Telkom upgrades to 4mbps, what does iBurst do?

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GavinMannion

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I was just wondering if iBurst had anything planned to counteract the 4mbps lines that Telkom are now trialling...

4mbps with local traffic not counting towards the cap (according to ICASA) is a bit to appealing to me. I don't want to give the monster any money but I'm not going to cut my nose to spite my broadband.

I would be happy if iBurst offered free local and 2mbps links... any info?
 
hmm.. seeing as its just a trial and not yet official, im guessing Iburst will still take some time.

But, like Iburst themselves said in the other thread about local, its hard for Iburst to provid local, but they are apparently looking at all the options or something like that and are definatley going to make some product changes.

So we'l just have to see.

But for me, my new tower is scheduled to go live tomorow! SO im getting a speed increase anyway..
 
I wonder if the IBurst technology can scale up to 2mpbs? Anyone know?
 
According to Wikipedia:

"Currently deployed iBurst systems allow connectivity up to 1 Mbit/s for each subscriber equipment. Apparently there will be future firmware upgrade possibilities to increase these speeds up to 4 Mbit/s, consistent with HC-SDMA protocol."

So it looks like the only course of action available to WBS will be lowering prices, increasing caps or they could sit back and see how many customers defect.

Personally I will not deal with Telkom, EVER. But I'm sure there are many people who feel the higher speed available from Telkom means better value.

It would be reassuring to have some definitive answers from Ed Hall regarding the future plans for base station roll-outs, bandwidth provisioning and service fees. We are constantly hearing that changes are on the way or that more value will be added to the service. What I would like to see is some notice facility on the IBURST website, informing clients of all planned upgrades, roll-outs, changes or improvements.

Failing that, maybe a monthly newsletter, with more real news about above mentioned activities and less marketing fluff.

Maybe going back to GPRS won't be that bad, I could always use the monthly subs of my 3Gig package to pay off a 40" plasma...
 
Pilgrim said:
How do you know when and where a tower is to be placed? Or do you email them and ask?

Thanx!
Click to expand...

I PMed you back, but in general, you can just go to their coverage maps on thier site and in the top corner there is a button which allows you to see planned coverage and how it will change signal strength to an area. But when they plan to do each base station I dont know, I simply got lucky with my one.
 
tick, tock, tick, tock... The time is running out...

The cell companies have taken over the low bandwidth space.

Telkom is taking back the medium to high bandwidth space.

Got to get a move on, Iburst. You can't afford to wait until you are actually losing customers. By that time it will already be too late.
 
I'm also getting worried about iBurst.

I used to have speedy downloads of 800kbps - 900kbps, but nowadays I can hardly get 400kbps. Oh, and that is with 100% signal strength.

The service is not was it used to be.
 
Im actually very similar to that Rob, but im assuming imne is mostly due to my signal strength which has got poorer with my speeds, so it makes sense.

Ill finally be able to see what the service is like with full signal hopefully..

But I hope Iburst announce something soon, they should just get something out there, even if its only going to take effect in a few months, thats what Telkom do.
Its the only way to keep customers from leaving for telkom already..
 
Higher caps at the current prices is what I would wish to see.
 
kingrob said:
I'm also getting worried about iBurst.

I used to have speedy downloads of 800kbps - 900kbps, but nowadays I can hardly get 400kbps. Oh, and that is with 100% signal strength.

The service is not was it used to be.
Click to expand...

thats my problem too - i have no problem moving to the next best available option. if telkom is it then telkom it will be.
 
Agreed with halicon! In a growing GDP, lowest price gets the deal, unless you have very deep pockets.
 
well with 4Mbps and 3gig cap how much do you really expect to achieve? capped within 1 day?

I would stick with my 1Mbps and have my cap increase to 10-20gigs for the same/lower pricing...

or a 2Mbps with an increase in cap to 6-9gigs

(this is worked on the most common 3gig package)
 
codemonkey said:
Personally I will not deal with Telkom, EVER.
Click to expand...
cutting off your nose to spite your face doesn't help.

remember, if you get an adsl line now and "deal with telkom" you could :

a) switch between multiple internet bandwidth providers who have to compete between each other to bring you quality of service and the cheapest bandwidth they can muster
b) switch to the SNO the moment they launch their end user ADSL without having to have the line installed or upgraded to ADSL (better pricing perhaps) so you won't have to deal with Telkom
c) For the price of 1 gig of bandwidth you'll pay less than half (if you shop around) for something that has the versatility to be actual broadband and use it for whatever your needs might be in future. (You might want to professionally compete online in a FPS, good luck doing that on iBurst)

Thats all I'm saying. Stop being ignorant
 
There is more to take into consideration with Telkom than just speed and a cap. They are terribly inefficient. They have retreched 35 000 workers over the past 5 years. They are struggling to keep up with demand in all areas, they do not have the skill, determination and leadership to be a tier 1 telecommunications company.

In our business we are scared of Telkom. We know that any issue no matter how unrelated to the current problem will result in Telkom backing out of a service agreement. They will do anything just to avoid doing their job. Reading Tectonic I saw horrific things about how Telkom was causing businesses to loose massive amounts of revenue just because Telkom could not move an ADSL line from one premises to another. They could not even allow for more than one issue to be logged at the same time.

In my personal experience I have had the following issues with Telkom:
1. Wait 8 months to get a phone line (Auckland Park, JHB)
2. Wait 2 weeks to get a phone fixed, is was a Telkom fault (Rosebank JHB).
3. Have the same phone break again, 1.5 weeks after it was fixed - the same Telkom fault (Rosebank JHB).
4. I used their dialup ISP service. I had issues like (all seperate): I could not log in for 2 days, I could not access google for 2 days. One evening I could not access their own website! I consistently had problems accessing websites. I had better service from mickey mouse ISP's.

Now I am not trying to flog IBurst or 3G etc. What I am trying to bring across is that Telkom have a bad reputation and deservedly so. They have been hijacked by a minority of "investors" who have looked only at short term enrichment instead of long term sustainability and profitablility. It is sad to say that these "investors" I talk of are mostly BEE fat-cats who can only think of their back pocket and not the people they once claimed to represent.

Some of these BEE "investors" have a billion rands in Telkom shares - all this while Telkom's monthly rental is more expensive than some people's rent (these would be mainly poor, black people's rent).

No I know I am off topic here, but here is the point of my rant. Be careful of Telkom, know what your getting yourself into, weigh up the options and only go for it once it makes sense. Remember, you are getting into bed with the devil.

Lastly, IBurst! Give us more bandwidth and speed, you cheap f**ken bastards!
 
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AcidRaZor said:
cutting off your nose to spite your face doesn't help.

remember, if you get an adsl line now and "deal with telkom" you could :

a) switch between multiple internet bandwidth providers who have to compete between each other to bring you quality of service and the cheapest bandwidth they can muster
b) switch to the SNO the moment they launch their end user ADSL without having to have the line installed or upgraded to ADSL (better pricing perhaps) so you won't have to deal with Telkom
c) For the price of 1 gig of bandwidth you'll pay less than half (if you shop around) for something that has the versatility to be actual broadband and use it for whatever your needs might be in future. (You might want to professionally compete online in a FPS, good luck doing that on iBurst)

Thats all I'm saying. Stop being ignorant
Click to expand...

Competing online in an FPS is the absolute last thing I consider when deciding on an Internet connection.

Could you elaborate on point c above? I don't understand the statement "For the price of 1 gig of bandwidth you'll pay less than half"

Thanks for the advice, but don't assume people are ignorant if their views don't correlate with your own. You know what they say about assumptions.
 
Acidrazer seems very pro ADSL and especially Webafrica. So im geussing his 1gig statment is about the R70 for a gig at Webafrica which rolls over and can be upgraded to any amount of gigs, pay as you go.

Webafrica do offer the best service and care about their customers, so they are the ISP to support I geuss.

But your points dont neccesarily give a definate reason to go over to ADSL, I geuss it is worth considering if thats what you are saying. But Ibursts 64kb just does it for some people, you can get alot cheaper gigs than ADSL that way.
 
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