Air Mobile/MTN congestion?

[Captain Beer]

Things have seriously gone tits up for the last three months or so. The network is barely useable during the day, even basic WhatsApp messages can take up to half a minute to go through, things slowly improve during the evening. I'm no expert but doesn't this perhaps point towards congestion/contention issues?

I've done speed tests in several locations around town and all follow the same pattern, **** during the day, great at night. I've had similar results on three different devices and SIMs. 2.44Mbps on 5G lol.

 

[cobusv]

very likely congestion on the NNI between MTN and Afrihost it seems

 

[ajax]

To rule out Afrihost, have you changed the APN back to vanilla MTN and repeated the tests?

 

[AfriNatic]

Things have seriously gone tits up for the last three months or so. The network is barely useable during the day, even basic WhatsApp messages can take up to half a minute to go through, things slowly improve during the evening. I'm no expert but doesn't this perhaps point towards congestion/contention issues?

I've done speed tests in several locations around town and all follow the same pattern, **** during the day, great at night. I've had similar results on three different devices and SIMs. 2.44Mbps on 5G lol.

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Hi

Please can you test both the Afrihost apn and MTN apn on 5G and LTE and at similar times to see if there is a difference between the 2?

 

[AfriNatic]

very likely congestion on the NNI between MTN and Afrihost it seems

When I look at the traffic levels we are still way below limits.

 

[DapperDanMan]

When I look at the traffic levels we are still way below limits.

Can you put a camera in the office facing your screens so we can see for ourselves, pretty please? Incidentally, this could be so much fun!

 

[AfriNatic]

Can you put a camera in the office facing your screens so we can see for ourselves, pretty please? Incidentally, this could be so much fun!

We don't disclose traffic levels but I have studied the traffic patterns and I'm seeing suspicious trends on our JHB NNI.

 

[AfriNatic]

Hi

Just an update on this. We are still working with MTN on this issue. I will provide an update soon. There is an issue that needs to be attended to.

 

[Captain Beer]

Hi

Please can you test both the Afrihost apn and MTN apn on 5G and LTE and at similar times to see if there is a difference between the 2?

So after several days of testing across different devices and APNs, my conclusion is that priority is being given to Fixed LTE subscribers.
Both of my phones, one on Air Mobile and the other straight MTN are consistently **** during the day only improving at night, both tested in several locations.
I also have a Vox/MTN fixed LTE service which gives poor speed test results but at the same time is able to stream 4K video while my phones struggle to send a Whatsapp message. All of this while I have an MTN tower 300m up the road from me.

 

[DapperDanMan]

So after several days of testing across different devices and APNs, my conclusion is that priority is being given to Fixed LTE subscribers.

Perhaps try switching between Band 8 and Band 3 and Band 1 on MTN? (Air Mobile is probably utilising some of those Bands, if not all.)

 

[DapperDanMan]

I also have a Vox/MTN fixed LTE service

That device probably has external antennas and/or a stronger radio than the antennas and radios built into your phones.

 

[neoprema]

I’m in the middle of the city and MTN is **** most do the day lol. The amount of times I want to do something and my phone sits there with no response and full signal on 5G

I think when the time comes to upgrade I’m porting out of MTN fast fast.