Good, I too am about to lodge a complaint with ICASA, more users should do the same.
Thanks threegee. I just lodged a complaint too and I hope more of us do too. Here what I lodged:
I subscribed to vodacom's blackberry internet service (BIS) during april 2009. The unlimited on device browsing and unlimited emails were the only reasons that i decided to take the blackberry storm on a top up 315 contract.
When my bis was activated I noticed that my on device browsing was no faster than what I had previously experienced on my sony ericcson w900i on GPRS even though my blackberry was connected at 3G. I was a bit disappointed but did not complain as I was getting the same service I had previously without incurring additional data charges.
I work in Hermanus during the week and stay in cape town on weekends and during may and june I noticed that during the week my device struggled to load webpages during the day. Sometimes a single page would take 5 minutes to load if at all. I experienced continuous disconnections and timeouts and downloads almost always failed.
I am a member of mybroadband.co.za and there is a dedicated forum for vodacom broadband related topics. There I learned that my problems were not isolated and that many users infact all the vodacom bis subscribers on the forum were experiencing the same issues. The were advised by vodacom customer care to reset their devices as they believed the problem to be device related. This fix did not work for a single person who tried it. No-one at vodacom customer care was aware of any general issues being experienced by their users.
This was the problem experienced during business hours where the service was almost unusable. At around 19h00 every evening speed tests proved that connection speeds improved and the service become usable again. But at 08h00 the next morning speeds would deteriorate and the service would become unusable again.
A vodacom representative on the site with the username Vodacom3G informed us that vodacom was aware of the problem and that a resolution in the form of an upgrade to the RIM link was being implemented this was on 31 May 2009.
While we were happy that vodacom was finally admitting that there was a problem it must be noted that this was on a public forum that is not officially connected to vodacom. At that time vodacom customer care continued to deny any knowledge of a problem and there was nothing on their website or any other official communication from vodacom informing their subscribers of the problem or any potential resolution. The only people privy to this information were the users of mybroadband.co.za.
The link was upgraded and a usable service was restored. This was reported on the forum by a new vodacom representative VodacomData on 31 July 2009.
He assisted some of us in receiving refunds from vodacom for the bis subscriptions we had been paying during for a service that was not working during june and July. While I was satisfied that I was reimbursed this refund was only provided to a select group of users on a public forum who had reported their problems to a representative of vodacom on a public forum with no official connections to vodacom. Still there was no no official communication from vodacom.
Less than 2 months later things have gone back to the way I have described above. The service is totally unusable during business hours and again no communication is forthcoming from vodacom. VodacomData, a representative of vodacom on the mybroadband.co.za forum has again reported a pending upgrade of the link between vodacom and RIM. But as I mentioned before this is not an official communication channel..
Vodacom is selling a service to subscribers and is unable to deliver the service at the performance advertised by them. It must be noted that MTN BIS subscribers are not experiencing the problems that we vodacom subscribers are forced to live with.
Also vodacom are currently running a massive advertising campaign on the blackberry 8520 with 'free' bis included in the subscription price. The are increasing the userbase while being unable to deliver a usable service to their existing users. In my opinion this is unethical in the least we existing subscribers are being forced to live with a service that is deteriorating due to the increase in users while new users are being enticed to sign a 24 month contract with promises of free on device browsing and unlimited emails at lightning speed.
While in reality this is not being delivered. For new users this is only realised after the contract has been signed with no way of canceling it with incurring penalty fees as the blackberry service is usually only activated within a week activating the contract. Conveniently after the 7 day cooling off period.
I implore you to please investigate what I have reported and hold vodacom accountable for their actions as someone is certainly benefiting from the subscriptions paid to vodacom every month. And I can assure you that it isn't me or any of the other users subscribed to the service as there is no service.
All I ask is that vodacom publically admit that there is a problem on their side. That they stop signing up new subcribers until the problem is resolved and that they refund everyone affected by this non-service.
IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?
Everything that I have reported is documented by various users on the links below.
http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?t=177519
and this delays the process even further.
