Vodacom's 3G service is useless

I am now fed up with Vodacom's 3g

I got the 3g card to be more productive at work, to be able to work from anywhere, but no such luck. I get such slow speeds that its impossible to work with this connection. I get disconnected, connection time-outs etc etc.

I spent a lot of time trying to fix the problem. I did a firmware upgrade on my Novatel card, got a 64k sim-card, complained and complained some more untill vodacom gave me an external antenna, but 3g still sucks.

I am now at the point where I want to cancel my contract, and advise everyone I know to stay far away from Vodacom's 3g.

I haven't had ONE day that I could honestly say that I was happy with the connection. It's useless, and I'm angry.

Enough is enough...

well in all fairness ... ive had one week of happiness on my 3g ... but other than that , i cant disagree with you ...

All to their own, or how does that saying go?
Everyone using IS knows that their service (especially international) has gone for a ball of ****. In times like that (like exactly at this moment) I pop out my Nokia 6680, dial-up on 3G, and I can actually get my work done.
Gotta say, I love Vodacom 3G (thats not you v3g)

Each to his own....

The saying goes "each to his own", but it applies to a situation where 2 people look at the same service/product delivering the same performance, and then the one person likes it and the other doesn't.

This is not the case here. I also get downtime on my IS connectivity, but the difference comes in where when you use 3G, it works. No matter how much I tried and phoned Vodacom's "3G helpdesk" ,just to sit and listen to music, because I havent spoken to anyone on that specific number yet - they don't seem to pick up the phone (after 5 minutes of music I normally hang-up).

I been to a Vodacom Customer Care shop in Canal Walk where I had to show the lady that helped me how to remove the card that was in the demo laptop, and put mine in to test it. Now PLEASE tell me how somebody is supposed to troubleshoot my problems with 3G if he/she can't even eject and insert a data-card??

After I gave her some more things to try (to get to the root of the problem, I just gave up, as it was me doing all the troubleshooting anyway)

I say again I am FED UP with this product.

If my 3g was working I would love it too, but BELIEVE me, you'd dislike it just as much as I currently do if you got the performance out of it that I get. You must be one of the lucky ones.

Thanks anyway for the reply

Overall, my 3G experience has been good, particularly when I lived in Bellville.

Since I've been living in Plumstead, the speeds have dropped drastically, but still beats dial-up (also the company is paying), so I'm happy!

I live in Durbanville and work in Edgemead. Same problems everywhere. Company is also paying for mine, but it's still me that sit with the (@*#$^^@#.

CellID being the name of the tower that displays on my cellphone? I havent found one that didn't give me problems yet, but if you tell me what you mean by cellid, I will get you a list.

Maybe we should start a standard problem form since there's so many things it seems that can go wrong:

Problem with (rate from 1 = bad to 10 = excellent):
- Connecting
- Staying connected
- SMTP
- DNS
- Download speed
- Upload speed
- Coverage
- Software stability

Your setup:
- Phone or datacard and model
- Firmware version
- Software developer and version
- Cell ID
- 3G, GPRS or switching
- External antenna
- Operating system

I've also had plenty of problems in most areas listed above and thankfully it seems to be mostly solved expect for odd outage and presistant SMTP problems. But I'm feeling a lot happier now. Still, wouldn't have stuck to it if I had to pay for it.

FatBoy said:

I live in Durbanville and work in Edgemead. Same problems everywhere. Company is also paying for mine, but it's still me that sit with the (@*#$^^@#.

Click to expand...

I live in Edgemead and have had no problems connecting to the net using my sony ericsson v800 and my dell latitude notebook. I get a similar web browsing experience to my 512k adsl line (just a a little slower but way faster than dial up). I also frequently video call my friends and have done streaming video off vodafone live a number of times without any problems.

biometrics said:

Maybe we should start a standard problem form...

Click to expand...

Agreed !

FatBoy said:

I live in Durbanville and work in Edgemead. Same problems everywhere. Company is also paying for mine, but it's still me that sit with the (@*#$^^@#.

Click to expand...

Fatboy, I sit in a office in Durbanville for a few hours every day and (except for the occasional disconnect) have a very stable connection. I live in Plattekloof and although I have 1 to 2 bars stay up for days at a time.

So I'm comfortable the signal should be OK in most areas but something is definitely messing you around.

Maybe we can get together and do some faultfinding? If you can PM me a contact number I'll give you a call and we can get together?

so is everything else.

How long has dial up through telkom been avalible in SA ? because all the problems we hear about here still happen on a telkom dial up and all the other isp's i still get mail problem lines disconnecting blady blady blah the list goes on, maybe 3 g isnt perfect but then find me a service that is and i will give you a prize, the point is 3g has been around for how long? not that long. I remeber when cell phones came out and having to drive up the road to get signal. But now its much better is it not ? Today i have had a shocker of a day with my 3g connection but thats life.

Just my thought. although its not worth much i know.

vodacom3g,

I sit in Century City right next to Vodacom's offices and I have a problem using my Nokia 6680 on the 3G network. The phone always selects the GSM network in preference to the 3G network. At first I though there was no 3G signal so I set the phone via symbian app to only look for 3G networks and I have no problems using the 3G network now (this option is not availble on the phone can only select gsm or dual). Then problem is in Cape Town the 3G network is not good enough to use only 3G.

The question then w.r.t the rumour that you should use a USIM with the 3G datacard because it improves selection between the networks is it also valid for my Nokia 6680. I was assured by your 155 helpdesk that it would make no difference.

Also when Ftp I get frequent disconnects i.e. loose ftp connection but 3G is stable just need to restart download - is this also a network selection issue. Unfortunately the symbian monintoring software doesn't work during a GPRS/3G connection.

Edinetz, if you want, I can put you in contact with some of the clever guys in the CC building an they can look at your 3G coverage situation.

In which building are you? The whole complex is very well covered with 3G. The radio planning guys all sit in that building so I'm pretty sure the signal is tuned to its max

The FTP disconnects; how long have you seen this?

web said:

How long has dial up through telkom been avalible in SA ? because all the problems we hear about here still happen on a telkom dial up and all the other isp's i still get mail problem lines disconnecting blady blady blah the list goes on, maybe 3 g isnt perfect but then find me a service that is and i will give you a prize, the point is 3g has been around for how long? not that long. I remeber when cell phones came out and having to drive up the road to get signal. But now its much better is it not ? Today i have had a shocker of a day with my 3g connection but thats life.

Just my thought. although its not worth much i know.

Click to expand...

Well said Web - give the guys a break. 3G is brand new world wide and I am sure that other international networks are having the same teething issues. If we don't give them a chance and trash 3G in its infancy, my guess is we'll be left with a future choice of Telkom or possibly Telkom - I am prepared to ride the rough waves for some time still in the hopes that things will stabilise. I would imagine this is a completely new ball game for many of the guys in Vodacom and MTN - going from a 99% voice (circuit switched) network to a data (packet switched) network.

Keep up the hard work Vodacom and good luck - I will be waiting for the future improvements.

3g_rox said:

Well said Web - give the guys a break. 3G is brand new world wide and I am sure that other international networks are having the same teething issues. If we don't give them a chance and trash 3G in its infancy, my guess is we'll be left with a future choice of Telkom or possibly Telkom - I am prepared to ride the rough waves for some time still in the hopes that things will stabilise. I would imagine this is a completely new ball game for many of the guys in Vodacom and MTN - going from a 99% voice (circuit switched) network to a data (packet switched) network.

Keep up the hard work Vodacom and good luck - I will be waiting for the future improvements.

Click to expand...

In the spirit of 3g_rox's post I would like to give my experience tonite.
In the last week or so, I've had no problems with 3G. Speeds were great, but tonite has been disappointing.

I went to a friend's place in Stellenbosch to help him set up his brand new 6680 and laptop for 3G. Speeds were exceptionally slow. I went back to my place and then we did a "synchronised" speed test, me from my place with my 6680 on 3G and him from his place with his 6680 and laptop.
He got 43.3 kbps on the Telkom local http speedtest. I got 7.4 kbps! Yes, that is kilobits/sec!

I made sure that my signal was also about the same (-93 dBm) as my friend's. And just to be sure I tried loading CNN and mybroadband, and they too were very slow.

What's up with 3G?

Vodacom3G, just to let you know. The cell ID's are as follows (using the "Celltrack" application for monitoring 3G signals) My friend's place, CellID 22571, mine 24080.

For those with Symbian phones, Celltrack can be found here
http://www.afischer-online.de/sos/celltrack/CellTrack62.SIS

Hi,

As already posted, there is a current bandwidth issue down to the Cape. The internet links are also due for an upgrade. These upgrades have been planned and ordered quite a while ago but are awaiting capacity from Telkom.

vodacom3g said:

Hi,

As already posted, there is a current bandwidth issue down to the Cape. The internet links are also due for an upgrade. These upgrades have been planned and ordered quite a while ago but are awaiting capacity from Telkom.

Click to expand...

Ok, thanx once again for a quick response Vodacom3G.

This morning it is flying again (360kbps). It's still strange that at 23h00 I got 7 kbps.

Cape Town upgrade

vodacom3g said:

Hi,

As already posted, there is a current bandwidth issue down to the Cape. The internet links are also due for an upgrade. These upgrades have been planned and ordered quite a while ago but are awaiting capacity from Telkom.

Click to expand...

When is the upgrade and what will we see that's different?

I was infront of the PC 4:30am. Had to get that email through to my client.

I was at a different location. Also got 2 bars, but terrible connection. It would bomb out, crash the card (sometimes when the connection is bad all 3 LEDs flicker like crazy) etc... For about 30 minutes I could not do anything.

Then perfect. I sent 3 hugely important emails (halleluja, SMTP was up) before moving to the next site. Getting 1 to maybe 2 bars over here (about 5 km away from 1st site) but extremely stable for today. Did downloads at sometimes 60kbytes/s !!

What is good is that my client is still speaking to me.

My opinion.....

3G is still just a toy. It breaks easily. Comparable to a dragster. When it goes it goes fast. If something is wrong then you are going nowhere.

I know the 3G/Vodacom guys are working hard, running around, trying to fix all the problems popping up. But in a sense that is the problem. They should be sitting still and be watching the LEDs on the cards flicker and drink coffee. Instead 3G is like sand falling through their fingers, a leaking roof...problems galore. In the meanwhile there are a few thousand people paying R600/month wondering why they can't send mail, connect, battling with slow connections, dropouts, serious DNS lookup times etc...

This 3G thing can work. Maybe Vodacom should put more people on it?

I have decided one thing. I need another connection. This will either be Telcraps ADS-hel, which I hate with extreme prejudice, or MTN via my 2 new 6680 cellphones. (I am leaning towards the latter).

The one thing that amazed me about MTN years ago was that they actively tried to sort problems out before it hit the market. My one friend was involved in this type of test team. The MTN guys would give him a SIM card and asked him to call the hell out of it, sending SMSs and the like. He would report back with coverage and general usage satisfaction.

So here is what I see. Vodacom needed to at least hand out 1000 datacards to testers (hey R3 000 000 in hardware, they would not feel it) to test it for, lets say, 6 months (1000 x R600 x 6 = loss of R3 600 000). In those 6 months non paying people would give constructive feedback to get the system sorted. But, by the time the 3G system officially hit the market it would actually be a success.

But it seems Vodacom opted for the other route. "Subscribe to Vodacom's 3G service and get 1GB free data, data card, always connected for only R600 per month". Like Microsoft. Release a major product, with major problems and let the public report back on it...then charge the hell out of them for the updates.

Soon, if not now, another problem arises. Everybody is getting 3G phones, either on new or renewed contracts, probably free like me. If the system is as dodgy as it is now then what plan does Vodacom have to keep us connected when everybody is video calling on the same network?

I want this to work. My mobile connection makes my life easier (WHEN IT WORKS!!!). I don't want to run for a telephone connection each time some server dies.

So will the quality of service go up or down? This will be the determining factor if 3G is infact useless/not suited for business/ or a plain waste of money.


VMS