iBurst has reached the 20 000 subscriber milestone for its wireless broadband service, showing a 122% increase in five months. The company`s coverage is also growing, with a 110% increase in base stations over the same period, it says.
Thami Mtshali, CEO of iBurst, says the company has attained critical mass and will grow exponentially. One of the drivers for such growth is that iBurst has no backlog of orders, because it can connect customers within 48 hours or faster, he says.
Mtshali also slams the long waiting period associated with fixed-line broadband. "It is a mystery why anyone would wait weeks for a connection by choosing fixed-line broadband over wireless broadband that can connect them to the Web the same day."
A Telkom spokesperson would not discuss the fixed-line operator`s backlog of ADSL orders, as it is competitive information. But she says the official waiting period for an ADSL connection is 30 working days, and that Telkom aims to decrease this to 14 working days in the latter half of the financial year.
The spokesperson also notes that Telkom had 143 509 DSL subscribers as at the beginning of June.
"Our target is to have one million broadband subscribers by 2010," she says.
In its annual report, Vodacom states it had 37 798 active 3G users as at 31 March.
Cell C has also announced its entry into the wireless broadband market. The service is aimed at residential customers and will offer data speeds of approximately three times that of a dial-up connection, claims the company.
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