{"id":370543,"date":"2020-10-12T14:58:37","date_gmt":"2020-10-12T12:58:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=370543"},"modified":"2020-10-12T15:02:42","modified_gmt":"2020-10-12T13:02:42","slug":"rains-fall-from-grace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/broadband\/370543-rains-fall-from-grace.html","title":{"rendered":"Rain’s fall from grace"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rain used to be a consumer champion with high customer satisfaction rates, but it has now been rated the worst service provider in South Africa<\/strong><\/a> with deteriorating network speeds.<\/p>\n

This raises the question of what happened at the mobile operator and why online consumer platforms are littered with complaints from subscribers.<\/p>\n

To understand Rain\u2019s fall from grace, you have to go back to 2017 when Rain launched its first commercial LTE products<\/strong><\/a> in partnership with Internet Solutions.<\/p>\n

Armed with a new 4G network and truckloads of unused network capacity, Rain offered users packages<\/strong><\/a> ranging between 55GB and 120GB per month.<\/p>\n

It was an instant hit at a time when fibre-to-the-home was still not available in most neighbourhoods.<\/p>\n

The euphoria was, however, short-lived. A year after its launch, Rain suspended the sale of its fixed-LTE products<\/strong><\/a> due to capacity constraints on its network.<\/p>\n

Network congestion hurt the performance of its own mobile data products and that of its roaming partner, Vodacom.<\/p>\n

This problem has never really disappeared, but Rain managed the network congestion fairly effectively while it was growing its network.<\/p>\n

This all changed when the lockdown hit. Millions of people were suddenly forced to work from home and rely on the Internet for their entertainment.<\/p>\n

This created an urgent and immediate need for fast and stable home Internet connections, and the ISP and mobile data market boomed.<\/p>\n

Rain was one of the biggest beneficiaries of this increased demand, with sales quadrupling during the lockdown.<\/p>\n

This rapid subscriber growth came at a price – network congestion reached problematic levels and the company\u2019s support channels collapsed.<\/p>\n

Rain subscribers were furious. Their Internet access became slow and erratic and they could not get answers from the company on when their connection would be fixed.<\/p>\n

While Rain has been trying to address these problems, network congestion and poor support continue to frustrate subscribers.<\/p>\n

Rain\u2019s network performance and ISP rankings<\/h3>\n

When Rain launched its first fixed-LTE products in 2017, it was ranked as one of the top Internet service providers (ISPs) in South Africa.<\/p>\n

As its network started to become congested and slowed down, however, the company slid down the rankings.<\/p>\n

Rain\u2019s deteriorating network performance is clearly illustrated in MyBroadband\u2019s quarterly mobile network performance reports.<\/p>\n

After Rain launched its first mobile data products, it had an average download speed of 23.38Mbps \u2013 in line with MTN\u2019s 26.98Mbps.<\/p>\n

At the time Rain\u2019s average network speed was significantly higher than the smaller operators Telkom and Cell C.<\/p>\n

Fast-forward two years, and Rain\u2019s average download speed is now by far the lowest in South Africa.<\/p>\n

While the other mobile operators have increased their network performance \u2013 which is expected because of network and technology enhancements \u2013 Rain\u2019s performance has decreased.<\/p>\n

In fact, Rain network performance has declined every single quarter since the company first launched its mobile products.<\/p>\n

The charts below show Rain\u2019s average download speed and ISP rankings over the past three years.<\/p>\n

To put Rain\u2019s network performance in perspective, we included a chart of MTN\u2019s average download speed over the same period.<\/p>\n

\n

Rain\u2019s average download speed<\/h3>\n

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

\n

Rain\u2019s ISP ranking<\/h3>\n

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

\n

MTN\u2019s average download speed<\/h3>\n

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

\n

Rain CEO Willem Roos explains<\/h3>\n

Rain CEO Willem Roos explained the objective for its 4G network is not to provide the fastest network experience, but to provide unlimited data products at workable wireless broadband speeds.<\/p>\n

The reason for the average download speed on Rain\u2019s network declining, Roos said, is the introduction of Rain\u2019s 24\/7 unlimited product which is limited to 10Mbps in Q1 2020.<\/p>\n

The majority of Rain users are on this product.<\/p>\n

Since 2018, Rain has increased the number of 4G towers from 2,000 to more than 6,000 today. However, the average number of users on the network has increased at a much higher pace, which will lead to lower average speeds.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe continue to add significant capacity to our network – particularly on the 2,600MHz band – and as such we are confident that users will continue to have an acceptable experience,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou do have to note, however, that average speeds will remain around 10Mbps given our product structure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the 5G network we do aim to achieve excellent network speeds, with our average consistently remaining over 200Mbps for customers on our premium package,\u201d Roos said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAgain, speeds are limited to 30Mbps on the cheaper standard package.\u201d<\/p>\n

Roos added that they have experienced network configuration issues which have impacted performance on the 5G network.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have made very good progress in addressing the configuration problems, and as you noted in your recent test in Cape Town specifically,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough Rain still has much room for improvement, we have made significant progress.\u201d<\/p>\n

Customer support<\/h3>\n

Roos said Rain\u2019s incredible growth, coupled with the COVID-19 lockdown pandemic issues, has \u201cno doubt experienced significant challenges in delivering good customer service\u201d.<\/p>\n

“We have made significant progress in this regard by appointing more than 130 staff in our customer service centre, with plans to increase this further.”<\/p>\n

He said they have made good progress in improving customer-facing systems.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere we had a significant backlog in addressing customer queries, we now have almost no queries that remain outstanding for longer than 48 hours,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

What Roos finds heartening is that in spite of having no contracts on their products, their subscription collection and cancellation rates are better than expected.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe vast majority of Rain customers are receiving a good experience and excellent value for money. Importantly, unhappy customers are not tied in by onerous contracts,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Now read: Rain gets nailed for misleading download speed claims<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rain used to be a consumer champion with high customer satisfaction rates, but it has now been rated the worst service provider in South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370555,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[35,43716,46832],"class_list":["post-370543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-broadband","tag-headline","tag-rain","tag-willem-roos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370543"}],"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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370543"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":371073,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370543\/revisions\/371073"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}