no international bandwidth

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jamieb

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overloaded towers in rosebank/sandton area?

Besides the fact that iBurst is a dog of a service... well actually, the word service cannot even be mentioned in the same sentance... i reckon, many of the problem i'm having are due to the fact that the rosebank tower is overloaded and/or they do not have sufficient bandwidth. this is pure speculation though.

basically, my internet connection is still completely UNUSABLE.
.
 
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i would agree with your assumptions as i have generally good speeds at home but have terrible speeds at other locations. I would agree that your tower is overloaded.
 
you would think with these oversaturated towers wbs would use their common sense and make the service better there by placing more towers or priority there as they could possibly make more money and have a large majority of iburst users happy and saying good things about wbs.

but then this is implying they have common sense which seems to be severly lacking on their side.

think wbs, think!
 
halicon said:
you would think with these oversaturated towers wbs would use their common sense and make the service better there by placing more towers or priority there as they could possibly make more money and have a large majority of iburst users happy and saying good things about wbs.

but then this is implying they have common sense which seems to be severly lacking on their side.

think wbs, think!
Click to expand...


Reading between the lines i think that is what iburst is doing. I had a chat to the helpdesk who confirmed that the roll out in durban(and i would presume the rest of the country) has been put on "hold" until the issues in jhb have been sorted out. The gist of the conversation went that the coverage in jhb is inadequate for the number of subscribers presently and they are concentrating efforts on rolling out more towers in jhb.
 
Daveogg said:
Reading between the lines i think that is what iburst is doing. I had a chat to the helpdesk who confirmed that the roll out in durban(and i would presume the rest of the country) has been put on "hold" until the issues in jhb have been sorted out. The gist of the conversation went that the coverage in jhb is inadequate for the number of subscribers presently and they are concentrating efforts on rolling out more towers in jhb.
Click to expand...

i hope that is the case, because no one wants to see iburst land up in the same situation that the 'other' wireless company did.
 
jamieb said:
Besides the fact that iBurst is a dog of a service... well actually, the word service cannot even be mentioned in the same sentance... i reckon, many of the problem i'm having are due to the fact that the rosebank tower is overloaded and/or they do not have sufficient bandwidth. this is pure speculation though.

basically, my internet connection is still completely UNUSABLE.
.
Click to expand...
Ok, I thought someone else would jump in & say this, noone has - yet, so I'm going to do it...

The title of this thread "no international bandwidth" suggests that local bandwidth / sites are all ok, and that the problem is just with accessing international sites...:confused:...however base-station contention will affect anything that you try doing with iBurst - including just staying connected - you will be disconnected by the base-station - if a base-station has too many customers in its shop, it will throw a bunch of them out onto the pavement...as to whether there is any intelligence behind this - I dunno - I just know it happens to me with Olivedale-BS - I get disconnected a lot when the thing is highly contended [i.e. speed slows down sooo much that her Poisonous Ivyness seems faster with her "managed telecoms liberalisation"...:rolleyes:]...I assume that other base-stations running the same version of firmware/software do the same thing when over-contended...

So, my question is: should the title of this thread not be something like

"Over-Contended Base-Station(s)..."
 
From some feedback i've been given theres 20 additional towers on the short-list.... main delays are getting environmental clearances and delays in getting hardware for the towers into the country ... does'nt make me happier but at least I know SOMETHING is getting done .. even if not much
 
JamieB,

Why didn't you first TEST iBurst before you opted for it? Every thread that you've posted on this discussion board so far, is nagging and berating it - do you work for Suctech? Almost like mommy brought back the wrong toy from the shop and now you're upset.

If it doesn't work for you, get something else.

It's that simple.
 
you're right jamieB!, that is pure speculation, so don't be offended if i sweep that "they do not have sufficient bandwidth" comment in my bullsh!t pile.

kingrob is right, anyone who jumps in bed with any wireless service without testing is either stupid or suffering from temporary insanity, its obvious it doesn't work for you like it does for others... so get something else.
 
slimothy said:
kingrob is right, anyone who jumps in bed with any wireless service without testing is either stupid or suffering from temporary insanity, its obvious it doesn't work for you like it does for others... so get something else.
Click to expand...

Slimothy, it is insulting to call somebody insane or stupid. I also didn't test the connection before I bought a modem and subscription and, subjectively and objectively, I am neither stupid nor insane. The advertising and price of the WBS product suggests premium quality. When I bought the priduct nobody at WBS warned me that it might not work, or that I should educate myself on speed tests (to prove WBS that my connection doesn't work), MTU (whatever the acronym stands for), proxies, constant pinging, etc. Perhaps WBS should carry their advertising with a warning - laypeople need not apply- techies only! When I subscribed to dial-up 10 years ago - I connected to the Internet without any additional hassle. When one pays a lot of money (as how I paid for my dial-up 10 yrs ago) for a service they expect hassle-free use of that service. It's the same as people paying a lot of money buying a computer from Incredible connection because, presumably they get the guarantee and the support for problems they can't sort themselves. While I am sure a techie person can go buy the parts from some other place and assemble the PC for themselves at half the price of IC - but then the techie can sort out his own problems.

There are people with connection problems out there, and most of them stopped complaining here (or at the helldesk) because there is no use in doing so. We saw some here who even terminated their contracts. Which, by the way, is exactly what you are suggesting. But for the benefit of the customers who needed and welcomed the new opportunity of faster internet, and for WBS's sake - isn't it better that they fix their network to work for everybody instead of ignoring the whole lot of unhappy customers?
 
fairlady, I agree. As I've noticed for a while now, there's an
agressive and belligerent attitude being shown on this forum
towards new IBursters experiencing a much lower quality product
than what they were sold.

Instead of this simple fact being acknowledged, it seems that
there are users who suspiciously attack and defend almost
every aspect of the IBurst product, and do this, regardless
of the simple honest unhappiness expressed from the newbie
IBursters.

Saying 'well get another service, its your problem' - or at best,
offering 'workarounds' to bypass the blocks inherent to the IBurst
product itself, and attacking those who don't want to have to do
this - is to be doing a disservice to this Forum.

Certain users here seem to be defending IBurst at the expense
of actually genuinely helping the new arrivals in any real way -
namely:
to understand that the service they've just bought, is flawed at
best, and utterly inadequate, at worst.

If newbie IBursters have problems, or are struggling with the IBurst
'experience' - its really not acceptable for Forumites to be sneering like
children at them, and offering juvenile suggestions that they're 'stupid' in
some way or that 'they should have known' or similar.

They're here, they're newbies, they need help. Real help. They're not
a punching bag for the hidden agenda's of certain users who seem
continually keen to mock, attack and generally act in a pretty negative
way towards the new signed up IBursters, who find their way to this
Forum.

No fingers being pointed at any individuals - but geez folks, take a
step back and ask yourself what you think you're doing when you talk
to the new signed up guys who are fresh on Forum and struggling -
don't you realise you're not helping them at all?

Or is this your actual intention?

You don't 'help' by defensively justifying and protecting IBurst as
a product, (unless of course you actually work for IBurst, and want
to intimidate and silence its customers who find their way onto this
Forum, looking for an honest view and understanding of what they've
just bought.)

In my view, some of you folks are slowly but surely giving this Forum
a bad name, by your ongoing actions and behaviour towards the new
arrivals. It's not really acceptable behaviour, in my view - however
you might want to justify it.

Try being friendly, and realising that new guys are simply reporting
their experiences honestly, and looking for help, and an honest
view of their situation - they aren't here for you to be sneering at,
or insulting.

If that's the best that certain Forumites can do, then those Forumites
should do this Forum a favour and leave.
 
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jamieb, I also think there is a problem on the Rosebank tower. I connect to it during the day, and my signal was dropping all the time, high pings & timeouts, etc. I got the antenna, and although it improved the situation a lot, I still don't get the speeds I should. From the Rosebank tower, I get max 80k if I'm lucky, where I can get 127k at home using the Fourways tower.
 
i think the underlying problem is companies see that people hate Telkom (for pricing and general stupidness) and because they can't have their own infrastructure, saw a "gap" in the market for wireless technology.

They jump the gun, and because they're conservative in anything they do (because this project will cost a couple of hundred million rand) they underestimated the take-up of their service.

Same thing happend with Sentech and their supposed "Market Research" (probably asked some hobos what they think)

I would have thought WBS would learn from Sentech's mistakes. But Greed surely closes that topic up real fast.
 
My opinion is that regardless of the WBS advertising for iBurst, it was never meant to truly be a broadband connection, at least, not for the time being - that was used to get the geeks onboard.

Sure, it's capable of 100kbs and above under optimal conditions.

The fact is, how many people in South Africa actually know what broadband is and use it to it's full potential ? - you know the answer to that - very few.

I always stop and ask myself how many people I know who use the internet for more than just email - about 5%. Lets be generous here and say that my circle of friends and aquaintances are luddites and bump that figure up to 15%

That leaves a market share of 85% who just want email and light surfing.
THAT is the market iBurst want, obviously.
All of my clients fall into this category and many are so sick of Telkom and their inability to get ADSL, they find iBurst a wonderful option.
If their speeds never go above 10kbs they won't even know - coming from dialup, they are used to slow speeds, so even a slight improvement will impress them.

If these customers are not the type that iBurst want, then explain why they slapped a 3gig cap onto the service ?
At optimal speed, that cap would last 10 hours tops.

It's pretty damn obvious to me that the tech savvy users are WBS's worst nightmare and they'd drop all of them given the chance.
 
Kyocera says its broadband, so its broadband, it was always meant to be broadband as well, it is just a last mile solution for ISPs and in South Africa that means an alternative since even in our major cities you find huge gaps where ADSL isn't available or is available but is so far from the exchange its not even worth the money.
 
rob king

Why didn't you first TEST iBurst before you opted for it? Every thread that you've posted on this discussion board so far, is nagging and berating it - do you work for Suctech? Almost like mommy brought back the wrong toy from the shop and now you're upset.
Click to expand...

Rob King....

I berate iBurst because I am heavily dependant on the Internet to conduct business. I lose about 2 hours productivity a day because the iBurst network is down. I cannot change to Telkom because my local exchange is not equipped to deal with ADSL. Believe me, as soon as it is, (as much as I hate Telkom), i will switch.

Besides complaining about iBurst, I've actually added alot of productive input to My Broadband. I helped out with the Myadsl guide, sent letters to ICASA, participated in broadband testing, etc.

No, I do not work for Sentech, nor would I consider doing so. I actually just come back from overseas where I worked for a company listed on the NASDAQ. We were at one stage going to setup a 30 man development shop here. But, we decided against it because there is no working Internet infrastructure in this country. Now that I've come back, I realise what a wise decision that was. We would be have stuck with a remote development team with no way to communicate with them.
 
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