Bad or dead connections

My Neoflex hasn't been working the whole weekend (doesn't connect at all to the network). My Prime however has been giving me fantastic speeds when it's connected, have had a few issues where it disconnects then refuses to reconnect.

Pretty p****d off with Neotel at the moment
 
Waiting in anticipation to hear what the response is @mybroadband.staff

Woke up this morning to a very bad connection. Can't log into my mail server, can't log into skype, gtalk seems fine, web browsing comes and goes...all too stressful. I don't want to wake up in the morning and wonder if I'll be able to get in touch with my clients. I just want a simple reliable connection to the internet without having to spend 30 min tweaking settings to get online.

I've got a prepaid account to GConnect as well and even with a prepaid account (no contract) they're still sending me emails and text messages to let me know when the network is going to be down for maintenance. If Neotel is working on towers in CT then it's easy for them to send out an email/sms to CT subscribers informing them that there might be disruptions in CT for the next couple of days.

And another thing that I keep hearing is that their technical department is not open over the weekend? If this is true it's quite shocking. The time when the technical department theoretically would be it's busiest is the time that they're all out getting pissed and watching the rugby...what a life!

Just about had enough of their wipe my ass attitude towards their clients.
 
When I called this morning the lady said that the entire network was down. Hmmm. This brings to mind a movie called "City of Ember" where the generator gives out constantly ;-) threatning to plunge the last humans in darkness and death.

I was a bit upset and asked her for the number of the department where I can call to cancel my contract. Last week the operator told me about this department so I thought I was on the right track.

Well, the lady said she can do it right then and there. No problem. Click-Click and the account is off. Then I asked her about the penalties and she said yes and named a few things.

Now if I go to Standard Bank to close my one account, with only R10 in it, then I will surely have 2 managers on me if I say I am closing because I am unhappy. Well, most places will pull out the "I am sorry, how can I help to convince you otherwise" card. No, not NoTel. Click-Click and difficult customer is gone...and he pays 23x monthly penalty fee. Lekker ne'?

I think NoTel's management must have a listen to the call centre's recordings. I think these call centre guys are so sick and tired to be shouted at that they put the telephone don't and just go "A,hmmm, yeah...." and wait for the client to go away. But seeing how they run the company I don't think they really care.


This complete system malfunction is now a weekly reoccuring thing. ICASA must have something to say about that. I actually lost real money this morning by not being to able to download datasheets and sending a report to my client. And this contract is close to R9 000 000 over 2 years.

This is not a service...it is a disgrace!
 
My connection is now so bad I need to drive from Centurion to Edenvale today to deliver some files 'too large to email'. It took me 15 minutes to open an email on mweb webmail and about 10 minutes to send the one email to Edenvale (I had 3 disconnections). I don't know what they did bu they screwed up heavily. 'Hulle het hom gebreek daai deng!!'.

When I connect I have viscious speeds (1 to 2 megabit/s) dropping very quickly and then nothing.... have to switch off and on again. Even this post is a heavy effort to get posted. I now need to copy to the clipboard before I post because I lose every second post in a timeout. Damn, even my constant 3kbytes/s was better than this.
 
DarkDenim said:
OpenDNS. It doesn't make a difference when the network is completely dead like this morning :D
Click to expand...

thats why I was wondering, OpenDNS didnt help when I tried earlier...

The net seems fine now, but I wonder for how long! :mad:
 
Now I am completely thrown.... I disconnected my super yagi antenna and put the old standard bunny ears on. Standard, straight out the box. It is now downloading at -89dBm to -91dBm at between 30 to 55kbytes/s. Even the orange light is on solidly to show bad signal. This has now been the most solid connection I had all day.

Oh, the reason why I disconnected the yagi is because we have BAD weather over here and I always unplug all sensitive equipment in case of lightning. In the same spot with the same antennas I got between 1 to 3kbytes/s 2 weeks ago.

This is like driving 2 cars, one a 1971 VW Beatle with 2 bad cilinders and a BMW335i twin turbo. You never know which one is going to be issued.

I don't know what to make of it. Any ideas?
 
VMS said:
I was a bit upset and asked her for the number of the department where I can call to cancel my contract. Last week the operator told me about this department so I thought I was on the right track.

Well, the lady said she can do it right then and there. No problem. Click-Click and the account is off. Then I asked her about the penalties and she said yes and named a few things.
Click to expand...

I love how each call center agent tells you something different.

So I also woke up this morning to a dead connection. Actually, I lie... I had a 1.5 Meg download speed from www.neotel.co.za, I just could not connect to the rest of the internet. Awesome, but useless.

So I call the call centre. First call, I am on hold for 5 minutes and it hangs up. Second call I am on hold for 4 minutes and it hangs up. Third call and the call centre stops answering. So I go to my cell phone. On hold for 3 minutes and finally it is answered.

Unfortunately, Lesedi (my call centre contact helping me out with my slow internet complaint) had worked the entire weekend so she was not in, so I got to speak to someone new. I got them to call up my fault number (which must now be chock-a-block full of notes from my various calls) and asked what is up.

I got told that the network was down everywhere.

So I silently called "Uncle" in my head, and told her that I had had enough, I wanted out. I want to cancel my account. I then get told that she can put in a cancel request, and that the cancellation dept will call me back within THIRTY DAYS to confirm that I want to cancel. WHAT THE F---????

I ask to speak to her supervisor. But (naturally) her supervisor is on another call. So I piss and moan a little more, but it was like talking to a brick wall. So I hung up.

Talked to my boss, and he suggested I go talk to someone in the flesh at Neotel. So I call back. It takes me another three times to get to talk to someone (I eventually started choosing the "I want to open a new account" option in the call centre menu, as I figured those agents would not be busy).

I get told that there is NO NEOTEL OFFICE in Cape Town. I can go to a PostNet or RadioPage where their systems are connected, but there are no real NeoTel people there. Fat lot of use that is.

But I get her to send an email to the cancellation dept to insist they call me within the week AND I GOT HER TO CC ME ON THE EMAIL. So now I have the email address of the department. Muhaha.


oh... and as I speak, my connection seems to be working properly again. I will have to check it out tonight to see if it hits the 1.5 Meg speeds it used to, but I am getting a steady 300Kb/s with a few forays into the 500Kb/s range every so often.

But I think I am done. The headaches are just not worth the R500 odd I am saving. I can get a 4 Meg Telkom line for around R500 and an Axxess 384 Uncapped account for around R800. I think that is the way to go.

Anyway... I'm done.
 
Cancelled by NEotel agreement 2 weeks ago. Had enough from them, their network, and their call centre.

Will come back maybe in a while if things approve (like a few years).........
 
VMS said:
Now I am completely thrown.... I disconnected my super yagi antenna and put the old standard bunny ears on. Standard, straight out the box. It is now downloading at -89dBm to -91dBm at between 30 to 55kbytes/s. Even the orange light is on solidly to show bad signal. This has now been the most solid connection I had all day.

Oh, the reason why I disconnected the yagi is because we have BAD weather over here and I always unplug all sensitive equipment in case of lightning. In the same spot with the same antennas I got between 1 to 3kbytes/s 2 weeks ago.

This is like driving 2 cars, one a 1971 VW Beatle with 2 bad cilinders and a BMW335i twin turbo. You never know which one is going to be issued.

I don't know what to make of it. Any ideas?
Click to expand...

Quick Question ...

WHen you use teh antennae , keep one of the standard antennae's on the RX2 connector and then plug the Antennae on the RX/TX connector. If you only have the Yagi connected and the other not I think it messes up the impedances.
 
Gary

Yes, 2nd antenna is still plugged in, tuned to give me at least -90dBm.

Around my last post, 12 pm, I just used the small antennas, indoor, right next to me. Got speeds ranging from 30kbytes/s to 70kbytes/s. Signal was very bad at around -90dBm, but it blasted away. While it lasted I moved 250MB.

Now I am lucky to peak at 3kbytes/s. All that former glory is now gone. It took a few minutes just to load this page.

I cannot just surf and download at the same time.When I am down to 3kbytes/s I collect download links, store them in DAP or Aura and when the big speed hits I 'klap' the download button. Still 250GB per day is nowhere near 15GB per month.
 
Ow , ok then I am outa ideas :D
I am in Kempton, maybe can find some time to drop past you and see if it may be device related. Would be an interesting exercise. Problem is finding time though.
 
from what i hear, their entire data network has failed, and are currently utilising other providers. i spoke to someone who resells their solution, and they were saying that clients were getting 0.1kb/s at one stage, which isn't even enough for 1 p.c to surf the net.:sick:
 
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