{"id":332620,"date":"2019-12-16T07:00:25","date_gmt":"2019-12-16T05:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=332620"},"modified":"2019-12-16T07:01:42","modified_gmt":"2019-12-16T05:01:42","slug":"rain-users-are-angry-here-is-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/332620-rain-users-are-angry-here-is-why.html","title":{"rendered":"Rain users are angry – Here is why"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rain has been sliding down the South African ISP rankings<\/a><\/strong> and is now rated as one of the worst Internet service providers in the country.<\/p>\n

This decline is significant if you consider that Rain is a consumer champion which brought affordable uncapped mobile data<\/strong><\/a> products to consumers.<\/p>\n

This raises the question of why Rain subscribers, and in particular its fixed-LTE users, are rating the company so poorly in MyBroadband\u2019s consumer satisfaction polls.<\/p>\n

The reason is simple \u2013 poor network quality. The company\u2019s network performance has been declining since it launched its fixed-LTE service in June 2017.<\/p>\n

Whenever an article about Rain is published, complaints about poor network speeds, especially during peak hours, follow.<\/p>\n

Rain\u2019s network performance decline<\/h3>\n

The steady decline in Rain\u2019s network performance should not come as a surprise \u2013 the company was warned about it long before it happened.<\/p>\n

Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub warned Rain<\/strong><\/a> in August 2018 that it will face network capacity constraints in the future, which can cost a lot of money to fix.<\/p>\n

Joosub said the looming network congestion means that Rain will face the same challenges as Vodacom, especially in a spectrum-starved environment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is easy when you have an empty network, but when you offer aggressive deals it quickly fills up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

When network congestion sets in, you have to improve your network to keep pace with the continued usage growth.<\/p>\n

Without additional spectrum, network operators like Rain will have to spend a lot of money on new sites.<\/p>\n

Cancelling fixed-LTE<\/h3>\n

In July 2018, Rain announced that it would suspend the sale of its fixed-LTE products<\/strong><\/a> due to capacity constraints on its network.<\/p>\n

Rain said at the time that the popularity of its mobile products and its strong fixed-LTE sales put strain on its network.<\/p>\n

Rain CEO Willem Roos said the decision to suspend fixed-wireless sales was \u201cto ensure a continued great experience for all their customers\u201d.<\/p>\n

While this intervention was clearly necessary, it did not stem the decline in Rain\u2019s network performance.<\/p>\n

Over the next eighteen months, Rain\u2019s performance continued to decline, and many subscribers still complain about the company\u2019s poor network performance in certain areas.<\/p>\n

Network performance and customer satisfaction<\/h3>\n

Rain\u2019s declining network performance is closely linked with lower customer satisfaction ratings.<\/p>\n

The table below shows the average download speed and average customer satisfaction ratings in 2019.<\/p>\n

It should be noted that while an average decline of 4Mbps may not sound significant, it represents a much bigger impact on users whose connections are adversely affected.<\/p>\n

As many Rain sites are not impacted by slower speeds, it means that the ones that are impacted had to decline by far more than 4Mbps to result in such a significant average decline.<\/p>\n

\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Network Quality and Customer Satisfaction<\/strong><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
2019<\/strong><\/td>\nDownload Speed (Mbps)<\/strong><\/td>\nCustomer Satisfaction Rating (\/5)<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Q1<\/strong><\/td>\n20.655<\/td>\n3.46<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Q2<\/strong><\/td>\n18.658<\/td>\n3.22<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Q3<\/strong><\/td>\n16.856<\/td>\n3.06<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Q4<\/strong><\/td>\n16.137<\/td>\n3.02<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Rain’s average daily network performance in 2019<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Rain 5G to the rescue<\/h3>\n

Rain\u2019s LTE network is clearly under pressure, but the good news for subscribers is that the company\u2019s new 5G network<\/strong><\/a> may come to the rescue.<\/p>\n

Initial tests on Rain 5G<\/strong><\/a> show that the service is blisteringly fast, and the company is confident it can maintain good service levels on this network.<\/p>\n

Rain told MyBroadband<\/strong><\/a> that the key to the success \u2013 and sustainability \u2013 of its 5G service will be the \u201cmassive increase in capacity\u201d 5G offers over 4G.<\/p>\n

In the case of 5G, this is 50- to 100-times more capacity per site than 4G. \u201cThe 5G network is architected to accommodate dramatically more users than 4G,\u201d Rain said.<\/p>\n

Rain added that it provides a high-quality 5G router, customised for the Rain 5G network, which makes efficient use of network resources.<\/p>\n

Now read: Rain 5G is truly impressive \u2013 Pure uncapped broadband at 500Mbps<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rain has been sliding down the ISP rankings this year and is now one of the worst Internet providers in South Africa \u2013 Here is why.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":284496,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[35,43716,61659,45747,46832],"class_list":["post-332620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cellular","tag-headline","tag-rain","tag-rain-5g","tag-rain-lte","tag-willem-roos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332620"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332620"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":332622,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332620\/revisions\/332622"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}