More Vodacom Woes for the masses...

T

TigerTael

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OR maybe, more Vodacom woes for me and everybody else in the surrounding area.

Okay, so here I am again. After the big fiasco that Vodacom had a short while back, here I am yet again. After they fixed it, everything looked great, my response times were good, packet loss was minimal (Though still evident), and I was getting good throughput.

Now, 3 weeks on, my service has degraded again. It seems that my throughput is still there (I am on 3G after all), but now my latency has gone to hell. It seems that after a certain amount of 'idle time', where no data is being sent, the connection goes into IDLE mode and then, latency goes all to hell. I can't keep a stable connection.

I am so really tired of this now. I'm beginning to wonder if there's any point. I am looking to immigrate back to the USA in a few months time, anybody know anything about cancelling a cellphone contract?
 
Tahir Ally said:
To cancell your contract,you have to pay the balance of the contract upfront.
Click to expand...

Okay, well, I may as well just sell the phone and leave the account unused. *shrugs* Makes no difference, just got more time to pay it off.

Thanks for the info though, had 1 other source say this as well. So far, 2 out of 2.
 
ic said:
Surely in TigerTael's situation an exception can be made? IMO better to keep satisfied customers than really unhappy customers...
Click to expand...
Sometimes you make a mistake, and you lose. Heh, what can you do? 3G in theory is great, heck, GPRS in theory is great. It all falls apart when it comes to the practical "REAL WORLD" usage. So I'm just going to see what happens in the next few months. Will just sell my Nokia 6680 undercutting prices, heh, I think it's about 1 month old now.

And then I'll just leave the account unused. Makes no difference to me. In the end I lose R4000 for my mistake, live and learn. I should be able to cover R3000 with my phone perhaps? Whatever, better cancel my insurance soon though :]
 
Taking into consideration all the problems you have been going thru TigerTael, I think that there is something Vodacom must do regarding your contract.
 
The only thing now is I'd like to hear some sort of explanation as to why this is happening. I want to hear from them, I want to see what they say.
 
And here I am, on the brink of closing my contract with CellC to move to Vodacom BECAUSE of the lact of GPRS service...

MTN any good?
 
TigerTael, I need to understand your situation a bit better. You can either PM me a number and I can call you or we can try and do it on the forum, just a bit slower.

Firstly, it would be good to get some performance stats to better understand what you're seeing and how bad it is.

Can you do a download test to the Telkom ADSL test page and maybe ping smtp.vodacom.co.za as well. Can you post the results here?

BTW, policy is, if Vodacom can't provide the service they promised, they'll cancel your contract.
 
vodacom3g said:
TigerTael, I need to understand your situation a bit better. You can either PM me a number and I can call you or we can try and do it on the forum, just a bit slower.

Firstly, it would be good to get some performance stats to better understand what you're seeing and how bad it is.

Can you do a download test to the Telkom ADSL test page and maybe ping smtp.vodacom.co.za as well. Can you post the results here?

BTW, policy is, if Vodacom can't provide the service they promised, they'll cancel your contract.
Click to expand...

Sure, I'll have to do it when I get home from Gym tonight though, like 8pm or so ;P. So, I'll login to the Telkom speed test page AGAIN, spend R1 doing it, then I'll post some details of ping responses and the like.

I'm past the point of banging my head on the desk, I'm at the point where I've accepted the 'crapitude' of the product and try and work around it. Then when I can't work around it, the helpdesk is going to take some heat ;]
 
Last edited:
Thanks, I noticed from a previous mail trail, you were going to make contact with Brad and Pieter in KZN if you have a problem again? THey're just down the road, so it might make sense to contact them. I'll asl them to make contact with you, in any case.
 
ebendl said:
And here I am, on the brink of closing my contract with CellC to move to Vodacom BECAUSE of the lact of GPRS service...

MTN any good?
Click to expand...

I would suggest that you check out the coverage in your are befre making a decsion. :)
 
Last edited:
Ashendran said:
I would suggest that you check out the coverage in your are befre making a decsion. :)
Click to expand...

Yep, did already! Coverage is fine, so I'm set to go. :)
 
Pinging smtp.vodacom.co.za [168.210.129.147] with 32 bytes

Reply from 168.210.129.147: bytes=32 time=433ms TTL=254
Reply from 168.210.129.147: bytes=32 time=571ms TTL=254
Reply from 168.210.129.147: bytes=32 time=508ms TTL=254
Reply from 168.210.129.147: bytes=32 time=403ms TTL=254
Reply from 168.210.129.147: bytes=32 time=349ms TTL=254
Reply from 168.210.129.147: bytes=32 time=384ms TTL=254
Reply from 168.210.129.147: bytes=32 time=346ms TTL=254
Reply from 168.210.129.147: bytes=32 time=329ms TTL=254
Reply from 168.210.129.147: bytes=32 time=531ms TTL=254
Reply from 168.210.129.147: bytes=32 time=557ms TTL=254

Ping statistics for 168.210.129.147:
Packets: Sent = 10, Received = 10, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 329ms, Maximum = 571ms, Average = 441ms

Pinging alicorn.furnet.org [69.60.111.192] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 69.60.111.192: bytes=32 time=747ms TTL=48
Reply from 69.60.111.192: bytes=32 time=696ms TTL=48
Reply from 69.60.111.192: bytes=32 time=667ms TTL=48
Reply from 69.60.111.192: bytes=32 time=915ms TTL=48
Reply from 69.60.111.192: bytes=32 time=659ms TTL=48
Reply from 69.60.111.192: bytes=32 time=642ms TTL=48
Reply from 69.60.111.192: bytes=32 time=650ms TTL=48
Reply from 69.60.111.192: bytes=32 time=706ms TTL=48
Reply from 69.60.111.192: bytes=32 time=780ms TTL=48
Reply from 69.60.111.192: bytes=32 time=689ms TTL=48

Ping statistics for 69.60.111.192:
Packets: Sent = 10, Received = 10, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 642ms, Maximum = 915ms, Average = 715ms

Pinging www.l.google.com [66.249.85.104] with 32 bytes of

Reply from 66.249.85.104: bytes=32 time=574ms TTL=245
Reply from 66.249.85.104: bytes=32 time=582ms TTL=245
Reply from 66.249.85.104: bytes=32 time=576ms TTL=245
Reply from 66.249.85.104: bytes=32 time=596ms TTL=245
Reply from 66.249.85.104: bytes=32 time=540ms TTL=245
Reply from 66.249.85.104: bytes=32 time=608ms TTL=245
Reply from 66.249.85.104: bytes=32 time=561ms TTL=245
Reply from 66.249.85.104: bytes=32 time=526ms TTL=245
Reply from 66.249.85.104: bytes=32 time=541ms TTL=245
Reply from 66.249.85.104: bytes=32 time=590ms TTL=245

Ping statistics for 66.249.85.104:
Packets: Sent = 10, Received = 10, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 526ms, Maximum = 608ms, Average = 569ms

Pinging www.mweb.co.za [196.2.63.110] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 196.2.63.110: bytes=32 time=521ms TTL=107
Reply from 196.2.63.110: bytes=32 time=324ms TTL=107
Reply from 196.2.63.110: bytes=32 time=436ms TTL=107
Reply from 196.2.63.110: bytes=32 time=393ms TTL=107
Reply from 196.2.63.110: bytes=32 time=348ms TTL=107
Reply from 196.2.63.110: bytes=32 time=394ms TTL=107
Reply from 196.2.63.110: bytes=32 time=575ms TTL=107
Reply from 196.2.63.110: bytes=32 time=781ms TTL=107
Reply from 196.2.63.110: bytes=32 time=428ms TTL=107
Reply from 196.2.63.110: bytes=32 time=398ms TTL=107

Ping statistics for 196.2.63.110:
Packets: Sent = 10, Received = 10, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 324ms, Maximum = 781ms, Average = 459ms

Below is the data used to calculate your download speed:

* Download time: 17.672 seconds
* Size of file: 500 KiloBytes
* Estimated line speed: 230.9 (kilobits/second)
* Estimated line speed: 28.3 (kiloBytes/second)

Below is the data used to calculate your download speed:

* Download time: 12.984 seconds
* Size of file: 500 KiloBytes
* Estimated line speed: 314.2 (kilobits/second)
* Estimated line speed: 38.5 (kiloBytes/second)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I'm happy to see that there are no dropped packets!
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Initially I did a quick few tests, and now I decided that I will hold my tongue until I have done some thorough testing.
I will let you know tomorrow how the real world tests go, which is what REALLY counts.
 
Last edited:
Okay, I did all my real world tests, and I am seeing a definite improvement. Maybe after that trouble they were having the night before last, they fixed it? I don't know, I'll continue testing and checking, then we'll see.

For now though, it seems okay. Throughput is there and stability seems to be normal (For a Wireless connection)
 
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