Cool Ideas Fibre ISP - Feedback

[TheRoDent]

4 hours down now.

Vuma trenched northern suburbs.

Is vuma's DHCP server a raspberry pi?

Also, vuma says call ISP after 2 hours...
ISP says its vuma... so basically no fix, nor resolution, nor timeframes, nor contingency plan, nor way forward, nor forward thinking

This is true, unfortunately. We have no control over the DHCP infrastructure.

 

[TheRoDent]

Have eluded to this before. I pay CISP to manage everything for me. I dont have the time to chase Vumatel when I have issues. Clearly there is enough people affected for CISP to ask questions and provide feedback. The radio silence from Vumatel and CISP is nonsense. You cant expect paying customers to put up with it.

I wouldn't consider this thread and the various notices we put up as radio silence. Do understand, if you were with another ISP, they would give you the same information.

I would love to have a simple Layer2 handoff from Vumatel where we can control more over how these things happens, but, this is the systems that Venturanext (their integrator) sold to Vumatel, and it is what they are using.

 

[John Tempus]

The Vumatel DHCP lease assigned to you lasts for 24 hours typically. After that your CPE will need to renew it's lease.

If you are unlucky enough to have the release renewal happening during a storm period, then the lease will expire if it cannot contact the DHCP server again.

Of course, the POP outages could also be a factor.

It's such a pain, having no control over this from our side. We were promised a solution during the previous load shedding episodes but clearly the problem still exists.

On the other hand Vumatel Aerial/PON networks don't usually have this problem, as we as an ISP have direct control over what happens on the Ethernet side.

Our issues have nothing to do with the so called "DHCP Storm". Myself and others already pointed out that our CPE did not lose any power during the load shedding yet fiber went down the moment loadshedding started and never came back up afterwards.

I know this is not a CISP issue, I do not blame CISP at all. Right now I am only pointing fingers at Vumatel for pretty much engineering their network in all the wrong ways for these issues to occur. They are lying about having backup power for load shedding periods(proven by me today and yesterday as load shedding occurred the fiber goes down even with UPS on my CPE)

Vumatel is lying about the current issues getting back on the network relating it to DHCP storm and all other kinds of hogwash, the actual POP's went down due to power surge and other reasons. All of this points to these units not having any protection or backup power that lead to these issues.

Vumatel network is most definitely not redundant at all nevermind them claiming so.

Lastly, the so called DHCP storm might affect users hitting the same network for maybe 20minutes, 30minutes if we are dealing with 100k+ users at once at the exact same DHCP leasing which is highly unlikely. 6hrs and counting of no sync have ZERO to do with DHCP storm claim.

 

[TheRoDent]

@PBCool

Serious question since you have better channels of communication with these networks. Please get us actual honest answers and not these vomit inducing responses that simply do not hold up.

1. Which POPs have no backup power ? There must be many and why do Vumatel claim their network have backup power everywhere.

2. Why did Vumatel not have a single instance such as the last 2 days during loadshedding in 2018 or 2017 ? The DHCP storm excuse is straight up lies and blanket excuses just to save face. Can you get us the real reason ?

3. When will they resolve the actual network issues experienced since yesterday ? Keep in mind Sunday also had loadshedding and we did not have these issues. Only on Monday did these issues start and not go away for second day counting now.

4. Is there actually unreported fiber breaks since yesterday that leads to the sudden overloading now due to rerouting of traffic onto overloaded functional POPs ? Something since yesterday is entirely new in the realm of fkedness compared to any situation before yesterday.

Entering hour 5 of no syncing. Just get honest factual answers for us and not PR answers. We can handle the truth as long as it is the truth and not more PR spin out of Vumatel mouth.

I will be cancelling my CISP account end of February if this continues. At no point do I blame CISP as this is clearly Vumatel issue but if you are able to get actual answers and resolutions being worked on I might reconsider.

At this moment it is total waste of money that I could rather spend on mobile data just to get work done than to pay for Fiber account and mobile data as I am right now.

I feel your pain. The fibre industry is quite immature, and Vuma was a pioneer. On the other hand, yes using mobile data is more reliable since the operators have had decades to sort out their operations.

It doesn't come uncapped though, and at a huge premium.

 

[John Tempus]

I feel your pain. The fibre industry is quite immature, and Vuma was a pioneer. On the other hand, yes using mobile data is more reliable since the operators have had decades to sort out their operations.

It doesn't come uncapped though, and at a huge premium.

Fiber is a mature standard, not sure why you would claim it is new ? Fiber have been standardized already back in the 90's , it is not at all new tech but the outcomes might look like new tech when a company cut corners and cheap out on their infrastructure which is usually first visible during situations just like we are experiencing right now.

To me the current issues just shows that Vumatel was under engineered perhaps looking to cut costs wherever possible and ignoring the big picture. This is not the first time nor will it likely be the last time Vumatel is acting like clueless monkeys behind a typewriter.

Any network can operate well when there is no issue however a properly engineered network showcase itself the moment there is outside issues such as loadshedding being a good example and Vumatel fail horribly in their grading.

 

[Denver****]

Is there a URL for the application so I can get some further info? What are you running the application on in both locations?

https://downloadterrariumtvapp.com/cyberflix-tv-apk-download/

Both cases running off Telkom lit android box

 

[TheRoDent]

Great so they are still lying about surge failures at POP being one of the leading issues for the absolute downtime. I wont be surprised if other POPs melted down along with the one I referenced affecting my area.

I am so sick of generalized notices that have no bearing on the actual issue.

Fck all these companies, they all in the 21st century still treat their clientbase as complete morons.

(This is not actually direct at CISP, I still think they are a good ISP outside the scope of Vumahell)

What makes that sms notice about loadshedding even funnier is that the Vumatel network is affected by loadshedding but how is that possible if they have backup gen/batteries in place. Their lies are crumbling below their feet. The equipment required to run the backend of the network is not high power usage at all, basic enterprise level gen/battery backup should be able to keep them up for a day or two with complete power loss.

Let's not all forget that until a few years ago (literally 2014/2015) the only choice in Fixed line services was Telkom, and they had been trying to get it right since MyBroadband started.

In fact MyADSL/MyBroadband was started in 2003, shortly after ADSL was launched.

If it wasn't for the Vumatel's, Octotel's, Frogfoot's and other companies willing to take a risk, our choice would still be ADSL from Telkom.

Telkom has had 15 years to get it right, and if competition from FNO's hadn't come they'd still be punting ADSL most likely. Scary thing is that their POP's are probably more gennie backed up, and UPS backed up than anyone else's but then again, they had a monopoly and the taxpayer to foot their bills for many years.

I understand everyone's frustrations. The Vumatel DHCP is a 'orrible thing, but then again it was designed in Sweden where everyone's power is just dandy.

The funny thing is that people don't moan about their lack of power so much, as they do about their lack of internet. It's like a utility now... More important than power.

 

[TheRoDent]

Fiber is a mature standard, not sure why you would claim it is new ? Fiber have been standardized already back in the 90's , it is not at all new tech but the outcomes might look like new tech when a company cut corners and cheap out on their infrastructure which is usually first visible during situations just like we are experiencing right now.

See my later post. Yes fibre is mature, but understand that even just getting permission to dig up roads to lay fibre is a process that takes months because of bureaucracy, yet for Telkom who has had the free use of gumpoles in everyone's back yard, Fibre wasn't even an economical consideration until competition came around.

Yes, the tech is mature, but it's implementation in South Africa is relatively immature. 4 years old, in fact.

I'm still very happy that someone took the billion rand plunge and took on Telkom in the home/fixed line connectivity space.

Also, ESKOM. Very few other operators in the world has to deal with ESKOM.

Think about it.

 

[TheRoDent]

Have eluded to this before. I pay CISP to manage everything for me. I dont have the time to chase Vumatel when I have issues. Clearly there is enough people affected for CISP to ask questions and provide feedback. The radio silence from Vumatel and CISP is nonsense. You cant expect paying customers to put up with it.

Who did you have to chase back in the days of ADSL? Sure, you could engage with your ISP, but everyone knew at the end of the day that only Telkom could fix your ADSL.

It's no different today. Just the names have changed from Telkom to Vumatel/Octotel/Frogfoot/<insert name here>

 

[John Tempus]

See my later post. Yes fibre is mature, but understand that even just getting permission to dig up roads to lay fibre is a process that takes months because of bureaucracy, yet for Telkom who has had the free use of gumpoles in everyone's back yard, Fibre wasn't even an economical consideration until competition came around.

Yes, the tech is mature, but it's implementation in South Africa is relatively immature. 4 years old, in fact.

I'm still very happy that someone took the billion rand plunge and took on Telkom in the home/fixed line connectivity space.

Also, ESKOM. Very few other operators in the world has to deal with ESKOM.

Think about it.

I thought about all of this and I dont agree.

Digging a hole in the ground is universal, LOW TECH.

Equipment choice to use is dependent on using quality or budget equipment.

I am not going to praise a company for deciding to do business in order to make profit, they did nothing out of altruism so I am not going to sit by thanking them for being a business in order to make a profit. We are all clients paying a fee that is not going to some do-good church or orphanage but to a for-profit company.

So sorry to say I do not support your outlook on the quality of service at all.

1. Vumatel could have implemented years of research how to build a sustainable quality network.
2. Eskom should not play any role if they had sufficient backup power (they claim they do, but they clearly dont)

Honestly I don't see any supporting argument to why Vumatel should not be held accountable for the crap service they clearly ended up building.

 

[DJZassie]

So I dont really care about having no internet tonight...

What i care about is what is actually the issue?
What is actually being done about it?
What contingencies are being put in place so it doesn't happen again...

SURELY CISP as a client of vumatel has the correct SLA's in place to answer these questions and the broadcast them to us? The client of CISP?

 

[TheRoDent]

Our issues have nothing to do with the so called "DHCP Storm". Myself and others already pointed out that our CPE did not lose any power during the load shedding yet fiber went down the moment loadshedding started and never came back up afterwards.

Yes, I did mention that POP outages could be an issue. A fibre network is like a tree, kill one branch lower down, and an entire area upstream that does have power could go out. Vumatel also depends on other parties such as DFA and other backhaul providers, so it does get complicated.

I know this is not a CISP issue, I do not blame CISP at all. Right now I am only pointing fingers at Vumatel for pretty much engineering their network in all the wrong ways for these issues to occur. They are lying about having backup power for load shedding periods(proven by me today and yesterday as load shedding occurred the fiber goes down even with UPS on my CPE)

Yeah, clearly there's a UPS or backhaul UPS issue if it goes down immediately

Vumatel is lying about the current issues getting back on the network relating it to DHCP storm and all other kinds of hogwash, the actual POP's went down due to power surge and other reasons. All of this points to these units not having any protection or backup power that lead to these issues.

There are areas that does survive, but I don't think their design had 4.5 hours of loadshedding in mind. The DHCP storm issue is definately real though, and it does happen. Perhaps not in your case.

Vumatel network is most definitely not redundant at all nevermind them claiming so.

Lastly, the so called DHCP storm might affect users hitting the same network for maybe 20minutes, 30minutes if we are dealing with 100k+ users at once at the exact same DHCP leasing which is highly unlikely. 6hrs and counting of no sync have ZERO to do with DHCP storm claim.

Sure, if your CPE has no FX light then the upstream Ethernet switch is dead. However the DHCP storm scenario happens where the CPE looks entirely fine, but the ISP router cannot obtain a DHCP lease.

The issue with the DHCP storm is as follows. CPE's will request a DHCP lease every few seconds. The Vumatel Ethernet switches have DHCP relay rate limits on them so that a single user cannot abuse the DHCP server (a good design principle)

However if your router gets blacklisted from making DHCP requests for a few minutes, and then tries again, but the DHCP server is busy and cannot give you a lease due to hundreds of other users "swamping" the DHCP server, then your device gets blacklisted again, for a few minutes.

So, every few minutes, you have a few seconds chance of obtaining a lease.

Until everyone has one, or you get lucky.

This could happen in PPPoE and RADIUS server scenarios too, but at least then it's under the control of the ISP to build infrastructure capble of handling it.

This kinda thing has happened on DSL, and other infrastructure too, back in the day, but that's why I keep saying it's still a bit immature.

 

[John Tempus]

Yes, I did mention that POP outages could be an issue. A fibre network is like a tree, kill one branch lower down, and an entire area upstream that does have power could go out. Vumatel also depends on other parties such as DFA and other backhaul providers, so it does get complicated.



Yeah, clearly there's a UPS or backhaul UPS issue if it goes down immediately



There are areas that does survive, but I don't think their design had 4.5 hours of loadshedding in mind. The DHCP storm issue is definately real though, and it does happen. Perhaps not in your case.



Sure, if your CPE has no FX light then the upstream Ethernet switch is dead. However the DHCP storm scenario happens where the CPE looks entirely fine, but the ISP router cannot obtain a DHCP lease.

The issue with the DHCP storm is as follows. CPE's will request a DHCP lease every few seconds. The Vumatel Ethernet switches have DHCP relay rate limits on them so that a single user cannot abuse the DHCP server (a good design principle)

However if your router gets blacklisted from making DHCP requests for a few minutes, and then tries again, but the DHCP server is busy and cannot give you a lease due to hundreds of other users "swamping" the DHCP server, then your device gets blacklisted again, for a few minutes.

So, every few minutes, you have a few seconds chance of obtaining a lease.

Until everyone has one, or you get lucky.

This could happen in PPPoE and RADIUS server scenarios too, but at least then it's under the control of the ISP to build infrastructure capble of handling it.

This kinda thing has happened on DSL, and other infrastructure too, back in the day, but that's why I keep saying it's still a bit immature.

I am well aware of how DHCP storm works in practicality but I am calling BS on it for one simple reason. When I did manage to get synced, there was ZERO local or international traffic. Traffic stopped dead at the gateway which to me mean the gateway linking up to further upstream is entirely dead.

DHCP Storm is a real thing if you deal with millions of clients on the exact same leasing service. Lets not confuse the one with the other. I have seen it in effect lasting 30minutes leasing out 15million IP's on amazon services.

So either Vumatel is leasing out 15million or 150million ips during the leasing broadcast(of course they are not) or their system is horribly designed. I say all of this tongue in cheek because we are all aware that none of these issues happened before Monday loadshedding. None of the previous loadshedding had more than 15min outage after power came back on.

Vumatel had major network failure somewhere that was caused by power outage due to no backup power/surge protection. This is the only possibility at this point that makes Monday up until now situation unique compared to all previous load shedding.

If they have real issues I would love if they treated their clients as real people and not gherkins sitting in vinegar sauce. Tell us what happened, ETA on recovery and 99% of us would chill out and wait.

 

[TheRoDent]

I thought about all of this and I dont agree.

Digging a hole in the ground is universal, LOW TECH.

Equipment choice to use is dependent on using quality or budget equipment.

I am not going to praise a company for deciding to do business in order to make profit, they did nothing out of altruism so I am not going to sit by thanking them for being a business in order to make a profit. We are all clients paying a fee that is not going to some do-good church or orphanage but to a for-profit company.

So sorry to say I do not support your outlook on the quality of service at all.

1. Vumatel could have implemented years of research how to build a sustainable quality network.
2. Eskom should not play any role if they had sufficient backup power (they claim they do, but they clearly dont)

Honestly I don't see any supporting argument to why Vumatel should not be held accountable for the crap service they clearly ended up building.

I will agree, and disagree. They should be held accountable. Yes.

Eskom certainly plays a role. This kind of thing happens on DSL networks too, where Telkom's exchanges are powered infinitely. Telkom's proxy RADIUS servers have been overloaded numerous times when entire suburbs went down and thousands of people tried to re-authenticate. (been there, done that).

It took them nearly a decade to build enough capacity and infrastructure to deal with it.

Vumatel's Active Ethernet design is pretty good, but letting ISP's deal with authentication should have been a factor, but "best international Swedish design" was used as a blueprint, based on years of research. The Vumatel Aerial network shows how a different design principle can work even during these situations.

Of course, there is a fix to this. I know how to fix it. But the relationship between Vumatel and Venturanext is complicated and governed by lots of rules.

I know this doesn't help you at all. I'm just trying to eloquate that ESKOM *is* a factor, and that a 1st world design clearly doesn't cater for our 3rd world conditions.

 

[TheRoDent]

I am well aware of how DHCP storm works in practicality but I am calling BS on it for one simple reason. When I did manage to get synced, there was ZERO local or international traffic. Traffic stopped dead at the gateway which to me mean the gateway linking up to further upstream is entirely dead.

Yeah, I'm not saying their network is entirely redundant, and yes you could get, and even ping a gateway that leads to nowhere.

DHCP Storm is a real thing if you deal with millions of clients on the exact same leasing service. Lets not confuse the one with the other. I have seen it in effect lasting 30minutes leasing out 15million IP's on amazon services.

Sure, but not with switches rate limiting DHCP requests etc. It's a very different scenario.

So either Vumatel is leasing out 15million or 150million ips during the leasing broadcast(of course they are not) or their system is horribly designed. I say all of this tongue in cheek because we are all aware that none of these issues happened before Monday loadshedding. None of the previous loadshedding had more than 15min outage after power came back on.

They're definately not handing out that many leases, sure, but there are limits imposed on a per-aggregation switch level, and even per-CPE leve that stops excessive DHCP requests by throttling and/or dropping them.

Vumatel had major network failure somewhere that was caused by power outage due to no backup power/surge protection. This is the only possibility at this point that makes Monday up until now situation unique compared to all previous load shedding.

Each load shedding incident will be unique, as different suburbs are shed at different times, and as the network is similar to a tree, a lower branch could affect upper branches. No single incident will be the same. Perhaps a UPS didn't have enough time to recharge, yet several other upper branches depends on it.

If they have real issues I would love if they treated their clients as real people and not gherkins sitting in vinegar sauce. Tell us what happened, ETA on recovery and 99% of us would chill out and wait.

Yeah, I can agree on this. However, I don't think they really could preconceive how complex a load-shedding situation would affect networks of this magnitude.

Telkom exchanges had the advantage of being singular hubs of importance designed around power and connectivity availability on property freely given to them by government.

Competitive FNO's such as Vumatel, Octotel and Frogfoot has had to fight for rights just to get small street cabinets installed, sometimes opposed vehemently by the residents that so desire their services to be fully available.

 

[TheRoDent]

Already went and ordered Rain Mobile and Cellc LTE package as an alternative. If I receive either of those before this mess is resolved and they are reliable enough(function at all) then bye bye Fiber.

We are only starting with loadshedding and this is how it plays out, I would have to declare bankruptcy if I am to rely on this kind of fiber reliability.

You would probably have to declare bankruptcy if you wanted uncapped internet access via Rain or CellC too.

It's always a good plan to have backup connectivity if internet is your lifeblood. The same way people invest in generators, solar panels and battery backup if there's no power.

But let's be realistic, you can't Netflix and Torrent on a mobile connection.

The same way you can't run your pool pump, oven and geyser off a solar/battery backup solution.

Everyone needs, or has an alternative.

I just find it interesting how people complain more about their internet than load-shedding. (granted the networks can improve a helluva lot)

I'm in the same scenario, I work from home a lot until late at night. I sometimes don't have power, I have backup. I sometimes don't have fibre. I have backup.... Sometimes the backups such as LTE is also subject to outages.

T.I.A.

 

[John Tempus]

You would probably have to declare bankruptcy if you wanted uncapped internet access via Rain or CellC too.

It's always a good plan to have backup connectivity if internet is your lifeblood. The same way people invest in generators, solar panels and battery backup if there's no power.

But let's be realistic, you can't Netflix and Torrent on a mobile connection.

The same way you can't run your pool pump, oven and geyser off a solar/battery backup solution.

If we are being honest, I cant do a single thing on my fiber right now for 2 days, so meh?

Mobile backup is useless during loadshedding, mobile towers are also either crawling or dead. My only reason for mobile data is when loadshedding is over then mobile towers seem to kick back up and work properly unlike Vumatel that remains dead after loadshedding.

Rain mobile would cost me only usage for 5hrs a day, other 19hrs in the day is cost free. So no, far from bankruptcy to use Rain mobile. Cellc LTE is priced a bit different but could still do 200GB a month at about R850, also far from bankruptcy. The only way I would have to declare bankruptcy is if I had no internet access ie. Vumatel situation right now. All the other data pricing with regards to mobile data is far from intrusive if it means I can at least operate online.

Back to previous reply regarding Vumatel not being able to plan for loadshedding ? You surely do not believe this , right ? Monday and today loadshedding is nothing out of the ordinary, we have had in 2018 and 2017 longer durations of random loadshedding with none of these side effects. What exactly is making Monday and todays loadshedding so super special ? I will tell you and I know you should be aware of it. They had network equipment burn down all over the place, mismanaged backup power management. Vumatel network seems to run by the same people maintaining Eskom powerplants in 2019.

Again let me reiterate. 2019 Loadshedding is nothing special compared to 2018 and 2017 instances however the outcome is catastrophic in 2019 loadshedding, WHY ?

And lets get real, 7hrs after loadshedding and still not being able to sync have gloriously nothing to do with DHCP storm of any kind. Vumatel network is out and out fried and they should just report on with facts.

Anyhow this whole discussion is about Vumatel, I still love you CISP.

I would love if CISP had special powers of getting technical answers out of Vumatel and feed it back to us. Vumatel typical PR replies is just driving me nutto.

 

[TheRoDent]

If we are being honest, I cant do a single thing on my fiber right now for 2 days, so meh?

Hah I don't disagree. You must see the traffic I've been fighting for 5km's every day due to load shedding, but there's room for improvement too... I also go "meh" about it but I'm still pee'd off about it. I get that.

Mobile backup is useless during loadshedding, mobile towers are also either crawling or dead. My only reason for mobile data is when loadshedding is over then mobile towers seem to kick back up and work properly unlike Vumatel that remains dead after loadshedding.

Yeah my mobile service has been extremely spotty too since Sunday, even having a dual-sim setup.

Rain mobile would cost me only usage for 5hrs a day, other 19hrs in the day is cost free. So no, far from bankruptcy to use Rain mobile. Cellc LTE is priced a bit different but could still do 100GB a month at about R800, also far from bankruptcy. The only way I would have to declare bankruptcy is if I had no internet access ie. Vumatel situation right now. All the other data pricing with regards to mobile data is far from intrusive if it means I can at least operate online.

But wait until CellC suddenly decides that you are not in their Fixed LTE coverage area due to them having renegotiated with another roaming partner, etc etc, such as what happened previously, or when RAIN decided to discontinue their product, because their network was overloaded. Refer https://mybroadband.co.za/news/tele...overage-following-isps-not-using-the-map.html

It would be great if there was one single, always-on, supply of internet that is never down, and never has limitations. Such as water, and electrical utilities. Oh wait....

Back to previous reply regarding Vumatel not being able to plan for loadshedding ? You surely do not believe this , right ? Monday and today loadshedding is nothing out of the ordinary, we have had in 2018 and 2017 longer durations of random loadshedding with none of these side effects. What exactly is making Monday and todays loadshedding so super special ? I will tell you and I know you should be aware of it. They had network equipment burn down all over the place, mismanaged backup power management. Vumatel network seems to run by the same people maintaining Eskom powerplants in 2019.

True, however their network has grown by about 100% since then, so that is a factor. That has changed.... It's become more complicated and more interdependent. Consider my "tree" network design that starts with a few branches and then grows, and grows... As the size of a network increases, so does it's complexity and dependencies.

I will vehemently disagree about your statement about the people that run Vumatel though. We were the first ISP sign up with Vumatel, and the team they have is a bunch of people from the ISP and Telco industry that I have a huge amount of respect for and have known for years. The same goes for other FNO's such as Ocotel and Frogfoot.

Sure, it's not perfect. But, do you remember ADSL ?

Again let me reiterate. 2019 Loadshedding is nothing special compared to 2018 and 2017 instances however the outcome is catastrophic in 2019 loadshedding, WHY ?

Actually we rarely had stage 4 load shedding during those times....

This has been a week from hell for all Telco's, not just Vumatel. We've been running a datacentre and call centre on more Diesel than we ever have...

It's not a "normal" situation. Look at the traffic lights, the lights in your home....

I won't and am not defending by saying they don't have failings. But geez....

 

[phuma]

Ahem. Durbanville trenched, started a few minutes ago. All packets lost after second hop.

mtr -rc 20 154.0.1.245
Start: 2019-02-12T23:55:59+0200
HOST: xxxxxx.local Loss% Snt Last Avg Best Wrst StDev
1.|-- _gateway 0.0% 20 0.4 0.5 0.3 2.6 0.5
2.|-- 155.93.227.1 0.0% 20 6.8 14.8 2.5 38.0 8.9
3.|-- ??? 100.0 20 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

 

[John Tempus]

Actually we rarely had stage 4 load shedding during those times....

This has been a week from hell for all Telco's, not just Vumatel. We've been running a datacentre and call centre on more Diesel than we ever have...

It's not a "normal" situation. Look at the traffic lights, the lights in your home....

I won't and am not defending by saying they don't have failings. But geez....

Oh I am glad you pointed out rarely having stage 4 because that was my entire point. Not entirely sure what you mean with traffic lights, light in my home ? I see no magic with traffic lights after loadshedding nor any magic with light in my home, care to elaborate what you mean?

Sunday we had Stage 2 and no issues after power came back up. Monday we had stage 4 and hell afterwards, Today(tuesday) we had only stage 2 and it is even worse than Monday, fiber never coming back up now approach 8hrs since power returning.

So it takes no wise man to realize either stage4 destroyed Vumatel network and they are not giving us the facts or it doesn't matter if it is stage4 or stage2, the outcome is in fact even worse today after just stage2 loadshedding.

So the stage of loadshedding have no baring on the situation it seems.

So far mobile networks handled the loadshedding million times better than vumatel using my own experience.

Vodacom for me is dead during loadshedding, MTN on the otherhand is "usable" but extremely slow during loadshedding.

After loadshedding Vodacom work perfectly fine, MTN on the other hand is its usual crappy all over the place that I am used to whether loadshedding occurs or not.

I have no idea how Rain or Cellc LTE would perform during or after loadshedding however if they are also full of it then I will have to bite the bullet and just rip my wallet with vodacom bundles since they seem to be the absolute most reliable mobile service while fiber is being useless.