My thoughts on bandwidth

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Kei

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As some of you realise for some reason I don't seem to have problems with my iBurst connection so I decided this weekend to do a comparative test against a TELKOM 384k diginet circuit.

The international download speeds were identical for the same file. (varying from 34kbyte/sec to 48kbyte/sec using p2p as a test- the iBurst goes up to 80kbyte/sec). Some files downloaded at 3kbyte/sec and that is due to the nature of p2p. In most cases the iBurst outperformed the diginet circuit particularly on local sites.

No surprises there and reinforces what I said earlier that everyone in SA has to realise that TELKOM is still providing overseas bandwidth as "best effort". Blaming WBS or your service provider is not the right way to go. It's not their fault. Rather direct all the anger you feel for WBS at TELKOM and join forces with MaD and RPM to fight the monopoly.

I am very very happy with my iburst connection. I have not had problems at all. All the problems I've had with it I've traced to my own equipment and promptly resolved the issue.

As for Friday night's outage, didn't affect me but nonetheless I do appreciate the fact that an e-mail was sent. Shows that things are slowly improving.

I am keeping what I have as I am getting more for less. You lot can hate me for this stance as much as you want or you can contact me and we can look into why some people are having problems and I'm not. We can see what is so different about my setup and why it works so well. We can analyze this, but if people are going to ignore me as they have, or diss me then it's not on. I am also a professional. I am not into IT but I sometimes design PC hardware so I know computers very well. Not that it means anything around here nor am I trying to say that I am better than all of you. Give me a little respect, I am not an ******* and I will help anyone who asks. I am not kidding, my iBurst connection works very well and BETTER than I hoped!

The only time I ever struggled to load a webpage was when my MTU was up to ****. MSN and IRC has worked WITHOUT FAIL since I got iBurst. I've had ONE disconnection and it happened because the PC with the iBurst connection froze.
 
Ok but how do u explain the slooooow local speeds today? Thats not Helkom is it? I am in Jeppe today and have never seen such sloooow speeds. Although i do agree with your statements about Helkom
 
I cant say that I am unhappy with my iBurst connection as well - it works - doesnt have any disconnections and its fast.

My only issue is my P2P (and yes, I am on the 9gig package). My flucuating connection types (Low ID / High ID) indicate that I in fact do have my port forwarding, etc setup correctly (otherwise I would -only- get Low ID's). I have seen an improvement with it (trust me, not a vast one, but its usable now by the looks of it) - but not quite satisfactory yet.

My only arguements are - if I have paid for 9gig, (or whatever the case might be) let me use it how I like - after that, they can shape whatever; however.
Lastly, support/helpdesk could be a bit friendly, quicker and more helpful/detailed. The last e-mail (one and only reply Ive gotten) from the helpdesk consisted of "Hello Please see the product discriptions on https://secure.wbs.co.za" which didnt really answer my question. You can also see the English there wasn't that great either, to busy to run a spell check? (Maybe Im just fussy)

Either way, being a fairly new client to iBurst - I cant give a proper review/opinion - but so far so good in my books.
 
To answer your comments:

Today local access SUCKS ass, I am struggling my backside off to post to this forum- connected via 128k diginet here at work. Our IT person is about to phone Telkom to report this as a fault as it's impacting on our business.

South Africa has a lot to learn about helpdesks/call centres etc... Lots of American companies want to invest in it in SA but because of TELKOM's sky high charges they go to India instead. This means many people don't get the skills or training they lack and call centre/helpdesk service still sucks.

It is indeed true that WBS has a lot to learn but it's still a startup. They may have been around awhile running lottery machines but only recently have had to deal with clients such as the general public and small to medium sized businesses so cock-ups are going to happen until they train their staff, get organized better and learn from their mistakes.

As for the shaping it's bull**** I agree but at the moment I'm not having too much hassle with it as I am downloading more or less the same speed as my friend who has the Diginet line.

The big problem, I agree, is their ****ty policies regarding p2p traffic and other protocols they deem to shape
 
Kei said:
Today local access SUCKS ass, I am struggling my backside off to post to this forum- connected via 128k diginet here at work. Our IT person is about to phone Telkom to report this as a fault as it's impacting on our business.
Click to expand...

Can't say the same here, we have a 256K line (CIR Local) with MTNSP and its running perfectly, come to think of it we hardly have a slow day on diginet.

Also our 512KB Sentech is running just fine, thanks goodness im not at home to get frustrated with Iburst.
 
yes it's close to R10k/month, but my friend works for an Internet Service Provider
 
Kei, your view point is appreciated, but you should generally think of the laymen out there who does not know the innerworkings of backbones and who provides who with access. The point is, if WBS wants to be a real player in the market, they should keep their customers better informed, and although the email was appreciated, the fact that they give you a 30 minute notice is absurd.

I would literally get shot on the spot execution style if my "warning" of a server maintanence or outage on my networks is 30 minutes, I have to AT LEAST give a 24 hour notice!

Any self respecting business know that, and I'm not talking about making a million rand a day, we do around 2000 million rand worth of turnover per month. So I know what I'm talking about (most of the time, hehe)

Please keep in mind (coming from a Sentech past) that there were users (I was one of the lucky few) who had great speeds and never really had trouble (and if i had, never lasted for more than a day or so) but the service kept on degrading to such an extent that I actually started feeling what other users felt for several months, forking over cash for a connection HOPING against hope the service would return to its former glory. It didn't, and subsequently they lost half their consumer base.

I've seen all this happen before, and it WILL happen again.... trust me. Blaming Telkom doesn't really get you anywhere when your provider is NOT Telkom. Remember, they buy the service FROM Telkom, and albeit a "best effort" service, they're still the resellers for bandwidth someone else supplies. If they kept us more informed about the comings and goings of things, this problem would not exist.

Cheers
 
SupaMonkey: If you're going to pick on somebody's spelling, you surely want to make sure that your own spelling is beyond reproach............to busy should be too busy.....

"Hello Please see the product discriptions on https://secure.wbs.co.za" which didnt really answer my question. You can also see the English there wasn't that great either, to busy to run a spell check? (Maybe Im just fussy).........



:D just felt like it today.......
 
hehe- bite me! I never check the spelling I use on irc/messenger/forums or the like unless Im speaking to clients (or unless Im flaming someone) ;)
 
I understand the viewpoints here, nonetheless I am getting great speeds as I write this. I am just concerned that I keep getting sort-of told here to get rid of iBurst. Well I have NO OTHER OPTION, no Telkom lines here, nada!

I don't complain
 
Kei, for instance, I have a 1.5meg email downloading now for the last 27 minutes... yes, 27. I'm not capped. Do the maff
 
WTF? I downloaded a 1.8 meg e-mail in a few minutes.
 
Kei, I agree with most of your positive points, my biggest complaint is the mushroom treatment from WBS. There's been a few technical hiccups that irritated me at the moment, but then I've been in ICT related fields for 25+ years, so fairly used to it by now :)
 
I agree, the mushroom treatment I am used to it, it seems indigenous to this country.

I am quite interested as why some people are having such bad performance, and others get good performance out of this product. One pattern I have noticed is that it's all the people who during prelaunch used to download tons and tons that are complaining and newly signed up people seem OK for the most part, there are a few unhappy new sign-ups.
 
Kei, good point - I've asked if there's been some kind of quiet deliberate 'over-capping' of the people that WBS considered 'abusers' - naturally this has been denied. But if the performance problems are all or mostly happening to people that WBS made a list of previously - it suggests that this is what has been done. It would be interesting to cross-reference their 'baddies list' with a list of 'performance problems experienced by users'.
If they're pretty much the same, then we know.
 
So then, let's make a list (please correct me if I am wrong here below):

People having Bad Peformance on iBurst connection

Pre-launch subscribers
noone
TheRodent

Post-launch subscribers
craigsa


People having Good Performance on iBurst connection

Pre-launch subscribers

[fill in here]

Post-launch Subscribers

SupaMonkey
Kei
wls
 
I'm getting bad performance, I am a prelaunch subscriber and I was one the "abusers" who was cut off.
 
Good Performance - Post launch
was also disconnected for being an 'abuser'
 
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