Why is South African internet so, so, so bad?
by Fred Roed on 26/09/06 at 10:09 pm
9 comments
For the benefit of our international readers, we have pretty slim pickings in South Africa when it comes to choosing an internet service provider.
In the one corner we have Telkom, the incumbent; soon to be challenged by Neotel, who, until now, have been under the guise of the mysterious moniker ‘SNO’, or ‘Second Network Operator’. Telkom provides most of our internet in the country.
In the other corner we have:
- Sentech: a wireless internet option with the unfortunate reputation of inspiring more hatemail than Sinead o’Connor.
- Various 3G cellular options (operated mostly by Vodacom, owned mostly by Telkom)
- iBurst: another wireless internet option on a major expansion trail in South Africa at the moment. We chose iBurst for our studio.
There it is. And so, on a day like this, when our company grinds to a halt because for the 5th time in a month our internet connection ‘experiences technical difficulties’, it is hard to describe the sheer frustration we feel. After staring at my send-and-receive report gradually climb to 50% and then die repeatedly for an hour, I pick up the phone to give someone ‘a piece of my mind’. The iBurst Helpline answers with a pre-recorded message; ‘We are aware of the slow reception in Cape Town. We are tending to the problem.’ I put the phone down. I realise there is no point waiting for someone in their call centre.
Mulling over the not-so-small amount of money we lose in productivity, we then play an in-studio game called: ‘Why is iBurst so crap?’ Here are some of the winning answers:
- iBurst is trying too hard to expand too quickly, and are not focusing on keeping existing customer happy.
- iBurst don’t have the technical prowess to manage the influx of new customers and their towers are not being managed properly.
- iBurst realise that all the people giving them a ‘piece of mind’ doesn’t mean Jack; they know we’re not moving to Sentech – or worse, back to Telkom.
- iBurst outsource all their infrastructure support, as apposed to having in-house teams on standby when things go wrong – resulting in really long down-times.
- iBurst sucks. This last one’s mine – childish, I know.
Anyway, since the odds of finding a better service provider anytime soon is pretty slim, and the chances of them jacking themselves up is even slimmer, writing this blog remains my only weapon in the war against bad internet. Consider this post the barely perceptible itch you’re feeling on your ankle right now, iBurst!
PS: it took 10 minutes to publish this.
PPS: to add to the twitch developing in my neck, I see that the iBurst website boasts no problems in their network status report.
Fred Roed is the marketing guy in the Ideate crew. Fred is the CEO of web marketing company World Wide Creative and the co-founder of online learning portal Heavy Chef. Fred loves writing about people out there doing marketing right. Follow Fred on Twitter here. View more articles by Fred Roed.
JBagley
Sep 27th, 2006
Internet connectivity is just one of those things that we just cant seem to sort out properly in this country… But we can at least smile at our connections compared to those of Namibia. I was up there last week, and there is no such thing as broadband or anything remotely as quick as our worst 384kb/s connection.
Mweb in Namibia, just released the countries first wireless solution, which at best of times is down. I think the downtime is around 60%. The speed is comparable to our dial-up connection…. Now imagine trying to work there!?
Its also very sad, because if they did have a decent internet connection, business’s would change the way they currently work… It would really help their economy.
I think all those iBurst ads during Survivor, are killing them off. They just can’t handle the load.
Andrew
Sep 27th, 2006
My advice to other small businesses would be to get a Telkom ADSL line (1 Gig option) and an iBurst connection (1Gig option). When one goes down, switch to the other one. When the bandwidth on one runs out, top it up. It’s a bit more expensive, but connectivity should be more consistent.
Of course, there is still only one big undersea connection connecting SA to the rest of the world, and it’s controlled by…… Telkom.
Karin
Sep 27th, 2006
I feel for all of you. Two reasons: an old friend of mine emailed me last week a (Dutch) list of reasons how you know you live in 2006, very funny and very true. Among the items on the list: you drive back home when you realise you forgot your mobile phone
; you type in your password into your microwave; you keep your head askew when you smile; you send an email to the person at the desk next to you 
Second reason: yesterday the server was down here (struck by lightning the night before, Mike told me) and our domain name starts with a W (you end up at the end of the queue when everything is being reset. And although my interconnection was up and running, for a whole day I felt out of touch with the world because I couldn’t check or send my emails.
I like the advice of Andrew. Everytime my broadband connection is down (everytime meaning hardly once a month) I make a note for myself to finally install a proper analoge modem to be able to use the ‘old-fashion’ dail-up account I still have from three years back to at least check my emails
Shane
Sep 27th, 2006
hellburst.co.za ia available for registration…anyone?
coda
Sep 28th, 2006
Sentech sold me their wireless card and an account when they don’t even cover my particular block. I could get a signal across the road but that didn’t help me. Needless to say, I don’t feel wireless broadband is a practical choice.
Henre
Sep 28th, 2006
The memory of a analogue dial up modem is still way too fresh in my mind to even consider such an option. I suggest doing admin or one of the all time favourites, Solitaire, when your internet connection is down.
Fred
Sep 28th, 2006
I hear you, coda – I bought an iBurst card with the wireless world a juicy prospect in my mind… Now, when I want to hook up to the internet, I sit on the edge of my bed upstairs sitting on a pillow and my laptop tilted towards the window.
Alan Levin
Oct 4th, 2006
There are a few reasons why iBurst cannot compete with adsl, 3G or another wireless SP.
- they spent too much money on the wrong technology
- they didn’t know how to use or configure the technology
- they have underprovisioned their network
Now you are helping them recover some of their investment and I take my hat off to you for supporting them after the mistakes they made.
So whilst I am no fan of Telkom, I can say that they have over 50 years of experience in managing data networks, they are the richest (or one of) company in SA, and so adsl just works. It is expensive but compared to what you pay for. The latest myadsl user research shows it’s the fastest and best, although there are some good reports about MTN HSDPA as well.
Thanks for your post and I wish you success with your future broadband connectivity…
Ideate - Small Business in South Africa
Nov 26th, 2008
[...] this gently – loathsome thoughts towards the wireless internet provider iBurst. Read our past rants here, here, here, here and [...]