There is no truth in reports that the provincial government chose Wireless Business Solutions (WBS) over its usual connectivity partner, Sentech, because Sentech's service was unavailable for the launch of the new government portal in Tembisa this week.
So says Emmanuel Phasha, Gauteng provincial government deputy GM for IT.
On the day of the launch, reports reached ITWeb that Sentech's broadband wireless service had failed during the pre-event testing on Monday evening and iBurst was called in at the last minute to save the day.
On the day of the launch, Jacki Mpondo-Hendricks, WBS head of marketing, told ITWeb that her company had been called in to provide connectivity after the competitor's product had failed.
However, Phasha says both Sentech and WBS had initially been called in as sponsors to provide connectivity at the launch event. The night before the launch the Sentech product experienced problems with staying connected and that is why the government opted to use WBS's iBurst, says Phasha.
"The truth of the matter is that both companies agreed to come in as sponsors and there was no case of double-booking or failed service. We had both of their systems in place at the launch and the only reason we went with iBurst is because it proved to be more stable at the time," he explains.
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