Vodacom CEO praised online for network handling

I expect some criticism because of this article, but I think Pieter Uys should be commended for directly interacting with customers and getting involved at ‘ground level’ during the crisis.

I think the fact that the Vodacom CEO was working until late at night yesterday, visiting the affected sites and apologizing to consumers unreservedly is an example to many CEOs of large companies in the country.
 
rpm said:
I expect some criticism because of this article, but I think Pieter Uys should be commended for directly interacting with customers and getting involved at ‘ground level’ during the crisis.

I think the fact that the Vodacom CEO was working until late at night yesterday, visiting the affected sites and apologizing to consumers unreservedly is an example to many CEOs of large companies in the country.
Click to expand...

Your cheque is in the mail. Good work!
 
rpm said:
I expect some criticism because of this article...
Click to expand...

I see your point, but I support giving credit where it's due. Good work Pieter! ( although the cynic in me still wants to say - pics or it didn't happen :p )

NathanCrow said:
Can someone ask Uys how much he got per hr for Overtime
Click to expand...

I see what you did there! :D
 
Unfortunately in the IT field this type of thing does happen. Apology accepted.
 
rpm said:
I expect some criticism because of this article, but I think Pieter Uys should be commended for directly interacting with customers and getting involved at ‘ground level’ during the crisis.
Click to expand...

Well done, Pieter. And just amazing that he's donated his massive annual package and bonus to save the whales. No?

Because, of course, it is not in his own best interests to get the Vodacom Network up and running. Some bevvies down the pub and few frames of pool would have served him far better.
 
Well with the salary he no doubts earns, what's working late one night in the bigger scheme of things? (and lol @ 11PM supposedly being late :D)
 
The article should actually read "A PR person from Vodacom, with access to his Twitter account, made it seem like he got his hands dirty"
 
When the kark hits the fan you work late, nothing new, what makes him so special that he gets the noddy badge? He was on mybb, twitter and vleisbroek if he rolled up his sleves and help dig up the severed cabled I would be impressed... What did he use to connect? A cellc sim?

So he went out to site? Why is that good? Have you ever tried to work with someone looking over you shoulder asking are we done yet? And then every one inbetween the techie and ceo tries to look important and micromanages you to death. Poor techies on site!

Remember kids redundency is unsustainable!
 
I do care for every one of our customers
Click to expand...

Has anyone ever heard such incredible crap? I mean really! :sick::sick::sick::eek:

PS. He's such a card, he should adopt "Dirk" as his middle name.
 
Last edited:
rpm said:
I expect some criticism because of this article, but I think Pieter Uys should be commended for directly interacting with customers and getting involved at ‘ground level’ during the crisis.

I think the fact that the Vodacom CEO was working until late at night yesterday, visiting the affected sites and apologizing to consumers unreservedly is an example to many CEOs of large companies in the country.
Click to expand...

I disagree, it's not the responsibility of the CEO to be at the ground level doing support queries. His time should be spend on CEO tasks (after all, that is why they hired him, why am I paying for a call centre agent with a 7 digit salary? ). It's a nice show for the public relations, but not the way a company should be run.
 
They say shi1t happens. Personally I am not flustered about the network outage, but then I don't use my cell phone for business.
However I made a number of calls during the outage that were "dropped" or did not go through and I was wondering if I/we were still charged for the interrupted service.
Not sure if Vodacom has said anything in this regards, but the period of the outage should be excluded from billing for all customers. While the CEO's job is to make money for shareholders, what's fair is fair.
 
multiple failure of transmission system equipment
Click to expand...
means we don't know what the hell happened!!!

(and the article is blowing smoke up you know where)

Multiple failures of the same type implies we haven't a clue how to maintain things.

Multiple failures of different types implies we haven't a clue how to build things.

This is a diagram of an incident pyramid:

Incident+Pyramid.jpg


The insight that this provides is that there is usually sufficient warning before a major incident happens and countermeasures are typically developed and available if incidents are tracked and managed.

BTW: Incident management has been around since the 1931 when Heinrich first proposed it after investigating industrial accidents:
Heinrich.jpg


(and yes there is a difference between the bottom layers of the two pyramids. The difference is that Heinrich used paper based stats in the 20's while the first one is based on electronic automated statistics which provides more transparency)
 
Last edited:
dabbler said:
Unfortunately in the IT field this type of thing does happen. Apology accepted.
Click to expand...

+1. This could happen, and have happened to the other networks too. This can't be taken as a sign that Vodacom's network is degrading or worse than the others.

IT is a kind of "black magic". It astounds me often how our IT guys at work have to deal with unexpected failures often in the middle of night. People only complain to them when there are problems, but they are not thanked for the 99.9% of the other times that things are working as expected.
 
Apparently the word on the inside is that it was a cable fault, and the cable was supplied from Telkom. As far as I have been told.
 
I actually enjoyed the peace and quiet for a change. It was nice to leave the phone on the table for a while! :p
 
I think people dont realise how lucky they are until they actually don't have it.

The truth is, SA has one of the best cellular networks in the world, and sometimes, things go a bit sideways.

The UK cellular operators are only now, and partly only due to regulatory change making improvements. Have you ever walked into a building in the and seen your signal just disappear? That's due to the frequency allocation that OFCOM had specified for 3G. They have only now allowed the cellular providers to use the 900MHz frequency than can actually get through walls and buildings.

They have also not made the significant speed changes either that you are seeing in SA too. Signal strength, service, SA beats the UK hands down. A couple of months ago, a switching station was broken into in the South East of England, which includes London, and equipment was stolen or vandalised. It took them almost a day and a half to fix, with very little communication from anyone. Even Vodafone here pales in comparison to Vodacom.

So, this doesn't just happen in Africa, it happens everywhere. And from what I've read, I think Vodacom have handled this very well and the best of their ability.

Now dont get me started on the whole DSTV vs Sky debate :p
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X