iBurst: simple question does it work or not?

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Nicksteroonie

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I woke up this morning to the glorious realisation that my ADSL line is down due to the fact that the cables have been stollen in the Honeydew area.

This would not be such a big problem for me, if I didnt WORK FROM HOME! :mad:

Besides the fact that my boss in the US is freaking out that I cannot work, I am piling up work like you cant believe.

So now I have a tough call to make. Do I go and fork out the R2190 for an iBurst Desktop modem that I can connect to my WiFi router or do I use MTN to connect to the net in the interim.

Problem is, we transfer a lot of gig's for work in a month, usually around 3-4 gb, so MTN is going to be hellish expensive.

Telkom can take more than 6 weeks to replace these stollen cables, so I will work on a month to month iBurst contract.

Any advice is appreciated!

Thanks
 
The short answer is - it depends...

On your transmission tower (how many other users are connected simultaneously, less is better), how many other towers are located in your area (less is better), if you have line of sight to your tower, the distance to your tower (should not exceed 1.5 Km for optimal throughput)

An external antenna is advised with a narrow horizontal beamwidth 30° - 45° to improve your signal and lessen interference from other RF sources (only local option is Poynting's Yagi or the more expensive Dipole).

You will notice that throughput increases dramatically during heavy usage, so always test signal during downloading of large files. I would suggest you purchase a second hand modem, it might not look that great but it should work, the first generation desktop modems (grey) works best, with the highest throughput.

You should be paying about R 900 – R 1000, but if you are in a rush to obtain it - be prepared to pay up to R 1500.

Change your router's MTU to 1352 or experiment for better option and change your DNS settings to those of Open DNS (ping for best results). Some routers have compatibility issues with iBurst - most Netgear, Linksis and D-Link routers work.

I use iBurst exclusively, although being one of the operating company’s harshest critics, I am impressed with the technology and use >16.5 Gig's worth of data (three accounts) on a monthly basis for VPN, Browsing, Remote Desktop, VoIP, downloads, etc. When it works, it is truly a DSL replacement technology (African standard DSL ;-0).

Search "Honeydew" under the iBurst Forum, so see what others in your area have said.

Hope this helps.

Regards

Michael

Once applied for a 3 Gig or > Month-2-Month from Tradepage (only efficient iBurst ISP/Reseller IMO) contact me for some tweaks and tricks (DO NOT SIGN ANY CONTRACT!).

Above information has been condensed.
 
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Nicksteroonie said:
I woke up this morning to the glorious realisation that my ADSL line is down due to the fact that the cables have been stollen in the Honeydew area.

This would not be such a big problem for me, if I didnt WORK FROM HOME! :mad:
Click to expand...

I'm quite happy with iBurst. I use the USB modem without antenna, get 100% signal strength always and get speeds of 120KB/sec (constant rate) late at night and speeds ranging from 34KB/sec to 85KB/sec during peak
periods, in the 50KB/sec range on average during peak. I'm on one of the Pro accounts with MWEB iBurst so iBurst
doesn't do the billing. The Pro accounts give you the option of a soft cap
which really works very nicely. So far have had no problems (tower was down once for only 3 hours in the 6 months I've been with iBurst). I'm in Cape Town btw.

Get the USB modem, it works 100% for me. I'm currently on the 3.5GB package - switching to the 5GB one when MWEB sorts it's paperwork out.
 
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Had a client last year who had IBurst in Eagle Canyon. His reception was non existent till he got an external aerial. After that his average speed was about 200kb/s (peaking at about 800 but never sustained). Wouldn't recommend IBurst to anyone these days unfortunately but as you say, MTN/Voda will be expensive
 
Nicksteroonie - Check your PM for suggestion / solution. Thanks
 
Like Michael said it depends on your coverage.

If it's good, then your speeds will also be good.

if it's weak, then you'll have hassles with slow speeds.

Good luck - although I would not recommend iburst at this stage...
 
Mac Pro Quad 3GHz, 7GB RAM, 1.5TB, Ati1900XT 512MB.
Panasonic Let's Note (Toughbook) CF-Y7 1.6GHz, 2GB RAM, 14.1", WinXP, 1.55kg (Made in Japan).
Click to expand...

So PeterCH. Where do you live .. and whats your alarm code? hehe

How much does something like that cost?
 
Before I left iBurst I was on constant 1Mbps spped without an antenna (Woodmead area). Which was quite surprising given that I was at the bottom of a valley if you will. However given how I like my broadband (speed is important), it made little financial sense for me.

the run ins with the accounts departments didn't help either.
 
IMO, iBurst is a good service that actually works. The problem is that the company is run by incompetent idiots. I have never really had major issues with them. Sure, there was the odd problem here and there, but no ISP is perfect. Since they launched the Moreleta Park basestation, my signal is constant at 100% and I'm getting about 800kb/s on average.

My advice is to make sure you have sufficient coverage in your area. As Michael said, it really depends on the area you are situated in. ;)
 
btw bw is not good during the day for iburst... it may curise between the 120Kbps speeds in the evening but during the day it's stagnent around the 18Kbps mark (download speed)
 
fishfly said:
btw bw is not good during the day for iburst... it may curise between the 120Kbps speeds in the evening but during the day it's stagnent around the 18Kbps mark (download speed)
Click to expand...

That once again depends on the issues Michael stated in his post.
 
fishfly said:
btw bw is not good during the day for iburst... it may curise between the 120Kbps speeds in the evening but during the day it's stagnent around the 18Kbps mark (download speed)
Click to expand...

I never experienced anything like 18Kb constant during the day. I could actually still get almost full speed on some downloads during the day. That might depend more on your tower.
 
Ekhaatvensters said:
I never experienced anything like 18Kb constant during the day. I could actually still get almost full speed on some downloads during the day. That might depend more on your tower.
Click to expand...

The three main reasons why WiMAX is preferred to the iBurst technology;

iBurst users that are located further from the transmission towers are provided with lower bandwidth access and users that are closest with stronger RF signals obtains preference, unlike WiMAX where all users are provided with the same level of access. (The use of a directional antenna (installed as high as possible) will therefore provide some increase in throughput as it will increase the signal and reduce interference; however the signal delay is utilised in the calculation to establish “level of access”.)

The effective range of iBurst is roughly in the region of 1.5 Km compared to WiMAX’s range of 8 Km.

The cost of WiMAX CPE is expected to be much lower as the technology has been aggressively marketed and therefore more widely adopted with higher volumes being sold and integrated in most newer models of notebooks.
 
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