Why iBurst went titsup

I have previously written about why Novell and Madge went titsup. Well, I might as well complete the trifecta and write about iBurst whose obituary was written by MyBroadband and ITWeb. As a bit of a background on the Technology, you can read a description of the iBurst technology here.

iBurst had a rich heritage, being invented by the father of mobile technology, Dr Martin Cooper. The standardisation of iBurst had its first hurdle in the standards committees where it stalled. The technology was then sold by ArrayCom to Kyocera who gave it the treacle treatment. As a technology it was effective as its planning was dramatically simplified due the manner in which towers were colour coded.

Cost reduction cycle

But the primary problem is that the hardware never went into a cost reduction cycle and all the major network operators threw their weight behind 3G. The death knell was sounded. In an amazing show of stubbornness and resourcefulness, iBurst lasted double its expected lifespan in South Africa. I used to roam the forums of MyBroadband as r00igev@@r, as the Grandmaster for iBurst, maybe in the future I'll have a reason to go back for something else. All that experience is damn good for #SDWAN!

Any thoughts on iBurst, please drop a comment below.

This article was originally published over on LinkedIn: Why iBurst went titsup