No network for 6 hours a day

w1z4rd

w1z4rd

Karmic Sangoma
Joined
Jan 17, 2005
Messages
52,146
Reaction score
8,340
Location
127.0.0.1
This is getting a bit frustrating now. I live in a small village that is an internet black hole, where our only providers are the mobile providers.

Every day with loadshedding both Vodacom and MTN go down. So not only do we have no power for 6 hours a day, but we also have no telecoms.

Is there anyone we can contact at vodacom to report towers that down have proper batteries?
 
small village hey?
on the plus side you dont have to fight through 200 taxis a day like i do to get to work

on a serious note the towers are doing their best but due to the thieving in this country they simply cannot have every single tower up and running 24/7. This is Africa, just get used to it and adapt :thumbsup:

Image result for south african taxis
 
When entire communities survive on them, there needs to be a better policy than "put up and shut up".
 
ghoti said:
When entire communities survive on them, there needs to be a better policy than "put up and shut up".
Click to expand...

I will make sure the president knows about your plight before the end of the day and will make sure this is treated as a matter of the utmost urgency!

If it's a small town, there is probably not a lot of incentive to replace batteries that keeps getting stolen as the profit must be crap there.
 
R4ziel said:
I will make sure the president knows about your plight before the end of the day and will make sure this is treated as a matter of the utmost urgency!
Click to expand...
Your oscar winning performance aside. Is there not someone we can contact to report tower issues to?
 
ghoti said:
This is getting a bit frustrating now. I live in a small village that is an internet black hole, where our only providers are the mobile providers.

Every day with loadshedding both Vodacom and MTN go down. So not only do we have no power for 6 hours a day, but we also have no telecoms.

Is there anyone we can contact at vodacom to report towers that down have proper batteries?
Click to expand...
Maybe try and determine on who's land the towers actually are. The owner or owners, should have all the contact details of the people at Vodacom and/or MTN that does the maintenance on these towers.

At least I would think they should?

Worth a try perhaps?
 
Change providers?

When load shedding happens my side MTN goes down telkom is fine. I have dual sim and just use telkom during this time.
 
ghoti said:
This is getting a bit frustrating now. I live in a small village that is an internet black hole, where our only providers are the mobile providers.

Every day with loadshedding both Vodacom and MTN go down. So not only do we have no power for 6 hours a day, but we also have no telecoms.

Is there anyone we can contact at vodacom to report towers that down have proper batteries?
Click to expand...

We have the exact same problem - I'm near Walkerville in JHB South and when the power goes off, that's it with the signal, goes completely dead. To make matters worse, Eskom is also doing this unofficial thing called 'loss reduction', which affects Walkerville and towns south of it - they turn everyone off for 4, 5 hours at at time, and that also results in a dead signal. So between load shedding and loss reduction, some days it's complete chaos. I've tried multiple times to tell Vodacom that their back ups are not working, but I might as well be speaking Klingon to them. The batteries are either dead or have been stolen, and I think as someone else pointed out, we're too isolated for them to really bother too much about fixing the issue.
 
I'm pretty sure that Vodacom know that the site goes down for six hours a day - all the operators have surveillance centres that monitors everything from battery performance to network throughput. With loadshedding, though, VRLA batteries meant for floating are suddently cycling, often with not enough time between cycles to recharge them. So even the batteries not stolen are getting hammered. Lithiums may do better, but only if the rectifiers have sufficient capacity to recharge them between loadshedding times.
 
If it is a high risk area they actually remove the batteries before they get stolen. Nothing you can do about it. Especially if you are in remote areas...
 
Cav5034 said:
If it is a high risk area they actually remove the batteries before they get stolen. Nothing you can do about it. Especially if you are in remote areas...
Click to expand...
Low risk area with almost no crime.
 
Just a note. With higher levels of loadshedding like what we are currently experiencing, even with batteries in the tower, there may actually not be sufficient time for the battery bank to fully recharge.
 
craiglotter said:
Just a note. With higher levels of loadshedding like what we are currently experiencing, even with batteries in the tower, there may actually not be sufficient time for the battery bank to fully recharge.
Click to expand...
Truth. Vodacom and MTN tired of throwing money away on thieves that steal and **** up towers.

Communities need to stand together and stop this crap. Name and shame thieves who **** it up for everyone.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X