Web Africa pulls FreeZone for uncapped ADSL subscribers

[Conack]

Yup that's right Conack, Freezone was added after we launched the product, from many user requests. Nonetheless, we've let our customers down.

Its a classic case of under-delivering and over-promising , which we're whole-heartedly sorry for. We always want to give as much as we can to our customers, but unfortunately due to technical limitations, in this case, it was impossible for us to offer Freezone.

So in other words the product wasn't launched with Freezone included as some are now accusing. WA added Freezone after the launch because they listened to their customer's pleas. I remember this was announced in a seperate thread shortly after and as such they couldn't have had a chance to thoroughly test it. (another accusation)

The people complaining reminds me of a typical scenario where farm workers are paid their standard salary, but after they ask if they could take some of the fruit (from his small personal garden) home to their families the farmer agree to this as a kindness.
Over the next couple of months the farmer finds that his garden is suffering because of this.

So eventually the farmer takes away the free fruit and you can only imagine the forthcoming response. Plenty of News24 articles to think of.

Is quitting the farm, slinging insults and making sneering comments fair towards the farmer who only meant to do good?

 

[VioAdmin]

I just have to ask, why don't subscribers vote with their feet?? Complaints won't get you what you want.

Sent from a Galaxy SII far far away via Tapatalk

+1

Simple as that. Everyone can type and talk but it's those who take actions that matter.

 

[Lounger]

Nope.
The only "issue" if you want to call it that is Steam on FreeZone. Again, that's out of our hands due to the way Valve have their download sessions setup on the Steam client.

Other than that, FreeZone is 100% on our Capped products.

Jeff!

If you had to refund your customers because the downloads were not free, when they were supposed to, then, Yes, that is more than an issue. Don't make me track down the e-mails and posts about it!

If it is unrelated, then this is something new going wrong, which is why I asked.

 

[Lounger]

So in other words the product wasn't launched with Freezone included as some are now accusing. WA added Freezone after the launch because they listened to their customer's pleas. I remember this was announced in a seperate thread shortly after and as such they couldn't have had a chance to thoroughly test it. (another accusation)

The people complaining reminds me of a typical scenario where farm workers are paid their standard salary, but after they ask if they could take some of the fruit (from his small personal garden) home to their families the farmer agree to this as a kindness.
Over the next couple of months the farmer finds that his garden is suffering because of this.

So eventually the farmer takes away the free fruit and you can only imagine the forthcoming response. Plenty of News24 articles to think of.

Is quitting the farm, slinging insults and making sneering comments fair towards the farmer who only meant to do good?

By the same reasoning, if your boss increases your salary and you are happy. Would you not say something if he decides later to reduce it again?

 

[Conack]

By the same reasoning, if your boss increases your salary and you are happy. Would you not say something if he decides later to reduce it again?

Thought it was reasonably clear that it was an extra, not part of the salary or initial agreement.

 

[BrendanMc]

Thought it was reasonably clear that it was an extra, not part of the salary or initial agreement.

Well lets say your boss gives you a company car, which forms part of the agreement, and then later decides to give you a petrol card over and above that. That then would be an alteration to the initial agreement. You gonna be happy when a month down the line he changes his mind and takes the petrol card back?

 

[Totempole]

Well lets say your boss gives you a company car, which forms part of the agreement, and then later decides to give you a petrol card over and above that. That then would be an alteration to the initial agreement. You gonna be happy when a month down the line he changes his mind and takes the petrol card back?

Of course you wouldn't be happy, but this is a bad analogy. You see, since this is your "boss", and he pays your salary, you'd be less inclined to make a big deal about it and would probably just keep quiet.

The huge difference here is that WebAfrica doesn't pay you, you pay them for a service.

To me this means they should compensate their clients somehow, they took a service away, now they need to replace it with something else or reduce the subscription cost. Simple as that.

What they're doing now is exactly what Cybersmart did a few years ago. They're taking away a value added service because it's not profitable to them to offer it to you.

Simple as that.

 

[BrendanMc]

It wasn't so much about who was getting paid as it was about an alteration to an agreement. And if you've seen how the people react at the place i work when certain benefits get taken away, you will see that to some it doesn't matter who is getting paid.

But yeah either way, they doing a nasty by taking it away as I'm sure a lot of people signed on planning on using that service. But that being said if only 30 people are actually using the freezone service it shouldn't have that much of an impact. though...

 

[Necuno]

It wasn't so much about who was getting paid as it was about an alteration to an agreement. And if you've seen how the people react at the place i work when certain benefits get taken away, you will see that to some it doesn't matter who is getting paid.

But yeah either way, they doing a nasty by taking it away as I'm sure a lot of people signed on planning on using that service. But that being said if only 30 people are actually using the freezone service it shouldn't have that much of an impact. though...

Not a logical comparison since some of us is waiting to see what happens before we just jump ship, especially after such a bad start where they just sold the product with the knowledge that there is not enough backbone. Then they add something to "fix" the rolling window (which was clearly a bad choice) without properly testing it. Now they had to remove it because of becoming an over complicated beast without just going the KISS route like Telkom, openweb or mweb. If they had their uncapped surviving for at least 6 months or more and then come and say GOSH only 30 people use it I'd be more willing to believe it, than now with them having the issues they had and having us checking them out on the sideline.

I'd seriously rather sign myself up with ODS (non existing anymore) before I could have my account at such a place that more than twice demonstrated they don't plan ahead or properly test before just jumping the gun. This clearly tells me that non technical people is making the decisions (driven by $$$?) AKA PR, Sales and probably non technical management instead by the correct people who can give an informed decision.

Come on, seriously this is really pathetic and ranks in the regions of AfriHosts shaping disaster which had their capped clients under the same rules as uncapped.

/cynical on

Hope you guys enjoyed your humble pie eating thinking back to the unsustainable, maybe you were speaking about yourselves, which seems to be true now to a degree in competency and product levels.

/cynical off

:edit
Before some emo kid flames me for being over reactive. Let me ask you this

1) How long did they waited before launching uncapped
2) How many times did they punt what a quality network they have

Taking 1 and 2 into consideration I expected world class launch about. Too much hype hey?

 

[Abe]

Not....hey?

In the words of Mortianna.

"Something vexes thee?"

I don't really see what you are complaining about. You are not a WA subscriber. You are someone who *might* switch across down the line. I am not an uncapped client and I am very happy with the decision. Anything that reduces the load on the system, even in minuscule amounts will be a good thing, IMHO. From the looks of it, there are 30 people who are presently using it. They can easily cancel if they are not happy. If it is a problem for those people then they are already getting good value for money. If stopping the freezone is enough to push them into the thresholds then they are already getting quite a few GB's out of the deal. If it really is a big problem for them then they could easily buy a small normal account as well and use that for Freezone.

 

[acrobat]

Unfortunately, it would require re-architecting our entire Network, and considerable configuration changes, its a complex problem. We thought about it every which way, and at the end of it reached the conclusion that it simply wasn't feasible.

It was a tough decision, but we always want quality of service and to do things 100% properly, for our users.

Rupert

I understand the re-engineering can be an expensive exercise which might result in further disruption in service. Why not consider an adjustment to the uncapped window size to compensate for the additional traffic?

 

[Dylan_G]

Not quite sure I understand your post...
FreeZone was added an a free add-on to our Uncapped. 30 customers were taking advantage of the FreeZone usage - the others weren't.

Taking advantage ? From what I understand, it is a technical fault of your own. Why should all users suffer for your own problems ?

There are many, many things in life that are complicated... Yet people have found ways to solve them. I'm not saying that I'm able to myself, but surely there is someone that can help your company with this problem. Very bad PR.

I considered the use of FreeZone when I subscribed to your service. Surely it is now valued at less, hence a price cut should be implemented.

 

[Reaver.ZA]

Not quite sure I understand your post...
FreeZone was added an a free add-on to our Uncapped. 30 customers were taking advantage of the FreeZone usage - the others weren't.

Dylan_G raised an interesting point on what WAJeff said. Did he mean that only 30 people were actively downloading from freezone areas and thus taking advantage of the offering or that 30 people were abusing the the system thus taking advantage of freezone usage (incorrect calcualtions)....just a curiosity on my part. To me it sounds like the first situation, not many people too bothered in using freezone then.

 

[Lounger]

Dylan_G raised an interesting point on what WAJeff said. Did he mean that only 30 people were actively downloading from freezone areas and thus taking advantage of the offering or that 30 people were abusing the the system thus taking advantage of freezone usage (incorrect calcualtions)....just a curiosity on my part. To me it sounds like the first situation, not many people too bothered in using freezone then.

No, he's saying the freezone wasn't free for some people in their data allocation, so they are ditching it to avoid complaints. He's saying only 30 people on uncapped used it (if we take their word - maybe that measuring system is also faulty ;-))

 

[Necuno]

In the words of Mortianna.

"Something vexes thee?"

I don't really see what you are complaining about. You are not a WA subscriber. You are someone who *might* switch across down the line. I am not an uncapped client and I am very happy with the decision. Anything that reduces the load on the system, even in minuscule amounts will be a good thing, IMHO. From the looks of it, there are 30 people who are presently using it. They can easily cancel if they are not happy. If it is a problem for those people then they are already getting good value for money. If stopping the freezone is enough to push them into the thresholds then they are already getting quite a few GB's out of the deal. If it really is a big problem for them then they could easily buy a small normal account as well and use that for Freezone.

I am actually, I have 3 accounts with them. 2x int and 1x local only.

Taking advantage ? From what I understand, it is a technical fault of your own. Why should all users suffer for your own problems ?

There are many, many things in life that are complicated... Yet people have found ways to solve them. I'm not saying that I'm able to myself, but surely there is someone that can help your company with this problem. Very bad PR.

I considered the use of FreeZone when I subscribed to your service. Surely it is now valued at less, hence a price cut should be implemented.

Sounds like a day at corporate software development.

 

[waroop]

Why not consider an adjustment to the uncapped window size to compensate for the additional traffic?

It's early days for the product, and I'm sure there'll be tweaks and improvements ahead, so I'll certainly take this under consideration We always want to give our users the absolute best we can.

 

[Necuno]

It's early days for the product, and I'm sure there'll be tweaks and improvements ahead, so I'll certainly take this under consideration We always want to give our users the absolute best we can.

I would really suggest minimum of 15g for the 4 meg window.

 

[BrendanMc]

I second that. If you gonna take away, you gotta give something in return