Telkom Closer 4 is cheaper than iBurst??

iBurst *is* great value ..in specific circumstances. For me it's fabulous as I'm a laptop user so I have comparatively reasonably priced bandwidth as I move through my world, something ADSL can't give me. Then, if you can't even get ADSL anyway *cough*Hyde Park*cough* (last I heard), it's good value there too ..*shrug* it comes down to horses for courses.
 
Telscum is cheaper!!!

Closer 5 - max 4mbps
telephone has
1000 free minutes normal time, local and long distance.
1000 free minutes callmore time, local and long distance, max 1 hour per call!!
Both time-scales have cell calls per second billing!
R699 per month.
Telkom as ISP - 249 pm.
Total approx R950 pm.

iBurst 3 g - 599 pm + Mcafee = 611 pm.
My telephone ac @ R800 pm - 1411 pm.

Checked last 4 accounts - all would have been covered by closer 5.

Look at the savings!!!! - R461 per month????

How can one possibly stay with iBurst with the vagaries of bad weather, heavy road traffic (this from a call-centre consultant) and sheer ignorance of the call centre consultants taken into account?

Exceed your cap of 3g - buy 1 g from iBurst at R159 per g.
Buy 2 g from Telscum at R199, or R100 per g.

Why are you waiting to change to TS?

The absolute ball-ache of advising all your email contacts of the change!

It is verily strange, the things that keep us nailed to lousy service and inefficiency!

I think I have overdone the exclamation marks somewhat!!!! What the hell!!!!

iBurst - big wake up call!!
 
Last edited:
If you already have a phoneline installed, your a moran for not using ADSL, especially if your already running up an astronomical phonebill. Those who don't have phonelines or need portability. iBurst is certainly the best way to go.
 
Ed, Please repond

The only logical reason anyone would stay with iBurst is for backup in the event that Telscum ADSL is down.

One would then choose the cheapest month to month that iBurst has to offer.

This is one area where iBurst is more immoral than Telscum (I never thought that anyone could be more immoral!!!).

Your charges per gigabyte are nothing but extortionist in your lower priced packages.

How on earth can you charge those prices with a clear conscience? Your executive must have taken the old adage to heart - "It is morally indefensible not to part a fool from his money".

Please give us iBurst victims a good reason to continue suffering performance degradation while iBurst proudly boasts of its expansion and market penetration.

The only benefit is to iBurst's bottom line.

Don't get me started on the BEE aspect that iBurst is so proud of. I do not support Black Economic Enrichment.
 
Seems iBurst has reached it's sell by date, and the only advantage it has been for me up till now is the mobility, which at such the great extra cost is simply not worth it.:(

I second Mze when he says "iBurst - big wake up call!!"
 
Agreed!

MrH said:
Seems iBurst has reached it's sell by date, and the only advantage it has been for me up till now is the mobility, which at such the great extra cost is simply not worth it.:(

I second Mze when he says "iBurst - big wake up call!!"
Click to expand...

I third that - iBurst WAKE UP!
 
I looked at this when the Closer ad came with my phone bill in Nov last year (wanting to get off dial-up). I went thru the exercise of looking for a new ISP, settled on Cybersmart and phoned Telkom to come and install ADSL on Closer 4. I was told there was a 6-8 week wait for installation in Pta. A colleague then told me he'd been waiting for 6 months and they still hadn't pitched. I phoned iBurst and was connected the next day...

For you guys with huge phone bills it may be an option, but at the mo I'm actually considering turfing out Telkom altogether as most of my phone bill was for dial-up. For me, the cost of iBurst 3GB is marginally more expensive than Closer 4 + ISP. Once I've seen what my monthly usage is, I may even drop to 1GB, then it will be cheaper.
 
Mze said:
Closer 5 - max 4mbps
telephone has
1000 free minutes normal time, local and long distance.
1000 free minutes callmore time, local and long distance, max 1 hour per call!!
Both time-scales have cell calls per second billing!
R699 per month.
Telkom as ISP - 249 pm.
Total approx R950 pm.

iBurst 3 g - 599 pm + Mcafee = 611 pm.
My telephone ac @ R800 pm - 1411 pm.

Checked last 4 accounts - all would have been covered by closer 5.

Look at the savings!!!! - R461 per month????
Click to expand...

To be fair in the price comparisons you should only use R300 for your telkom account as that would be the cost on closer 3 which includes the same advantages of closer 4/5 excluding the adsl portion. Using your projected savings that would mean closer 5 plus telkom isp would actually cost R39 more per month than closer 3 plus your current iburst subscription.
 
Fudzy said:
If you already have a phoneline installed, your a moran for not using ADSL, especially if your already running up an astronomical phonebill. Those who don't have phonelines or need portability. iBurst is certainly the best way to go.
Click to expand...

I really didn't want to go with Telkom as they are still ripping the ring out of the consumer. My phonebill is not astronomical either. ADSL has not been the most cost effective way to be connected until Closer 4 came out.

I mentioned when HSDPA came out that iBurst need to do something because they are falling behind. Then when 4mb ADSL came out I said it again. Then sentech started talking about 1Mb myWireless connections and I repeated my bleat again.

Now that they are the slowest and most expensive way to connect to the internet I struggle to find any reason to stay with them apart from my dislike of Telkom.

But I think Ed coming on and saying absolutely nothing has really sealed the deal. Ed you are meant to be the head of customer care. Every time someone asks a question you shrug it off with some braindead answer that I would expect from your customer service desk not the head of customer service.

If you think you are protecting iBurst's big secret by ignoring the requests of the myADSL forum then you are sadly mistaken. iBurst has made big promises and delivered on nothing.

It's a pity but now as soon as my ADSL gets installed I am gone... It's just not worth it anymore.
 
Closer5 is only cheaper if you make alot of landline calls, otherwise your paying an extra R200 (that price maybe less, not sure if line rental is inclusive of the plan) for the cheap 'airtime'.
 
Yeah the closer 5 does not work out cheaper for me. It actually works out the same cost but I get more bandwidth and a faster speed than what I have now.

However if you use your home phone then these closer plans do seem to save money right of the bat. You just need to choose the right one.
 
If you value plan 3 at R300 (includes line rental), it makes DLS1024 R399pm (on plan 5), and DSL384 R199pm.

If you are an iBurst G3 user, this gives you R400 to spend on bandwidth @384k (+-6Gb), or R200 to spend @ 4096k (+-3Gb).

So it really only makes sense if you utilize a Telkom Landline to the extent where the closer plan 3 is economical. You then have the choice of 4x the speed or 2x the bandwidth.

However, for those with greater bandwidth demands, ie on G6 or G9, the benefits of ADSL over iBurst become far more pronounced due to the much lower cost of additonal bandwidth. At a marginal rate of R50/Gb (WebAfrica) vs R139/Gb on Iburst, power use is only really affordable on ADSL.

IBurst does have the 64k throttle, but similar ADSL add-ons exist for small change. On the flip side you have a lot of interesting ISP choices on ADSL ie prepaid, cheap local, unshaped, and uncapped offerings.

iBurst is not just an ISP, but a platform. To compete, it really needs to offer greater flexibility and affordability in its packages. The "mobile" card just doesn't play very well when it was clearly iBurst's intention in the early days to compete head-on with ADSL. They cannot now give up the fight on the basis that it is mobile. Those customers who bought into iBurst as the ADSL-alternative are not going to be happy.

If I want mobile I'll use 3G on my cell, thanks.
 
Hi all,

I can't comment on this yet. But I will.

Sorry!
Ed
Click to expand...
This makes no sense

Does that mean you don't have an answer to Telkom's Closer Plans? This is rather vague.
 
Last edited:
It's not just you....

Pathetic attempt at Customer Care IMHO...

It's meant to keep us in suspense I think. All it really does is make iBurst look bad. Again... Seems to be Ed's way of handling complaints.
 
Err, I would consider that sort of query to be more along the lines of sales/marketing rather than a technical query. Saying that iBurst should have a representative on that side online.
 
Ed is customer care not technical. Customer care should be answering sales and marketing questions. Or at the very least pasting a response from someone who knows.
 
Hi Guys

All I am asking for is some time to get a complete and accurate answer. What I want to talk about is what we are doing...so I am not trying to keep anyone in suspense, its not my way of handling complaints, all I did was post to say that I will respond and that I am aware of the thread...

Thanks
Ed
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X