To cell c or not...

[d0b33]

In which area(s) are you?

I'm in Cape Town near Gardens, also lived in the southern suburbs was fine there too.

Edit:

Although their coverage is not as good as vodacom's, I could not get stable 3G at seapoint and the v&a waterfront.

 

[ahoudet]

I've got Cell C in a spare phone and also use it as a signal checker for clients wanting to move to 3G for internet purposes. Pricing is great but signal not so much. Installed at a place that had great signal for 2 weeks of testing and after that, the contract sim had same signal for a week or so and then all went downhill (EDGE instead of 3G)... Cell C promised the world but never managed to deliver. Though did get a refund on the contract. My suggestion would be to try it out on prepaid before making a move

 

[jansdejager]

I've got Cell C in a spare phone and also use it as a signal checker for clients wanting to move to 3G for internet purposes. Pricing is great but signal not so much. Installed at a place that had great signal for 2 weeks of testing and after that, the contract sim had same signal for a week or so and then all went downhill (EDGE instead of 3G)... Cell C promised the world but never managed to deliver. Though did get a refund on the contract. My suggestion would be to try it out on prepaid before making a move

If you are using a huawei datacard you can change your settings in mobile partner to use wdcm exclusively. This will put you on wdcm priority while other users are downgraded to edge on the same network. Havent tried it on my phone but i know on android you can disable 2g which may have the same effect. Getting funneled onto edge is a network-independent problem and happens when a tower os oversubscribed. Tell your client that.

 

[DrJohnZoidberg]

Last time I was in PTA Cell C signal was useless and when I say useless I mean useless.

I have no issues in Cape Town whatsoever.

 

[ahoudet]

If you are using a huawei datacard you can change your settings in mobile partner to use wdcm exclusively. This will put you on wdcm priority while other users are downgraded to edge on the same network. Havent tried it on my phone but i know on android you can disable 2g which may have the same effect. Getting funneled onto edge is a network-independent problem and happens when a tower os oversubscribed. Tell your client that.

Tried all that (was using an 3G/ADSL router that had the option) but could not ever latch onto a 3G signal again. Had it tested on a Blackberry 9790 with 3G only mode and still couldn't get signal (when initially testing I had about 4 bars 3G on 3G only mode). The signal was not available and Cell C acknowledged the problem was due to them doing upgrades to the network but after a month and a bit the client still had no 3G and trying to watch a webinar on EDGE isn't going to work - Ended up returning the whole bundle...

 

[jansdejager]

curious if that's the case and I assume this wasn't roaming on Vodacom at the time. there are still some towers out in bunduland that haven't been upgraded to wdcma but if you're in a peri-urban area and it is definitely from a cell c tower that would be highly disconcerting. good case for returning the package.

 

[Mobus]

As I said in the original post, I'm mainly enquiring about cell c's voice capablity in PTA (dropped and missed calls etc) and to a lesser extent in CT and JHB.

However concerning cell c data, I'm actually using cell c giga 200 (50Gb + 150Gb for 1 year @ R1799) for my primary internet at home in PTA (since last month). It is mostly quite good, with speedtest.net reporting anywhere between 1 - 13 Mbps d/l, 0.7 - 3 Mbps u/l and pings ~70ms.

 

[slabs]

One thing that puzzles me is the cost of calls once outside free minutes. Cell C at 99c, Vodacom from R1.75 upwards. That is nearly double the cost. Are the big players just milking us???