Cell C 3G/HSPA – Please rate your broadband connection

[rpm]

Hi there

Can you please rate your CELL C 3G/HSPA connection on speed, stability and reliability? Do you get what you expected, or is your experience better or worse than what you expected?

It will be great if you can also tell us:

• In which area/s you use your connection?
• What can CELL C do to make you a happier customer?

Please post your comments in this thread (by posting your views you will stand a chance to win an iPad 2).

 

[Derrick]

Please rate your broadband connection

Kak/10.

Speed - Poor to excellent depending on the area.
Stability - Nearly always unstable.
Reliability - I can always trust my Cell C data to fail right when I need it the most. When I don't need it... it doesn't really work either.

Do you get what you expected, or is your experience better or worse than what you expected?

Far worse than I expected in my home area. Speeds fluctuate wildly depending on the time of day/alignment of the planets/strength of the wind + direction blowing. Ping was also very poor for the most part.

At work the speeds are good, though the ping is often all over the place.

In which area/s you use your connection?

Home - Randpark Ridge (Randburg)
Work - Midstream estates (Midrand/Centurion)

What can CELL C do to make you a happier customer?

Offer a more consistent service, even at the cost of ultimate speed. I would gladly deal with half the speed and ping as long as the service it remained stable.

 

[PsyWulf]

Hi there

Can you please rate your CELL C 3G/HSPA connection on speed, stability and reliability? Do you get what you expected, or is your experience better or worse than what you expected?

Beats my Vodacom 3g/HSDPA by miles

[*]In which area/s you use your connection?

Oaklands/Edenvale/Sandton in Johannesburg
Durban and Pietermaritzburg

[*]What can CELL C do to make you a happier customer?

Their accounts department are a horrible mess telephonically,get some better people in there

 

[phiber]

Currently in cape town, staying on lower long street and this thing is motoring, get 700k/sec downloading (I've got the white 7.2mbps stick) Does disconnect and give a PPP error once a day, which is quite irritating but just need to restart the connection.

In Johannesburg (CBD area) i get about 300k/sec, which is really good enough for a 2 gig stick, but after seeing these speeds i might be a little disappointed when i get back. Got around the same performance when connecting in Constantia Valley.

I am quite impressed by this little stick, does everything I need, but it is not my primary internet connection, and only the on-the-go stick.

 

[creeper]

Great speed, just a shame that the initial "5GB special" is now too expensive. My 12 month prepaid just expired and haven't find a good alternative

 

[kilobits]

Plumstead Cape Town it has been surprisingly decent.
Much better than expected... a little shaky during office hours, but still more than usable.
A second to MTN and it is better than Vodacom here... strangely enough.

Cell C sharpen your pencils with package / bundle pricing... become the game changer again - little hope I guess with that Craig not Allan in charge.

 

[Dobes]

Parklands, Cape Town

Speed is decent to good. But get random disconnects and intermittent periods where I am still connected but no data comes in or goes out. It usually sorts itself out after a minute of so. Can be quite annoying.

Have 2 5gig/month sims which are coming to an end. Have moved over to 8ta now, due to the price increases of these packages.

The initial offers were great, but they will have to rethink their new pricing if they ever want me back as a customer.

 

[chickenbeef]

Speed is good but not as good as 8ta, can get a sustained 200Kb/s and it sometimes jumps to the 400 mark but with 8ta I used to get 300+ sustained.

Could always pick up a 3G signal with CellC no matter where I was, not so much with 8ta.

 

[elf_lord_ZC5]

Bloemfontein - speed varies greatly depending on location. E1820 modem. Speed varies from 0.5mbps to 18-19 MBps latecies and stability also vary tremendously. Either in heaven or the pits ....

Consistant coverage, speed, stability and latency please.

 

[|tera|]

I rated my CellC connection as Pathetic (much worse than expected). I use my CellC sim card in Sabie, Mpumalanga and I am unable to create any decent connection with CellC Edge. I have to Roam on Vodacom Edge to get anywhere online since CellC can't even establish a connection.

I am really disappointed that CellC took such a nosedive since Lars Reichelt left and I think it's a slap in the face to all existing customers that no expansion of the HSPA+ network took place to smaller towns and areas as they promised.

I have been living in a rural area for almost 6 months, made complaints upon complaints with zero feedback, so out of all providers CellC scores the lowest in my book.

 

[Greggle]

Speed - Very good
Stability - Good (has improved over time)
Reliability - Fair, depends where I am but on the whole at work and home its pretty good.

Do you get what you expected, or is your experience better or worse than what you expected? I get what I expected.
In which area/s you use your connection? Cape Town Southern Suburbs
What can CELL C do to make you a happier customer? Bring back their good data offers ... I am unlikely to buy another 12 months when my current one expires given that their prices have gone up so much!

 

[ands45]

I find speeds are good at work (Sea Point) and CBD (Cape Town) area but could be better at home near Tokai forest.
Has definitely improved since I fist joined in June last year. I find I also experience some problems with connection and speeds as soon as I am out of main town areas.

 

[Tun@]

3/5 & only just a 3.....Been with since Oct 2010 - On my 2nd 60GB sim

Speed:.......... 2010 - 5/5........2012 - 2/5 whoosh speeds are no longer,upload speed constantly < 1mbps
Stability:....... 2010 - 5/5........2012 - 3/5
Reliability:.......2010 - 5/5........2012 - 4/5

In which area/s you use your connection?
North Beach,Durban
What can CELL C do to make you a happier customer?
Give me 42Mbps service,what i see is creaking & groaning & struggling, not whooooosh

You woke SA up with 3G revolution with great promo prices,whoosh & PR but that all seems to have faded away since Lars's departure.
I only bought my 2nd 60GB sim in support of what you bought forward in 2010 + the hope the network sluggishness would go away with more users jumping over to 8ta.
Hopefully you guys can put a decent rudder back on that ship again with your new CEO.

 

[Sherbang]

I'm in central Cape Town, I generally use my internet outside of work hours and am very happy with it. It's stable and fast enough to let me stream radio and video with no perceptible lagging or pausing to buffer. I can contrast it to another network I used for a month due to a special they had which was almost unusable, so CellC has kept me impressed.

Can you please rate your CELL C 3G/HSPA connection on speed, stability and reliability?
7/10

Do you get what you expected, or is your experience better or worse than what you expected?
Better than expected, definitely.


In which area/s you use your connection?
Central Cape Town (Oranjezicht)

What can CELL C do to make you a happier customer?
Better support when things do go wrong (which they do). I had a problem with a R500 voucher I bought which I could not load because it was invalid. Took CellC 2 weeks to sort out which is too long - they should have resolved it for me quicker, even if takes them longer to internally sort out what the issue was. No-one wants to pay R500 and be without internet access for 2 weeks!

 

[CellBel]

2 days ago i decided to buy a cellc 1.2gig bundle, cos the speed was OK on the R50 promo Desember.
Was OK for 2 days, now back to GPRS/EDGE...
Waste of money.

 

[sajunky]

Excellent speed and stability of the connection. Rock solid for Skype international voice calls. No other network offer such stability. There are some issues with registration to the network in one area, but once finding right tower it keeps going and going...

It is based on using Cell C in three different locations. Unfortunately I live in the area not officially covered and external antenna is required. Tested, it works with my neighbour, but I don't have antenna.

Location:
- JHB/Woodmead-Woodlands
- Midrand/Glen Austin Ext. 3
- JHB/near Diepsloot (no coverage - see above)

What makes me happy? Walking to my neighbour when using international Skype calls with Cell C. Occasion to socialize.

 

[IvanRSA]

Please rate your CELL C 3G/HSPA connection on speed, stability and reliability?

Speed - Good, most of the time (both up and download speed)
Stability - Fair; tends to be rather up and down a lot of the time
Reliability - Fair; coverage obviously still not as wide as the 2 bigger players

Do you get what you expected, or is your experience better or worse than what you expected?

Yes, bought the 5GB per month prepaid special. Decent amount of data for the price and speed. I am generally happy with my purchase - the experience is in line with what I expected.

In which area/s you use your connection?

Mostly in the Fourways and Midrand areas. I have also used it in Mossel Bay without issue.

What can CELL C do to make you a happier customer?

Increase the stability of the connection - speed becomes almost irrelevant if it is only usable in short bursts. Expand the high speed network! On the dreaming side, get going with LTE!

 

[Beri]

I have the 2 gig a month special that I have been using for a couple of months. When I started using it the connection was great and the speed was incredible. This did not last very long. I use it mainly at work and the steed is not very good.
I am in Port Elizabeth…. Westering/central
Come on cell c be proud of your product and do something about the speed

 

[MikeCTZA]

Speed varies depending on time of the month, I find the last few days poor, better than it used to be but can feel it being slightly lower.
Stabilitly is less than I'd like, if I sit idle for a few minutes it often disconnects me, even though there are things using the link (a little like polling Twitter/email), that has got a bit better lately. I always manage to connect fine.
I use the connection mostly in Newlands/Rondebosch area in Cape Town, signal strength has been good.

To make me happier. On the 24GB (2GB/month) deal - rather give all 24GB once off so I don't loose bandwidth each month. I tend to try and use the 2GB up downloading any old thing near the end of the month as I may as well. Data rollover FTW !!!

 

[The Voice]

Speeds can be erratic (anywhere from 2-5Mbps down), with occasional disconnects for no apparent reason, but having said that, I've never had a problem getting onto the network at all. Honestly speaking, it's far worse than I expected, given their aggressive marketing campaign when the service launched. Online gaming proved to be a nightmare most of the time, with the high latencies experienced, and the disconnects at crucial moments, so I've simply given up on it.

I only use the connection at home (Malvern East, Germiston).

One of the few things that would make me a happier customer, would be to bring back the recharge specials (free data, etc). I'm beyond hoping for a stable connection at this point, so freebies will have to do!