Web Hosting News, iburst News, ADSL News, Network Status

The fast uptake of RSAWeb iBurst Wireless Internet Access has been exciting. iBurst South Africa didn”t forsee such demand as ran out of modems 3 weeks ago! RSAWeb managed to secure a whole shipment of modems so we have enough stock for another month. Joburg coverage is excellent, Cape Town is good although some key areas are not yet covered (Sea Point, Table View/Parklands, Somerset West, and Stellenbosch.) WBS(iBurst South Africa) haven”t indicated rollout times yet as they aren”t putting up as many new base stations at the moment due to the large capital cost per base station.

The iBurst Network

The network appears to be quite stable, much better than its initial launch. The signup process is a breeze and getting people connected is relatively painless. iBurst is streaks ahead of Sentech’’s MyWireless service - which we never sold because their service and support was just not up to the standard we expect although not many corporate organisations in South Africa can even boast good service.

iBurst now boasts over 8000 users and has only been operational since Decmber 2004. Sentech’’s MyWireless serivce has been around for almost 3 times longer and only has 5000 users, iBurst must be doing something right!

Competing with the standard ADSL offerings directly and indirectly, it allows portable internet access and access in areas where ADSL is not yet available. We have found it particularly useful in areas where Telkom have installed a mini exchange connected to the main exchange by fibre instead of traditionally copper phone lines, excluding ADSL. One such example is Ratanga Junction (a new RSAWeb Support & iBurst client) and Century City. Onsite testing last week yielded a download speed at 110KB/second! Your typical dialup is about 5KB/s and ADSL currently at maximum of 55KB/s.

Speed - has been a bit of a problem in the past, particularly in Joburg, but it appears to have been resolved. Speed is affected by signal strength and signal quality. We stock a range of antennas for laptop and desktop iBurst Wireless units that can make a huge difference in speed and signal quality, so if you struggle to get fast downloads, you may require an external antenna. Rain does not affect the signal in any noticeable way.

Cap - starting at 1GB - its great for laptop users! Most people want to use it to check email, do banking and general browsing. The people that complain about caps are people downloading music, divx’’s, torrents etc and want to pay nothing to get that facility. Unfortunately the SNO process has been stalling over the last 5 years and we still don”t have much choice other than Telkom. Once you reach the 1GB (or whichever package you take) mark then you get throttled to 64k. There is also an additional level at about 10GB (on a 1GB package), if you exceed that limit, WBS considers it abuse and you get disconnected temporarily (you can also buy more traffic to get online) Packages available are: 1GB,3GB,6GB,9GB and additional traffic is easily purchased online per GB for very reasonable rates.

iBurst Summary

On the whole, RSAWeb is happy with iBurst, it competes excellently with other portable access technologies (Vodacoms 3G, MTNs 3G and Sentechs MyWireless.) Clients are generally very happy with the service (as long as they can get signal) and it seems to be a better option than MyWireless. Running at 1MB/s, it is the fastest broadband wireless internet access technology available in South Africa at the moment.