Vodacom promoting Iburst

[FireTelkom]

On the website of Vodacom under packages is a link to Iburst.

It gives the benefits of Iburst, coverage etc.

I am just wondering if a 10% interest will allow you to try to get customers to choose a broadband solution other than the HSPDA offered by Vodacom.

It does not make sense for a company to advertise a product that competes with its principal product. Perhaps this is the influence of the bad Telkom as a 50% shareholder on Vodacom where we are doing all we can to enrich the few previously disadvantaged to the greater loss of the majority of the previously disadvantaged. Or perhaps it is the MD of Vodacom trying to boost his sons bonus - as far as I can remember his son is the MD of Iburst?

FireTelkom

 

[FireTelkom]

And on the Iburst website their is no mention of Vodacom being a shareholder or them advertising Vodacom HSPDA.

But Iburst do allow limited carry over of unused data. So how about it Vodacom, when will the MD or whoever sits on the Board of Directors ask how this work and implement for Vodacom

 

[ic]

Not exactly news there FireTelkom, and you have not mentioned the fact that Vodacom's Data Helpdesk [155] also provides a support option for iBurst customers...

 

[FireTelkom]

Perhaps I was to long wondering the scenery in Rio de Janeiro

 

[vodacom3g]

Vodacom endeavors to become a bearer-agnostic broadband provider. This is but the first step.....

 

[prc66]

Hi.

Remember that 3G and iBurst is not the same thing anymore than a BMW is the same as Ford.

Basically iBurst (when in coverage) delivers more reliable, lower latency (perfect for VOIP), dedicated bandwidth which does not slow down when there are many users.

3G/HSDPA provides better coverage (due to many more millions invested and lots of money paid by all the GSM customers for last 15 years) but is unreliable for speed which is shared by all users on every transmitters and is pretty hopeless to VOIP or fast services like gaming and some Intranet or web surfing.

In Australia Optus (the GSM) operator is alos offering iBurst to customers that need these qualities which are best also for high data users (or ones with no phone line or ADSL).

Nothing to do with bonus etc. as all businesses need to make money and not favours.

 

[ic]

Hi.

Remember that 3G and iBurst is not the same thing anymore than a BMW is the same as Ford.

Basically iBurst (when in coverage) delivers more reliable, lower latency (perfect for VOIP), dedicated bandwidth which does not slow down when there are many users.

3G/HSDPA provides better coverage (due to many more millions invested and lots of money paid by all the GSM customers for last 15 years) but is unreliable for speed which is shared by all users on every transmitters and is pretty hopeless to VOIP or fast services like gaming and some Intranet or web surfing.

In Australia Optus (the GSM) operator is alos offering iBurst to customers that need these qualities which are best also for high data users (or ones with no phone line or ADSL).

Nothing to do with bonus etc. as all businesses need to make money and not favours.

That might be the case in Australia, but my personal experience with iBurst and vanilla-3G and HSDPA in South Africa, is that the way iBurst has been implemented in South Africa, iBurst is crap for VoIP - in particular Skype, even using vanilla-3G [384kbits/s down & 64kbits/s up] is much better with VoIP compared to iBurst [in South Africa], I suspect the reason for this is that the company "iBurst" in South Africa that runs the iBurst network here, shapes the hell out of its iBurst network, which causes havoc with latency.

 

[BBSA]

Personally me think this give VC a bad name.

Iburst does not have a good name in the market and I am not sure way VC wants to be associated with these clowns.

 

[3g_rox]

Personally me think this give VC a bad name.

Iburst does not have a good name in the market and I am not sure way VC wants to be associated with these clowns.

Hopefully Vodacom's involvement in Iburst may have some influence in Iburst increasing their coverage cos no doubt they will have access to share Voda's masts around the country.

 

[FireTelkom]

My suprise was more because of potential conflict of interest.

In the company I work, we cannot do business with any company owned or managed by a family member of mine. It is very rare that the board of directors would approve such transactions and then would require perhaps a change in management. It is called favouritism or nepotism (unsure about spelling).

I also made the statement that Vodacom promotes Iburst on its website but that the reverse is not happening. Vodacom is not even shown as a link or described as a contributor to the success of Iburst. If Vodacom buys out all other shareholder in Iburst and integrate Iburst into Vodacom as a 100% subsidary it would not be a problem.

FireTelkom

 

[ic]

From a technology POV, specifically in South Africa, I don't see iBurst being able to compete with faster broadband technologies, the same goes for Sentech's MyWireless, but at least MyWireless is somewhat less expensive and could be deployed far more cost effectively than iBurst in rural areas where population densities will require less bandwidth intensive broadband deployments.

It is widely accepted that Vodacom bought 10% of iBurst [SA] - with the option of increasing this to a controlling shareholding - to gain access to WiMax spectrum that iBurst has access to.

 

[vodacom3g]

What, in your opinion, would the pro's and con's be when comparing VC HSDPA and iBurst as a broadband offering?

 

[ic]

What, in your opinion, would the pro's and con's be when comparing VC HSDPA and iBurst as a broadband offering?

Interesting question, IMO these are some of the advantages that Vodacom's HSDPA has over the specific implementation of iBurst in SA:

1. Customer Service & Support: Vodacom has a lot more experience and human resources compared to iBurst in SA, and IMO this goes much further - iBurst seems to be disinterested in customers and providing adequate support.
   • As a corollary, Vodacom has on-forum representation, which is something that iBurst has so far failed to provide with any sort of consistency - just compare the post count of one v3g with the combined post counts of iBurst reps to see the vast difference - this is IMO one of iBurst's fatal mistakes - failing to engage with its customers and the broadband community as a whole.
2. iBurst shapes & proxies traffic to death, Vodacom does not.
   • IMO this is the primary reason why latency on iBurst is high and unstable compared to Vodacom's HSDPA - apart from inherent differences between the actual technologies used.
3. HSDPA has a theoretical future maximum download speed of 14.4Mbits/s, currently max 1.8Mbits/s, and soon to be 3.6Mbits/s, whereas iBurst has been promising 2Mbits/s for a while and AFAIK still does not have a commercially available 2Mbits/s service, and even if iBurst was providing 2Mbits/s, there is no way that iBurst in its current form will ever reach anywhere close to 14.4Mbits/s, or even 7.2Mbits/s which HSDPA is fast approaching.
4. Hardware [manufacturer] vendors have widely adopted HSPA [HSDPA], and there are ~250 HSDPA devices currently available and increasing all the time, whereas iBurst has only a handful of devices available and the cost of these few iBurst devices is not likely to decrease, whereas competing hardware vendors and economies of scale means that HSPA device prices will decrease over time.
5. HSPA is widely supported by networks operators globally, although iBurst is implemented in quite a few countries, there are far more network operators adopting HSPA and at a faster rate, whereas the number of iBurst deployments is not increasing much.
6. I could go on and on and on...

 

[BBSA]

What, in your opinion, would the pro's and con's be when comparing VC HSDPA and iBurst as a broadband offering?

The biggest advantage I think HSDPA (MTN included) has is that is much more mobile than iBurst. With iBurst you are very limited and if you are out of their coverage area you have noting to fall back on. At least with HSDPA you can fall back on GPRS if you are out of the coverage area.

 

[vodacom3g]

The biggest advantage I think HSDPA (MTN included) has is that is much more mobile than iBurst. With iBurst you are very limited and if you are out of their coverage area you have noting to fall back on. At least with HSDPA you can fall back on GPRS if you are out of the coverage area.

I've not looked at the maps myself, so excuse the lazy question:

Are there areas with iBurst coverage where there is no Vodacom HSDPA coverage?

 

[Syndyre]

I've not looked at the maps myself, so excuse the lazy question:

Are there areas with iBurst coverage where there is no Vodacom HSDPA coverage?

I'm not sure what the coverage difference is like in major centres but I've got Vodacom 3G/HSDPA coverage in quite a few fairly remote places where iBurst has no presence at all so in that aspect there's a huge difference, not sure what the difference would be within CT or Joburg itself though.