The 8ta experience so far

[Limpopoking]

I was attracted to 8ta's offerings primarily because of their calls to landline rates. Ironically, the need for calls to landlines from my mobile stems from Telkom's inability to maintain my landline (I'm in business on a farm... tut tut). I then discovered that their Blackberry offering was a good option for my children, so I went to my local Telkom branch and enquired.

Sorry, they replied... we don't have any documentation to assist you with contracts but if you go to *'s Discount World (an independant retailer), they can help you with our company's products

So I trudged off to *'s Discount World... Sorry they said to me... 8ta's people rocked in here in Nov 2010, left promotional material and promised to send everything else (contracts etc.) but since then, not a word!!!

A phone call to 8ta resulted in yet more unanswered questions.

Is there anyone out there who has 8ta contracts? Please let us know of your experiences.

 

[Deep78]

http://www.8ta.com/ maybe???

 

[HypoThesis]

Maybe the experience is different coz I'm in a larger city but I also thought the 8.ta blackberry deal was good. I'm a diehard Android user but with all the BBM requests and the 'free' internet I thought it would be a smart choice joining the flock.

I used a 8.ta branch in a mall. We went on a Friday, the manager told us it would take 20mins from application to approval to 'voila!'. Nonsense. We submitted the documentation and were told to return the next day.
We did, the person assigned to handle our application hadn't even touched it! After much huffing and puffing we were told to go have lunch and the phone would be ready for us on return. To cut a long story short, I got the 8520 Blackberry, its old tech (OS 4.6 and limited to EDGE) and will be kak by the time my contract ends. With that I get 500mb free streaming usage a month, first three month of BIS is free (therefore R90 for first 3 month), free unlimited calls to one nominated landline, 50 free sms's a day after the initial paid for 5 sms's, 120mins free landline/ 8ta to 8ta calls and the kak one: 15mins to other networks.
Its a nice deal all things considered, I still have my Samsung for cool apps and Android stuff.

The reception is good (admittedly piggy-backed off MTN), the call centre is quick to pick up but still a bit n00bish at queries, their instant billing update number only send sms's and its as confusing as ever (when I enquire about my usage for example, I get 4 sms's...one for the data usage, one for the streaming usage, one for the 8ta-landline/8ta usage and one for the 8ta-other usage).

I don't use it as my primary number so I guess I haven't had to deal with as many problems.