Disgusted in Vodacom

3

3g usr

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Cape Town
Not so disgusted anymore :P

My Vodacom HSDPA is really not the wonderful 'best broadband for your rand' that Vodacom claims it to be. In the last couple of months I have had more problems with it than it actually worked. I have had endless conversations with Vodacom help desk and every excuse is made and nothing is done to help me. I have even been told that the problem is not on the Vodacom network but with SAIX. That was when my connection had high latency all of a sudden but was still rather fast on web browsing etc.

Lately I struggle to even browse the web. Throughput is up to @*$^, and I have even canceled some of my online games because its impossible to play it without losing equipment.

My connection was always fine, why now is it a problem and nothing being done about it!? I am not going to repeat all the problems I have because you will be able to find it linked to my profile.

My big question is, why, if my connection is giving so many problems and I cant use it or stop trying because of slow browsing etc., does Vodacom not allow me to cancel my contract? Is it not my right to cancel my contract if the service they provide is nothing but headaches and the so called 'best broadband for you rand' is all but that in my case.

Every time I ask to speak to a manager or supervisor I get the finger and excuses are made. I am seriously disgusted in Vodacom and would appreciate any advice on what my legal rights are to cancel my contract and get some equipment that works.
 
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Probably the end of the month blues. The SAIX and IS backbones take a pounding during these last few days.
 
If it only was, its been like this every day for the past month now, and other problems for more than that now...
 
3g usr said:
My Vodacom HSDPA is really not the wonderful 'best broadband for your rand' that Vodacom claims it to be. In the last couple of months I have had more problems with it than it actually worked. I have had endless conversations with Vodacom help desk and every excuse is made and nothing is done to help me. I have even been told that the problem is not on the Vodacom network but with SAIX. That was when my connection had high latency all of a sudden but was still rather fast on web browsing etc.

Lately I struggle to even browse the web. Throughput is up to @*$^, and I have even canceled some of my online games because its impossible to play it without losing equipment.

My connection was always fine, why now is it a problem and nothing being done about it!? I am not going to repeat all the problems I have because you will be able to find it linked to my profile.

My big question is, why, if my connection is giving so many problems and I cant use it or stop trying because of slow browsing etc., does Vodacom not allow me to cancel my contract? Is it not my right to cancel my contract if the service they provide is nothing but headaches and the so called 'best broadband for you rand' is all but that in my case.

Every time I ask to speak to a manager or supervisor I get the finger and excuses are made. I am seriously disgusted in Vodacom and would appreciate any advice on what my legal rights are to cancel my contract and get some equipment that works.
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I'm not going to search through all your posts, but some basic questions & answers would be helpful in gaining some perspective here:

In which part(s) of Cape Town have you been experiencing problems?

What make & model of modem have you been using to connect?

Are these problems linked to contract or pre-paid?

Have you been using data bundles, or out of bundle data?

Have you been using a 3GOnly or 2GOnly profile setting?

What is the signal like in the area(s) you have been experiencing problems?

Have you done any ping & tracert tests to the hostnames you've experienced problems with, what do the results show?
 
In which part(s) of Cape Town have you been experiencing problems? - Brackenfell

What make & model of modem have you been using to connect? Huawei E620

Are these problems linked to contract or pre-paid? - Contract

Have you been using data bundles, or out of bundle data? In my 2gb bundle

Have you been using a 3GOnly or 2GOnly profile setting? 3g Only

What is the signal like in the area(s) you have been experiencing problems? 3 to 4 bars on the VMC9 software

Have you done any ping & tracert tests to the hostnames you've experienced problems with, what do the results show? Pings yes, as tracert doesnt work on vodacoms network... ping has always been 280ms international, now is seldom under 450ms. I have a bunch of time-outs, and high latency in between, will be like 450, 500, 480, timeout, 450, 1500, timeout, 580 etc...

I have tested in other areas and it is fine (areas include bellville and the area arround the airport) so this is not a problem with my hardware or settings.
 
You cannot test reliability with ping tests... Rather use speed.vodacom.co.za to test real throughput...

Did you try the external Antenna? I have 2x E620 cards with performance problems with the built in antenna.
 
3g usr said:
In which part(s) of Cape Town have you been experiencing problems? - Brackenfell

What make & model of modem have you been using to connect? Huawei E620

...

Have you done any ping & tracert tests to the hostnames you've experienced problems with, what do the results show? Pings yes, as tracert doesnt work on vodacoms network... ping has always been 280ms international, now is seldom under 450ms. I have a bunch of time-outs, and high latency in between, will be like 450, 500, 480, timeout, 450, 1500, timeout, 580 etc...

I have tested in other areas and it is fine (areas include bellville and the area arround the airport) so this is not a problem with my hardware or settings.
Click to expand...
Ok, and you've been using the internetvpn APN for a while, and before that, you were using the internet APN, correct?

I recommend that you try ginggs' application with that E220, it will give you a better indication of what's going on with the signal strength in your area.

What is your local browsing like compared to international that appears to be one of the problems you've experienced?

When you run Vodacom's on-network speed test, http://speed.vodacom.co.za/, what download & upload speeds do you get, e.g. currently?
MobileAllOver said:
You cannot test reliability with ping tests... Rather use speed.vodacom.co.za to test real throughput...

Did you try the external Antenna? I have 2x E620 cards with performance problems with the built in antenna.
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A ping test to a specific hostname will reveal packet loss, if any.
 
Vodacom speed test only test the speed on the Vodacom network and I am having problems with international as explained in the OP. I cant ping local sites for some reason so cant give you local latency...

My connection was fine until 2 or 3 months ago and then it went all downhill. I bought the equipment because at the time it was working. I don't want to buy extra equipment to make something work that use to work in the past... If this is the case then Vodacom should advertise and sell the equipment with a bigger antenna. How can you sell a car with only 3 spark plugs knowing it needs 4 and then the client is forced to buy the missing parts to get the correct performance out of it? (not that I'm a car mechanic but you get the point ;))
 
I browse this site fine, most others are slow. Vodacom speed test just gave a result of 1000 down and 250 up...
 
3g usr said:
Vodacom speed test only test the speed on the Vodacom network and I am having problems with international as explained in the OP. I cant ping local sites for some reason so cant give you local latency...

My connection was fine until 2 or 3 months ago and then it went all downhill. I bought the equipment because at the time it was working. I don't want to buy extra equipment to make something work that use to work in the past... If this is the case then Vodacom should advertise and sell the equipment with a bigger antenna. How can you sell a car with only 3 spark plugs knowing it needs 4 and then the client is forced to buy the missing parts to get the correct performance out of it? (not that I'm a car mechanic but you get the point ;))
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What I have been trying to establish, is whether the problems you've been experiencing to unspecified destinations on the internet, includes local hostnames, or if they are all international hostnames, and whether there is a problem in your specific area which you have indicated there must be, running Vodacom's on-network speed test will shed light on all this.
3g usr said:
I browse this site fine, most others are slow. Vodacom speed test just gave a result of 1000 down and 250 up...
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Ok, examples of other locally hosted sites that are slow for you?
 
ic said:
What I have been trying to establish, is whether the problems you've been experiencing to unspecified destinations on the internet, includes local hostnames, or if they are all international hostnames, and whether there is a problem in your specific area which you have indicated there must be, running Vodacom's on-network speed test will shed light on all this.
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Yes, the problems I have experienced is so far only with international sites and game servers. Even Google is slow :(

Like I said, I can't ping local sites / servers for some reason it gives me timeouts. I have been playing arround with Internet and InternetVPN APN's. Internet APN used to be 280ms to international servers. InternetVPN was always double that. Lately Internet APN is very unstable and the same if not higher latency than InternetVPN. I use InternetVPN more now because it is a bit more stable but still slow. (stable as in constant throughput to game servers, slow as in had to cancel my Eve-Online account until this is resolved because the latency will cause me to lose my ships in-game)

Not that I use local sites often, I have noticed ABSA.co.za to be slow and GuildwarsZA (http://guildwars.systemshock.co.za) to be slow. apart from this site its the only ones I use much locally. But it might be that the local sites are slow due to server load / users connected.
 
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3g usr a good way to get Vodacom to contact you is by complaining on www.hellopeter.com, I'm also disgusted with their customer care.

If you find a way to cancel your contract without paying the whole amount upfront let me know please. But Vodcaom doesn't actually care for you after you signed a contract. :mad:

Regards,
 
Just a question, does MTN use SAIX as well? if that is the case then the two should use the same exchange in Brackenfell yes? If it is the case then why does my friend with MTN HSDPA get the 260ms he always gets while sitting right next to me while I am getting 500ms to that same server?

The server address I am talking about, appart from google that gives same result is: 87.237.38.200 (the Eve-Online games server)

ic said:
I recommend that you try ginggs' application with that E220, it will give you a better indication of what's going on with the signal strength in your area.
Click to expand...

I just used the tool, it gave me -79dbm. when I re connected through vmc9 it connected but no throughput, had to disconnect and re-connect and now its working again (still slow though :))
 
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Seems like I've been barking up the wrong tree... Sorry for blaming Vodacom, seems like the problem is with the SA bandwidth available for international sites / servers. I've asked for this before, and believe that 90% of my stress would have been saved if I could only run a tracert to see where the problem is. At least I know to ping speed.vodacom.co.za to see if its the 3G network clogging up. Looks like my problem will only be sorted out in the future with some extra pipelines and bandwidth to international sites. gives me one more reason to leave South Africa lol!

Thanks for coming out to my place yesterday Vodacom, but tell me, is there no way to enable us to run the tracert command again? And is there no way of asking SAIX to maybe check out there equipment to see if there by any chance is a problem that causes the bottleneck before it even goes out to international sites? My office ADSL still has low (350ms) latency and as I saw yesterday the local latency is exactly the same as it always was on HSDPA... Maybe they are p'd off at Vodacom and is restricting their bandwidth :D
 
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