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

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vodacom3g said:
There were connectivity problems all down the coast, from KZN to CPT. But I'm told it's resolved.

Feedback?
Click to expand...

Yep, had some issues last night but seems ok now.

Last night I had a continuous ping running and every couple of minutes the times would start increasing then time out and then go back to normal.
 
vodacom3g said:
There were connectivity problems all down the coast, from KZN to CPT. But I'm told it's resolved.

Feedback?
Click to expand...

Amazing how you know these things but the poor sods over at 155 don't.

Last night at 6 I tried to connect the PC to the internet using both my and my wife's phone as modems. I also tried to connect to the internet on my phone. Nothing worked.

So I phoned 155 and after wading through about 10 options to finally get to "... or to speak to an operator please press 0" I finally got to a dead line. Cute.

On my next try I got to a dude and the first thing I asked him was if Vodacom was experiencing any problems. No, Vodacom does not seem to have any problems. Have I tried rebooting my PC?... I told him nothing changed on my side and said goodbye.

Why why why WHY does 155 NEVER know when something is wrong? Do they not have a little box on their screen that reads: "There were connectivity problems all down the coast, from KZN to CPT"

Can Vodacom please update their front line support flowchart to start with:
"Good day sir, has anything changed on your side?"
Yes -> "Let me help you set up or fix YOUR connection"
No -> "Let me see if anything is screwed up on OUR side" :D

155 is yet to help me even thought I have phoned them about 20 times in my life...

Anyway, rant over.
 
Pilgrim said:
Amazing how you know these things but the poor sods over at 155 don't.

Last night at 6 I tried to connect the PC to the internet using both my and my wife's phone as modems. I also tried to connect to the internet on my phone. Nothing worked.

So I phoned 155 and after wading through about 10 options to finally get to "... or to speak to an operator please press 0" I finally got to a dead line. Cute.

On my next try I got to a dude and the first thing I asked him was if Vodacom was experiencing any problems. No, Vodacom does not seem to have any problems. Have I tried rebooting my PC?... I told him nothing changed on my side and said goodbye.

Why why why WHY does 155 NEVER know when something is wrong? Do they not have a little box on their screen that reads: "There were connectivity problems all down the coast, from KZN to CPT"

Can Vodacom please update their front line support flowchart to start with:
"Good day sir, has anything changed on your side?"
Yes -> "Let me help you set up or fix YOUR connection"
No -> "Let me see if anything is screwed up on OUR side" :D

155 is yet to help me even thought I have phoned them about 20 times in my life...

Anyway, rant over.
Click to expand...

This is almost identical to what I went through yesterday evening.

I have the E272 on my notebook, my wife has the Bandrich C100 on her notebook, these and my HTC3600i could not connect, and the guy on '155' assured that there was no problem with VC and wanted to go through the set-up of my equipment.
Later in the evening we could connect but no access to any web address etc.
 
Frankie, Pilgrim, can you guys please PM me the numbers you used to call 155 last night and the approximate time? I want to trace the calls to see what happened.

A few general observations.

When you call 155 you actually enter a portal and depending on the option you pick on the IVR you might get routed out of 155 without realising it. So choose wisely when you push a button!!

We're going to move 'Data-related' queries to no 1 in the IVR to help those who get confused with all the options.

155 will deem a problem 'general' if they get 10 calls of the same nature within a specific time period. They'll then open a 'master' record and notify everyone in the call center about the possibility of a wider failure, like last night. This did happen last night, BTW.

Now, if you're one of the first 10 calling in, it might not be known yet and the agents will go through the normal fault-finding process with you.

I suspect that Pilgrim (at least) might have been an 'early reporter' in this case, but will check on the call records.
 
vodacom3g said:
Frankie, Pilgrim, can you guys please PM me the numbers you used to call 155 last night and the approximate time? I want to trace the calls to see what happened.

A few general observations.

When you call 155 you actually enter a portal and depending on the option you pick on the IVR you might get routed out of 155 without realising it. So choose wisely when you push a button!!

We're going to move 'Data-related' queries to no 1 in the IVR to help those who get confused with all the options.

155 will deem a problem 'general' if they get 10 calls of the same nature within a specific time period. They'll then open a 'master' record and notify everyone in the call center about the possibility of a wider failure, like last night. This did happen last night, BTW.

Now, if you're one of the first 10 calling in, it might not be known yet and the agents will go through the normal fault-finding process with you.

I suspect that Pilgrim (at least) might have been an 'early reporter' in this case, but will check on the call records.
Click to expand...

So a question then: By the time the call centre opened the master record was their some other entity within Vodacom who already knew that something was wrong? i.e. Before the point where the master record needed to be opened the call centre could have been informed that there was a fault?
 
morkhans said:
So a question then: By the time the call centre opened the master record was their some other entity within Vodacom who already knew that something was wrong? i.e. Before the point where the master record needed to be opened the call centre could have been informed that there was a fault?
Click to expand...

They could but if you think about it, the two events (network failures and users calling in) happens in parallel.

Let's say something big blows up ( a node where many transmission lines come together as an example).

You start loosing a number of towers and it will be seen by both the NMC (Network Management Centre) and subscribers trying to connect and make calls.

The NMC will now start going through their faultfinding processes and will narrow it down to a common fault. This process does take some time as you need to correlate a large number of events (to give you an idea of scale, the NMC receives just on 50 million events per month)

Now, by the time they tell 155 of a general fault, more than 10 people have already called in!

So the two pretty much happens concurently.
 
vodacom3g said:
Frankie, Pilgrim, can you guys please PM me the numbers you used to call 155 last night and the approximate time? I want to trace the calls to see what happened.
Click to expand...

I PM'd you the call time and my number.

I tried calling earlier, when I couldn't even connect getting the 619 error code, but just couldn't get through.
At the time I did get through I was connected but couldn't get any data transfer, then while on the phone I managed to open Google with the IP number the assistant gave, and the call was ended.
However, even though I could open the Google page it was timing out on any other web site tried - I gave up around midnight and went to bed.
 
vodacom3g said:
They could but if you think about it, the two events (network failures and users calling in) happens in parallel.

Let's say something big blows up ( a node where many transmission lines come together as an example).

You start loosing a number of towers and it will be seen by both the NMC (Network Management Centre) and subscribers trying to connect and make calls.

The NMC will now start going through their faultfinding processes and will narrow it down to a common fault. This process does take some time as you need to correlate a large number of events (to give you an idea of scale, the NMC receives just on 50 million events per month)

Now, by the time they tell 155 of a general fault, more than 10 people have already called in!

So the two pretty much happens concurently.
Click to expand...

Fair enough.
 
sandmanm34 said:
Yeah Voda down here today too....
Click to expand...

I rest my case :)

This is EXACTLY what I meant above:

sandmanm posted at 16:10

I got the notification that there's a general problem in Gauteng / Central at 16:11.

So the problem was detected, analysis done and when a common fault was determined, notification sent out. I got the notification about the same time sandmanm was busy typing his post.
 
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More DNS woes

Can connect but once again can't resolve anything...
PPDB, internet & unrestricted APN. Century Citry, Cape Town

21:11
IP: 10.61.102.110

C:\>nslookup www.google.com
DNS request timed out.
timeout was 2 seconds.
Server: UnKnown
Address: 196.207.40.167

DNS request timed out.
timeout was 2 seconds.
DNS request timed out.
timeout was 2 seconds.
DNS request timed out.
timeout was 2 seconds.
DNS request timed out.
timeout was 2 seconds.
*** Request to UnKnown timed-out

21:13
IP: 10.61.71.44
Same story

21:15
IP: 41.192.137.157
Same story
 
Same thing here in PE

The network went down earlier this evening and I called 155 at 20:54 and a man responded and said he'd investigate the network and not long after that it was back online.

It didn't stay online long so I called 155 again at 21:39 and got through to a woman - she insisted that I tell her what virus software I was using and then wanted to check my IE settings (I use FF) - I refused and asked that she please report it to those that count and hopefully get it sorted.

WHY do they always suspect the subscribers are DOFF and it's the subscribers equipment problem.?
 
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