wordhog
Active Member
Cell C is only GPRS/Edge in our area - actually there's no Cell C 3G within more 3 hours drive of us.
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Massive Vodacom data bills
- Thread starter gizmoza
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Cell C is only GPRS/Edge in our area - actually there's no Cell C 3G within more 3 hours drive of us.
wordhog
Active Member
Sorry but what you're saying is that you think one of us deliberately and knowingly signed on in the night owl period to make use of the line. We have uncapped ADSL lines - why on earth would we manually switch over to the 3G and download Gigs of data through that instead?! The only time the line would have switched over automatically was when our Telkom lines all went down (which, as I said, was 20 minutes in Feb). Perhaps you'd like to come and examine our network configuration since you obviously don't believe me.
Since Vodacom clearly didn't come and sit at a computer on our network and download the stuff for us, the only feasible explanation is that there is a glitch in your billing/log system.
Since it appears we have no way of proving this to you and you apparently don't provide logs for us to check what you're telling us, we'll just have to give up and let ourselves be shafted. Or see you in court. Whatever. Like I said, this sucks.
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Hi Wordhog
I will reply to the email address you sent via pm and also send the internet connections that took place.
wordhog
Active Member
Thanks, I'd appreciate that.
Are you serious? The last time I requested this from vodacom u was told this information can ONLY be provided with a court order, so basically my unexplained data usage is my problem and we know you won't go through all that trouble so sorry. On the other hand, even if voda does provide that information, it is still impossible to prove that you did not use that data. So guess who's losing again? I will never take a data contract from any of the cell providers (unless they offer fixed price uncapped maybe
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The information sent is not the ip /URL information , it is basically the same as the itemised billing except that it shows the start and end times of the connections.
I see. So technically not of too much use, but I guess some people might find it helpful. May I ask why you refuse to give out more detailed billing to customers? It really appears like voda is trying to hide something, unless I'm missing the point here? It's possible that software is downloading in the background without your knowledge, and the only way to find the culprit is by a detailed URL log. Yes, you can install net monitoring software on a pc, but not always on a smartphone
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I urge you to have a look at the postings of garp , he has some interesting comments on URL/ IP addresses.
jannievanzyl
Telecoms expert
Technically, it's a question of the amount of processing and storage required. It's one thing tracking a few users' data-streams in real time, especially at layer-3 and above.
But it's a different animal altogether if there a nearly 10 million concurrent IP connections to the network, with many of them having multiple sessions open.
Currently, your data usage is counted at layer-2, i.e. we can see how many bytes you've sent and received. Exactly what you did with those bytes becomes not only a privacy issue but a massive technical challenge.
Something I've thought about is to do a service type of solution here, i.e. if you see a high bill, you request/authorise a trace and then we turn on monitoring on your specific connection for a period.
But to do it pro-actively for every single IP connection is impossible.
Is it possible to move to prepaid if you have a contract? Technically paying just for the phone? I would prefer to buy a once-off data bundle with prepaid airtime and monitor my bandwidth usage. I have also downloaded the dataman app for iPhone to monitor how much of data is being used between wifi and cellphone provider. I am not sure if Vodocam distinguishes between the two or is it using a combination of 3G and wifi?
Edge is just not fast enough...
Edge is just not fast enough...
Dom1n8tr1x
Expert Member
Yes you can move to top up with your next upgrade, did it with my Vodacom and Mtn contracts.
Just astonishing. Vodacom charges customers thousands and the response is "try to be more responsible."
This after saying that the data was used over a 2 day period. Show me anybody that leaves a pc on for 2 whole days. More than that I know from personal experience that it is practically impossible for Vodacom to keep a connection going for even half a day let alone 2 whole ones. With their 20GB promotion I couldn't even use it in the early morning without it disconnecting many times and I am not the only one complaining about that. It convinced me to never use them for internet again as I struggled to use it despite having the stuff to download. No scratch that, it was actually easy to use with all the disconnects and redownloads.
Either many customers are wrong here or Vodacom is. Occam's razor tells us which one is the most likely. Has Vodacom ever considered there might be a bug in their system that they never found because they just refuse to investigate it in cases like these? Instead they just charge people the full amount of R2/M. I hope the CPA will sort this out or at least force them to provide real time billing with a cut-off.
This after saying that the data was used over a 2 day period. Show me anybody that leaves a pc on for 2 whole days. More than that I know from personal experience that it is practically impossible for Vodacom to keep a connection going for even half a day let alone 2 whole ones. With their 20GB promotion I couldn't even use it in the early morning without it disconnecting many times and I am not the only one complaining about that. It convinced me to never use them for internet again as I struggled to use it despite having the stuff to download. No scratch that, it was actually easy to use with all the disconnects and redownloads.
Either many customers are wrong here or Vodacom is. Occam's razor tells us which one is the most likely. Has Vodacom ever considered there might be a bug in their system that they never found because they just refuse to investigate it in cases like these? Instead they just charge people the full amount of R2/M. I hope the CPA will sort this out or at least force them to provide real time billing with a cut-off.
One thing I can tell you. If they find a bug in their system which is difficult to correct, they won't tell you that. They would rather ammend their T&C to the existing contracts silently to cover their asses. And they fail to inform customers about changes. Examples: see: roll-over policy.
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From that I can only conclude Vodacom bill for "non real time" used. Bl@@dy thieves are they, why should they do anything? they are racking in the millions a month for these customer "oversights". The fools do not accept that thy are bankrupting and wrecking families with this legal theft of hard earned cash. I wonder how many people committed suicide due to this sudden financial burdens?
I know Vodacom is not alone in this thievery practice.