Not even GPRS any more

W

wordhog

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I thought we'd cracked the problem last year but it's back again and nobody at Vodacom seems to be listening... :mad:

I'm living in the sticks just outside Phalaborwa, Limpopo. We are connected to Lulekani-2 tower, which has GPRS only. We can't "see" any other towers where we live. The signal for Lulekani-2 is usually pretty good - 3 or 4 bars. This is even without using the booster antenna that Vodacom kindly installed when we were having so many problems last year. BUT we are getting absolutely NO connectivity at all about 99% of the time in the last 3 weeks. One day it was working (albeit slowly, even for GPRS) and the next day it stopped - and it's never really come back. Every now and then I can connect for a few milliseconds, then it drops the connection again. Most of the time, I can't connect at all. If it stays up for a couple of minutes, the upload speed is < 5kbps and the download speed is usually < 1kbps. Not enough to do anything at all, certainly not download emails.

This is on two different computers - mine (laptop with Vista Home, all the patches) and my husband's (desktop with XP, all the patches). We're using a Huawei E220 with plenty of juice from the USB. It has the latest firmware and we've tried various dashboards, currently on VMC Lite 3.1. whatever-it-is that you can download from the Vodacom site. Neither of us installed anything new between it working and not working. My husband is a techie so he's looked at all kinds of settings on both computers. We've experimented, we've screamed and shouted, we've whispered encouragingly... nothing. But it all works fine if we go to town - where there are several 3G towers.

I've reported it to Vodacom 3 times now and each time they just ignore me and then eventually (like 4 days later) they phone me and say "Is it working yet?". Doh!! Of course it isn't - you didn't DO anything!!!

The first time the guy blamed me for having the wrong computer, the wrong setup, the wrong everything. I made a few changes just to shut him up (even though I knew he was talking balls) and phoned back again. This time they were sympathetic but they still didn't do anything.

I've made it clear that I currently have NO alternative to this useless connection and that I rely on it for my business. We also don't have a Telkom line for the last month (cable theft) so I can't dial up, and I can't get ADSL this far from the exchange as a long term solution. And we don't have iburst, and the other cell networks use the same Lulekani-2 tower, only they have even worse signal. (I tried buying a PAYG MTN SIM card just in case - it was even worse).

Oh! And I tried using the SIM card in my Nokia N73 - same result. It used to work OK (again, both computers, two different N73s).

So. What do I do now? Who will help me please? :confused: I'm so sick of this useless excuse for a contract that I'm seriously considering selling my smallholding and moving to somewhere that has Telkom ADSL and 3G coverage - must have both, in case someone steals the cable again!!!!

PS I forgot to say, I'm going home from town now so I won't see any replies until some time tomorrow when I come back to civilisation.

PPS Yes, V3G, it's me again - just when you thought it was safe... :)
 
Last edited:
wordhog said:
I thought we'd cracked the problem last year but it's back again and nobody at Vodacom seems to be listening... :mad:

I'm living in the sticks just outside Phalaborwa, Limpopo. We are connected to Lulekani-2 tower, which has GPRS only. We can't "see" any other towers where we live. The signal for Lulekani-2 is usually pretty good - 3 or 4 bars. This is even without using the booster antenna that Vodacom kindly installed when we were having so many problems last year. BUT we are getting absolutely NO connectivity at all about 99% of the time in the last 3 weeks. One day it was working (albeit slowly, even for GPRS) and the next day it stopped - and it's never really come back. Every now and then I can connect for a few milliseconds, then it drops the connection again. Most of the time, I can't connect at all. If it stays up for a couple of minutes, the upload speed is < 5kbps and the download speed is usually < 1kbps. Not enough to do anything at all, certainly not download emails.

This is on two different computers - mine (laptop with Vista Home, all the patches) and my husband's (desktop with XP, all the patches). We're using a Huawei E220 with plenty of juice from the USB. It has the latest firmware and we've tried various dashboards, currently on VMC Lite 3.1. whatever-it-is that you can download from the Vodacom site. Neither of us installed anything new between it working and not working. My husband is a techie so he's looked at all kinds of settings on both computers. We've experimented, we've screamed and shouted, we've whispered encouragingly... nothing. But it all works fine if we go to town - where there are several 3G towers.

I've reported it to Vodacom 3 times now and each time they just ignore me and then eventually (like 4 days later) they phone me and say "Is it working yet?". Doh!! Of course it isn't - you didn't DO anything!!!

The first time the guy blamed me for having the wrong computer, the wrong setup, the wrong everything. I made a few changes just to shut him up (even though I knew he was talking balls) and phoned back again. This time they were sympathetic but they still didn't do anything.

I've made it clear that I currently have NO alternative to this useless connection and that I rely on it for my business. We also don't have a Telkom line for the last month (cable theft) so I can't dial up, and I can't get ADSL this far from the exchange as a long term solution. And we don't have iburst, and the other cell networks use the same Lulekani-2 tower, only they have even worse signal. (I tried buying a PAYG MTN SIM card just in case - it was even worse).

Oh! And I tried using the SIM card in my Nokia N73 - same result. It used to work OK (again, both computers, two different N73s).

So. What do I do now? Who will help me please? :confused: I'm so sick of this useless excuse for a contract that I'm seriously considering selling my smallholding and moving to somewhere that has Telkom ADSL and 3G coverage - must have both, in case someone steals the cable again!!!!

PS I forgot to say, I'm going home from town now so I won't see any replies until some time tomorrow when I come back to civilisation.

PPS Yes, V3G, it's me again - just when you thought it was safe... :)
Click to expand...

I did not keep your details, so won't you mail me again?
 
Maybe some of the WiFi gurus here can help you configure and set up a wireless link to civilisation. There are companies that specialise in providing wifi to rural locations - ask around at the co-op/computer shop in the nearest town?
 
remember that your connection also depends on how many other people are also using data connected to that tower. so if there are twenty people in the area all using data... you will have very little bandwidth. :(
 
spacemuis said:
Maybe some of the WiFi gurus here can help you configure and set up a wireless link to civilisation. There are companies that specialise in providing wifi to rural locations - ask around at the co-op/computer shop in the nearest town?
Click to expand...

Thanks Spacemuis, but you've clearly never been to Phalaborwa - my husband is the only person in town that actually knows one end of a computer from the other (this, despite there being three computer support businesses).

We tried the local place that offered wi-fi when we first moved here but they spent 6 months making excuses (and taking our money) before admitting that they couldn't make it work (even with my husband's substantial help - including erecting a tall mast and running tests for them) and then refused to give our money back for another 6 months. Our problem is that we can't actually "see" a 3G tower where we are and the nearest tower is in a township and heavily oversubscribed for GPRS as well as voice.

Wimax would be ideal, but there is nobody licensed to operate it in our area and my husband (who wants to operate it for the municipality) is getting serious uphill from the municipality - doesn't look like we'll get a license within the next 2 years, if at all.

All in all, Vodacom is our only hope - which makes it even more exasperating when it goes wrong :(

But thanks for trying ;)
 
Garyvdh said:
remember that your connection also depends on how many other people are also using data connected to that tower. so if there are twenty people in the area all using data... you will have very little bandwidth. :(
Click to expand...

Indeed. That's a lot of our problem. So, V3G, what are you guys going to do about it? :D
 
Mr V3G, you're a star. I haven't got a fixed problem yet, but I finally got a call from someone who sees that there *IS* a problem and has vowed to sort it out for me. And apologised, nogal. I hope to report a solution soon :)
 
The guy that looks after the tower near me has done something and IT NOW WORKS!!!! Yaaaaayyyyy!! It's only taken me nearly a month to convince someone that the tower was the problem... Good news is that this guy has given me his cellphone number and says I can call him any time that I suspect there's a problem on the tower again :) And we're getting an upgrade from GPRS to Edge in the next month/week :) And we're getting an upgrade from Edge (to 3G? HSDPA? dunno) some time in the financial year :) :) :)

I'm a very happy bunny at last :) Thanks to V3G for setting the ball rolling.
 
wordhog said:
The guy that looks after the tower near me has done something and IT NOW WORKS!!!! Yaaaaayyyyy!! It's only taken me nearly a month to convince someone that the tower was the problem... Good news is that this guy has given me his cellphone number and says I can call him any time that I suspect there's a problem on the tower again :) And we're getting an upgrade from GPRS to Edge in the next month/week :) And we're getting an upgrade from Edge (to 3G? HSDPA? dunno) some time in the financial year :) :) :)

I'm a very happy bunny at last :) Thanks to V3G for setting the ball rolling.
Click to expand...

Cool, now don't break it again. ;)
 
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