I'm staying with WBS & iBurst!

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kingrob

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I will never ever forget the day I read WBS is offering broadband internet for R599 - the first company to take on the mighty Telkom? Like Nicole Fox always shout "JAY!!!!!!"

I can't tell you how much I hate Telkom - words fail me when trying to describe that parasite monopoly. And people complain about iBurst helpdesk not phoning them back? How about 'Sir, we can only install your Telkom line in two weeks time.'' No!! Please, I BEG you, can't you do it tomorrow? 'Sir, I SAID, two weeks.' She hangs up. Ok, I will have to wait two weeks then. Sounds familiar?

When I phoned to inquire about ADSL, the morons on the helpdesk all had a different story when it will be launched in my area. First they told me it would be three months, then after three months I phoned them and they said it will be another two months - I just gave up in the end.

(I almost fainted when I first read how much ADSL would cost me - and this is after I had BT ADSL for £26 a month in the UK!!!)

Then something just pushed me over the top. I read in the paper how much Telkom is paying their 'top dogs' in bonuses for 2004. South Africa. Where a landline is not affordable for most of the population. Where ADSL has a monthly 'subscription cost' of R200+. FOR WHAT? (We all know it only takes a few clicks to create a new user account in NetWare/Windows2000.) WTF is the 'subscription cost' for? Straight into the CEO's pocket?

That's why I'll NEVER EVER deal with Telkom again and will ALWAYS be supporting their competition - Telkom have milked the SA public long enough.

*I only get a 60% signal from my iBurst modem where I live, but I'm as happy as Bill Clinton with Monica in the copier room....
 
rather the devil you know then the devil you don't.

one good thing about telkom is their service seems to work better then iburst... and i suppose thats why it costs more at the end of the day.
 
Well to me telkom is better than IBURST, I've been with IBURST since the start Novemember, when I 1st received IBURST, I've to say the speed were good and all but now after Launch everything has gone down the Drain, It is cheap IBURST, but its not value for money since loads of stuff are going wrong and they don't inform "US" there clients, whats going on.

My friend's company bought about 20 UT-D for the office, and everyday they can't do anything. They relay on E-MAIl sending and other sorts of stuff to get there company on the Movie, now his lost loads of clients.

If Iburst could get there act together then we'd see wonderful stuff, Due to port shapping and other stuff, our Speed have been degraded, I feel like im on *Thorottle service*

halicon said:
rather the devil you know then the devil you don't.

one good thing about telkom is their service seems to work better then iburst... and i suppose thats why it costs more at the end of the day.
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RichardG said:
Well to me telkom is better than IBURST, I've been with IBURST since the start Novemember, when I 1st received IBURST, I've to say the speed were good and all but now after Launch everything has gone down the Drain, It is cheap IBURST, but its not value for money since loads of stuff are going wrong and they don't inform "US" there clients, whats going on.

My friend's company bought about 20 UT-D for the office, and everyday they can't do anything. They relay on E-MAIl sending and other sorts of stuff to get there company on the Movie, now his lost loads of clients.

If Iburst could get there act together then we'd see wonderful stuff, Due to port shapping and other stuff, our Speed have been degraded, I feel like im on *Thorottle service*
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yup... fact is i seldom hear of people leaving ADSL because of speed issues. i know people leave ADSL cuz of price and iBURST is cheaper... no doubt... but quality for quality... i am happy to find out my new exchange can take ADSL.
 
I tell you its this PORT SHAPPING issue or something, PPL in other base station DBN/PTA/CPT aint experience problems like in JHB.

I'll give them untill this month if they dont fix this stuff.


halicon said:
yup... fact is i seldom hear of people leaving ADSL because of speed issues. i know people leave ADSL cuz of price and iBURST is cheaper... no doubt... but quality for quality... i am happy to find out my new exchange can take ADSL.
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halicon said:
yup... fact is i seldom hear of people leaving ADSL because of speed issues. i know people leave ADSL cuz of price and iBURST is cheaper... no doubt... but quality for quality... i am happy to find out my new exchange can take ADSL.
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Dude this site was founded because of unhappy adsl subscribers, price is a critical point. iBurst are less than a month old, give them a chance to work out the problems that some people are having, wireless technology is not a decade old like dsl. Telkom has always sucked, even my parents lip about how long it took to get a phone line back in the day. Give iBurst a good few decades to improve and they still beat hellkom. I had dsl, I had isdn, siyanda the whole shebang and iBurst is rocking.The iBursters without problems are having a blast with iBurst and are definitely not posting here. You can count me as an adsl'er who left because of the speed issues. I prefer downloading at 100KB to 50, especially at half the price. I most definitely enjoy being able to use the internet, not just local once capped.

If an alternate out there exists, I'll support it, and while the politics are important and I really hate hellkom, I can honestly say my speeds kill adsl. even when capped.

Ps, ur new exchange? please tell me you moved and that you have actually had adsl and gone through the motions of intalling it?
 
Nab, It's not that. We paying R600 a month to IBURST, and are not getting our speeds that we Signed for in our month 2month contract, Maybe u getting the speed like other ppl, but I'm not getting anything if i get 4 kb/s its to much. I'm wrost off than dial up.

I'll give them time untill end of the month. I've been with IBURST since PRE-LAUNCH in Novemeber, speeds were so dam hot and sexy, but now since LAUNCh there is no speed, I've also been hearing ppl that reach there CAP can download better than I'm downloading. I've called Couple of guys who have WBS and they are not impressed.

They didn't notify us of nothing, when most of us were Disconnection ever 10mins from IRC, we couldnt connect to MSN, it was some users, but they still need to notify us. R600 is a lot of money to give away if you not getting your money worth. I rather support the Devil, since i get better service from them and it will be much faster.

I want the speeds like b4 launch, WHEN IT WAS THERE pre LAUNCH, speeds were so nice, I think we should Have a say what we use our 3 GIG bandwidth for aswell. Once we reach cap then they can put us port shapping Throttle system.
 
Fully understood and appreciated. You are getting shafted, you are getting a raw deal and what you and your mates are getting isn't fair. You are in the right to be upset, but my point is that even though horror stories like yours do exist, they also exist with adsl. Problems are a reality and are crap when they happen to you, but (and I really hope this is the case) people who are happy are the majority and don't post. When iBurst works it really works and is not substandard to ADSL even for twice the price!

Bro soz you getting shafted but I am not going to forget adsl and the depressing feeling of counting megabytes and whipping out the dialup whenever I need something international. My internet experience with iBurst has been interesting with all their little tricks to limit bandwidth and in some ways irritating, but not nearly as bad as trying to get a blown card at the exchange fixed for a month, or being ignored completely when my isdn refused to connect dual channel, or when some dirty Telkom technician let himself into my house without knocking, tells my maid to make him tea and then clogged my toilet with a massive dump.
 
Sorry ive never heard of an ADSL users getting less than 80% rated connection speed atleast. If you do, please tell me :)

OH AND LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

or when some dirty Telkom technician let himself into my house without knocking, tells my maid to make him tea and then clogged my toilet with a massive dump.
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Hi Guys. I'm with Iburst.It's not perfect but I belive overall they are the better option for the moment.For starters , they were the only company that was willing to do a month to month contract from the start.Thats a ballzy move considering that there competition was not offering this option.Try getting Telkom to hook you up when your starting a new business with no track record or are credit impaired.I've been with Iburst since November.There have been problems and maybe were not getting exactly what we saw in the ad but it's better than anyhthing else i've ever experianced in SA to date.WBS needs time to get to grips with the new technology.I dont believe that anybody in there right minds would set out to start a business with the sole aim of ripping off the public.Maybe in the past but not in todays world.I still remeber the endless fights that I used to have with techies from Internet Africa when I first got ISDN! Used to call on a daily basis complaining that their service sucked and there was something wrong with it.They in turned pointed at Telkom and so on it went.But with time it improved and got better.I believe same thing will happen here.Ony this time things are more Liberal and faster moving.20 years ago does anybody ever remember their being a public hearing to complain about Telkom's services? It never happened, it could'nt happen! Today it's happening.Since I was old enough to understand , i've been waiting for someone or something to Kick Telkom's Arse! I hope WBS & Iburst are ones.Hopefully Telkom will fade away and all there timewarped verkrampte mangement will get on there little red and blue bicycles and ride off into the sunset to join the rest of the dinosaurs of past like the NP,Broderbond,etc.WBS will get it right.They have to or they wont survive! I'm Haging in there for them!!
 
Clipse, what is the rated contention speed for any ADSL service? Telkom have until now refused to publish their contention ratios/speeds!
 
Sorry ive never heard of an ADSL users getting less than 80% rated connection speed atleast. If you do, please tell me
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My previous employer had ADSL and it wasn't plain sailing. Frequent disconnections, slow speeds and other nonsense.

I am getting iBurst because I simply don't have any other option available to me. The technology worked in my house as per the demo and I am willing to try it. Secondly, I know and realize that, with all the broadband available to the mass market, the overseas link is probably maxed out now during the day. Everyone seems to be complaining about the medium. Has anyone considered maybe that the link overseas or something in UUNET's network is causing the problem? Until the overseas link is upgraded we willl all have to live with slow speeds and you can blame TELKOM for that. I understand that some people are getting bad speeds, and I think it's more to do with the area i.e. lots of obstructions, metal buildings, etc that could cause the problem. Remember the early days of cellphones in SA. How many problems there were. I remember not having any network signal in the evenings. But I knew by being patient things would improve.

Furthermore I hate Telkom with a passion and I don't want to have any dealings with that useless company again.
 
Nick V. Hang on!

Nicv, we could not give a dam if your cause is noble or not. Why must I pay R599 a month and say "But they are trying". Face it. Service is useless, and it has nothing to do with anyone else. No one. The stuff you guys have put up does not work properly. Then i heard these bloody stories of future plans. YOU HAVE THE WRONG END OF THE STICK. Fix what you have.

The CEO. Please help the guy! He wants money, money, money that's all! Making a deal with Hi-Fi Corp although, his business is bleeding! Although R1600 for a UTD is still to expensive when i consider the thing will probably not work.

DEAR CEO. Get your business working!


I have just written to ICASA. Guys, we need to stop tolerating WBS.
 
Telkom ADSL is better the WBS iBurst

Is that not extremely embarrasing?

Oh my! Someone has joined the ranks of Sentec.
People and no one can tell us differently. Telkom has far more ADSL subscribers that WBS and WBS still s*ck.
 
Well I hope they work now my speeds are back, its all those accounts they've suspended but to me the price we pay we need to get money worth, during pre launch some of us got money worth!
 
Nab said:
or when some dirty Telkom technician let himself into my house without knocking, tells my maid to make him tea and then clogged my toilet with a massive dump.
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BWHAAHAHHAAHAH!!!!!! :D :D :D
Oh my g0d that is funny!
 
I got iBurst at the begin of April, the download speeds were disgusting until today (went up from an average of 28k to around 500k), if the problems are sorted out I'm glad.

I'm staying with iBurst, I've paid the penalty to cancel my ADSL contract and phone line. I shall not subscribe to any Telkom service again. If you want a 56k v92 or 128k ISDN or a 512k ADSL modem, I have some lying around here.
 
Hi Saint_DC & other fellow Bursters.

Please dont get me wrong. The "Telkom Cause" is one thing , I know,we all have our little causes. And Yes, I also feel ripped! This is South Africa after all.Most of us have been getting ripped by everybody/somebody most of our lives. Personally I have yet to see 1mbit speed on my connection but I still feel that service is better than most at this time.I had Sentech for a while.That sucked way beyond anything that WBS has done to me. I was on ADSL today at Office.Had to reset the router twice.Not impressed. Basically they all suck at the moment! You are right! But we all have to root for someone,dont we?

Incidentally, reading all todays posts about the " Bandwidth abusers" and "WBS Fraudsters" was helva amusing.Can believe some of the download figures. 80gb!! you've gotta give WBS some points in there favour.That is exessive. I must admit, in the beginning of my Iburst I also gave it stick but after about 2 or 3 weeks (ok,ok!maybe 4 weeks) got seriously bored with P2P.There's only so much stuff there to download.would love to know what people are downloading so veraciously thatthey need 80gb every 2nd day! Now if you look at things from WBS's side you'll have to admit that 100 or 200 bursters downloading full-time cannot be feasable.Especially since we all know that there is only so much bandwidth available and that it's simply not fair to allow a minoirty to overload and degrade the service for (maybe,can't be sure .assumption here,dont kill me four it) majority.it is shared after all,isnt it? Sure you can blame WBS becuase there system's suck and they just lost control of it and they got way ahead of themselves in the advertising department.But then also the 80gb bursters should also know better.WBS left the door open and the sheep just carried on grasing until somebody put on the electric fense! Hows that for an analogy?

Dealing wth WBS though they definietly losing big points with there response.Clearly the inter office email system is not up to scratch here and the memo's are not being read by everybody ( maybe thir connection sucks! hehe!). Considering that in essance their business is about communications, they suck at it! Last week they changed my user name and forgot to tell me about it.Could'nt connect for a whole day,phoned heldesk 3 times.average wait bout 15min till someone figured it out for me! Next day I got a call from "smitty". "we've changed your username!!". Nice!!!!

Bottom line! I agree none of us signed up paying two grand for modem plus R500 a month for all this "Days of our Lives" soap opera crap.WBS needs to get there sh*#^t together real fast if they plan to stay in business.Because if they dont , i'm afraid even us die-hard "support the underdog' types will start looking elsewhere!

Regards


" An opinion is like an arsehole,we've all got one!"
"Dirty Harry"
 
I am not getting very fast speeds when at home, but at least I can read my favourite web pages, download updates for my laptop and have email on the go.

If I compare that with Telkom dial-up, my landline was R79/month and average surfing with downloads at a snailish 4kb/s came to R500 a month.

Now I've got downloads at 16kb/s (only signal strength of 60% where I live)and much faster connecting/loading time when browsing the web. I'm happy.

*I agree that iBurst is not without problems, but hey, it's teething problems and will eventually be sorted out. Telkom ADSL also took time to mature into a good and reliable service?
 
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