Tag Archives: iburst

iBurst: Radiating your suburb

Posted by on September 5, 2009 No comments

Weekends in South Africa are always entertaining, especially on intersections. I picked up the flyer below today at the Fourways Mall intersection, where Craigavon’s residents created awareness about iBurst’s “cancer clusters”:

Pity, that the awareness campaign does not seem to have a website and the handed out brochure only asks the reader to contact the MEC of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development via email and fax.

I have yet to see conclusive evidence that suggests adverse health-effects associated with being exposed to cellular radiation from masts. As long as antennas on cell masts emit EMF within international exposure guidelines there should not be an issue.

After all, we come into daily contact with many household appliances that emit EMF such as microwaves, cordless phones and other wireless devices.

People really don’t seem to see the bigger picture – you stand on a street corner protesting against towers possibly causing cancer, but in the same breadth you disregard more important issues we face in this country (public healthcare, schooling, poverty, AIDS, crime).



VN:F [1.9.13_1145]
Rating: 0.0/10 (0 votes cast)
VN:F [1.9.13_1145]
Rating: 0 (from 0 votes)

iBurst shutting down?

Posted by on December 11, 2008 No comments

If you follow the happenings in Australia, you will notice that iBurst in Australia is facing tough times. Dating back as far as October, rumors started spreading that iBurst Australia will close down.

The Australian stock-exchange-listed company Commander which provided iBurst services in Australia collapsed in August, with $300 million of debts on its books. As of writing, the company is stripped of it’s assets – there is however talks that a new bidder might reintroduce iBurst services in Australia.

This is very indicative to the market position of iBurst in South Africa and one would have to ask the question if the iBurst product still provides a value-proposition in the South African market. 3G mobile broadband has caught up with iBurst speeds, Neotel is offering more bandwidth at a lower cost is improving coverage monthly. Telkom has started to improve the fixed-line installation turnaround time and is now also offering wireless (3G / WiMAX) broadband services which offer newer (and faster) broadband access than iBurst.

The writing is on the wall, with 3G offerings from Telkom and the various WiMAX players in the South African market already offering improved speed and lower costs, will eventually force iBurst to rethink their current business-model.

It will be difficult for this company to rebrand/reposition itself, considering it’s reputation in the market.

VN:F [1.9.13_1145]
Rating: 0.0/10 (0 votes cast)
VN:F [1.9.13_1145]
Rating: 0 (from 0 votes)

Bye Bye iBurst – whoop whoop Telkom

Posted by on October 14, 2008 No comments

Finally my frustrations are over – although iBurst has tried the best the possibly could, it was too little too late. Amazingly, I ordered a 4MB ADSL line on 29th September and within two weeks line was installed and working. A BIG WOW to Telkom – superior service and this does not seem to be an isolated case either – many people mention the same turnaround times.

The ADSL line has perfect attenuation 17db (down) and 8.5db (up) and an excellent SNR – 28.4db (down) / 14db (up) — so it is no surprise that the line syncs perfectly all the time.

The download speeds are amazing: International ping to New York is 327ms (vs 2 seconds on iBurst), download speed is 1800kpbs (vs 285kbps on iBurst).

VN:F [1.9.13_1145]
Rating: 0.0/10 (0 votes cast)
VN:F [1.9.13_1145]
Rating: 0 (from 0 votes)

iBurst: Almost wowed me…

Posted by on October 6, 2008 No comments

After putting enough pressure on iBurst, the company decided to provide me with a free installation of a directional antenna. Installation team arrived last week Friday and install went smooth (bar the fact that for whatever unexplainable reason, they chose the longest route for the cabling – I assume its related to charging for extra cabling).

Although I had an omnidirectional antenna before and used to get 600-750kbps, I do now notice a huge improvement on direct iBurst-speed (speedtests come close to 1Mbps). However (and there always is one) – just because I now have perfect line-speed, this does not solve the lack of international speed. Service is not consistent – some international downloads come in at about 500-700kbps, while others still average at about 350kbps. Other customers at the MyAdsl-forum say, that 350-500kbps is as much as you can expect.

Truly amazing (if only iBurst would cache downloads / websites) is the after picture:

2008-09-26 (Omnidirectional):
iBurst speedtest: Download 464kpbs / Upload 138kpbs
Speedtest – Johannesburg: Download 509kpbs / Upload 253kpbs
Speedtest – Capetown: Download 362kpbs / Upload 123kpbs
Speedtest – NY: Download 272kpbs / Upload 92kpbs

2008-10-03 (with the directional antenna)
iBurst speedtest: Download 979kpbs / Upload 204kpbs
Speedtest – Johannesburg: Download 991kpbs / Upload 286kpbs / ping 170ms
Speedtest – Capetown: Download 350kpbs / Upload 138kpbs / ping 870ms
Speedtest – NY: Download 251kpbs / Upload 75kpbs / ping 999ms

Personally I don’t notice much of a difference as it appears that international backhaul capacity (or oversubscription on the towers) is the issue.

Not sure where to go from here (other than to wait for ADSL installation on 13th October). For customers experiencing similar issues, I learnt:

  • iBurst helpdesk take for ever to assist
  • They will initially brush you off with excuses such as MTU or other things
  • They will initially show no responsibility or customer service and even want you to pay for a site-visit
  • The sad part is, that if you shout loud enough (such as in my case), they will conduct the site-visit for free, reimburse you for lost bandwidth and even pay for the installation of a directional antenna.
  • If that level of service would be available to all customers without having to escalate to the CEO, that would be grand service. Unfortunately such treatment is only offered to “difficult” customers such as myself. I pity people who don’t have the perseverance to follow through – truly amazing is that people pay quite a bit of money and then fail to push companies for better service. Unfortunately it is not just about complaining, a customer and a company should find an acceptable agreement.
  • I must say – iBurst well done, you have tried very hard to assist in resolving my problems, try and apply the same level of service to your complete customer base and your company will really excel.
VN:F [1.9.13_1145]
Rating: 0.0/10 (0 votes cast)
VN:F [1.9.13_1145]
Rating: 0 (from 0 votes)

iBurst: Still no broadband

Posted by on September 30, 2008 3 comments

In a previously related post. I detailed my “journey” into the getting no broadband anymore. iBurst’s service is still degraded.

Due to all the download issues and retries I eventually exhausted my 5GB-bundle and my 3.5GB top-up and was forced to topup by another 3.5GB last week to just make it through the month and be able to work. The 5GB are generally sufficient, but the last 30 days I spent downloading the same 120MB (non-resumeable) file 13(!!!) times as iBurst disconnected the network and download-speeds had been below 200kbps (this is KiloBits, which is 25KB/sec — compare that to 400KB/sec on ADSL or 250KB/sec on 3G).

The call-centre will find any excuse (check your MTU settings, have you rebooted your computer, did you install the latest Windows service-pack) for not helping you. They will then also send you to their own speedtest site, which shows a sugary-picture:

It’s just a pity, that I never download anything from iBurst’s website and a real-life scenario shows a picture like this:

Yes, most downloads, news etc originate from US and Europe, and this is where iBurst does not deliver broadband. Before we blame it on international traffic being congested, how come that ADSL- or 3G-users don’t have this problem. Clearly points out that iBurst is in trouble.

The recent site visit from the iBurst engineer, also did not prove an issue on my end of the wireless internetlessness. My signal quality is 100%, no frame-errors, perfect throughput on modem and router, but still speed issues.

During a further Speedtest this morning I noticed a brief improvement of speed (lasted between 6:00-6:30 and fluctuated between 300-500kbps) – after 6:30am however it was back to the previous state. Also still experiencing the same disconnects and fluctuation in speed.
iBurst speedtest: Upload 464kpbs / Download 138kpbs
Speedtest – Johannesburg: Upload 509kpbs / Download 253kpbs
Speedtest – Capetown: Upload 362kpbs / Download 123kpbs
Speedtest – NY: Upload 272kpbs / Download 92kpbs

You will notice, that the further you get away from your connected location the more speed drops. In contrast, this is not the case with other connection types. Hell, even pairing my Nokia N95 via Bluetooth on 3G is faster than iBurst. Still waiting for a resolution, as the problem is currently looked at by the network team. It has been confirmed during the site-survey, that the issue is not on my end though!

Update 2009-01-01: I had cancelled iBurst with 1st December 2008 and have been on ADSL (4mb) since November. iBurst did not really care addressing the problem and customer service is just horrible. Moving over to ADSL (via Webafrica) is the best thing I could have done. Downloads are coming in at 400KB/sec – not comparable to the 40KB/sec on iBurst.

VN:F [1.9.13_1145]
Rating: 0.0/10 (0 votes cast)
VN:F [1.9.13_1145]
Rating: 0 (from 0 votes)

iBurst: Fix your broadband

Posted by on September 23, 2008 1 comment

There is no doubt that iBurst is one of the worse broadband providers out there. Look at the over 500 complaints in the last 12 months on HelloPeter or HellBurst.

While most users complain about incorrect debit orders and the accounts department being up to sh#t, I pay via EFT and avoid surprise debits exceeding several thousand Rand a month. Yes, choosing iBurst was my choice — Telkom was not capable installing a copper line (after 5 months), Neotel did not launch and 3G is too expensive, but the incorrect advertising (broadband) and the (lacking) level of service is consistently delivered by iBurst.

While I originally used to get 500-700kbps (with omni-directional antenna and 100% signal), over the last 2 weeks my download speed looks like this (note that this is in KiloBits per second and not KB):

and a Speedtest reveals this:

Great ping-time, but iBurst completely lacks the backhaul capacity to provide any level of service. Incident was logged with them 19th September with the promise to have an engineer call within 1 hour. Phoned again today and was told that “everyone” is working on this.

On the MyAdsl forum you will notice posts like this one, that one, or this one, or that other one, or this one. By now you should get the hint, that not everything is as rosy as we are led to believe.

What does it mean to me: Tried to download since Thursday a 150MB patch for PS3 Burnout Paradise. Sofar the download was interrupted 12 times (4x on Thurs, 5x Friday, 3x Sat). This has cost me over 1GB of my bandwidth and iBurst is refusing to fix or compensate —- bad business practices.

Although Telkom could not get their act together in January, I have re-applied and hope that in a few months I will be on ADSL. PM me if you would like to purchase the iBurst Desktop modem (not that I have not warned you…)

Update 1: It has been now 3 days since I started notice the bad connectivity. Between 18/09 and 21/09 I wasted already 2869MB on trying to redownload a 120MB file. This is using up the additional R599,00 bundle I bought – iBurst will unlikely provide compensation for this.

Update 2: The call-centre now tells me that my local setup is wrong – iBurst see screenshots below (100% signal strength, no frame-errors, but your magic link-speed is 293kbps):

Update 3: Close to a week later, several phone-calls and emails, iBurst has now decided that the problem is on my side. So how is it possible that I can have great speed-tests against iBurst servers, but any international download suffers from lack of speed (download this morning of a 64MB Synology Firmware was going at a hot 5KB/sec). I will get my site-visit now on 26th – a week after reporting the incident the first time. Will be surprised to see what the resolution will be.

From some people I heard that iBurst does not have sufficient international back-haul capacity and all their towers are oversubscribed, this would then explain an international SpeedTest:

VN:F [1.9.13_1145]
Rating: 0.0/10 (0 votes cast)
VN:F [1.9.13_1145]
Rating: 0 (from 0 votes)

Rip-off alert: iBu(r)st changes prices and packages – watch out….

Posted by on April 2, 2008 No comments

If you are a iBurst user you will be delighted that the company has consolidated the number of packages and re-adjusted the prices for contracts and month-2-month deals:

However: As I am on a Pro 3gig package I assumed that iBurst would either automatically upgrade me to the Xtreme 5gig package or reduce the monthly cost. THIS IS NOT THE CASE! iBurst will not change your current contract, they will also not contact you to have this changed.

The only option you have is to phone customer care on 0861 428 778 and speak to sales to have your monthly cost reduced or have your package upgraded.

Update: iBurst will not migrate you right away. You will have to fill out a migration form and the migration will only become effective with the following month. So depending on what package you are on, you will immediately loose out. If you are on a 3GB package now, you will lose R 150,00 for the month.

VN:F [1.9.13_1145]
Rating: 0.0/10 (0 votes cast)
VN:F [1.9.13_1145]
Rating: 0 (from 0 votes)

Rip-off alert 2: iBurst introduces pay per use – R972 per gig

Posted by on April 2, 2008 No comments

While discussing my migration with an iBurst sales consultant, I found out that iBurst introduced mandatory pay-per-use as of this month.

iBurst will charge you an out-of-bundle rate of 95c per MB extra being used. The only way to avoid this is to opt-out via the above link.

The catch? Old packages are not affected by this. However, as soon as you migrate PPU will be activated. So it is either staying on the old package, being overcharged and getting a softcap or reducing your package cost or migrating to a new package (the later two will require you to opt out of PPU if you don’t want to get surprises at the end of the month).

Update 1: I have logged this also on HelloPeter
Update 2: iBurst responded on Hello Peter, but has not responded to my email I sent them 12 hours ago (although I have received a number of read-receipts). Makes me wonder how iBurst complies with the National Credit Act when unwary customers get debited thousands of Rand???

If you don’t understand what this means: 1GB = 1024MB * 95c = 972 Rand. iBurst – what’s wrong with you? (a 1GB bandwidth booster will cost R199)

VN:F [1.9.13_1145]
Rating: 0.0/10 (0 votes cast)
VN:F [1.9.13_1145]
Rating: 0 (from 0 votes)