When will iBurst drop prices...?

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aalwees said:
Or maybe what I really need here is just mobility - the ability to pull up roots and easily move from one ISP to the next so I can follow the lowest prices. Jannie, what's my iBurst modem gonna be, a ball-and-chain or a hot air balloon?
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man, what a good post. excellent. specifically the last part.

The key is to make users happy - make us happy, and we will join your team. as easy as that.

I think that idea someone gave of free bandwidth between 12pm and 6am is a REAL winner! an easy way to make the downloaders happy, and i'm sure it's doesn't require that much extra expenses, does it? it's the time when nobody really uses it? could make it a real winner, if iBurst just made that tiny change.

nobody is asking for uncapped 8mb/s speeds - small changes here and there that make SENSE are good enough, trust me.
 
aalwees said:
What I'd like to say here is that none of this does it for me. Even if you were marginally the cheapest in every respect, you would still have me, but have me by the balls, because ... it ... is ... all ... still ... bloody expensive. It has the SA economy breathing through a straw. The national digital highway is a dirt track toll road and this is the context of our discussion about bandwidth and price, this is what sets the tone, sets the agenda - less so how you compare with other ISPs.

My question is where are we in terms of the real agenda, the real problem? Where is iBurst going? Is iBurst going to show some leadership? Can they show some leadership? Is the new broom gonna do a clean sweep? Because, when I choose an ISP, I don't just look for the cheapest at the time, I look at the longer term in the context of the of the real issue of SA bandwidth/pricing. When I joined iBurst, I thought there was a vision to face the real problem and deal with it, but if the iBurst agenda is really just to compete comfortably in the mobile arena, then I'm disappointed and looking around. ?
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+1
 
Iburst is so not worth it. Its expensive (out of bundle) slow Internet. Move on until it has value. Right now its only a service you use if you cant get anything else.
 
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jannievanzyl said:
Have a look at this article myADSL posted 2 days ago:

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/ADSL/9051.html

According to this a 384kb/s, 1GB ADSL line costs between R270 and R330 / month.

An iBurst 1Mb/s, 1GB bundle is R199 per month. If you include a modem it's R219 / month. This is substantially less.

A 384Kb/s, 3GB ADSL line is between R389 and R520 depending on where you get it.

An iBurst 1Mb/s, 3GB bundle is R449 per month. If you include a modem it's R469 / month. This is in the middle of the ADSL pricing range.

A 4Mb/s, 5GB ADSL line is between R685 and R880 depending on where you get it.

An iBurst 1Mb/s, 5GB bundle is R599 per month. If you include a modem it's R619 / month. This is substantially less.

So, in summary (using the ADSL table above):

- At 1GB, iBurst is cheaper than ADSL, and at a higher speed.
- At 3GB, iBurst is in the same range as ADSL, but at a higher speed.
- At 5Gb, iBurst is cheaper than ADSL, but at a lower speed.

These seem to be the only 3 offerings from Telkom in their 'do Broadband' offer, at least I can't find a 384Kb/s, 5GB offer.

[added]
Looking at the link Rustum provided, a 3G, 512Kb/s (still slower than iBurst @ 1Mb/s) ADSL is R560 per month. iBurst is substantially lower @ R449 - R469.

So at 1G, 3G and 5G, iBurst seems to be lower in price than ADSL. For the 1G and 3G bundles, iBurst is faster and for the 5G, ADSL is faster.
[\addded]

I can do a comparison with the mobile players, if needed, but clearly iBurst will be substantially lower. For the record, iBurst is actually fully mobile with full handover between cells. The new USB modems are now much closer in size to the HSDPA ones.
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Your out of bundle rates are VERY HIGH. You are comparable to the ADSL offerings or even cheaper for low usage.

3GB = R499 (and it's shaped).

ADSL boosters are much cheaper (some as cheap as R55 per GB).
 
w1z4rd said:
Iburst is so not worth it. Its expensive (out of bundle) slow Internet. Move on until it has value. Right now its only a service you use if you cant get anything else.
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It is cheaper than ADSL for in-bundle usage. For out-of-bundle at R499 per 3GB it's VERY EXPENSIVE. Also for me it is fast - I get full 1Mb/sec usually.
 
Thanks for all the feedback. It seems we've established that iBurst bundles are well priced compared to ADSL and the mobile guys. Especially if you take the high cost of the modem into account.

So, if we can go back a (fair) number of posts, I asked what are the areas where you believe we can do better. I did list OOB myself. Never been a big fan of OOB.

Is the uncapped, rate-limited bit worth anything? We see a fair number of users log up to about 20GB international for free every month.

I also like some of the above suggestions on after-hours, gamers-specific, etc. ideas.
 
20gig a month, man I wish!! I never see the speeds of some of the guys here, living in KZN has major topological disadvantages. All the hills and ups and downs.... I gets a bad signal strength which limits my speed :(

Edit: yes I have an external omni...
 
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throttled speed after caps and no hard capping is probably ibursts only upside, and is what has kept me with them for 3 years now.

on the other hand though, it is dreadfully slow for anything but setting up a dedicated machine to download stuff for you. i.e. browsing is painful, youtube videos take literally hours to stream 6 minutes. And most of all cant handle Raiding in Warcraft!
 
jannievanzyl said:
Is the uncapped, rate-limited bit worth anything? We see a fair number of users log up to about 20GB international for free every month.

I also like some of the above suggestions on after-hours, gamers-specific, etc. ideas.
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The only reason why i am still with iBurst.

I am prepared to pay more to up the throttled speed. Increasing this speed during non-office hours are also a very good idea (something I will also pay extra for).
 
increasing during offpeak times is a great idea imo
 
WoW peering server FTW :)

Or how about a different connection that is optimised ????
 
jannievanzyl said:
We see a fair number of users log up to about 20GB international for free every month.
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I don't know how users download 20GB a month while throttled.

Their PC must be on 24/7/365 days a year.

It took me 42 minutes to download a 10MB video from You Tube while throttled.

That's if you are lucky and don't get disconnected.
 
Ona good day while capped I can get about 200mb a day... so if you take 42 min for 10mb, its about right... 64kbs. Sooooo slow :( but at least its not off!
 
Well yes, I leave a PC on after I cap permanently with a list of scheduled DL's...
if you manage to *max* it you can average around 500mb per 24hr. Maxxing it out requires a couple of threads running at a pathetic 2-3kb each... lame, but neccessary.

It is however as mentioned, pretty much useless for anything else but single user semi dialup internet.

When capped I curse every b@stard who sends me a 5mb videoclip by email that they think is hilarious. It's not hilarious when it locks out out of receiving emails for about an hour...

Uncapped is the only reason i'm still on iburst...
 
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