An argument for fraud

[MrGray]

If any of you are so inclined, take a look at this graph of my international throughput rates from March when I first signed up with MyWi:

http://www.tcpiq.com/tcpIQ/LineSpee...UserPerMonthSpeed&CountryId=196&UserId=123038

As you can see, mean throughput has halved since then.

<b>Here's the kicker, though - I upgraded to the 256k package on 5 August, 2004!</b>

Not only was there demonstrably no improvement after the upgrade, the bandwidth continued to deteriorate.

To my mind, this transcends mere bad service and could qualify as fraud.

I am currently attempting to determine if Sentech falls within the ambit of the Public Protector as it is a state owned enterprise in which case I will lay a complaint with that body. Furthermore, I am researching the possible criminal implications of charging more for less and deliberately misleading the public.

As it seems clear that neither the ASA, nor meetings with the secretive CUG, nor any amount of negative public sentiment is going to stir Sentech into rectifying the problem, I believe the only recourse now is the criminal justice system.

I was about to just cancel my contract and forget about it, but then I realised that was just the easy way out and achieves nothing in the long term. It is time for a clear signal to go out to organisations like Sentech and a for a precedent to be set - you will pay the price for taking us for granted.

 

[MrGray]

Hmmmm. This is what I've found so far - it would seem that this is indeed a case for the public protector:


<i>Who can be investigated by the Public Protector? </i>

- Government at any level. This includes central and provincial government, State departments and local authorities.
- Any person performing a public function. This includes anyone performing any official duty which affects all, or part of, the people of South Africa, for example an employee of the State, such as a policeman or an electoral officer.
- <b>Corporations or companies where the State is involved, for example Eskom and Telkom Ltd.</b>
- Statutory councils, for example the Human Sciences Research Council and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research.

<i>What can the Public Protector investigate? </i>

- Improper prejudice suffered by the complainant or another person, for example as a result of
abuse of power
- unfair, capricious, discourteous or other improper conduct
undue delay
- the violation of a human right
any other cause brought about, or decision taken by the authorities.
- <b>Maladministration.
- Dishonesty or improper dealings with respect to public money. </b>
- Improper enrichment.
- Receipt of improper advantage.

 

[BTTB]

IMO the Public Protector is much like ICASA.
All bark, but no bite.

<b><hr noshade size="1"></b><font size="2"><font color="red"><b>You can take Telkom out of the Post Office but you can't take the Post Office out of Telkom.</b></font id="red"></font id="size2">

 

[tasty]

I agree completely, they made promises that were not kept and they must pay, as it stands, customers are paying to support their charade.

Sentech must either bite the bullet and deliver promised services at a loss or face legal action. Sentech must be held accountable for its actions.

It is not acceptable for an asymmetrical connection with 15kilobit/ps uploads to be called a broadband internet connection.



“If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities.”
- Voltaire

 

[guest2013-1]

I agree, and please, do go ahead with this if you think nessacary. Let's see if the forum members have some bite in them... []

Hell, my gran on a scooter with a memory stick is faster than Sentech's MyWireless!

 

[donn]

I remember phoning Sentech and asking the question:
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"> If I sign up for the 512k contract how can I tell if I'm getting the 512k or 128k service? After musch conferring with the "supervisor" I was told that the best way is to look at your billing information! So I asked what would happen if I installed the 512k modem and only got 17k (512 divided by 30). They said that would prove that I was getting the 512k service, because of the "contention" ratio of 30:1. I said I could get better speed from a dial-up modem. They disputed that I could. <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
See http://privacy.4mg.com/MyWireless.html

<b>If I were in your shoes my thinking would go something like this</b>: ask them to confirm that you are being provided with the 256k service in writing as of 5th August 2004, and that before this date you were on the 128k service. Explain that the reason why you are requesting this information is that you intend to charge them with fraud. Expect to be shunted from one department to another. Keep your cool and make a note of each peron you speak to, and their name.

Also request the same information via email.

Finally, contact their Head Office (011 691 7000) and ask to speak to the CEO. Get the CEO's ame, home address and ID number, as well as the company registration number and domicilium, and explain that you need this information because you are going to file a charge of fraud at your local police statetion, as well as with the Public Protector.

Once you have stirred up a bit of a hornet's nest at Head Office, go to your local police sation and file a charge of fraud and ask for a case number. Then go to the local magistrate's office and speak to the small claims court people. Get the necessary particulars to claim the full amount of subscription (i.e. R849/month) from 4th August and start the proceedings in the Small Claims Court.

Also contact the Public Protector and ask what the procedure is. Now you have a battle on 3 fronts. Stand back and see what happens. In the meantime keep logging support calls to say your 256k service is not better than the 128k service. This just provides more ammunition for your case(s).

Add in the costs of your phone calls to the support desk number to the next month's claim with the small claims court.

OK, so it's a bit impractical, but there may be a good idea in the midst of this chaos somewhere. Keep us posted.

<hr noshade size="1">
Donn Edwards

Why is ADSL like a Cheeseburger? Find out at http://privacy.4mg.com

“Free-market advocates often warn that the only thing worse than a state-controlled monopoly is a privatised one.”

 

[donn]

One problem with this data: <b>what exactly are you measuring</b> ?
http://www.tcpiq.com/tcpIQ/LineSpeed/
The FAQ doesn't say what you are connecting to: www.sentech.co.za or www.tcpiq.com
Obviously this will show what the speed of local or international bandwidth is.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
The Line Speed Meter has a list of large, highly compressed images that are on web servers in your country that it uses to perform the download speed test. It chooses the last fastest image and six other random images to test against. Each image is downloaded in turn and timed. Again, a data point on the graph is created for each chunk that is downloaded. The steepest line is the fastest and is used to record your connection's download speed.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

If those servers are at www.is.co.za or www.saix.net it probably shows local bandwidth, in which case you may have a case. But if the servers are offshore or at some arbitrary ISP there may be a problem. Do you have a traceroute to the server?

FWIW, What results do you get when running the Sentech speed test?

 

[MrGray]

That is measuring international bandwidth only.

Local bandwidth has been mostly fine since the end of August and the big fix. I don't, however, believe this detracts from the argument. 99.9% of internet content is not hosted in South Africa and of the world's 800 million internet users only 12 million are in Africa, let alone South Africa. Clearly as lekker as local may be, it is still statistically pretty irrelevant in the context of the global internet culture.

There is not much locally available when it comes to online research, software downloads and updates, streaming media, p2p, etc.

Case in point, if you are participating on this forum, then you are utilising international bandwidth.

Sentech will probably try to use the fact that local bandwidth is now at decent speeds rates, but in reality local bandwidth (rightly or wrongly) represents no more than about 10% of the functionality of the internet for me, and I would presume to guess most other users would feel the same??

 

[donn]

You're absolutely right. After all, most of us use google rather than aardvark, cnn or bbc rather than sabcnews, etc.

What I was trying to say is that if those figures were local you'd have a non-brainer case. BTW, does the Sentech speed test go above 128k on your setup? I only get 90k on my 128k account. If it doesn't, I wouldn't even bother with the international graph.

 

[donn]

Garp, any update on those bandwidth figures for September? The link only goes to the end of August/beginning September. I'd love to know if you're getting anything better.

<hr noshade size="1">
Donn Edwards <font size="2"><div align="right">MyWireless: Diva-style reliability, dial-up performance (or worse)</div id="right"></font id="size2">
<font size="1">“If our government ever goes bad, as sometimes happens in a democracy... Sometimes in a democracy bad people can be elected, and if democracy is allowed to function normally, these people can be taken out of power by the next election. But if a future government inherits a technology infrastructure that's optimized for surveillance, where they can watch the movements of their political opposition, they can see every bit of travel they could do, every financial transaction, every communication, every bit of email, every phone call, everything could be filtered and scanned and automatically recognized by voice recognition technology and transcribed.
“As we extrapolate our technologies into the future, if the incumbency has that political advantage over their opposition, then if a bad government ever comes to power, <b>it may be the last government we ever elect</b>.” See http://privacy.4mg.com </font id="size1">