Mtn Coverage and service

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anti-mtn

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We were forced to go the 3g route after waiting for more than a year for Helkom to install dsl lines in our area(almost 2 years on still nothing:mad:)
So we went to our mtn branch in 3 rivers and were assured that if we have a strong signal we will get 3g coverage. So this Noob went for it-and sadly gprs is all we got.
Websites have to be opened several times and even then they only load halfway before grinding to a stop, getting my emails is a mission of note as you have to repeatedly download them and halfway through the process just stops.Calling the call center doesnt help as they keep on harping about my settings that are wrong blah blah blah.....
These people have no idea what they are doing and it is getting to the point where i can see myself using said 3g modem as a sling on some mtn salesman head- i can see myself looking into the vodacom option or even going back to the Helkom landline for internet access, pathetic as that might be.
I have started writing to consumer watch for The Star newspaper and will keep on doing so untill my cries for help are heard.It is plain and simple- the mtn network simply cannot handle the flow of data in our area and nothing seems to be done about it- as long as mtn get the money they are happy to ignore us- the customers that pay their salaries.Another Africa fat cat system it seems.... So come-on mtn and prove me wrong- show us that you do keep your clients happy- all i can do now is wait and see

The great Anti -Mtn:mad:
 
anti-mtn said:
We were forced to go the 3g route after waiting for more than a year for Helkom to install dsl lines in our area(almost 2 years on still nothing:mad:)
So we went to our mtn branch in 3 rivers and were assured that if we have a strong signal we will get 3g coverage. So this Noob went for it-and sadly gprs is all we got.
Websites have to be opened several times and even then they only load halfway before grinding to a stop, getting my emails is a mission of note as you have to repeatedly download them and halfway through the process just stops.Calling the call center doesnt help as they keep on harping about my settings that are wrong blah blah blah.....
These people have no idea what they are doing and it is getting to the point where i can see myself using said 3g modem as a sling on some mtn salesman head- i can see myself looking into the vodacom option or even going back to the Helkom landline for internet access, pathetic as that might be.
I have started writing to consumer watch for The Star newspaper and will keep on doing so untill my cries for help are heard.It is plain and simple- the mtn network simply cannot handle the flow of data in our area and nothing seems to be done about it- as long as mtn get the money they are happy to ignore us- the customers that pay their salaries.Another Africa fat cat system it seems.... So come-on mtn and prove me wrong- show us that you do keep your clients happy- all i can do now is wait and see

The great Anti -Mtn:mad:
Click to expand...

The best piece of advice for others in your situation: borrow a 3g/HSDPA modem from a friend and test signal strength from various networks before commiting to a specific provider.

What modem do you have and have you tried using the "3G only" network option?:confused:

Edit: Wecome to Mybroadband:).
 
Mtn

I have the E220 gprs/edge/3g/hsdpa modem and have tried all the settings- i also discovered that the mtn map shows that we have edge coverage but alas - nothing of the sort can be picked up.So it seems i am stuck with gprs untill my contract expires...:mad:

To top it off i dont have anyone i know that uses this type of internet connection so testing it before buying is out of the question..... well , so we learn the hard way, the best thing i can do now is to advise my friends and family to be weary of Mtn and their crappy service.

It seems Mtn will fit in nicely in our country where lacklustre service and denial is on top of everything.

Anti-mtn
 
anti-mtn said:
I have the E220 gprs/edge/3g/hsdpa modem and have tried all the settings- i also discovered that the mtn map shows that we have edge coverage but alas - nothing of the sort can be picked up.So it seems i am stuck with gprs untill my contract expires...:mad:

To top it off i dont have anyone i know that uses this type of internet connection so testing it before buying is out of the question..... well , so we learn the hard way, the best thing i can do now is to advise my friends and family to be weary of Mtn and their crappy service.

It seems Mtn will fit in nicely in our country where lacklustre service and denial is on top of everything.

Anti-mtn
Click to expand...

A longer cable and testing for the best placement helped improve signal strength in my case:).
 
Hi- my modem is already on over 2 meters of cable- stuck half-way up a wall towards the nearest window and tower.Signal strenghth is full most of the time- so i can be pretty sure that mtn is to blame for the problem.Guess i will have to wait out the contract and look elsewhere .....
 
i Had one of those brilliant days today. It started off with me getting my wallet nicked- R2000 -00 in cash gone- my credit card, bank card,my wifes bank card, drivers licence the works- now all gone. So after reporting everything missing and going through all the motions i got back home. Had to re- register for internet banking as all my other stuff was now compromised- only to sit in front of a computer reading how this site cannot be loaded due to mtn`s crappy internet service. this is after filling in forms online and halfway between the systems exchanging details or whatever it might be what they do. Not only am i worried sick as there seem to be a whole lot of money gone from the account- but to deal with this service from mtn just makes my day.just to write this took several attempts just to open this site, i got the standard bank site open after 30 minutes worth of trying.... Now we wonder why people loose it and let snakes loose in banks- hold people hostage with a toy gun to get an id book,just to mention a few.

Man i am venting now to my hearts delight- mtn- come-on and catch a wake up- you guys are useless right now!!!!!!

oh- and please do feel free to comment
One Seriaaaaasly pissed customer
 
Last edited:
We live in South Africa

Hi Anti - MTN,

I have to remind you that we live in South Africa.

In South Africa we have no service standards. Companies have no obligations to customers irrespective of how much they pay for the services. All Telecom companies have a right to print money. ( No other Individual may do this ) Telecom companies choose when and if they want to assist clients with their problems. Incompetent people work for all these companies who have no idea that they are actually selling a product to the customer. ( A little off the subject here but i want to just quote what TRAI did to a Mobile operator in India recently. 10 customers complained to TRAI regarding being billed for subscription services they did not request. TRAI investigated the matter within 30 days and asked the mobile operator to refund 3 million customers for that particular service. The refunds had to be done within 7 days But thats India with a population of 1.1 billion people Service standards are so high in India that every day without fail the mobile operators receive warnings in respect of service and if its not corrected in quick time a heavy fine is imposed.) Back in South Africa now. I signed up for an MTN Contract in December 2007. I brought the mobile phone home and it was faulty. I took it back within 7 days and a new phone issued to me. I went through this process 3 times because a batch lot of NOkia mobile phones were faulty. I have not received my mobile phone yet. I am being billed every month for that service. It is now 4 months I am waiting. Our Government is responsible for everything that goes wrong in this Country. If Sufficient competition is allowed to exist Service levels will reach the sky. Simply because we are obligated to the current operators the service will stay below ground.

I feel your anger !

Complain and dont stop complaining to all the relevant authorities.

Some day someone will Listen

I hope So !
 
Indian mobile telecommunications companies certainly have to be on their toes with more than 20 market players. That's what you call an open market.

Sadly SA will never be in a similar situation because our market is 20 times smaller :(.
 
HI There

Man, its driving me up the wall.... the service still sucks, still battling to get emails, cant get help from the help number, websites wont load, I even went to the Mtn shop to go and vent, only to be met with indifference and a slightly annoyed look because i was making a noise with other customers around.(Ironicly another lady was there that was also going through the same problems)...
Getting told that they will upgrade to 3 g in our area in the next 3 months also didnt help as i have heard that one too before.
Whom are mtn accountable to? Anyone knows?
Is there any regulator out there that deals with this stuff?
I dont want much- I will settle for gprs- as long as it works for crying out loud
 
Hi again

I have lodged my complaint with ICASA , and after battling for 3 days to get my email finally received a response.I will be notifiied within 14 days from Mtn sending their reply to them, so now i can only wait.Anyone wanting to fo the same route can try sending their complaints to the following person.'[email protected]'.
 
First up you made the wrong decision in just going and signing up a 3G contract without checking if your home/office had proper 3G signal. From your first post, the sales guy did say "if you have strong enough signal".

You don't always need a person with a 3G modem to test, a simple 3G phone could have given you a rough idea of what to expect. You should have tried with Vodacom and MTN, buy a prepaid card for both, wont cost you more then R20 including some airtime. Maybe you could have also tried iBurst - again you would have had to verify the signal quality was adequate first.

Having said that, now to resolving your issue, I suggest logging a complaint on Hellopeter. You have tried the other routes and have not had much success, so trying this might just work. Sometimes the service provider could install a Yaegi antenna, this can boost the signal in your home (a similar experience a friend had). This rollout wont happen over night you going to have to be patient.

Let us know how it goes.
 
Hi

If I walk into a shop and get told that if i get a strong signal i will get 3g i expect just that to happen. This was after telling them in what area i live as well. Are these guys not there to help you? Or to fleece you of your money?At the time there was no iburst here, nor any other viable option and the vodacom signal here was no good at the time.And things dont happen fast here in our part of the world, so waiting untill another option came past was out as my wife works in the top half of africa and the net is our way of keeping in touch.

I Have resigned myself by now to just wait out the contract and go to Adsl from telkom as they are now available in my area, plus i can get my ps3 hooked up too....

Thanks for the info on hellopeter, it will be used thanks.
Anti-Mtn
P.s.I have also considered paying my son and his friends to stand outside the local mtn shop and wave placcards around, but thought this would be too much hassle....
 
Just a tip. Buy a Vodacom sim card and use that in your modem to see how it performs. If the E220 software it more or less the same than the one I use for my E270 it should be pretty easy to do.

Vodacom has been aggressively expanding their 3G network in smaller towns in particular. My town was one of the lucky ones that got activated a couple of weeks ago. I got my modem on a MTN Topup contract and am happily using a Vodacom sim in it.
 
anti-mtn said:
Hi

If I walk into a shop and get told that if i get a strong signal i will get 3g i expect just that to happen. This was after telling them in what area i live as well.
Click to expand...

Same happend with the friend i mentioned in my previous post (btw his issues were with vodacom). His area does have 3G coverage, it just so happens that because of the lay of the land, his house and a few houses around him get a degraded signal.

Back to my friends issues, after he posted on hellopeter, the network guys wanted to come out to his property to do some tests. So expect this to happen (if MTN have similar processes to vodacom )
 
HI Thought i would give you guys an update on my situation.....After lodging a complaint with with ICASA i received a call yesterday from Mtn and they sent out two technicians to come and have a look at what is wrong and what can be done.After testing out an external antenna it was decided that congestion on the network is the culprit, and according to them i do fall in an EDGE area- although Edge could not be found with the external antenna...I would have written this last night- only my network seems to go down as soon as it starts getting dark, making any use of the internet useless, and this is happening every night now.They promised to get back to me by Friday as to what the planner for the area have to say on what will be the future plans for our area, although by now i really dont have high expectations for anything to happen.I still have emails that i cant access (2 Days by now)And so it goes- crappy network during the day and none at night-Anyways- i am keen to see what Mtn's reply will be and i will keep this updated.

Anti -Mtn.
 
I dont have any 3G coverage from mtn for the last 5 days and i cant download a thing.I get edge at 3.6 kbps and thats it.I am in durban,phoenix and now the 3G service signal seem to of died.My 3G speeds were excellent at 45 kbps.I am using my phone as a modem but now the speeds are terrible.Whats the heck going on with mtn.I want the 3G speeds i used to have.Mtns signal strength seem to be gotton weak.What happened.
 
Downloading without 3G is terrible.Someone tell me why the durban-phoenix area got no 3G service for the past week? I get no 3G network signal anymore.What the hell going on with mtn.I want my damn 3G signal back !
 
Hey hey

The technicians got hold of the mtn area planner and the feedback goes like this- 3 g will be available in the Meyerton ,Rothdene area by september and they will get Edge enabled here as soon as possible. So in the meantime i am sitting with an internet connection that is steadily getting worse, so much so that even thinking of opening more than one web page at a time is impossible, sending and receiving emails is terrible and even logging onto yahoo messenger is a very time consuming exercise- and messenger uses the smallest amount of bandwidth...

So lets see then if they keep their promise and sort this out, one can only hope

Anti-mtn
 
Hi again
Last update for this post i hope-Mtn contacted me today and wanted to know what they can do to make up for my woes... As the lady explained it turns out that i have been lied to again- mtn only plans to upgrade this area well into next year and have no plans at all for this year. So the only other option i had was to cancel my existing contract- and that will be done by mtn as soon as i give the go-ahead(gives me time to get adsl at least)...
So for all the trouble i went through i got no joy at all, and i will warn everyone i know to steer well clear of mtn.
Mtn - your lies and promises will catch up with you one day, and you do not care about your customers one bit.
Hello Telkom adsl- i hope there is more happy internet cruising with you...
Anti Mtn- Final post
 
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