I feel the need to contribute to this conversation as well, as it seems this “stuck on EDGE” issue is quite well spread, being experienced everywhere from Cape Town, Bloemfontein, Gauteng and Durban (by looking at the locations of some of the posters here).
Firstly, let me say that I am glad that there is a possible workaround to the problem, by going onto your dashboard or MDMA and forcing it to selecting the desired band to operate in. I do, however, think it is unacceptable that this is a long term solution, because it simply isn’t. Sure, we’re all tech savvy people and we manage to figure these things out and get all excited with our astounding technical prowess, but let’s say your parents had to get this Cell C speedstick, how would they be solving this issue? They don’t understand switching bands etc, and I think a very large number of people out there don’t know that either. The problem also isn’t solved if you use a 3G router that doesn’t allow you to force the operational band.
I live in Paulshof, JHB, and got my black speedstick on 6/11/2010, before the official launch date in Gauteng (thanks Dion Wired). For that first while, everything was running at close to 10mbps all the time, no disconnects whatsoever. On the launch day (I think it was 17/11/2010) the quality of my connection dropped dramatically. I read that some USB ports don’t supply enough power, so I tried one of the ports on the back of my PC, and voila, everything is working like a charm (though at a bit slower speed). During December I purchased a Netgear MBRN3000 router from Incredible, such that I can put the modem wherever I want to and have multiple devices online at the same time, and everything was working like a dream. Later during December, I went on leave and came back yesterday (05/01/2011), only to find my connection stuck on EDGE all the time. Even when following the steps given in this thread to get it unstuck, I would have to fiddle for hours before I finally see the WCDMA signal on my dashboard.
Regardless, nothing I could do would make it be anything other than EDGE on my brand new Netgear router… so now what? Did I spend R1400 for no reason? There seems to be no way to force the router to use a specific band, and the EDGE signal is more than 10dbms stronger than the WCDMA signal (according to MDMA and the Cell C dashboard).
My feeling is that the network is slowly getting more congested, and the further you are away from a tower, the worse you will be affected as more people are coming online between you and the tower. I think a solution has to be provided, somehow, by Cell C, and probably in terms of upgrading congested towers. Though we lot are able to find a messy workaround, most people won’t, and this shouldn’t be the case.
