Truly mobile Internet will be available in South Africa from next year.

The product, iBurst, is currently in pre-beta testing phase and is being tested in Johannesburg by 100 users.

When it is launched at the end of February next year, Cape Town and Durban will be added to the coverage areas.

Unlike current Internet service providers, the mobility of the service will allow surfers to continue working online without losing the connection – even while mobile.

This means that transfer from base station to base station will be seamless.

While details have not yet been finalised, Engineering News managed to procure some information from Wireless Business Solutions (WBS) COO Thami Mtshali.

WBS, using ArrayComm’s trademarked iBurst broadband wireless system, expects to cover more than 80% of the 45-million population of South Africa within three years.

This will be accomplished through a phased deployment of iBurst base stations being manufactured by the Japanese Kyocera Corporation. The Japanese supplier, Kyocera, is fully behind the product and currently has a team of engineers in the country during the testing phase.

WBS will begin service in the first quarter of 2005 in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town and Durban and will later expand to other urban areas The service – the second of its kind worldwide – offers users all the features and benefits that iBurst technology has demonstrated in its large-scale commercial deployment in Sydney, Australia.

Benefits include seamless delivery of up to one Mb/s data rates along with all the wireless freedom and mobility of cellular. "We are delighted with the performance of the iBurst system," says chief technical officer Sasan Parvin. "There are many systems out there that claim to offer viable models for wireless broadband services, but we believe that the iBurst system is the only carrier-grade mobile broadband technology that can truly compete with the economics of cable or digital subscriber line and combine this with the freedom and convenience of mobility.

"We are anxious to bring the iBurst mobile broadband experience to our rainbow-nation of South Africa." To avoid a situation that could leave customers disgruntled with download speeds, Mtshali says that usage will be managed from the start.

"We won’t let people abuse it in the first place, or create the perception that the service is infinite." Consumers who want higher download speeds from the start will have access to a different package.

Other services that have been planned include a facility for monitoring vehicle traffic online, saving people from sitting in traffic.

In addition, he says, WBS will be able to link up a consumer’s home-alarm system, including cameras, to the Internet. Theoretically, consumers would see from work if their home is being broken into.

The entire concept is customer focused; if, after a trial period, users are dissatisfied they can cancel the contract.

In addition, if they become unhappy at a later stage, the contract can also be cancelled, as long as the reason given is reasonable.

This is because WBS is confident of its product and its ability to manage usage.

"We would like to give our customers a truly broadband experience," says Mtshali.

One user who was a passenger in a car commented: "I watched the entire Cat Woman Two trailer all the way here on a laptop." WBS is a South African-owned company established to provide mobile data network services to meet corporate, government and domestic requirements. It is licensed by Icasa to provide national mobile broadband data services and is South Africa’s fourth telecommunications licensee. WBS is the backbone network behind the National Lottery, providing nationwide wireless data services covering 95% of the population. WBS intends to unshackle broadband and believes that it will liberate data communications in the same way the mobile phone liberated voice telephony.