast speeds. You can also pull up to 10 gigs a month in downloads.
 
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Afaik, Telkom no longer offers Infiniticall to new subscribers.
 
Grrrrrrrrrrrr

ISDN is only a "solution" when you have InfinitCall & are only going to connect during CallMore time.

So, for the people that regularly do email on business days, outside of CallMore, expect to be paying Telkom a manure load more of your hard earned moo-la, also note that Telkom has increased the ISDN rental, as well as the cost of local calls.

If you want the advantage of a connection that is potentially always-on at a fixed monthly price then iBurst & ADSL are the options available to you.

Disclaimer: ic will not be held liable for any decision the reader makes. Also try Sentech MW & Vodacom £G!Gig at your own risk.
 
Perdition. I agree totally. My planned setup is iburst for general browsing and moderate amounts of ftp, voip(it works very well by the way) and general stuff. Then i still have my isdn which i will connect over the weekends for p2p. I can consistently get 4gb (up and down) over a weekend. So for about R1100/month i have superfast browsing 24/7 and about 20gb use(abuse??).
 
sihen said:
isnt ASDL 384 a 2 gig cap with cut off?
Click to expand...
AFAIK, there are different ISP package options available, 2Gig I think is the cheapest of Telkom's money-grabbing options.
 
hmmm it would be nice of telkom if they gave 2 gigs international cap and unlimited local on a 384 account
 
I have DSL384, and managed to get a PC card UT for iBurst to test (i.e. play around with;) ) yesterday. In my limited testing (about 1 hour in Midrand) I wasn't really impressed. Speeds tested were not faster than 300kbps, and latency seemed very high but also variable. To be fair, I have no idea what the signal strength was, and don't know the network conditions...
 
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