Any good reasons ... (?)

[v3gout]

... to stay with Vodacom 3G?

My contract is about to expire, and I'm thinking of switching to MTN HSDPA. Any good reasons not to? What do forumites know that I haven't thought of?

Reasons to stay with Vodacom:
1) Pricing improved recently
2) Inertia and laziness
3) e-mail address stays the same (although, I can switch my e-mail aliases to my voice account if I move)

Reasons not to stay with Vodacom:
1) Poor signal in the Sunninghill area - most of the time, AT+CSQ shows 5, 6 or 7,99; many times 99,99=no signal. MTN HSDPA signal is 3/5 or 4/5. And no, I don't want to mount a yagi on the roof.
2) Pretty much useless web mail interface - even in 2007 it can't display many emails properly (especially HTML e-mails), and it doesn't even know how to word-wrap long lines. Disappointing to say the least. (I'm often out-of-country, so this is fairly important)
3) The vodacom4me site - enough said

 

[v3gout]

Well, the MTN option didn't look much better. An MTN prepaid SIM with a few rand on it worked fine in my Novatel U630; but the signal was no better than Vodacom's in the spot I want to use 3G. So I have renewed my contract with Vodacom, and the new Huawei E620 does seem faster than the Novatel card. Also, it didn't look as if the MTN network would give a full 384k - about 90% of that at best.

 

[AirWolf]

How did you check the signal strength?

 

[vodacom3g]

Well, the MTN option didn't look much better. An MTN prepaid SIM with a few rand on it worked fine in my Novatel U630; but the signal was no better than Vodacom's in the spot I want to use 3G. So I have renewed my contract with Vodacom, and the new Huawei E620 does seem faster than the Novatel card. Also, it didn't look as if the MTN network would give a full 384k - about 90% of that at best.

384K in the downlink or uplink?

Not sure of the current state, but I remember MTN uplink on HSDPA was limited to 256K?

Your card is obviously HSDPA, so you should be on the 1800/384 profile.

 

[ic]

384K in the downlink or uplink?

Not sure of the current state, but I remember MTN uplink on HSDPA was limited to 256K?

Your card is obviously HSDPA, so you should be on the 1800/384 profile.

I have noticed that my 4U contract SIM in my E220 seems limited to 384kbps down and 64kbps up for more than a week now - was rather annoying last night when I was trying to use up my data bundle, and then I ran out of time at 23:59 with I estimate about another 100MB to go...

<message_in_an_empty_vodka_bottle>

Wherefore art thou oh Data Rollover, wherefore art thou???​

</message_in_an_empty_vodka_bottle>

 

[diabolus]

Reasons to stay with Vodacom:
1) Pricing improved recently
2) Inertia and laziness
3) e-mail address stays the same (although, I can switch my e-mail aliases to my voice account if I move)

Reasons not to stay with Vodacom:
1) Poor signal in the Sunninghill area - most of the time, AT+CSQ shows 5, 6 or 7,99; many times 99,99=no signal. MTN HSDPA signal is 3/5 or 4/5. And no, I don't want to mount a yagi on the roof.
2) Pretty much useless web mail interface - even in 2007 it can't display many emails properly (especially HTML e-mails), and it doesn't even know how to word-wrap long lines. Disappointing to say the least. (I'm often out-of-country, so this is fairly important)
3) The vodacom4me site - enough said

Please don't tell me email at Vodacom/Mtn is 40% of your decision of which provider to stay with? I suggest you drop those emails completely and get gmail [google mail] . Then you can make a decision more clearly...what should count:

a] Price
b] Signal/Speed you actually get
c] Service convenience [i.e. managing your account etc].

I was on MTN 2GB the last months, now i'm Vodacom 2GB, so far:
[NOTE: i'm on prepaid]

a] Even though people complain about Vodacom4me, MTN's closest attempt is MTN Active. As a prepaid user, i can do MORE on V4ME than on MTN Active. I can >>properly<< view my usage and manage my bundles, on MTN Active it's basically non existent.

b] Being a datacard user it became VERY important for me to be able to view my usage [MBs left] . I couldn't do this with MTN at all! [i tried the AT codes and hyperterminal nonsense, didn't work] . Vodacom got both V4ME and number i can SMS [via datacard]. MTN i have to remove the card and put into a phone.

c] Speed, can't give a "proper" comment yet [end of month i will] , but MTNs speed degraded significantly since mid-april [rarely saw proper 3G+] in my area [Centurion]. My reception is the same between MTN and Vodacom. So far i get good speed on Vodacom.

d] Vodacom is cheaper than MTN in all aspects at this stage. Especially if you
are considering 1GB bundles.

e] Reception, i have family living in sunninghill/sandton and they don't even get 3G on Vodacom. It's quite disturbing if you ask me [we are talking Sandton here...] . I used my MTN 3G there without issues though.


PS: My speedtesting is done using www.pandora.com . The only measurement i take is: "how well can it play internet radio". If it constantly buffers [song stops and breaks up] then the connection is crap and not even close to 3G.
MTN achieved the "play for 30 minutes without breaking up" a few times, but more often than not it was totally unplayable [since mid-april]. I am now doing it via vodacom, so far vodacom is struggling to keep it up..

 

[AirWolf]

... to stay with Vodacom 3G?

My contract is about to expire, and I'm thinking of switching to MTN HSDPA. Any good reasons not to? What do forumites know that I haven't thought of?

Reasons to stay with Vodacom:
1) Pricing improved recently
2) Inertia and laziness
3) e-mail address stays the same (although, I can switch my e-mail aliases to my voice account if I move)

Reasons not to stay with Vodacom:
1) Poor signal in the Sunninghill area - most of the time, AT+CSQ shows 5, 6 or 7,99; many times 99,99=no signal. MTN HSDPA signal is 3/5 or 4/5. And no, I don't want to mount a yagi on the roof.
2) Pretty much useless web mail interface - even in 2007 it can't display many emails properly (especially HTML e-mails), and it doesn't even know how to word-wrap long lines. Disappointing to say the least. (I'm often out-of-country, so this is fairly important)
3) The vodacom4me site - enough said

Is this done in hyperterminal?

 

[v3gout]

The AT+CSQ is done in a serial port terminal - the equivalent of Hyperterminal. Average signal strength I get at home is probably 7,99 (can't remember what that means in dB) ... and only get rare flashes of 3G+.

 

[v3gout]

If you knew how long it took me to get the last e-mail address change through to all the less computer literate, you'd understand why it is a factor ... not a 40% factor, but a factor nevertheless.