Rain downtime notice for 4G network migration

Rain customers who bought a 4G fixed wireless access service several years ago through an Internet service provider are being warned to expect downtime next week as their services are being migrated.

Afrihost customers on these packages were notified this week that Rain will be migrating their legacy 4G services this coming Tuesday.

“This is to manage the efficiency of the network. The migration will take place during the early morning hours of 19 November 2024,” Afrihost stated.

“You will experience no connectivity during the migration period. Please note that once the migration is completed, your LTE router will be disconnected from the network.”

The warning that people’s LTE routers will be disconnected from the network raised questions about whether Rain was discontinuing its fixed 4G broadband services entirely.

However, a Rain spokesperson assured that they were not discontinuing services for any subscribers.

“There is an upcoming network upgrade, which impacts a limited number of users who purchased 4G services through resellers — not those on our direct 4G Legacy plans,” said Rain.

“Resellers have been notified and need to guide their customers through this transition, which involves a simple SIM card swap to maintain their service.”

However, due to the time constraints, Afrihost has opted not to SIM swap its clients.

Instead, it has sent them a guide on how to manually select the new Rain network after the network change has been completed.

MyBroadband asked Rain what the migration entails, but it did not respond to this question.

When Rain first launched, it partnered with the now defunct Internet Solutions to resell its 4G/LTE-Advanced packages through Internet service providers (ISPs).

Internet Solutions effectively wholesaled Rain’s products, with ISPs like Afrihost then reselling them to their customers.

When Afrihost first launched Rain 4G packages in 2017, all of the mobile network operator’s products were capped.

However, they offered excellent value for money, with per-gigabyte prices ranging from R2.35 on its largest package (660GB) to R5.98 on its smallest (50GB).

Unfortunately, Rain did not anticipate the huge uptake of its services, and its network quality suffered — to the point that it suspended sales of its products in 2018.

Rain resumed sales but eventually stopped selling its products through Internet Solutions and began offering uncapped 4G services.

While it continued to struggle with network performance in many areas, Rain rolled out a new 5G network.

This offered fixed wireless access customers a much better experience when it launched in 2019.

In 2023, Rain stopped selling its uncapped LTE-A products when it launched a fully-fledged mobile 4G network, offering voice, SMS, and data services.

However, while new customers couldn’t sign up for these packages, existing clients could continue using them.

It is similar for the legacy 4G fixed wireless access products Rain sold through Internet Solutions back in 2017.

Even though people could no longer buy those products, Rain has continued supporting them all these years and has assured these customers will remain connected after the upcoming migration.