iBurst erects 20m Tower illegally!
iBurst has disregarded official procedure and erected a tower in the middle of a highly populated residential area in Fourways before the record of decision to residents/objectors and before the 30 days to appeal the decision is issued.
Residents started noticing some activity on the site and began querying with the relevant authorities as to why the construction had begun before the amended Environmental Impact Assessment record of decision had be issued. Seems iBurst got wind of this and quickly finished the installation in 1 day!
Not bad, I bet some of your customers would appreciate that level of urgency when it comes to their account/coverage/performance issues.
Now we have a 20 meter high tower, roughly 50 meters away from our house, lovely! I wonder what the poor sods living less than 5 meters away from the tower think of this addition to their neighbourhood, erm, back garden?
For everybody’s information, this tower has been placed on the property of the Fourways Memorial Cemetery on one of it’s servitudes. This cemetery is surrounded by sectional title,cluster developments and houses, see below google maps link:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour…05177&t=h&z=18
The cemetery is in the top left quadrant, while the tower is placed on the bottom right corner of that quadrant, just off Memorial road. Notice the townhouse complex and residences, a few meters away, on either side of the tower.
I don’t expect a worthwhile response to this post from the iBurst rep on this forum, as official correspondence from concerned residents has been flatly ignored by iBurst management anyway.
Now excuse me, while I go watch the adjacent trees to this tower wither and die (together with our property values) before summer arrives.
Following a meeting between a small number of craigavon residents suffering health effects and the iburst ceo (and his lawyer), iburst has agreed to turn off the craigavon / fourways memorial iburst mast immediately, until such time as residents and iburst can meet again in a similar forum in a few weeks, and in order to provide a suitable amount of time for the alleged short-term health effects (rashes, persistent headaches, inability to sleep, etc) to subside/”dissipate”.
Iburst has agreed to allowing an independent RF engineer (who will be selected by the residents) access to iburst records and/or equipment to verify that the tower is not transmitting nor receiving. Iburst has agreed to covering the costs of this.
Iburst have further agreed to pay for an independent RF engineer, to be selected by the residents, to test the radiation levels at a handful of locations that the residents will select, during a time that the tower is on.
The CEO of Iburst has agreed to produce an affidavit swearing the date that the tower was turned off, and swearing that the tower will not be switched back on without reasonable prior notice to residents.
Iburst has agreed to allowing yours truly to climb the fourways memorial tower, and “unscrew things”.
This is a serious topic as you can imagine, I’d imagine this could result in iBurst going bang if the wrong people hear about this!!!
[Thanks Debbie!]
Christopher is the founder of iMod - Most of his time is spent building websites and pushing the limits with Search Engine Optimization. You can follow him on Twitter @ChristopherM
Chris M has written: 4156 posts.
Nov 16th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
Yeah this is very serious. You can say one thing but your actions definitely show something else! Illegal is illegal, I don’t care who you are. In most cases the wrong and right people hear about it, so it seems iBurst will have some serious trouble on their hands!
Nov 17th, 2009 at 1:02 am
Ye, I honestly think something like this can result in a company going bang completely. I’m not super clued up, but it stands to reason!
Nov 17th, 2009 at 7:38 am
iBurst is the worst Internet company I’ve ever dealt with. Worse than Telkom even.
I’ve made a complaint against them on hellopeter and I’ve blogged about them.
Compare their prices to Neotel’s and they are 3 times more expensive and twice as slow.
Nov 17th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
After this episode, I’m not surprised! I can’t believe they’d just move forwards with such an action, if they don’t get sued, they’re seriously lucky!
Nov 18th, 2009 at 7:44 pm
i think it is disgusting how companies do as they please. the more one hears about this particular case the more one realises this was done with very little regard to how it should be done.
Nov 18th, 2009 at 10:44 pm
Absolutely, I think that iBurst is going to have a tough time living this one down – This is the sort of situation where they are made an example!
Nov 21st, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Unfortunately it seems iBurst did everything by the book here else ICASA would be able to rock up and take all their equipment attached to the tower. The problem here is that the residents ignored the EIA, the notices that they were sent. They most likely hoped that other residents would complain but it seems not to be the case. It could also be likely that that complex was built during the course of the two years since the initial EIA was conducted and the notices were posted in the newspapers and letters were posted to the closest neighbours.
Dec 1st, 2009 at 7:36 pm
Unfortunately Jacques Marneweck, you are incorrect. Iburst did not follow procedure in putting up this mast. As proof that residents were informed, iburst is producing their own consultant’s signature. Really! It is ridiculous and I for one can’t wait for a court to sort the truth from the lies.