Where did iBurst go wrong? Former CEO speaks

iBurst has been working just fine for me over the last two years.

Where else can I get 100gigs+ per month for under R600.00? And no telkom BS?
 
deweyzeph said:
The biggest mistake was daddy playing nepotism with his pimply faced adolescent looking son and making him the CEO of a national company when he was barely out of university.
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Exactly. And we though that only happens in Government. iBurst was one of the biggest failures in the history of the Internet in SA. AKC-Junior and Jannie should both been booted out of the industry for the mess - but no, we are still stuck with them. :sick:
 
Shoprite/checkers should learn from the iburst failure. Trying to catapult your sons into something they not capable of is disastrous.
 
They can fix it. Lower prices. Increase coverage. The technology still works. Create better packages.
Fix billing system. 1mbps speed is not the end of the world.

And when they start making money again invest in newer technology.
 
iBurst did the right thing initially: The took a great technology and provided an alternative to Telkom.

If my memory is right, Telkom's attitude at that time was that only madmen needed more than 348kb/s ADSL, ADSL was not suitable for business, and businesses should use 64kb/s Diginet.

Telkom reckoned that no sane person could use more than 3GB per month, and actually limited the amount one could transfer per telephone line.

Sentec tried their act, but proved that business and politics don't mix well.

iBurst was a great solution AT THAT TIME. It was faster and cheaper than Telkom, and the support was much better than Telkom offered.

Indeed, nothing improves service like competition.

Since then, Telkom's understanding of service has slightly improved, and iBursts even more. But both still need to grow their service levels quite a bit.

Since the start of iBurst Telkom has changed their offerings - today we have uncapped ADSL in spite of Telkom's efforts.

Problem was that nobody had the guts to pull the plug on the iBurst technology, and start to flog another horse.

Once again: iBurst was a key catalyst in the transformation of the Broadband industry we have.

Who is going to be the next key catalyst to propel the industry to world best class?

The arrival
 
r00igev@@r said:
Strange mentioning iBurst's speed when both the advert's on this page are for 384kb/s?
- Axcess uncapped at 384 kb/s
- Telkom Officelink at 384 kb/s
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and the point is? maybe neither of these deliver 384 kb/s but then iBurst seldom does any better, I've schleped my iBurst modem round in the days before I moved to 3G and doubt if I ever really experienced amazing speeds.
 
Poor customer service. Thats what has hit iburst. 1Mbps is not the end of the world yet, not so long as DSL's slowest packages is less than 1Mbps. The biggest loss was when things did not work, or billing was wrong, the poor customer service made it much much worse.
 
ads said:
Isn't hindsight wonderful? I see that neither Junior nor Jannie can explain why they didn't do something about this when they were in charge. What are CEO's for, after all?
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All these things happened on Junior's watch and after he was kicked out Jannie was brought in but it was a bit of a hospital pass. :rolleyes:

His plan was to cut costs, get out of consumer (at least out of iBurst as a technology) and build a new revenue stream based on small businesses via iBurst Business.

All of this happened but after it became clear Vodacom was going to exit, the other shareholders were not interested in a turnaround plan and stopped all funding trying to sell the company. I think the last straw for Jannie was when the shareholders "sold" iBurst Business to Blue Label and he walked out.

Today, they're back where they were when Junior was still there, trying to survive by just selling iBurst and, sadly, reselling Cell C. They must be bleeding customers to Cell C like there's no tomorrow.
 
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1 Mb/s at a time

Sometime today, if you are a South African and whether you drove on the road, made a financial transaction, made a phone call, attended a lecture, participated in a conference, or made travel arrangements it is highly likely you touched iBurst.

It is not about the 1 Mb/s modem but the legacy:

220km of 10 Gb/s
9050km of 1 Gb/s
4000km of STM1

(and if you have a problem PM me and I'll try and help)
 
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A worthwhile mention is that Jannie brought down prices and changed packages.

Recently iBurst doubled our data for the same price.

Also if you add VAS to your package you get full download speeds between 00h00 to 08h00 uncapped.

It all boils down to location, location, location... I will rather give my money to iBurst than to Telkom.
 
I can't help but think that companies underestimate just how difficult it is to implement wireless broadband technologies. As I see it it is easy and cheap enough to set up a basic wireless network on a small scale but to do it properly over a large geographic area is incredibly tricky and expensive. Neotel have experienced the same thing.
 
BobsLawnService said:
I can't help but think that companies underestimate just how difficult it is to implement wireless broadband technologies. As I see it it is easy and cheap enough to set up a basic wireless network on a small scale but to do it properly over a large geographic area is incredibly tricky and expensive. Neotel have experienced the same thing.
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Still no excuse for their poor service and billing system.
 
JMRHOWES said:
Substitute the word Iburst for Neotel.... And you will be able to use this article again.
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Isn't it amazing? It's like they shot the two movies from the same script.

Wrong technology choice, poor customer service, low penetration, running at a loss, no clear strategy, no future.

Even the colour orange. ;)
 
r00igev@@r said:
Sometime today, if you are a South African and whether you drove on the road, made a financial transaction, made a phone call, attended a lecture, participated in a conference, or made travel arrangements it is highly likely you touched iBurst.
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And your point?

Sometime today, if you are a South African and whether you drove on the road, made a financial transaction, made a phone call, attended a lecture, participated in a conference, or made travel arrangements it is highly likely you touched TELKOM and ESKOM.

Not exactly a claim to anything that makes you feel warm and fuzzy, is it? ;)

Rather tell us what the future for iBurst holds.
 
My reason for dropping iBurst was price (speed was fine for me). For the casual Internet user iBurst is just not cost effective. Cell C Wooosh is a much better option in comparison (+bonus speed +bonus better mobility +cheaper device).
 
IMO,iBurst's reasons for failure is not due to their technology.Yes SDMA and CDMA is not the latest and greates but offers respectable speeds of 1meg,as a home user it's more than enough.However,their customer service in relation to their data costs just didn't cut it and the damage has been done.I think they making a smart move with their business offerings and VoIP services (WBS) if im not mistaken.It has been proven in any business that if you don't look after your customer someone else will,this is the case.If they can tackle their billing issues and pricing they stand a good chance at reviving themselves in the home user market,but first improvements need to be made and noticeable.As a small network operator i am more conscious of my monthly expenses and hardware choice,highsite rentals etc.iBurst just needs to tighten their belt and realise money can't be pulled out arses.
 
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