Problems with cellphone calls explained

Who do you think should take responsibility for cellular network problems?

  • The cellular operators

    Votes: 33 36.7%

  • Mostly Telkom and Eskom

    Votes: 9 10.0%

  • ICASA for poor regulation

    Votes: 4 4.4%

  • All companies involved

    Votes: 44 48.9%
  • Total voters
    90
Grey imports (like those chinese clone phones) that don't always adhere to the GSM standards.
 
guess its only now with the public issues that its become a "big problem" that the networks want to address, and blame.
I don't think it really bothered them too much, even if your call gets cut and you gotta make another call, they still get their munny, now 2 calls billed. Especially nice with the 1st full minute billed, even if u got cut off after few secs. :p
But lets hope they fix it
 
I actually think this poll is not going to work.

To the question "Who must take responsibility for the network failures" there can only be one answer: The networks. No-one needs a poll for that.

BUT the question as to what are the biggest causes of network failures is a different matter and on this list transmission and power tops the list by far with transmission accounting for more than half and power half of that again.

People seem to think the networks are just trying to pass the buck when trying to explain why there are failures. There's a big difference between explaining and not taking responsibility.

If the intent was to just pass the buck, you'd expect the networks not to do anything about transmission and power issues, right?

And clearly this is not the case. Billions of Rands are being spent to build own infrastructure and millions and millions are being spent on building power generation capabilities. Go to a place like the Vodacom Data Center and you'll see generators to back up the generators! Every tower is getting upgraded UPS's and bigger sites their own generators.

We carry so much diesel nowadays that we've had to supply some of the other networks when they ran dry!

I spend a lot of time on this forum explaining why things happen. This I see as an important function so everyone can understand. But the intent will never be to say we're not going to take responsibility and not do something about it.
 
Blamestorm

I did customer service training with an international company once. They said that "The customer does not care what the technicalities of the service falure was, just that it should be fixed ASAP". Giving me all the reasons does not fix the problem, it merely makes you look more incompetant. Just fix it, and say sorry. Not blame Telkom, cable thieves, the weather, mischevious gnomes etc etc.

Dropped calls, late sms delivery, call quality etc etc is NOT NEW. It has always been like this. Only when David o'Sullivan on talk 702 started complaining was something done. If your money disapeared from your bank account, and the bank says "It could be theives, or maybe some-one cloned your card, the teller could have taken it ... there are a lot of factors. Well look into it at some point" what would your reaction be.
 
boanergesza1 said:
I did customer service training with an international company once. They said that "The customer does not care what the technicalities of the service falure was, just that it should be fixed ASAP". Giving me all the reasons does not fix the problem, it merely makes you look more incompetant. Just fix it, and say sorry. Not blame Telkom, cable thieves, the weather, mischevious gnomes etc etc.
Click to expand...
I agree, but I also believe people are more understating when they realise things are not always under your control.

Again, explaining causes is not NOT taking responsibility. As I explained above VC is spending HUGE to address these problems.

And what else can I then talk about on the forum? :)
 
vodacom3g said:
About normal size, but it turned out the guy was standing close to the tower when his mobile rang and he accidentally pulled out a hand grenade and 'answered' it.......
Click to expand...

lol... now you just pulling my leg! Was this in the Congo?
 
It sounds like they're pulling excuses from "BOFH excuse of the day"...
 
V3G is one tough mofo. Congrats on all your answers on the forums over the past few days. You sure know how to give decent feedback. I mean that with no sarcasm at all.

I just hope your bosses sit up, take notice and start to improve things asap before it gets out of hand.
 
Garyvdh said:
lol... now you just pulling my leg! Was this in the Congo?
Click to expand...

Not, not really. But it's not hard to imagine......:D

There is a complex protocol running between the handset and tower (and backend systems) and as you know with a half-baked implementation of any protocol, it can cause serious disruptions to the systems involved.

So it's not hard to imagine that a handset that's not well designed and approved can confuse a tower no end.
 
vodacom3g said:
I agree, but I also believe people are more understating when they realise things are not always under your control.

Again, explaining causes is not NOT taking responsibility. As I explained above VC is spending HUGE to address these problems.

And what else can I then talk about on the forum? :)
Click to expand...

LOL, agreed. At least a Vodacom rep is here on the forums, MTN is sadly lacking. Maybe a good thing, since at the moment im feeling like using the cellphone-tower-destruction-phone on their offices.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X