iBurst is still crap
by Fred Roed on 09/11/06 at 9:30 pm
4 comments
Earlier this week I arranged to sit down and shoot the breeze with a good friend of mine and long-time business advisor.
I told him that I would spot him for breakfast, and craftily organised the meeting at Arnolds in Kloof Street at around, oh, say, 7 for 7:15? (Only insiders will know why that was crafty.) We decided on this morning, and I would bring my laptop so that any online activity could be engaged in with wild abandon – since, of course, I would have my trusty iBurst card with me.
So, I arrive early, open up my faithful steed (an imported 17” RAM-hungry monster), and watch in horror as it takes 15 mins for my homepage to upload.
‘O koek,’ I exclaim. ‘iBurst is down again.’
The next step was to check the iBurst website for any incident reports. After waiting another 15 mins for their website to upload, the network status report assures me that all is okay on the iBurst front.
After the meeting I returned to work, only to discover that the studio connection is also on the blink. Bugger.
At around 4:30 today, after hours of lost productivity, I muster up enough wry humour to tackle the tangled mess that is the iBurst Helpdesk. It took me an age to get through to an answering machine, prompting me to leave a fearsome tirade of pent-up frustration. I threaten violence if someone human does not phone me shortly.
At 6pm this evening, Henry, their hero on duty, phones me apologetically, telling me that they are experiencing a ‘network difficulty’ in Cape Town. The problem will be sorted out in approximately 1hr, Henry tells me.
Well, Henry, as you may have guessed, the reason I’m writing this is because your time is up baby. iBurst is still experiencing ‘network difficulty’ and it’s 9pm.
I’m signing off now – but before I do, I’m off to my Nokia 9300 to Google ‘entertaining insults’ in preparation for the creative messages I’m leaving on your answering machine tomorrow morning.
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
Nov 9th, 2006
I love the “we experiencing network difficulties”. Its a classic excuse for *everything*.
Iburst is really a load a crap. Pity that SA hasn’t found a viable solution for wireless broadband, although WiMax looks promising. My bet is that the okes that get to dip their fingers into the cookie jar of profits, will ultimately screw that up as well. hehe
Gavin Nunn
Nov 10th, 2006
iBurst is indeed very crap – so of course is Telkom but I somehow think that iBurst is in fact crapper than Telkom.
It was so good when they had no customers – fast and usable – now of course it is an embarasment and I can only say at least I can use my phone with GPRS which is faster than iBurst …..
Alan Levin
Nov 14th, 2006
Telkom may not have the best prices, or the most friendly customer service, but they are pretty good on the technical side (independently tested and evaluated by 1000’s of myadsl users as the best). And in many cases they have better policies that other telco’s around the world. Unfortunately this is a common case with iBurst, you may want to try Vodacom 3G as an alternate mobile option?
Ideate - Small Business in South Africa
Nov 26th, 2008
[...] – loathsome thoughts towards the wireless internet provider iBurst. Read our past rants here, here, here, here and [...]