iBurst not happy

ADSL South Africa (Broadband South Africa), 10 December 2006

iBurst, MyADSL’s ‘Broadband Provider of the Year,’ is not happy with an Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa (ASA) ruling that it may not advertise its service as broadband. iBurst has enjoyed a lot of bad press in recent days.

ASA’s decision is based on the fact that iBurst can not guarantee speeds in line with International Telecommunication Union (ITU) standards. ASA made it clear that a minimum speed of 256 kbps should be delivered in order to be classified as a broadband connection. “This is in line with the recently released ICASA ADSL regulations, but interestingly enough ICASA said that their ADSL broadband definition does not really apply to wireless broadband” (ASA says iBurst is not broadband, MyADSL).

iBurst has responded with a clear tone of irritation in regard to ASA’s ruling...

Alan Knott-Craig, Jnr. MD of iBurst, made iBurst’s feelings clear: “This serious aberration amongst the ASA’s usually sane rulings is regrettable because it has implications for every other broadband provider in South Africa. It should be obvious to the Authority that no operator anywhere on the planet can guarantee a minimum download speed qualifying as broadband 100% of the time…” Also, “The download speed experienced by some subscribers could be zero kilobits per second when a particular base station is offline, but this doesn’t mean the service we provide is not broadband. The ASA alluded to international definitions of broadband, without understanding that iBurst is an international wireless broadband standard and is defined as such by regulators in the applicable countries…”

iBurst has sent an appeal to ASA in the hope that they overturn the ruling although the harm is already done.

ADSL South Africa (Broadband South Africa) support iBurst’s take on the ruling but this doesn’t mean that we’re happy about iBurst’s overall service deliverance and performance.