3G not a viable business connection due to vodacom policies?

Going from one of the happiest 3G customer's to one of the least happy is not a pleasant experience.
On Thursday evening my Option datacard was left in a desktop PC fitted with an ELAN P111 overnight, the connection was left inactive. Datacard blinking happily along.

On Friday 7:30am I noticed the card crashed during the night and I did the usual procedure to get it up and going. No luck.
Tried the datacard in my laptop: Still no luck -only crashes.
Phoned 082 155. --> Tried all possible solutions as advised. No solution.
Phoned 082 155 again--> Advised me to test the sim in other phone. Sim tested OK. The help desk then advised me to go to the canal walk-in center and test the datacard there.
Canal walk-in center: Tested datacard in their laptop. Datacard still crashed in their laptop.
Problem Diagnosed: Faulty datacard.
Possible Solution: Firmware update. (not guaranteed to work) ELSE send the datacard to Vodacare for repairs in Joburg -lead time 7 days. (Vodacare quoted 2 weeks lead time)
Not having email for our company for the entire day was a logistical nightmare on it's own -for me and my customers.(our previous ISDN service was cancelled) And getting an active connection to the internet was the NO 1 priority.
At this point I made various phone calls to try and organise a replacement or loan datacard while the datacard was supposed to be sent away.I was passed around like a smelly ping pong ball between the Vodashop, Vodacare, and Data Center. Everyone was under the impression I could get a loan card but when they checked with the powers that be, a firm "NO" was the answer.
After a lengthy conversation on saturday AM, with a supervisor at 082155, I was told the exact same answer with all the fine print of how they are covered (legally) and I felt like just another contract.
When I asked the obvious question as to why a loan device was not possible. The answer was "the device is a modem, and our insurance company does not insure modem loan devices." ( ...but when your cell phone breaks you get a (plain) loan device ) When I stated the obvious solution: Swop you insurance company to one that does insure the loan device. I got the reply: Vodacom is the insurance company doing the insurance.
At this point I was highly frustrated and even further away from a solution , infact it appeared I was 7 days/2 weeks away from an active connection to the internet! ( so I purcha$ed a bluetooth dongle and borrowed a bluetooth cell for GPRS connection for Monday morning, because subscribing to a cheap dial-up account like polka seemed like the only other 3rd world solution!)
At this stage, I feel Vodacom has not helped one byte, and expecting a business to be without a connection to their service for 7days/2weeks due to their policies is unbelievable. The supervisor at 082155 summarized the situation as an "inconvenience"
An inconveniance I can live with, this is train smash.
By Sunday evening I managed to obtain the firmware update from a very helpful guy at the walk-in center, for the Option card, and after flashing my Option card and many hours of trouble shooting I managed to finally get a stable 3G connection (but things still aren't quite what they used to be...still observing the card...)
I am left bewildered by the vodacom/vodacare policy on leaving me out in the dark if the device should fail again.
No device- no connection - and yes, you still keep on paying for the entire months subscription?
What do they expect a business to do in the mean time?
Surely this policy needs an urgent review, because expecting your business customers to sit in the dark without a connection for 2 weeks, makes signing the 24 month contract pointless. If I new this pitfall was coming, I would not sign.
Vodacom3g, please could you comment on this, and correct my post where needed (it's been a looong weekend!)
Perhaps you can work some of you magic and let me know if there is a better solution/ or if vodacom is going to come to party with a solution of its own??

ant101 said:

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Vodacom3g, please could you comment on this, and correct my post where needed (it's been a looong weekend!)
Perhaps you can work some of you magic and let me know if there is a better solution/ or if vodacom is going to come to party with a solution of its own??

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Have you sent v3g a p.m. with your contact details?

What puzzles me about your experience is why the card died in the first place, another forumite mentioned a recent bout of lightning in the CT area, not exactly unusual for this time of year, but then your PC would surely be fried before the card itself...

ant101, I understand your frustration.

Sounds like you got caught between two incompatible policies, i.e. (1), a subscription-based service and (2), a repair policy that does not allow for a swap-out.

I'll follow this up immediately and revert here.

IC, Good question. Why did the card fail? The card has never had any problems itself, not even heat issues.
Unfortunatley P.M vodacom3g could not be done due to the fact that I had no connection, and I was trying the recommended routes for problem resolution. (and boy did I try all!)
The card is up and running, on the desktop pc but I have noticed that errors are now being logged under the connection properties. I have never noticed this before. Count=2 Received. ?mmm not sure how to resolve this one. Will check some further settings.

Thanks vodacom3g for following-up!

The answer was "the device is a modem, and our insurance company does not insure modem loan devices." ( ...but when your cell phone breaks you get a (plain) loan device )

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I assume a (plain) 3G cellphone does not fall into the equation somewhere? Can't they loan that instead? Or under what will that fall? In 6 months you probably will be seeing 3G phones on ALL contracts (both MTN and Vodacom), so i don't see why Vodacom isn't planning on the fact that DATA/MODEM related use of their network/devices will be an inevitable reality very soon. I can probably add the same for their contract setup [data and voice not integrated etc]

Are you sure this was not just the typical 3g connection problems rather than a card fault? Im rather surprised anyone in this country puts 100% reliance on any connection method. Everything gives problems at some time or another.

asmith said:

Are you sure this was not just the typical 3g connection problems rather than a card fault? Im rather surprised anyone in this country puts 100% reliance on any connection method. Everything gives problems at some time or another.

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Yeah. If it is *that* critical, you have to have a backup plan. Maybe even two.

Having a backup plan, if you depend on broadband, as in using web applications, transferring larger files and not just checking some e-mails is very difficult in this country.

If at least it was possible to get Telkom ADSL installed where it is supposed to be available.
You would not want to rent a place because ADSL is supposed to be available in that area, to hear after you signed the lease that there are no free ports and the installation date could be a few months from now.

I need to have a backup, always, very critical, I can completely feel for ant101 how devastating it can be to have your business stop being offline, and the Vodacom 3G is just not fast enough and stable enough to use as a main broadband solution, so I find myself stuck in a rental property that does not suit my needs and is overpriced, having to stay just because there is an existing ADSL connection, 3G being the backup and mobile solution only.

goodgirl said:

Having a backup plan, if you depend on broadband, as in using web applications, transferring larger files and not just checking some e-mails is very difficult in this country.

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Good ole Hellkom. Allways has our needs in mind, so as to deny them. I remember a senior executive of the Dark One postulating in a speech in the late 80's that ISDN stood for Integrated Services users Don't Need. I also remember the then Managing Director of the Underworld (Dr Brian Somebody, how soon we forget) making a speech to a large number of senior business executives whom he had specially invited: "You, our customers, are most important to us. Unfortunately the Minister needs to see me, and so I must go. Please enjoy the refreshments next door". This was somewhere in the early nineties.....

I agree guys, relying 100% on the connection plan was maybe asking too much.
Maybe assuming that GPRS was my backup plan was being too thoughtful
But faced with the connection down for 1/2weeks to me is unacceptable, considering that the 3G is being marketed as a business solution.
I perfectly understand the connection being down for hours maybe even 1 day due to upgrades or whatever, but 1/2weeks ? I also understand that 3G is still being implemented, but considering we're almost half way through the year, I feel my situation can't be the first and that surely there's a better solution.

I do have some positive information to report . A gentlemen from Vodacom phoned and said that it was Vodacares responsibility to ensure a loan device "if they had one available" He offered to phone around and find one. I think this is fantastic. Pitty all my phoning didn't get a better response.
I'm not sure if things have changed since yesterday with regards to policy. but I'm glad their appears to be a signal at the end of the tunnel ...

Just listen to yourselves. No wonder these service providers get away with shoddy service. We pay big money to have an internet connection in SA and for that I demand good backup from my service provider.

I am a small business owner, I can't afford 2 (unreliable or reliable) contracts. NO! as long as they're deducting their monthly fee, they'd better be providing the backup service.

Unfortunately I also cancelled my ISDN service. My new novatel data card did not work in my laptop, vodacom in durban has loaned me an option card while we wait for autopage to swap it out. It took Vodacom 7 days before I got my first connection on 3G/GPRS.

It's just over a month since I signed my contract and still nobody can tell me where my new data card is. So, I got a very bad start to a possible 2yrs of fighting. But I will not lay down and have a service provider dictate bad service, and then feel secure in the though that at least I'm paying twice the exorbitant fees for a back up service.

For 3G to be successful in south africa there has to be a backup plan for people who use the product for business. Else it should not be marketed at business, because we can not be without a connection for over 7 days!

Report back: The same guy who offered to find me a loan card reported back that he phoned most of the vodacares around western cape. No one had a loan device, and futher to that, he stated that a loan device will not be made avialable either. This is exactly the same response I got after numerous phone calls. He also stated that the whole insurance garble for a "modem device" is most likely not true. ( why on earth did the supervisor feed me this story )
He also noted that the western cape currently does not have a technician to fix/repair data cards.

3G clearly should not be marketed as a business solution until it is ready to standby and honour the connection of a 24 month contract on terms which makes the contract viable for both the customer and vodacom.

Data Card Repair / swap out Policy

The party line:

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The policy is to swap faulty cards as there is no repair possible on these units. The customer is able to get a replacement in 24hrs. The reason we do not swap immediately is because we have to check if the card is genuinely faulty or if it is customer abuse. This can only be done at the Vodacare ARC. The manufacturers insist on this process as they will not re-imburse us if the fault is due to customer abuse. We do not give loan units as the customer in all probability will not return the loan card if he is told that his card does not qualify for a swap out due to his own negligence which is then a loss to Vodacare.
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I've asked that this is properly communicated to all support people.

Makes sense, thanks v3g .

Thanks Vodacom3g.
The swap policy was not mentioned at any time and it does make sense.

The wait for a "Capetonian datacard swap out", then is due to the fact that Vodacare Advanced Repair Center is only located in Joburg, hence the long wait, so for anyone not in Joburg - you do need a backup plan. (GPRS -Phone etc?)

I thought my mission to canal walk-in center was to verify that the card was faulty and that something could be done there via a Vodacare.

I hope the communciation to support staff is successful to avoid future confusion.

Thanks for the feedback vodacom3g.