MTN 3G/HSPA – Please rate your broadband connection

Please rate your MTN 3G/HSPA connection on speed, stability and reliability

  • 5 – Excellent (much better than expected)

    Votes: 2 2.3%

  • 4 – Good (better than expected)

    Votes: 18 20.9%

  • 3 – Fair (exactly as expected)

    Votes: 27 31.4%

  • 2 – Bad (worse than expected)

    Votes: 27 31.4%

  • 1 – Pathetic (much worse than expected)

    Votes: 12 14.0%
  • Total voters
    86
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rpm

rpm

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Hi there

Can you please rate your MTN 3G/HSPA connection on speed, stability and reliability? Do you get what you expected, or is your experience better or worse than what you expected?

It will be great if you can also tell us:


  • In which area/s you use your connection?
  • What can MTN do to make you a happier customer?

Please post your comments in this thread (by posting your views you will stand a chance to win an iPad 2).
 
I use MTN in the Northern Suburbs, between Sandton, Fourways, Douglasdale and Norscot, I get EDGE more often than not.

Generally I find HSPA connections are rare

What can MTN do? Make sure we actually get the so called World Class internet that they punt but can't deliver
 
I use MTN prepaid on a farm near Hartbeespoort, where I get 2-3 bars of EDGE reception and 1 bar of 3G at ~2 am. This is as expected, no use hoping for more in a rural area, but the speed I get is extremely variable and the network stability is not great. The connection rarely gets dropped, but the other day there was a whole day during which I could only get GPRS, I almost tore all my hair out.

I also sometimes use MTN (contract and prepaid) in Centurion (towards Rooihuiskraal) and there I also only get EDGE, though full reception. In such a highly populated area I would really expect 3G/HSDPA reception.

So, in summary, I would like network stability to improve in more rural areas and I expect better speeds in Centurion. And of course for the price of pre-paid data to come down :)
 
Use in Pmburg and Greytown. Used to be great but now sucks even worse then VC's 3G.

They can make me happy by providing a more stable service and cheaper prices to go with!
 
Here in Plumstead it is Fair... speeds are as expected without much fluctuation. Voice on the other hand on MTN is atrocious here, but the data side it works as required.

MTN do something about voice coverage and perhaps rethink the pricing.
 
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Speed: Good (>1.5Mbps)
Reliability: Good
Stability: Bad (It feels like they throttle me everytime I try to use the connection for extended periods. I have lots of data carrying over because I have to resort to Vodacom for extended browsing/downloading).

Used in the Secunda (TEKS) area

I would like better prices, stability and abolishing of the R2/Mb
 
I live in Knysna - and use in Garden Route.
Reception is OK but often slower than expected.
I have not lost connection yet - as long as I am near the N2. When I go inland towards the R62 reception sucks!
What can MTN do? Well they need a stronger signal in this area - and getting the speed up to HSDPA would be good!
Reliability and value for money is always desirable
 
Bloemfontein - get mostly 5-6 MBps connection Stabily and latency variations. Fix these and increase speed to improve otherwise decent connection. Coverage is average.
 
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MTN in most of Pierre van Ryneveld/Irene is good, except where I am in. I get edge on a normal day, and sometimes there is just nothing.
 
Used mainly in Goodwood and Epping (home and work), and is decent enough. Data-wise I generally have to be happy with 3G instead HSDPA, but no complaints about that really. Havent experienced any dropped calls in the last few months which is excellent, call quality also very good for the last few months. Overall I'm quite happy, only thing I would wish for is cheaper broadband ;)

Edit: maybe if MTN launched a "proper" uncapped offering similar to BIS, and not the junk which they launched recently, I'll gladly forego a bit of speed knowing that I can surf the web to my heart's content on my phone's built in browser (which supports flash, naturally), and not have to recharge airtime after 1 day's usage. I'd rather choose a constant slowish speed over fast for 75mb and then almost non-existent speed.
 
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I use MTN broadband in Protea Hights, Brackenfell. Most of the time I only get EDGE. And 3G gets about 2mbit/s at most.

It will be great if MTN can give me constant 3G/HSPA connection.
 
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I try and connect from various places around SA, and most cases it is pathetic.
From Constantia in the Cape to Lydenburg in Mpumalanga.

I mostly try and use it when travelling but rarely succeed to get a stable and usable connection. I rarely get 3G and even in Potchefstroom, where I stay, I have to be content with poor connections.
 
I'm using that little black usb modem,
I use it at home in Randfontein and the first 2 days, not even, I got 3G connection, after that it is EDGE at the most!
MTN is a disapointment
 
I use mine mostly in the northern suburbs of Cape Town.
MTN is disapointing
 
I have been a loyal MTN subscriber for the past +- 12 years, been on contract most of my life…

About a year and a half ago I got a Blackberry Bold 9700, not sure if this review fits under the ‘MTN Broadband & Mobile Internet | HSPA+, HSDPA, HSUPA, 3G, EDGE’ heading, but hear goes :p

I mainly use my 3G connection in the Bellville and Cape Town area (workplace), connection wise I’m not very happy, we I get a 3G connection and I brows the internet and a page loads and the connection switches from 3G to EDGE the age loads for a minute or two and then just returns with a message saying connection failed, if this problem persists please phone your service provider… tried doing that, but explaining my issue to the person on the other side was impossible… lets just say there was a language barrier we could not overcome :p

My fiancé has a Blackberry 8520 on Vodacom contract, the phone limits her to a EDGE connection, I sometimes gets so frustrated with my MTN 3G connection that I use her phone for browsing the internet… Not sure if it is my phone or the MTN network, either way it’s not quite acceptable.

What can MTN do different…? Better data bundle prices please :D I use my 8ta sim mainly for browsing now as my ‘free’ MTN blackberry BIS service is unusable (unstable).

Also, and I know I’m opening a can of worms here, but please MTN could you not limit us to 3Gig on your MTN Lite ‘uncapped’ account… I know you get throttled to 256kbps, but that is only good for browsing, well barely… As I mentioned in my 8ta prepaid user review (http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthr...–-Please-rate-your-broadband-connection/page3), just upping the 3Gig to 5Gig will already make a huge difference.

All and all I give it a 2/5… MTN is not what is used to be, for me… :(
 
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MTN's data service in my area is marginally better than Vodacom's however that all depends on what part of the house I am in. If I want >2G speeds I have to keep my laptop in a certain area of the house. Alternatively it just switches to EDGE speeds which are about as quick as a sloth on a unicycle...
 
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I use MTN Uncapped Lite in Vredekloof (Brackenfell, CTN Northern Suburbs)

I must say that I am actually happy with it, my heavy downloading is offloaded to a dedicated PC at one of my offices (4MB Uncapped ADSL) so the 3GB soft-cap is not even much of an issue. General browsing/Email and a bit of WoW or Battlefield from time to time works extremely well. Noticed the pings on BF got a bit high the last while though (+-300-450ms).

Reception is great and reliable (Full HSPA signal 99% of the time).

Only real issue I have is the DNS provided by the ISP - pretty crappy to say the least. Setting to either Open DNS or Google Public DNS is a simple fix to that issue though.
 
Where's there's coverage, it works decently, but there are quite a few dead zones and in those cases, getting a voice call out is sketchy, data is impossible.

JHB North and Central
 
In which area/s you use your connection?
Glenwood, Durban
What can MTN do to make you a happier customer?
They lost me as a customer cause they just too expensive
 
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