Vodacom Fibre in Greenstone, Johanneburg

[ainsin]

Hi all

I'm sure most of you know by now, but Evotel infrastructure were bought out by Vodacom in the Greenstone area. A lot of the complexes in the area signed exclusivity deals with Evotel, which Vodacom are now trying to enforce.

The estate that I live in is currently fighting Vodacom on the validity of the contract, as Vodacom cannot supply additional benefits that Evotel agreed with the HOA (Evotel supplied and maintained the estate's CCTV systems). It looks like the matter will go to court, as Vodacom has just ignored HOA's emails and calls.

Vodacom has retaliated, and is now been using Evotel's client lists (which must be illegal) and contacting the clients, trying to strong arm them into signing contracts with Vodacom. I have been contacted numerous times via emails and phone calls to sign a contract before the end of August. I have been offered free router, a free month of fibre and even a tablet if I sign a 24 month contract with them. Now I'm getting emails where they are threatening to cut me off on the 1st of September if I don't sign with them. My HOA also send emails to not sign with Vodacom, and to just boycott them. According to them, other estates are fighting them as well.

Does anyone think my estate would be able to get the exclusivity cancelled? I have had a long look at Vodacom's offerings, and I find them both incredibly expensive, and I find their Fair Usage Policy on their "uncapped" products to be terrible. Right now I'm on 20 meg uncapped, and I can do over 12 gigs and hour without really trying. I would burn through my cap in days with Vodacom.

All in all, it's been a bad experience, and has made me loathe Vodacom more than I thought I could.

 

[reactor_sa]

Reads *does 12gigs an hour*
Finds it impossible to feel empathy for OP

 

[SuperGee]

Hi ainsin,

I am also one of the affected clients in the Greenstone area. At present I'm trying to find another solution, possibly ADSL or VDSL as 3G/4G coverage is not that great in the area and I'm against signing up with Vodacom for fibre services.

Our estate's Telkom infrastructure is only about 18 months old and according to Telkom's coverage map, I'm eligible for VDSL up to 40Mb/s.

This Evotel sellout (as an ISP) was a low-blow to the Evotel customers as no communication was sent out beforehand.

 

[jamacouve]

I just got my place in one of the Balwin estates. Started to sign up with Evotel and they told me Vodacom has taken over. Long story short applied with Vodacom. Went away for a few weeks. Tenant tells me nothing has happened.

Get hold of Vodacom and they marked the installtion as complete.

Seems its going to be fun dealing with Vodacom

 

[pinball wizard]

I just got my place in one of the Balwin estates. Started to sign up with Evotel and they told me Vodacom has taken over. Long story short applied with Vodacom. Went away for a few weeks. Tenant tells me nothing has happened.

Get hold of Vodacom and they marked the installtion as complete.

Seems its going to be fun dealing with Vodacom

Malakite?

 

[jamacouve]

Yeah

 

[pinball wizard]

Yeah

I'm busy rolling out at The Isle, heard nothing but bad stories coming out of Malakite around evo/voda lack of service.

 

[jamacouve]

I'm busy rolling out at The Isle, heard nothing but bad stories coming out of Malakite around evo/voda lack of service.

Still no update from them. Full month since I sent the docs

 

[kbgvirus]

I am from Greenstone Gate and have had endless issues with the Evotel/Vodacom migration

 

[n.reinten]

I too live in greenstone, but have not yet been contacted by Vodacom for the switch over. I signed up with Evotel in mid July (after we received the notice from the estate trustees about the transfer of ownership between the two companies).

I've recently been told that they are "cutting over" on the 1st of October (tomorrow!) and I'm wondering if anyone here has an update on the situation, because I'm really hoping I don't get forced to switch. Vodacom are R600 more expensive than Evotel for a slower line than my current package...

 

[bbarber]

Vodacom, the not so easy service provider

I got wind of Vodacom muscling into my estate, I had a read at the terms and conditions, on my current 20Mb/s uncapped line and noticed a fair usage policy(FUP), 500Gb and then they throttle to 2Mb/s, whereas before I had true uncapped, yes yes, I understand 500Gb is allot of data but I have a home office and I don't have DSTV, so everything is online...

Now to the bigger issue, I did an application on the 30 of August to make sure that I am covered should no-one else make a move in the area, I then contacted some of my partners that I use in business to see if they could offer a better option, one of them did step up but quickly striked out, it wasn't confirmed but I suspect Vodacom got wind of it and pulled the normal contractual stories. Anyway, time moved on with my application period and then boom, line dead, Evotel palmed me off onto Vodacom and I simply got the runaround for a week and a bit, no joy. Again, had make to some calls and pull some favours to get some idea of where my application was, it hadn't even started the process, eventually, I got it pushed with constant nagging and follow-ups, cool positive movement or so I thought, the Vodacom installer arrived at my house yesterday to come setup a vodacom managed router(problem), plays around for 10 minutes and tells me Evotel need to come fix the now physically broken Fibre connection, I mean WTF?

Anyway, he disappears and tells me he will be back just now, not realising my version of 'just now' and his version are totally different, I get a call from my guard house 6 hours later saying Vodacom are back, yeah good luck with that, my life has moved and I was back onsite at a customer...

I checked the setup again last night when I got home, unprofessional to say the least but I could see I was actually pulling a connection on the fibre, but with no information, no contact details I could do very little, did some scratching on the interweb(klapping my mobile data) and called the helpline for Fibre, they gave me a flat, we don't know, we can't help you story...lets hope today is a better one.

So my question after this amazingly painful and costly issue, is Vodacom muscling in without allowing the customers another option a competitions infringement? Surely if Evotel wants to sell off we need to be supplied alternative options by Evotel or vendors allowed to come in without having to fight the Vodacom muscle?

 

[TendaiCh]

Hello All

Does anyone have any update on this? I stay in Greenstone Gate and after the complete non-communication from Evotel and subsequent arm-twisting and harassment from Vodacom, I have gone over two months with no internet, I am rigidly stubborn about not folding to Vodacom's strong arm tactics, I have been in touch with SkyFi as an alternative and they have also been given the run around in terms of getting network access from Vodacom/Evotel.

So I have 2 questions-

1. Does anyone have any viable and reliable fibre alternative to Evo/Voda they can recommend? I did outright purchase of the hardware from Evotel when I signed on.

2. How are other complexes dealing with this? Someone mentioned "fighting it", does that mean legally? I would be interested in joining such an action. I'm no expert, but I definitely get the sense we're being shafted as consumers here. Something feels very unlawful.

Thanks in advance.