HSDPA usage

[Nánfeirén]

I have just received the following SMS from Vodacom:

"You have used your monthly data bundle and can continue at the out of bundle rate. NOTE: This information can be up t0 3 hours old, from last disconnect"

I have a 1gig contract and there are 2 users on my PC. For profile 1 the current usage for the month is indicated as 350MB and for profile 2 the usage is 360MB, which totals 710MB. Therefore still another 290MB short of the limit. I know the usage meter is not accurate, but surely it cannot be that much out??

 

[stix]

The usage meter is the dashboard is not very accurate. Login to vodacom4me.co.za for correct usage.

 

[MBB]

I also have an HSDPA 1 gig contract. I monitor my usage on a daily basis. Up until the end of August, I was always very close to the Vodacom4me calculation.All of a sudden this month my usage has double, although I have done no changes to my daily routine or usage. My argument is why all of a sudden this big change in usage? Trying to get any reasonable response from the call centre is a waste of time. Even the so called call backs are not answered.

 

[Nánfeirén]

Exactly! why such a big change in usage? and what's the point of having a usage meter, when it is not reasonably accurate?? By accessing the vodacom4me site to monitor my usage, means that I am effectively wasting data that could've been used for other purposes. Something is definitely wrong this month and I'd like to get an answer.

Vodacom3g - what say you? The call centre is useless as always.

 

[MBB]

I prefer to send a sms to 31050 with the message -mm- that gives the usage as calculated by vodacom4me. But it still does not answer the question of the current huge usage discrepancy. I phoned 155 4 times today to enquire. I went through the usual number punching system, pushed hash for a callback, got the callback and the line went dead. No reply. Then I get a sms from the Customer Don't Care Centre telling me to try again. I am afraid there is more to lfe than spending hours trying to speak to a human voice at the Vodacom Customer Don't Care Centre. Another 19 months of this rubbish.

 

[vodacom3g]

The best bet is to load a monitor on your system and log all your usage. In all the cases I've personally investigated, the billing records was accurate.

Had a case last week where a user was adamant he only used his laptop for mail, yet he got billed for 2.5Gb of data, a bill of just over R3K! He was running Norton, so was sure he did not have a virus.

Looking at his laptop there were no obvious programs doing any downloads, no P2P, etc. Then, scanning the registry and other system files, I discover his son installed P2P programs, downloaded a bunch of files and uninstall them before caught out!

In any case, the point is to make sure you know what your system is doing, so much stuff happens in the background giving false impression of usage. One of the many download monitors will help a lot here.

 

[Nokkie]

I have just received the following SMS from Vodacom:

"You have used your monthly data bundle and can continue at the out of bundle rate. NOTE: This information can be up t0 3 hours old, from last disconnect"

I have a 1gig contract and there are 2 users on my PC. For profile 1 the current usage for the month is indicated as 350MB and for profile 2 the usage is 360MB, which totals 710MB. Therefore still another 290MB short of the limit. I know the usage meter is not accurate, but surely it cannot be that much out??

Vodacom Self-service via KeyWord SMS (free service): Simply sms MM to 31050 to find out how much data you have available on your current Vodacom Data Bundle.

 

[MyDraadloos]

The usage meter is the dashboard is not very accurate. Login to vodacom4me.co.za for correct usage.

If the VMC software is faulty, then why on earth would vodacon4me.co.za be an authoritive source of usage data ?

I have been unable to get any inforamtion on how billing is done even from people dealing with billing at Vodacom.

 

[diabolus]

Well i would get an independent Usage Monitor [NetMonitor?] at the very least, there's alot of them out there and a few that's built into your firewall.

Get one that can do proper logging [to a file] as in "session start, program , session end, bytes transferred, destination ip, source ip " etc. <--- Does VMC have this? If not, something to consider in next release. I know NetMonitor can do this nicely and even split it up per connection [i.e. LAN vs USB Modem vs. 3G card etc]

I never use the VMC as a source because i do not use my data on a single PC. I have caught myself many times, looking at the online usage and going "wtf, where did i use 30MB on that day" ...only to realise i plugged my sim into my phone and downloaded a few mp3s while waiting in a queue . [So you have no log of that event].

Plus i am doing a lot of sim swopping [MTN/Voda/Virgin] , just impossible to keep track in general but THAT is why i enjoy PREPAID *hint hint* , i feel i can track my usage per SIM much much better [no 3 hours delay nonsens] .

 

[Nánfeirén]

I think it would be great if vodacom3g can explain to us:

1. Why the usage monitor does not give correct usage information?
2. Why we should trust the usage from vodacom4me then?
3. How billing is done?
4. Why the Customer Care service is no good?

We as consumers pay for the service and we have a right to know how Vodacom charges us for information.

 

[caspa]

just as a matter of intrest has any one ever had there call answered in less then 15min when they call customer care.....????

 

[vodacom3g]

I think it would be great if vodacom3g can explain to us:

1. Why the usage monitor does not give correct usage information?
2. Why we should trust the usage from vodacom4me then?
3. How billing is done?
4. Why the Customer Care service is no good?

We as consumers pay for the service and we have a right to know how Vodacom charges us for information.

1) This has been explained numerous times on this forum, but basically if a 'unnatural' disconnect occurs, i.e. you did not press the disconnect button, all session data is lost. This typically leads to the VMC under-reading.

2) It comes directly from the engines that count every byte you send or receive. But there is a delay, typically around 3 hours.

3) Again explained many times, but basically every TX and RX byte is counted. What else do you need to know?

4) An ongoing effort to give best possible customer service.

What don't you understand on how Vodacom charge you for information. Every byte you send and receive is counted and you get billed according to your contract.

 

[Tallboy]

Why is there a three hour lag for contract and virtually none for prepaid? Why is it three hours and not five or six or 20.46646

 

[Nánfeirén]

What don't you understand on how Vodacom charge you for information. Every byte you send and receive is counted and you get billed according to your contract.

1. We the consumers pay Vodacom for a service (wireless data at HSDPA speeds), but the service is crap to put it mildly and it appears that a lot of people suffer frequent disconnects and sub-par speed. Just look at the number of posts on the forum regarding these problems. It seems that once Vodacom has us locked into a 24 month contract, it does not give a damn about the service we get for the monthly fees paid.

2. It seems that most people calling Customer Care wait at least 15 minutes before getting through, and when we do get through, the Vodacom staff are often unable to help. This is unacceptable.

3. I think V3g is doing a great job, but I assume he is totally overloaded with work and is not able to attend to everyone's queries and problems. Who else can help if V3g is not able to?

4. About the usage, I think most of us have a "feel" for how much data e.g. 1MB is. And most of us are aware of our data usage from month-to-month. Then why do some of us experience a sudden increase in usage as reported by Vodacom, when we know our daily usage patterns have not changed?

5. We can expect new HSDPA users to join this forum all the time, they will also experience disconnect and other problems for the first time and ask questions. So even when things have been explained ad infinitum on this forum, just add a link to those topics when new users ask questions that have been answered before.

Thanks.

 

[ic]

There appears to be some misunderstanding amongst forumites that the VMC software's data usage records are somehow used by Vodacom for data usage billing, and this is an incorrect perception.

Vodacom does not collect data usage records from the VMC software that [many but not all] customers use to interface with the various different data cards. Data usage is billed according to the network systems, and not from VMC. The data usage records on vodacom4me.co.za come from the network systems and not from VMC.

Also, VMC does not display data usage as recorded by Vodacom's network systems.

Hopefully this clarifies the obvious .

 

[MyDraadloos]

There appears to be some misunderstanding amongst forumites that the VMC software's data usage records are somehow used by Vodacom for data usage billing, and this is an incorrect perception.

Vodacom does not collect data usage records from the VMC software that [many but not all] customers use to interface with the various different data cards. Data usage is billed according to the network systems, and not from VMC. The data usage records on vodacom4me.co.za come from the network systems and not from VMC.

Also, VMC does not display data usage as recorded by Vodacom's network systems.

Hopefully this clarifies the obvious .

Unfortunately the billing engine resides (most likely) close to the core network and does not account for disconnections between tower and user.

Bits and bytes are counted that are never received by user.

 

[vodacom3g]

Unfortunately the billing engine resides (most likely) close to the core network and does not account for disconnections between tower and user.

Bits and bytes are counted that are never received by user.

How do you get to that?

TCP is a connection-orientated protocol and UDP will do handshaking at the application layer. There is no 'caching' of sessions.

 

[ibanez]

I downloaded and installed Ethereal (www.ethereal.com) to find out what my notebook was upto; also shut down a bunch of services that seemed to be way to chatty. It's like living on a tight rope trying to keep within the confines of the 1GB limit.

 

[vodacom3g]

I downloaded and installed Ethereal (www.ethereal.com) to find out what my notebook was upto; also shut down a bunch of services that seemed to be way to chatty. It's like living on a tight rope trying to keep within the confines of the 1GB limit.

Have you tried Netlimiter?, gives usage per app.

 

[ic]

I downloaded and installed Ethereal (www.ethereal.com) to find out what my notebook was upto; also shut down a bunch of services that seemed to be way to chatty. It's like living on a tight rope trying to keep within the confines of the 1GB limit.

Have you tried Netlimiter?, gives usage per app.

ibanez, as v3g suggests, rather try Netlimiter as it's much easier to use & quickly figure out which applications & processes are using data than Ethereal, Netlimiter also allows you to shape down the data speed of any application or process [very handy whilst trying to get rid of persistent malware].