Sentech after 5+ years...

W

wheunis

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 7, 2008
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Nelspruit
(Im truely holding thumbs and praying that somehow a Sentech technician or rep with sufficient gray-matter can add some insight to my possibly half-empty thoughts)

I remember when Sentech first came to my area (Nelspruit). I remember how the reps flooded the mall and shopping centres. I remember all the promises made.

Where are we after 5 years of Sentech? (I think theyve been here in Nelspruit now almost 3 years).

We still only have 1 or 2 towers (to my knowledge its 1).
That one tower is serviced by absolutely nobody (at least not on a regular basis i know of).
Whenever we have any sort of problem on the tower, it takes days to even get a technician to show up! (yes i can verify this, 37 hours to technician response on last downtime...:mad:)

Heck, we dont even have a sticky in the forum like Durban, JHB, etc has. lol.

Where exactly is the Sentech train going in general?
What is happening to these "abandoned" towers like Nelspruit? (i say abandoned because nobody gives a hoot about it)

Sentech was supposed to "reshape the digital landscape" and offer us a way out from the conventional broadband solutions. Today, they are one of the most expensive internet providers around, as well as having nothing real to offer as a wireless provider. :(
As far as being a wireless provider goes, i would rather use MTN or Voda. Wireless is not wireless if it restricts itself to major cities only. At least not after 5 years... Besides that, MTN/Voda/etc is more than 50% cheaper than the Sentech Flexi packages, and offer MUCH wider coverage, even if it is only GPRS/EDGE. (do i need to mention that i actually get less latency for gaming on EDGE than i do on my sentech?):eek:

Im still on one of the old Sentech contracts (uncapped, 256, blah). Apparently, i wont be able to renew this contract anyway once it expires in March. Sentech isnt really doing a lot to keep me as a customer. :(

Lets look at their own goals and statements as taken from ther website.

Vision
“Sentech will be a leader in providing world-class broadband communications”
Click to expand...
Its been 5+ years, and Im still not seeing it

Mission
6 imperatives form the Sentech Mission:
  • Establish a unified next generation broadband digital platform to provide world-class communication solutions and services to our customers
  • Define our market niches in which we will be the recognised brand leader
  • Create and market innovative, value-adding products that satisfy the needs of our customers
  • Align our internal processes and systems to enable us to be customer centric, taking cognisance of regulatory boundaries and fair accounting practices
  • Encourage innovation, superior performance and self-development of our staff, who should be shareholders in a learning and caring company
  • Earn market related returns and attract additional shareholders and investors to enable capital investment in order to grow the business
Click to expand...
World class... lol, yeah right.
Brand leader... rofl, if you say so.
Value added products... uhm, where? what? i dont see any. :confused:
Customer centric... go ahead, call their hotline with a technical issue.
Superior performance of staff... uhm, reminder of 37 hours technician response time to a TOWER
Market related, grow business... i dont know of any growth happening. on the contrary, they are suffering a huge customer loss to my knowledge.

Im not even going to adress their values, as i dont even see it as valid in any way.

Someone, anyone. Adress these issues. Is sentech just another dying donkey? Is sentech even going to bother with TRYING to get back on track?

Truely, a sad state of affairs have begun, and probably has been going on right from the start, for Sentech.
:sick:
 
my contract is ending on the 28 of feb in not even going to consider staying with them..
 
My classic package contract ended in November and I am still with them on a month to month basis.... been running reasonably well too. But, I agree they really need to relook the stuff they are saying, maybe the ASA should step in.
 
I left sentech a year and a half ago to go to iburst. Even though iburst is now a steaming pile of ***, it's STILL marginally better than sentech.

I'm moving over to ADSL once this iburst contract expires.
 
Donovan, thats the best thing you can do. Was on Sentech, then they changed their packages and I promptly left. Moved over to Iworst, which deteriorated in a matter of months. Canceled Iburst, and did an ADSL self install which took 2 days. Was the best move I ever made.
 
The story so far...

Yes well ahem - Sentech and their partners NoWire. What to say here?!!

Firstly, a little history on NoWire. NoWire started out in 2003 with great promises to customers and resellers alike. Dozens of resellers joined them and they were made amazing promises etc. The resellers got selling and the customers started rolling in. NoWire were always Sentech's no1 VAP (Value added partner) outselling others like Nashua and IS many fold over.

But then, they decided to appoint their own internal sales team and their focus on their resellers was lost. Then iBurst appeared on the scene and with Sentech not rolling out more towers and problems on the MyWireless network resellers started getting fed up. Who is going to stick around when you get calls from irate customers at all hours of the night who cannot connect because for the umpteenth time there is an issue on the network that has has caused them to be disconnected and all this for R25 per month comm?! And so resellers stopped selling MyWireless in favour of iBurst and later 3G which offered less problems and often for more commission.

NoWire exacerbated the situation by cancelling some of their resellers' contracts though to be fair, it was deserved in many cases. Only the very determined and serious remained behind. Sales at NoWire plummeted as their internal sales team showed that they were no match for determined resellers working for themselves (as opposed to employees with sometimes limited IT knowledge).

Then NoWire started closing down regional offices - first Durban and Nelspruit (though there never was a real regional office there). Then even JHB followed suit leaving disgruntled and frustrated customers having nowhere to go if they required hardware or face to face assistance.

As new services became available and the competitors improved their offerings, even those resellers that NoWire still had started seeing serious declines in their sales and eventually NoWire cancelled the last remaining resellers that they had.

Bear in mind that NoWire is to all intents and purposes Sentech's face - much of the support and hardware sales are done by NoWire, closing down the regional offices was very damaging for customer relations.

I have said much about NoWire but I do believe that if Sentech has been sharp, NoWire would have been in a much better position. Sentech had a huge head start on iBurst and the 3G networks and blew it. They started out picking a relatively obscure technology (though iBurst seem to have done the same) and then backed this up with packages that changed their terms half way through (uncapped to capped), poor service, poor support and no rollout. Furthermore communication between Sentech and NoWire was abysmal which made things even worse. Since 2006 there has been almost no marketing, no changes in packages, huge staff losses at Sentech and NoWire and all the signs of a business in free fall.


So where do we stand now? We have a network that is seriously underfunded and under maintained that has the poorest coverage by some way in comparison to the others (3G, iBurst). They have limited hardware or support outlets (PTA and CPT are the only options as far as I can tell) and a customer base that is now probably under 2000 and declining every month. Telephonic support is limited particularly in the case of NoWire clients who have access to support facilities only during office hours with a limited service after hours until 11pm if I am not mistaken. Weekends are also on a limited support basis. I am not sure about Sentech's support hours - it might be better.

The only customers that are still signing up are those that are either having the wool pulled over their eyes, those who are attracted by the low cost of the modems on CERTAIN very low-end packages, those that have picked up modems for next to nothing from an old cancelled customer or those that intend using the service for spamming purposes (sentech has no restrictions on the outgoing mail server).

What can we learn from this?
1) A parastatal is highly unlikely to be able to compete in a market such as this which has been opened up to competition from private companies. I cannot think of 1 example where a parastatal competes (unless as in the case of Telkom they have been given a huge head start plus have monopolies on essential services).
2) Customers need a decent level of service. Even if there is very little choice, customers still have an expectation of a certain quality of service.
3) Companies must keep their promises both to their resellers and to their customers. Not doing so impacts the company's credibility and ultimately leads to disillusionment.
4) Obviously you must remain competitive.

I would be very surprised if we see this network still running come the end of this year. It is costing Sentech a fortune and if you imagine that 2000 customers would probably bring in around R1 million gross a month, that is not much. Once you deduct costs etc, they must be making a big loss. There is no sign of additional investment from government and with their current packages they are not really competitive. I don't know why they don't just pack it in and stop haemorrhaging.
 
Yup, that happens when each and every post advertised in a company has the the proviso " Preference will be given to candidates that add to the gender and cultural diversity of the company"
A great pity, there was such a headstart, and market.
 
Preference will be given to candidates that add to the gender and cultural diversity of the company
Click to expand...
Hehe... saw that in a communique for a Capetown techie this week :D
 
One could always argue that you are a rare/unique mixture of European races, and thus, would add to the cultural diversity of the company?
 
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