Cell C’s signal fading fast

[ic]

I think its more of a question of Vodacom wants shot of Telkom, and government will go along with it as it will be a big pay ovt - who cares if its short term, take the money and run seems to be the order of the day

That is a good point - guavamint does control 6 of the 10 seats on Telkodemonopolies' board of directors, so it is ultimately up to guavamint and its insatiable short-term greed...I suppose it could happen, but what if the Grim Poisonous Ivyness Creep does not believe that Vodafone UK looks like her and doesn't want Vodafone UK to monopolise the cellular sector...

 

[BTTB]

That is a good point - guavamint does control 6 of the 10 seats on Telkodemonopolies' board of directors, so it is ultimately up to guavamint and its insatiable short-term greed...I suppose it could happen, but what if the Grim Poisonous Ivyness Creep does not believe that Vodafone UK looks like her and doesn't want Vodafone UK to monopolise the cellular sector...

You see. It is not a totally ridiculous notion.
I see it more of taking some money off the table so to speak.
Vodacom's support base will grow, but at a slower rate than before.
Diversification into other markets is the only way Vodacom can sustain the pace of growth it has enjoyed for far too long imho.

Time will tell.
At this stage there is something afoot. What it is I cannot say.
Vodacom also sits with the problem of a 50/50 shareholding with Telkom.
How will this be effected in relation to their BEE commitments?
My point here is if Vodafone or Telkom shed one way or another the 50% split will become smaller and the person holding the minority share would call the shots.
The shareholder agreement would have to be carefully thought out.
Perhaps this is where the friction lies. Not in products, but in the boardroom?

 

[saintm]

Hmm, I can't see Virgin buying Cell C outright. Isn't this against their business model? From what I understood, they only like to do virtual agreements - ie not own any infrastructure directly.

The fact that they have a joint venture here is because the regulatory environment wouldn't allow anything else.

Of course, I am saying this purely on what I remember hearing and with no research! But if that is their business model, why on earth would they want to buy the company outright?

 

[DragonLogos]

There are pictures on bank notes that look a bit like Ivy

 

[AirWolf]

There are pictures on bank notes that look a bit like Ivy

Would that be the R100?

How about a poll on this, ic?

 

[zambussi]

Cell C staff clearly incompetent

I'm not at all surprised to hear about Cell C's woes. As someone who has tried to do business with them in the past (marketing related), I found that none of their "managers" are prepared / willing / able to make a decision, and that they delay and fumble around, until they miss their deadlines, and then complain.......

Everyone has fancy titles to their positions, but none of the authority or brains that those positions require. It seems that cell C hires based purely on skin colour and not merit.

 

[Tns]

surely cel-c aint that bad?

 

[Syndyre]

surely cel-c aint that bad?

They're worse.

 

[ic]

While I don't know what's going on with CellC lately - apart from the reported network congestion during warzone-weekends - it is blatantly obvious that CellC is not very successful as a company and has failed for whatever reason to gain significant market share in SA - despite consumers like myself that supported CellC for several years and put up with the continual lack of coverage and dropped calls and many other irritating factors when dealing with CellC and its [in]ActiveGPRS-fee-structure etc...

I really think that CellC does need a major shake-up - a management change and re-strategising to align itself with a market that wants access to the Internet - even if it is low speed the network needs to handle it, and I don't think CellC has enough redundant 2.75G base-stations to get past the timeslots issue.

 

[Conspirator]

Haha. I predicted this sh!tstorm 3 months ago. Post 1 Post

That article is highly dubious. Most of it makes no business sense and the rest is just plain wrong. Should be remove imho.

 

[def]

8 Predictions from 2005

I predicted this in 2005.

From this article: 8 Reasons CellC is going down

I sent them this email, which they said they would forward to management, but probably didn't. Which leads to the second reason they will go down - their 1) customer service people are useless.
(2) Not to mention they call them "Client Liaison Consultant"s, bleh)

Greetings,

No problem. Someone has to tell CellC what they are doing
wrong or right.

I can tell you one thing. Five free sms per day on your
website just does not cut it.
I have seen this single fact that Vodacom has 20 free sms a
day on their website be the deciding factor when people
choose what network that want to be on. I would seriously
consider changing your insufficient daily limit. It is not
that everyone uses all 20, it is just the fact that you
know it is there if you need it.

It is a pity that CellC is the only network that cannot
provide GPRS to prepaid customers. Here are a couple of
reasons why:
Firstly, the number of applications that require GPRS are
growing. Take mxit.co.za for example, the South African
company that is experiencing rapid growth in its services
worldwide.
Lastly, the million rand industries for ringtones/logos/etc
are usually heavily reliant on GPRS.
CellC is unfortunately missing these markets (and
customers).

Even if you have to bring out GPRS for prepaid customers at
a higher price than the competitors do, it is better than
nothing. In addition, it will prevent you from losing more
customers because of this factor.

You can bring these issues forward to management as well.

I look forward to hearing what comes of my views.


Sincerely,
David De Caires E Freitas

i.e.
3) Their website free sms doesn't stimulate usage amongst users.
4) Way behind on their basic GPRS offerings when they should have woken up.
Clearly MXit Mobile was going to be huge, one could see it in 2005 already.

On Tue, 6 Sep 2005 10:06:17 +0200
"Customer Services" <CustomerService@cellc.co.za> wrote:
>
> Good Day, David.
> Thank for taking the time to express your views as this
> is much
> appreciated and will be brought forward to management.
> Unfortunately we
> need to advise you of the reason why a Prepaid client is
> not able to
> make use of this services. As you may well be aware of
> the fact that all
> international call are billed in arrears and the use of
> GPRS is also
> billed in arrears we can not offer this service to our
> Prepaid clients
> as the cost for using the service is quite expensive and
> for this reason
> we urge our clients rather to take out a contract, if
> they wish to make
> use of this service.
> For any further assistance, please feel free to email us
> at
> custserv@cellc.co.za
> Kind regards
> Nazeem Marshman
> Client Liaison Consultant

Look, if you make excuses and don't listen, you ought to go down the drain. And if someone is giving you advice that would have you cost you thousands of Rands via some "consultant", I would take it and RESPOND to it!

I can usually spot something that will float or sink before the time.

This was the first email I warned them with:

: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 10:33:55 +0200
To: "Customer Services" <CustomerService@cellc.co.za>

Dear CellC co.

Thank you for responding, in due time.
I would recommend you put this information (about
international roaming on prepaid) on your website, so that
customers like me can find it out without having to waste
human resources.

I would like to take this opportunity to express my gradual
disappointments with CellC.
I have been a customer with CellC from the very beginning.
A prepaid customer albeit. Which it seems, CellC has no
consideration for, seeing that there are no services for
prepaid customers.
How can a cellular company be economically viable in South
Africa when they aren't catering for the biggest market
segment?

Clearly CellC is not attempting to make a good impression
with ACTUAL service.
In times when 3G has been rolled out on other networks,
CellC cannot even provide 2G services for prepaid customers
yet. Absurd.

Never mind the fact that your customers have to PAY to have
their MMS settings sent to them?
Moreover, the fact that CellC MMS gprs does not work on my
simcard anymore is really pushing my irritation with CellC.
(The customer service people do not even listen to
customers, all they do is restate the lines given to them
by management. Might as well have answering machines.)

It is all good and well that you try to have 'trendy'
adverts appealing to the youth and all. However, at the end
of the day, word of mouth, from people like me can make you
or break you. I have been pedalling CellC amongst peers,
trying to persuade them to use CellC ever since I started
using CellC. Nevertheless, CellC's disregard for service
provision has made me reconsider. With millions of
customers choosing to go to the major network Vodacom, can
you really afford to lose more?

You should consider that prepaid customers usually become
or recommend your contract customers. I have experienced it
myself.
In addition, the prepaid customers will spawn into your
business customers eventually.
A customer like me, who has spent literally thousands of
Rands on prepaid, would like to know that he is
appreciated. Otherwise, my money could well be spent on a
network that actually has services available.

Maybe CellC is not quite ready yet, maybe one day you will
have people behind the scenes who actually know what they
are doing. But, till then, I have to reconsider. And put
that CellC Contract application on hold.


Sincerely,

David E Freitas

5 No appreciation for individual prepaid users who are recharging a lot. (Rewards or something)
6 I ripped them about their adverts: all the wasted money on promises, but no action helps no one.
7 No understanding of basic business principles.

8 The previous commenter was right probably - their careers are all BEE based. It's not a charity, but a business, hire people who can make it work, regardless of colour. Else no-one is going to have work there.


Cheers,

David

http://defza.com

 

[ntshembos]

Mobile business

is it the right move