Mobile operators to explain complaints

vodacom3g said:
Who is blaming the consumers? :confused:
Click to expand...

Well apart from the "consumers don't want towers" story, I have on more than one occasion spoken to call centres and/or other representatives and told that my handset must be faulty, or I'm in a bad area.
Neither of these cut it, because as I mentioned, its been happening for years, I've had several different handsets, and of course, I'm not alone in this complaint. Of course, granted this may seem like a stretch, telling me I can't make calls or my sms's are delayed because *shock* lots of other people want to make calls, amounts to blaming people who are using the network, for my not being able to use the network.

But, if it makes it easier to respond to the clear message in my message, feel free to ignore that "blame the consumers" line.
 
dominic said:
The regulations therefore do not require that operators have uptime of 95% or a 48 hour turnaround time for answering consumer complaints.
Click to expand...

Good grief, how hard is it to have a 95% uptime. Unless it's computed very strictly (like if one tower is down that counts as your whole network being malfunctioning), that would allow them 18 days of complete network darkness every year. Who wrote these SLAs? The networks themselves?

So really, does it even matter if they're formally held to a 95% SLA? It wouldn't make a lick of difference to individual dropped calls until it starts getting towards 99% and beyond.
 
V3G: I can see you are trying to defend your company. Fair enough. Errors happens. But let me paint a picture here:

You buy an icecream for R3. After the first bite it disappears. You go back to the vendor.

VENDOR: "Sorry mate, we had a high demand for icecream at that moment, so yours was dropped."
YOU: "Well can I have a refund for the rest of the icecream i didn't get to enjoy"
VENDOR: "No".

If you bill me R3 to setup the first minute of a call, then I deserve those full 60 seconds. Per second billing has helped to reduce this problem, fair enough.

Another similar scenario.

You buy an icecream for R3 at 8pm on a friday. You take a bite. It tastes like rotten milk but you really need the icecream so you finish it. That Sunday at 3pm, you buy another ice cream for R3. It's delicious. Creamy, fresh and perfect. You go to the vendor again.

YOU: "My icecream on Friday was terrible, but today it's delicious."
VENDOR: "Sorry mate. Our freezer was stuffed on Friday night so the icecreams went bad."
YOU: "Can I have a refund."
VENDOR: "No."

Why must I pay R3 for a call that is terrible, breaking up constantly and noisy when at a different time I call and get crystal clear reception? Surely I should get a discount for the bad call?

With my landline, every call goes through. It is crystal clear 99% of the time no matter where or when i call. I never get network busy signals. I never get dropped calls. And it's a few cents a minute.

This is why I waste some free minutes every month on my cellphone - poor quality that makes paying for a Telkom call worthwhile when you actually need to communicate properly.
 
ROFL, I suppose every time you get a dropped call due to LACK OF INFRASTRUCTURE, thats a free call? What a load of crap.
This is all about capacity and the networks dont want to spend money on the problem.
Lets make as much money as we can.
Sorry V3G I dont trust any of the networks, this is big business and they dont care about the users or the useless ICASA.
No I dont have proof but it is my opinion and I am sure many agree.
Why not stop pointing the fingers at everyone else and fix the problem or tell the public why it is REALLY happening? (directed at the 3 operators)
 
Based on my daily experiences there has been a noticeable degradation in the Cell C network:
1. I make daily phone calls on my cellphone. In the past two months I've had to tell the person I'm speaking to that I'll have to call them back at least once a day because of line quality. I counted seven 'bad lines' in one day during April. This happenend maybe once a week in the past. I've been make phone calls from this office for the past year so it can't be a change in location.
2. Dropped calls - at least once every three days now. Perhaps even more.
3. Undelivered sms's - at least once every two weeks. This never used to happen.

I've had the phoned checked - it's fine.
 
I have the same issues on MTN, Vodacom.
Same issues in different areas though.
I constantly switch between my Iphone - Vodacom and my SE X1 - MTN.
Quality of calls is also not great.
How in the hell can you make a call, connect and then while talking it says network busy? This is due to the cell in that area being full right? You were on an empty one and now went into a busy area. This is due to capacity no?
 
baldric said:
Well apart from the "consumers don't want towers" story, I have on more than one occasion spoken to call centres and/or other representatives and told that my handset must be faulty, or I'm in a bad area.
Neither of these cut it, because as I mentioned, its been happening for years, I've had several different handsets, and of course, I'm not alone in this complaint. Of course, granted this may seem like a stretch, telling me I can't make calls or my sms's are delayed because *shock* lots of other people want to make calls, amounts to blaming people who are using the network, for my not being able to use the network.

But, if it makes it easier to respond to the clear message in my message, feel free to ignore that "blame the consumers" line.
Click to expand...

Well, if you can help us overcome residents complaints against towers going up, I guarantee you a job tomorrow morning. ;)

I see cellhell.co.za is down but it's opening post used to carry a letter from the Chairman of the Constantia Homeowners Association stating they'll block any attempt to put towers up.

Again, I'll ask; If the networks make money from towers and there is enough demand in an area like Constantia or Clifton (clearly there is), why won't the networks NOT put up towers?

Handsets do contribute to the problem. A large % of the processing needed for you to make a call and send a SMS happens on the handset. And as the handsets become more complex this becomes more and more of a problem.

Remember the (international) outcry against the 3G iPhone when it was launched, all about its voice quality? Or the current issues with BB's and SMS's?

No-one is saying the problem only lies with the handset or the lack of coverage. Or just the network or the SP's and WASPs. Rather, it's all of these factors combined. It's not a simple architecture anymore.
 
marine1 said:
I have the same issues on MTN, Vodacom.
Same issues in different areas though.
I constantly switch between my Iphone - Vodacom and my SE X1 - MTN.
Quality of calls is also not great.
How in the hell can you make a call, connect and then while talking it says network busy? This is due to the cell in that area being full right? You were on an empty one and now went into a busy area. This is due to capacity no?
Click to expand...

Yup, most likely either you or the other person got handed over to a cell with no capacity at that time.
 
km2 said:
Good grief, how hard is it to have a 95% uptime. Unless it's computed very strictly (like if one tower is down that counts as your whole network being malfunctioning), that would allow them 18 days of complete network darkness every year. Who wrote these SLAs? The networks themselves?

So really, does it even matter if they're formally held to a 95% SLA? It wouldn't make a lick of difference to individual dropped calls until it starts getting towards 99% and beyond.
Click to expand...

Let me assure you, if the network was only 95% available, there would be few people left in Vodacom. The network easily achieves way in excess of 99%.
 
marine1 said:
I suppose its an issue, we dont want towers but we want signal.
The handsets are a problem as well as V3G pointed out.

Where to from here?
Click to expand...

It really is just an issue of continuous improvement. But it's is also a problem if everything keeps on changing. Any engineer will agree, it is much easier to improve reliability if you can keep the system static. But this is the last thing that happens on these networks. There are more changes than you would believe.
 
Gaz{M} said:
V3G: I can see you are trying to defend your company. Fair enough. Errors happens. But let me paint a picture here:

You buy an icecream for R3. After the first bite it disappears. You go back to the vendor.

VENDOR: "Sorry mate, we had a high demand for icecream at that moment, so yours was dropped."
YOU: "Well can I have a refund for the rest of the icecream i didn't get to enjoy"
VENDOR: "No".

If you bill me R3 to setup the first minute of a call, then I deserve those full 60 seconds. Per second billing has helped to reduce this problem, fair enough.

Another similar scenario.

You buy an icecream for R3 at 8pm on a friday. You take a bite. It tastes like rotten milk but you really need the icecream so you finish it. That Sunday at 3pm, you buy another ice cream for R3. It's delicious. Creamy, fresh and perfect. You go to the vendor again.

YOU: "My icecream on Friday was terrible, but today it's delicious."
VENDOR: "Sorry mate. Our freezer was stuffed on Friday night so the icecreams went bad."
YOU: "Can I have a refund."
VENDOR: "No."

Why must I pay R3 for a call that is terrible, breaking up constantly and noisy when at a different time I call and get crystal clear reception? Surely I should get a discount for the bad call?

With my landline, every call goes through. It is crystal clear 99% of the time no matter where or when i call. I never get network busy signals. I never get dropped calls. And it's a few cents a minute.

This is why I waste some free minutes every month on my cellphone - poor quality that makes paying for a Telkom call worthwhile when you actually need to communicate properly.
Click to expand...

Not really trying to defend 'my company' per se. Rather I'm talking to the complexity and challenges these monstrous networks pose, be it Vodacom or anyone else.

As someone mentioned, if you do get dropped, there is a number you can dial and then you'll get the first minute free on the next call.

While I like the idea that a bad call should be 'refunded' in some way, I'm wondering how something like this could be measured? And when do you decide it was a network problem? Were you in the basement of your building when you made the call? Where was the other person?, etc.

Most people who call me can tell if I'm on my Storm or not purely from how the call sounds. Is that a network fault or not? Maybe. Maybe not.

I guess the point is the concept is pretty valid but I'm not sure if we could build a system that could manage it.
 
vodacom3g said:
Let me assure you, if the network was only 95% available, there would be few people left in Vodacom. The network easily achieves way in excess of 99%.
Click to expand...

That's what I was thinking, but dominic's post made it sound like he was really pushing for ICASA to make that 95% regulation to be actively enforced, like that would make any kind of difference at all. Just going for enforcement of 95% is useless, because any provider would have collapsed long before then from pure market forces. They need to actually raise the SLA to a real level (carrier grade may be a bit high, but something with some teeth).
 
km2 said:
That's what I was thinking, but dominic's post made it sound like he was really pushing for ICASA to make that 95% regulation to be actively enforced, like that would make any kind of difference at all. Just going for enforcement of 95% is useless, because any provider would have collapsed long before then from pure market forces. They need to actually raise the SLA to a real level (carrier grade may be a bit high, but something with some teeth).
Click to expand...

I also though the ICASA number is very generous. ;)
 
vodacom3g said:
Well, if you can help us overcome residents complaints against towers going up, I guarantee you a job tomorrow morning. ;)

I see cellhell.co.za is down but it's opening post used to carry a letter from the Chairman of the Constantia Homeowners Association stating they'll block any attempt to put towers up.

Again, I'll ask; If the networks make money from towers and there is enough demand in an area like Constantia or Clifton (clearly there is), why won't the networks NOT put up towers?

Handsets do contribute to the problem. A large % of the processing needed for you to make a call and send a SMS happens on the handset. And as the handsets become more complex this becomes more and more of a problem.

Remember the (international) outcry against the 3G iPhone when it was launched, all about its voice quality? Or the current issues with BB's and SMS's?

No-one is saying the problem only lies with the handset or the lack of coverage. Or just the network or the SP's and WASPs. Rather, it's all of these factors combined. It's not a simple architecture anymore.
Click to expand...

Hi V3G, thanks for the response. Just one comment quickly (getting behind on my work here), if I can be perhaps a little cynical about the "why wouldn't they put up a tower?": would you *really* make more money or get more customers if you did? Seriously? Are there a whole lot of potential customers out there who have not bought cell phones yet, but are instead just waiting for a spiffy new tower in Constantia?
 
I always feel so disappointed when the cellphone networks want to give is data; sms; mms; voicemail; talking messages; phones for the blind; endless competitions and very creative ways of spending our credit, YET fail to deliver on BASIC telephony.

This is definitely a FAIL.
 
Sackboy said:
I always feel so disappointed when the cellphone networks want to give is data; sms; mms; voicemail; talking messages; phones for the blind; endless competitions and very creative ways of spending our credit, YET fail to deliver on BASIC telephony.

This is definitely a FAIL.
Click to expand...

Yeah, maybe if they stopped spamming me with MMS's there would be reduced load on the towers! :p
Ok but seriously: please stop spamming me with MMS's.... :(:(
 
:rolleyes:
baldric said:
Hi V3G, thanks for the response. Just one comment quickly (getting behind on my work here), if I can be perhaps a little cynical about the "why wouldn't they put up a tower?": would you *really* make more money or get more customers if you did? Seriously? Are there a whole lot of potential customers out there who have not bought cell phones yet, but are instead just waiting for a spiffy new tower in Constantia?
Click to expand...

The problem with these areas is not necessarily that you need new customers to make the new towers profitable. The people already have handsets but cannot use them in certain areas due to lack of coverage.

Take the Constantia example. One can assume that every household in that area will have multiple handsets. And they'll use them when they are at the office, the shops, etc.

But when they're home (a fair % of the day) they cannot use them. Thus they don't make calls and there's the revenue loss.

The Big Bay development down here is another prime example. Massive new complexes are going up that will attract thousands of new residents. They all want to make calls and clearly the infrastructure there won't support so many new users. But getting new sites approved turns out to be a nightmare. Everyone wants coverage but they all want the tower in the neighboring estate, not theirs.....:rolleyes:
 
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