Vodacom 3G Contract versus Prepaid speeds - questionable?

I just want to throw this out to those using contract and/or prepaid 3G through Vodacom.

I currently have 17 staff countrywide using contract 3G devices through our company (E220, E172 and K3715 devices all with the latest VMC software), but find the speeds terrible when compared to my prepaid personal device - is this normal?

I decided to test this: was at a client last Thursday and for some reason the contract device would not hold the connection - kept dropping and the speed was terrible. I decided to use my personal device instead, and it connected perfectly at full speed, no issues - my remote apps have never been faster!

Further to this, I've asked my staff who also have personal prepaid devices to test this as well, and the feedback so far is exactly the same - the prepaid is much more stable and the speeds are much higher.

Maybe someone from Vodacom can comment on this as it seems ridiculous to have a contract if the connectivity and speeds are ludicrous when compared to the prepaid. I'm now considering cancelling the contracts and going prepaid...

Pre-paid uses a different billing engine so I would assume a different system. This is noticeable on occasions when system outages only affects one of the two. I can't imagine that they make different provisioning in terms of speed between contract and pre-paid. Most likely a part of the system that is unique to contract was having issues at the time.

I was on pre-paid for over a year and have now moved to contract and I have not noticed any speed differences.

morkhans said:

Pre-paid uses a different billing engine so I would assume a different system. This is noticeable on occasions when system outages only affects one of the two. I can't imagine that they make different provisioning in terms of speed between contract and pre-paid. Most likely a part of the system that is unique to contract was having issues at the time.

I was on pre-paid for over a year and have now moved to contract and I have not noticed any speed differences.

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Same sentiments, its totally unethical for any business to operate dependent on prepaid or contract.

Regards
VodacomData

To the OP: You haven't applied logic to your testing.

To test the differences between prepaid and contract, you need to use the exact same device, in the exact same area and position, but just swap between contract and prepaid sim cards. You need to do this a few minutes apart from each other. Then you test results have some meaning.

However, if you are testing between between different devices (3G card vs mobile phone), in different locations, at different times of the day, the number of variables that could be causing differences in speed/stability is enormous. There could be problems that the different towers have different levels of radio network congestion and contention, or backhaul network contention and congestion (yes the 2 are different). This could vary further depending on the time of day (traffic tends to peak at certain times, and drop off at other times). The 3G signals could suffer from interference from other wireless devices, metallic structures, electro-magnetic waves, positioning of buildings, etc. There could be differences with the devices, ranging from firmware issues, to hardware and antenna placement issues.

To do proper testing, and come up with a reasonably accurate result, you need to eliminate as many of these variables as possible.

Everything else is just pure speculation....

Thanks for the replies everyone. Some valid points, but still doesn't fully explain why the huge differences.

I didn't mention in my original post, but I tried limiting as many variables as possible, by testing using the same device, swapping the SIM cards - same result. Tonight, I'll be testing the 3 different devices, in the same location, on the same laptop, using the same VMC version, around the same time frame, using a contract and prepaid SIM, to see the results.

Also to mention, all my staff have the same make/model laptops with identical O/S images loaded (locked down settings).

Will let you know the results after further testing.