Vodacom Problems: Slow Throughput, trying to Connect, DNS, High Latency

Status
Not open for further replies.
I am smack bang in the "centre" of centurion (1 km from the Centurion Mall)... There is also no 3G/HSDPA coverage at my house (there IS however coverage accross the street about 100meters away)... Does not make sense to me, but after hours of cursing, swearing and threatening I got the contract cancelled...

Our "mobile service providers" so proudly advertise even the latest 3G video calling, but the services that should be in place long time ago still fails us every day... Excuse my pun but "typical South Africa"...
 
I got kicked of Mxit for the first time ever on a SE phone!!!:mad:
 
JK8 said:
I got kicked of Mxit for the first time ever on a SE phone!!!:mad:
Click to expand...

I've never been kicked off on my SE phone, just sometimes can't connect initially but once I do it seems to be stable, other people always seem to be getting disconnected. Run it on my laptop most of the time now though, easier to type. :)
 
Have you done speed tests to check that it is not the tower?

Vodacom speed test:
Download Speed: 1097 kbps (137.1 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 328 kbps (41 KB/sec transfer rate)

Server speedtest1.adslguide.org.uk:
Speed Down 886.50 Kbps ( 0.9 Mbps )
Speed Up 245.18 Kbps ( 0.2 Mbps )
 
ic said:
This has been discussed a lot in this forum - you can most likely blame the residents in your area for not allowing base-stations to be installed.
Click to expand...

Ok - fair enough....but I am two blocks from the nearest base station in Centurion, and can actually get in my car in drive there in less than 2 minutes...this has been reported to VC customer care several months ago and the answer that I was given was two fold:
1) The 3G/HSDPA coverage on my cell has been limited - guess this is to keep it from overloading - I am not the expert...
2) That a additional tower was planned to be installed at the end of the financial year...according to me that was two months ago and I did not see anything happen.

Since there has been several discussions around the inconsistent coverage in the Centurion area, does VC not see the need to increase the service and actually provide me with the service that I signed up for almost two years ago? Look, when the 3G/HSDPA coverage is good, I have to admit that the data rates are phenomenal and only have praises towards VC considering the Telkom 'situation'. But, why can the service not impress users on a more regular basis?
 
Aaarrgggg! :eek: Slow speeds (Lorraine PE area), have to disconnect, reconnect, disconnect, reconnect!!!!!! :mad: :mad: :mad: Soooo frustrated with VC right now, have loaded the latest dashboard software, upgraded the firmware etc etc and still, worse than standard GPRS and with an E 620 HSDPA card. Signal shows HSDPA but HSDPA it just aint!

Thought to myself, great, at last VC prepaid data bundles, just what I have been waiting for all this time, bought the sim, loaded 1 gig and well, the words to describe the disappointment and constant frustration that followed may not be used here for fear of either having this post deleted or myself being banned!

Ok, have vented now, starting to feel better....:o
 
And proof of the pudding......IS THE FACT THAT I HAD TO DISCONNECT AND RECONNECT 7, YES 7 TIMES JUST TO POST THAT LAST REPLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:mad:
 
Yesterday evening I got dropped and for a minute or 2 no data would come thru. Retrying suddenly it became "alive" again.
 
Someone called me from Vodacom in response to my email, they seem convinced it has to be a local tower problem even though it seems from this forum that its more general but anyway, said they'll look into it etc, after I managed to convince them it wasn't cell breathing! Amazingly my connection's been perfect in the 30 mins or so since I've spoken to them whereas it was dropping constantly before that so maybe they did change something. :)

Edit: Looks like I spoke too soon about my connection being perfect!!!
 
Last edited:
garyb01, have you tried using the 3g only profile? (an obvious one you way well have tried)

Is your sim card correctly "provisioned" for HSDPA? Phone VC customer support (155 I think) and request they check what your account is setup for. I think you just need to tell them the phone number associated with the sim.

What signal level are you getting?

I've also got an E620 card. They seem to be very twitchy if the tower is heavily loaded or otherwise misbehaving.
 
Having quite a few problems, GPRS is basically unusable, 3G's ok but constantly losing signal. Getting error 619 a lot too, is that your problem?
 
I had a problem earlier on connecting to Internet and e-mail, but it seems to be back now.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X