Problems in Durban?

I hope my office in Pinetown performs better on Monday. All I can say is well done cellc, finally decent speed at a decent price.
 
So back home, seems the 3G signal starts degrading about 500m from home and dies completely at my driveway! Note this is in a "4Gs" area according to the coverage map. Elsewhere getting good speeds when driving around and testing. Not too worried as have adsl at home and got the cellc for when out and about. Gonna mount the router in my van and have a mobile hotspot!!
 
dammit, i wish i'd read this thread earlier.. I bought one of the 5Gig packages this afternoon. Only connects via edge though. I live in hillcrest but checked the area coverage map before buying and my area should be covered. How do i change the modem settings to connect via 3G only..
any other suggestions about what to do?
 
Is there anyone here from Westville? If yes, how's the performance?
 
Is there anyone here from Westville? If yes, how's the performance?

I've tested my 5gig stick in Westville, at the bottom of Jan Hofmeyer and it worked nicely, i was getting about 4Mb down, although when I bought it at the Pavilion Cell C store they only got edge which was a bit of a fail...
 
What blows my mind is how much better the coverage is in my house, on voda i could not sit in my lounge and use my pc, i never ever got 3G and even GPRS was a problem.

NOW, i can sit in my lounge under a slab of concrete and cruse at 10mb/sec...WHHHOOOOO HOO
 
I've tested my 5gig stick in Westville, at the bottom of Jan Hofmeyer and it worked nicely, i was getting about 4Mb down, although when I bought it at the Pavilion Cell C store they only got edge which was a bit of a fail...

Thanks, ameyero. Much appreciated.
 
What blows my mind is how much better the coverage is in my house, on voda i could not sit in my lounge and use my pc, i never ever got 3G and even GPRS was a problem.

NOW, i can sit in my lounge under a slab of concrete and cruse at 10mb/sec...WHHHOOOOO HOO

Yeah, Umhlanga is also great - too good, in fact, someone accidently flattened my 5GB cap in a few hours :-(

Fortunately I also bought a 2GB, now that will have to last for the rest of the month !
 
Fortunately I also bought a 2GB, now that will have to last for the rest of the month !

For R999, that 2Gb/pm is a really good add on compared to the R390/Gb OOB rate.

I also have it as my "I must really slow down now" backup :)
 
Briefly, bought the 2gb/month sim and a Vodaphone R201 router at the Pav yesterday. (Yes it does wcdma 900.) Connected at the Pav quickly whick seemed at hsdpa speeds. Come home and despite very red area, no sign of anything but edge, on either router or htc desire. Been driving around kloof/hillcrest and no signs of any hsdpa network.

So is there a local tower problem or is the coverage map very optomistic?

Which area is your home in?
 
Ok guys heres my speedtest and my set-up pains.

I'm in Umlazi Section V (few km's south of durban, its a giant informal settlement with no adsl access)

I went to Cell C Megacity in Umlazi, of note is that they are not listed as an official cell c store selling the product. When I rocked up the Salesman warned me that I would be thier first customer to try it. I agreed anyway as I work nearby.
Signed up on Tuesday and was told it would work within 20 min. i went home and tested it. It did not work, this is what happened: I could connect to tthe cell c network but I could only view the cell c website and could not check my balance or browse the rest of the internet. I got the following message when I checked my balance: " account locked new customers must RiCA first".

next day: Wed, I called the cell c shop. they said they would look into it. Got a call 1 hour later that from thier side they had done everything correctly (the sim was RiCA registered)and they had called tech support who told me that cell c had made a mistake and sent out some data bundles with some sims that were not correctly "loaded" and that they had loaded the service and I should try again in 24 hours.

24 hours later: Thursday, still not working same problem. Called the shop and they said they will follow it up. They said that cell c tech said they had done something further and i should wait a further 24 hours. later that night a tech phones and spends 1 hour trouble shooting it on my pc via the phone. very nice bloke. he told me that he could not figure out what was wrong and that I should take it to the cell shop to change the modem for a new one. He said I should not log the out of bundle fault as it take 14 days to sort out but with the swap I can test the package in 1 day. He also warned me that its beneficial to log an out of bundle fault as than the 7 working day rule apples and the return policy extends to cover the time spent checking in the out of bundle failure.

Friday: (today) . The shop phone cell c to confirm the swap and they agree to swap the modem for a new one. The sales person told me that the old sim would still work but one sales person suggested me I should test it first. tried to load airtime and it did not work. they immediately swapped the entire package and said they will sort it out with the cell c main office.

5 hours later I'm typing this to you guys on my new HSPA+ connection. So it seems even the sim cards can have software problems, if yours is slow just take it to them and ask them to test it at the shop and they can swap it and load the same number on the new sim.

Customer satisfaction: very satisfied, lotsa teething priblems but everyone was very helpful in trying to solve my problem. Much better than my issues with mtn and vodacom.

Gaming ( my reason for buying it): Just enjoyed 2 games of lag-less Heroes of newerth and 1 game of lag-less Gears of war2 on my xbox 360 with a friend from eastern cape. My light is permanently Cyan. hope this helps. Remember gaming is not about speed (to a certain extent) but about maintaining a permanent connection with no dropping of the connection (lag spikes). I've tried all 3 networks (mtn, vodacom and neotel but nothing comes close to this service).

I will test it in Shakaskraal (5 Km's north of ballito and will let you guys know if it works)
 
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dammit, i wish i'd read this thread earlier.. I bought one of the 5Gig packages this afternoon. Only connects via edge though. I live in hillcrest but checked the area coverage map before buying and my area should be covered. How do i change the modem settings to connect via 3G only..
any other suggestions about what to do?

Phone customer care and find out if you really covered. remember it might be the sim if its the new 128K ones.
 
Waterfall Durban

Has anyone in Waterfall used this product? Autopage in Waterfall said it may not work and wanted to sell me the Vodacom USB product.
 
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