MyBroadband

MyBroadband
Mybroadband's homepage
Screenshot of Mybroadband's homepage
Type of site
 Technology News
Available in English
Owner Rudolph Muller
Created by Jan Vermeulen, Vicky Sidler, Cara Muller, Rudolph Muller, Kevin Lancaster
Website https://mybroadband.co.za/
Alexa rank 4,214[1]
Commercial Yes
Users 1600000
Launched 2003
Current status Active

MyBroadband is a South African technology news website which was started in 2003 as a consumer advocacy forum to address broadband problems which existed in the country at the time.

Since then, the website has grown into an IT News publication with an online community of 1.6 million unique visitors and 6.7 million page views per month. MyBroadband is the largest IT website in South Africa,[2] serving the local market with technology and business news, and hosts the largest online community in the country in the form of its forum. MyBroadband monitors and reports extensively on the local telecommunications industry and publishes news articles and reports on various subjects and categories.

Conferences

MyBroadband hosts two annual conferences - the MyBroadband Conference and the Cloud Conference. The MyBroadband Conference was started in 2007 and has grown to become the biggest conference of its type in South Africa - attracting 4,000 delegates.[3] The MyBroadband Conference is focused on the telecommunications and IT industry in South Africa. The Cloud Conference was launched in 2015.[4]

MyBroadband Awards

Each year at the MyBroadband Conference, awards are given to companies and individuals based on consumer surveys run by MyBroadband. The surveys are run quarterly and winners are decided for various categories.

Past winners

Year Fixed broadband provider Mobile broadband provider Internet Service Provider
2008 Telkom Vodacom Axxess
2009 Telkom MTN Axxess
2010 Telkom Cell C MWEB
2011 Telkom 8.ta (Telkom) Afrihost
2012 Telkom Cell C Afrihost
2013 Telkom Telkom Afrihost
2014 Telkom Telkom Afrihost
2015 Neotel Telkom Axxess
2016 Vumatel Telkom Axxess

Speed Tests

MyBroadband offers a speed test web service that provides a free analysis of Internet performance metrics, such as connection data rate and latency.[5] MyBroadband has one test server based in Johannesburg and one in Cape Town. The speed test service was launched in 2011 for web browsers, and was based on Flash technology at the time. In March 2017, MyBroadband upgraded the speed test service to HTML5 to allow more devices to access it. In June 2017, speed test apps were launched for Android and iOS.

MyBroadband publishes quarterly reports based on the results collected by the tests. These reports include network performance indicators of the telecommunications providers in South Africa.

Magazine

In January 2017, MyBroadband launched the MyBroadband Magazine. The MyBroadband magazine, published quarterly, is a premium publication aimed at ICT executives and professionals, and those working in the ICT field.[6]

Forum

MyBroadband was originally only an online forum which was started to serve as a platform to discuss broadband services in South Africa. One of the main objectives of the MyBroadband forum was to analyse the South African broadband landscape, focusing on ADSL connections - which dominated the country and were run by the state-controlled monopoly Telkom. The forum has over 200,000 members and more than 10,000,000 posts.[7]

Controversies

In its later years MyBroadband has been criticised for removing forum posts[8] and banning users[9] that are critical of its major advertisers who have people in management positions that are friends with moderators on the forum. The most recent of these when iBurst was accused[10] of illegally erecting a base station. Accusations have been made of unethical behaviour when using a company also owned by the owner of MyBroadband [11] to report on site statistics for its advertisers. Competitions are regularly held which have been criticised for not adhering to any laws governing promotional lotteries or competitions. MyBroadband has drawn a lot of criticism in recent years for alleged preferential treatment of their biggest advertisers, chief among them being Afrihost. On January 30, 2017 MyBroadband created a special support forum for Afrihost in which the company representatives have moderation rights.[12] Some members felt that this action was tantamount to giving preferential treatment to one of the site's largest sponsors and as a result, it drew some criticism. Even though the stated intention was for it to be a month-long trial to determine whether a dedicated support forum has value for ISPs, as of 2018 Afrihost is still the only ISP to have its own dedicated support forum on the site.

The company has also changed its founding principle of being advertising free. In 2009 it included the incumbent Telkom as an advertiser, which was widely critiqued among the membership and ultimately resulted in 2 competing forums being set up.[13] Shortly before and after this several of the founding members left or were banned from the site which was also widely criticised on other forums and on blogs. It is now described as selling out to the telecoms companies and as a commercial news site that no longer has the interests of South African consumers at heart.

References

  1. ↑ "Site info for mybroadband.co.za". Alexa. Retrieved 24 May 2011.
  2. ↑ "Top technology and computing sites in South Africa". Retrieved 2017-08-03.
  3. ↑ "MyBroadband Conference 2016 – cool photos of what you missed". Retrieved 2017-08-03.
  4. ↑ "MyBroadband Cloud and Hosting conference". Retrieved 2017-08-03.
  5. ↑ "MyBroadband Speed Test App launched". Retrieved 2017-08-03.
  6. ↑ "MyBroadband Magazine – Online edition launched". Retrieved 2017-08-03.
  7. ↑ "MyBroadband cracks 10 million posts". Retrieved 2017-08-03.
  8. ↑ GNaschenweng (2017-06-07). "Mybroadband.co.za censors consumer activism about Afrihost SMS- & email-spam". naschenweng.info. Retrieved 2017-06-08.
  9. ↑ GNaschenweng (2017-06-08). "MyBroadband banned me because I reported them to ISPA". naschenweng.info. Retrieved 2017-06-08.
  10. ↑ "Noseweek 125 iBursting with ill-health". www.noseweek.co.za. Retrieved 2017-06-09.
  11. ↑ "OPA vs WASA. The plot thickens..." www.andyhadfield.com. Retrieved 2017-06-08.
  12. ↑ "Afrihost Support Trial Forum". www.mybroadband.co.za. Retrieved 2018-09-17.
  13. ↑ "BBLounge screen-grab - feud with MyBroadband" (PDF).
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