WBS Vs Carte Blance.. I Think its time.

[JMRHOWES]

Lets see how WBS Vs Carte Blance, ???

Billing issues, No Support, Looks like a public issue to me. Sure 3G, Telkom, Stentech etc would like to see the outcome...

 

[guest2013-1]

Been done to death when Sentech pulled the same kind of ****.

OOOOOOH, how original.

Doesn't work.

 

[JMRHOWES]

Well Noone.... Comon... See that you are so ORIGINAL... Keep on posting.....

We shall see in the next comming weeks, Have to remember... You dont always know who you are talking to.. Some people at least use there own names... I shall speak to someone I know... Lets see what happens...

 

[guest2013-1]

Well, I'd rather have Carte Blanche cover the indecent assault of clubbers by police when raiding clubs, even though their undercover cops already identified the dealers.

I'd rather see Carte Blanche cover stories that effect the population as a whole, like why the president spends so little time in his own country, messing with other people's "democratic" processes, yet, ignores the cries of his own people.

I choose not to use my own name (nor my normal nickname) because I feel that if I want to say something, I don't want to "suffer" the consequences of what is said here by any sort of court action or actual bodily harm.

It is my right to stay anonymous, and if you would like to wave your right, then that is fine and your choice.

"Oh help us, we're stupid enough to stay with a company that gives us bad customer service and service in general, we can't help it, we're stupid that way.... somebody please help us!"

You know what you could do? Instead of wasting your time and energy b1tching to the papers or television to report on this *gasp* audacity of a company not supplying decent broadband connections.... why not flex your consumer muscle a bit, cancel said service and find a better alternative.

There's a reason why they call it "Consumer Spending"... that's right, the consumer SPENDS money for a certain type of service he/she might wish to *OMG* consume!

Without this "spend", these service providers would dissapear like mist infront of the son.

Now... /me sits Mr. Howes down. This whole debacle was gone through with Sentech. Sentech just wiped their asses with us and ignored the consumer... yes, the reason why they're making money.

Companies like that ALWAYS count on someone idiotic enough not to do their homework before purchasing a new service. They'd rather lose 10 customers and spend more money gaining 20 new ones, than just give decent customer service to breed some type of loyalty.

To this day, my uncle swears by Intel. Even though he never even tried the cheaper and (on some fields) better AMD chips. It's because he's uneducated in this field and would always buy Intel and pay a premium, than just try and do some type of research and see for himself.

Much like how a 55 year old dude would walk into an Incredible Connection, ask the sales person what type of laptop he thinks he'll need, and then swiping his credit card and purchasing it, WITHOUT hunting for prices NOR doing his research.

You don't see frustrated Incredible Connection users taking their story to Carte Blanche... wtf CARES about "bandwidth" and "PC's"

Hell, if you can program a VCR you can "do PC's"

Get my point?

 

[JMRHOWES]

Not Really, Seems you have a lot to say , but wont take the Risk in using your own name, Scared about being hurt etc,

Just keep on posting, keep to one Forum, Maybe one day someone might take what you say seriously, Ill keep it short and sweet..

Sometimes read the small print. SERVICE is SERVICE being govermental, Medical etc, and yes to quote "wtf CARES about "bandwidth" and "PC's"".... same mentality ....

IE.. When you pay for something you expect to get it...

Lets stop wasting space.... get to the real point...

 

[mbs]

Play nicely, guys. Getting back to the thread, there is no point in investigative journo's being called in yet - remember that the i-Burst service has not been officially launched yet. If WBS had any sense, they would delay their official launch until their problems have been sorted out. In the meantime, all users should consider themselves test subjects/guinea pigs/lemmings (/description of your choice)...

 

[guest2013-1]

Oh yea, forgot about that point too

In your face Mr. Howes!

 

[JMRHOWES]

Noone... Enjoy..

 

[ic]

Listen to mbs, play nice - you are not mortal enemies fighting over who controls the universe (i.e. no one in the multiverse does...).

As to this manure that WBS has us spouting like scenes from the exorcist, about giving WBS more rope "bcos it is still pre-launch", well my take is forget about Carte Blanche, just cancel - return the modem & like LG says (in the parallel Sentech universal-forum) get signature from the WBS recipient of said modem, then fax through a cancellation letter - simply state that WBS is in breach of contract, and that you have returned their modem & cancelled their debit order on your bank account.

Naturally you would not want to return your modem if you have actually paid for it & are on a 30 day notice contract with WBS - just give 30 days notice & either hang onto the UTC/UTD or sell it.

There is something that speaks louder than TV - the loss of money from consumers that vote with their feet. I learnt this from vowthorn's "time for war?" thread - it was futile to try the media route - all it does is allow the service provider to steal more money from your bank account, whilst not providing the service they are contracted to provide.

 

[Gatecrasher]

Lets see how WBS Vs Carte Blance, ???

Someone bought this up already. Just as laughable now as it was then. Every question will be answered by "Pre-launch."

If the **** is still flying 3 months after launch, and it effects the vast majority of Iburst users, then the time will have come to bring in the media.

But they're going to have to do some serious bad **** to get this customer onto the disgruntled list, because right now I'm loving my Iburst.

 

[ic]

...3 months after launch...

No, that is precisely what WBS would like - another 3 months of your money & more of it after "launch", if you are dumb you will sit with a bad service for 2 days after launch. What you need to do is realise that if the iBurst service is not 100% on 1st April 2005 then it is time to cancel.

 

[twixt]

Re: IBurst Acceptable Uptime?

This is a fair bit off topic - but what do people think is an acceptable level of service for IBurst (after launch that is).

How would you define acceptable service?

1. Proper billing methods
2. Good customer support (how do you measure this?)
3. Uptime 99%?
4. Acceptable speed range?

I'm just curious...

Also curious as to howmany people on MyADSL are happy with IBurst and howmany aren't. With no disrespect to the unhappy - they are always going to be far more vocal then the happy.

My personal opinion is (*tiptoes out on to the limb*) is that whilst IBurst isn't at an acceptable lvl of service yet for some of their customers - they are improving things (at least they have from my side) and I am optimistic that they will reach that goal before April.

 

[Gatecrasher]

What you need to do is realise that if the iBurst service is not 100% on 1st April 2005 then it is time to cancel.

We'll see. I didn't sign a contract and I'm on 30 day notice. But as things stand the product does eveything I need it to do. It's actually been less hassle with less downtime than my old ISDN connection. As well as being cheaper (apart from the modem cost) and 16x faster

I need a reliable, always-on service. So far Iburst has delivered. If they stop delivering, and I can't do the stuff I want/need to do, then I walk.

This is not a defence of WBS, but of the technology. Seriously, a drunken bunch of Neanderthals could have done a better job of building customer confidence and satisfaction.

 

[alchamy]

This is a fair bit off topic - but what do people think is an acceptable level of service for IBurst (after launch that is).

How would you define acceptable service?

1. Proper billing methods
2. Good customer support (how do you measure this?)
3. Uptime 99%?
4. Acceptable speed range?

I'm just curious...

Also curious as to howmany people on MyADSL are happy with IBurst and howmany aren't. With no disrespect to the unhappy - they are always going to be far more vocal then the happy.

My personal opinion is (*tiptoes out on to the limb*) is that whilst IBurst isn't at an acceptable lvl of service yet for some of their customers - they are improving things (at least they have from my side) and I am optimistic that they will reach that goal before April.

1. Send me a tax invoice prior to billing (pref PDF), bill on the the scheduled day, and make sure its the amount invoiced. Not rocket science but WBS can't get it right.
2. Keep me smiling and you have good support but seriously honesty can go a far way.
3. Uptime on any broadband service should be 100% however it would be unfair to expect that from a wireless service, there are too many variables however I think that 99% is fair and reachable. BUT uptime is not only getting signal from the tower, uptime means that I can use my connection to its maximum capacity without complication.
4. Nothing less than 1Mbit Locally, Int'l should NEVER be less than 90% of advertised speed. (excluding factors such as slow sites etc)

Overall I am happy, however the helldesk needs a kick in the head, but I have been making a lot of noise about this already, I think Dylan is sick of me ripping off his team. Also the billing needs to be resolved, we will see what happens tomorrow when they bill me. The rest are minor issues that need to be resolved by launch, granted I am not on Northcliff or Bryanston so my experience is generally better than most.

However I do not think they will resolve all their issues by April, I expect that launch will either be delayed (if they are smart) or turn into another disaster, and I can already see ic being very "vocal" about things on the 3rd of April.

Guess we will have to wait and see what happens, for my part I plan to get 192k ADSL and drop my iburst package to a 1gig package, will use the adsl for the bulk of things and use the iburst for general browsing. (already not in the mood to write another hashing script for the proxies )

 

[guest2013-1]

99% downtime :

365 days in a year, 99% of downtime is around 4 days (rounded off)

4 days of downtime could be critical to me. I'm actually considering going the Vodacom 3G route *shudder*

 

[alchamy]

99% downtime :

365 days in a year, 99% of downtime is around 4 days (rounded off)

4 days of downtime could be critical to me. I'm actually considering going the Vodacom 3G route *shudder*

lol, hopefully the 4 days of downtime would be split into 30 minute segments over the year when I am not using the internet. I must admit I got 3G now for those times when Iburst is down and I am very happy with it so far. I use a prepaid sim card for it so that it does not cost me anything if I dont use it.

 

[MaD]

Ummm.. talk about barrier to entry?!

Not to be shortsighted or anything, but it's still in testing phase. If this was a commercial launch and things were bad, it would have to be pretty damn bad to make the media again.. Sentech set the precedent for that and it's a tough one to beat.

Thing is - one can always cancel iBurst and use someone else instead of waiting for things to improve.. iBurst speed seems to be a hit or miss affair, which leads one to wonder if the problem is not perhaps at certain user's setups, i.e. antenna, drivers, MTU etc etc etc. because many people have flawless service and others balk at the sound of the iBurst name.

Until iBurst is commercially available like MyWireless and ADSL they should possibly be given a little leeway where the media is concerned - MyWireless fell like a lead balloon - we don't want to drive EVERY potential newcomer into the ground before they start, no do we? It's perhaps time to look at the bigger picture, instead of trying to ruin the people who are trying to offer us alternatives to Telkom. Just my 2c worth.

 

[guest2013-1]

Thats exactly my (longwinded) point in the beginning. But having the feeling of being ripped off is nonetheless there. Pre-Launch or Launch, being ripped off (or the perception you are) is not good.

Re: your comment on that it might be certain user setups, I doubt that strongly. It's been proven in the past (multiple times) that MTU settings will be changed on WBS' side without letting us know.

Having said that, I have tested from 3 different PC setups, and 3 different towers. Although some might be better than others, you still get the "I have to ping the **** out of something to get some throughput" problem.

Going from 115kb/s to less than 16kb/s is like forcing a BMW driver to downgrade to a Volksie. He won't be a happy chappy.

At least the crap Telkom dishes out is consistant. Yes, you heard me, consitant crap Atm, with WBS, it's so inconsistant and all to familiar (Sentech) that it urks the very living tissue of any human being ever having dealt with them in the past.

If Telkom didn't outsource the ADSL installations, and didn't take several weeks for an installation (goes for testing, fails, gets sent for another test x 4 x 2weeks per test) then I would have had ADSL already.

 

[ic]

MaD, to explain this a bit better, the problems being experienced are worst at the Bryanston & Northcliff base-stations, not to say that similar problems are not being experienced at other base-stations, just that Bryanston & Northcliff are most acute.

Furthermore it is not a case of customer's settings bcos there is a mixture of operating systems from L(inux) to M(ac) to W(indoze). In some cases a home-made directional parabolic reflector has helped, however I can say that whatever WBS did to the antenna array on Bryanston-BS has fundamentally messed up my connection - I believe they have actually changed the direction that the antenna array was pointing in December such that it no longer gives me the coverage (especially upload/uplink) I had in December.