Network goes down......

D

Deenem

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I spend quite a lot of time this weekend online trying to use up my 2Gb's of MTN prepaid data before it expires (still got more than a Gig to go...)

I use a Motorola V360 phone connected via USB to my PC and it connects using EDGE and I usually get very good download speeds. (I've had it up to 30K/s, but mostly it's around 10-15K).

Quite often this weekend I have dialled up, been connected to the network (I was assigned an IP address (172.x.x.x) by the MTN server so I definately was connected), but I cannot connect to any sites, I try to ping some servers and I just get timeouts. Browser just stops after trying the DNS query and tells me the server could not be found.

Usually I wait an hour or two, connect again and then everything is fine again, but I just want to know if this is normal behavoir for the MTN network? Should I assume that's it's going to be down for a few hours every day and I need some sort of backup? If I upgrade to a 3G phone and use it as a modem will I get the same problem on the 3G network?

I'd really like to get rid of my Telkom landline but if this is how realiable the MTN network is then I will have to keep it for emergency dialups.
 
Deenem said:
I spend quite a lot of time this weekend online trying to use up my 2Gb's of MTN prepaid data before it expires (still got more than a Gig to go...)

I use a Motorola V360 phone connected via USB to my PC and it connects using EDGE and I usually get very good download speeds. (I've had it up to 30K/s, but mostly it's around 10-15K).

Quite often this weekend I have dialled up, been connected to the network (I was assigned an IP address (172.x.x.x) by the MTN server so I definately was connected), but I cannot connect to any sites, I try to ping some servers and I just get timeouts. Browser just stops after trying the DNS query and tells me the server could not be found.

Usually I wait an hour or two, connect again and then everything is fine again, but I just want to know if this is normal behavoir for the MTN network? Should I assume that's it's going to be down for a few hours every day and I need some sort of backup? If I upgrade to a 3G phone and use it as a modem will I get the same problem on the 3G network?

I'd really like to get rid of my Telkom landline but if this is how realiable the MTN network is then I will have to keep it for emergency dialups.
Click to expand...

Which erea.

I had a few problems last night in my area... From about 16:00
Was sorted @ about 20:00
 
When it comes to GPRS / 3G reliability, MTN is by far the best. I almost never have problems with them. They maybe they just had some problems this weekend.
 
Also remember, that if your cellphones battery isn't medium to fully charged. Signal strength and quality can drop. So remember to put it on the charger too.

When i used Bluetooth and my cellphone, Within 2hours my battery was kaput, and my bluetooth link failed... (same goes for USB)

Tho my new phone also charges when i put the data-cable in.. Dunno if the v360 does the same.
 
- Norwood/Houghton Area.

- The phone charges through the USB cable so is always at 100% charge

Compared to Virgin Mobile, MTN is 100 times better, it is just very annoying that the network availabilty seems to be around 90% and not closer to 100%.
 
Deenem said:
- Norwood/Houghton Area.

- The phone charges through the USB cable so is always at 100% charge

Compared to Virgin Mobile, MTN is 100 times better, it is just very annoying that the network availabilty seems to be around 90% and not closer to 100%.
Click to expand...

Whenever I've used it its been closer to 100%. :cool:
 
Sounds like I should make my next prepaid bundle a Vodacom 500Mb and see if it's any better.....
 
well i also get the connection and sometimes most sites wonl load (including gmail and google)
 
Pitbull said:
Which erea.

I had a few problems last night in my area... From about 16:00
Was sorted @ about 20:00
Click to expand...


Same here, but at least no diconnections and only webpages that opened slowly. Later it was OK. But i am satisfied with MTN's GPRS speed which is very reliable.

:) :)
 
Hi,

I switched from VM to MTN and is now on my second 2Gig prepaid recharge.
My wife uses MTN every day for at least 4 or more hours.

This is what we found:
- I use it early in the morning, from around 6am to 7am it flies. Downloads are nice and fast.
- My wife uses it from 9am in the morning. She says the speeds are extremely variable, usually 5 to 7 kBytes per second, but can be as low as 2. Fastest she saw was 42.
- In the afternoons she says its very common to simply loose all connectivity for a couple of hours, at least once a week. The speeds are slow in the afternoon.
- In the evening, when I get home, its horrific. Goodness helps you if you get disconnected, its a mission to get logged on again. Download speeds are extremely slow in the evenings. For example, tonight we tried to upload a 4MB file, and it died twice. The speed was 2 kbytes, then dropped to 1 kbyte and eventually 700 bits per second, and then died. I promised to her to upload it tomorrow morning when I get up at 6am.

I agree with the original posted. I get many times a connection to the server, get the IP address but can't connect to any site. Its like it can't connect to the DNS server. When I try to do a traceroute to the DNS server that even won't work. It seems that an IP address was assigned, but that was about the extend of it!

I also get many times that is verifying the username and password, and then just informs me that the connection attempt failed. This can happen even with 5 bar signal strength.

I told my wife next month we are going to try Vodacom. Somewhere someone must have bandwith!!!!

I don't like Telkom, but wow, if nobody has bandwidth then I guess I will have to use them as much as it gals me.

I heard that the Telkom landing rights on the SAT3 cable expires this month?

If MTNDD reads this thread, I recommend you guys upgrade from your 80MB link to 640MB.

It becomes sad when you sell internet services AND takes the customers unused MBs at the end of the month, but the customer had no hope of even coming close to using it!

Oh, forgot to say, I use 3G, USB cable connection to Nokia E61.
 
My experience is like Haasbroek's - I'm in Cape Town. It's like the little girl with the curl - when it's good it's very very good and when it's bad, horrid isn't strong enough. The bandwidth is definitely inadequate for peak time usage, sometimes I can't connect, and sometimes it connects but clearly can't download any packets (only upload) - so I suspect that it runs out of concurrent download connections and assigns these separately from the upload ones (perhaps one of the MTN techies could comment? I know the speeds are different). This would explain why you can't browse even though you supposedly have a connection.

I generally have problems in the evening but this week have been experiencing them in the afternoon as well - I use mobile broadband for work as an IT consultant and it ain't good enough, MTN.

And of course if I surf heavily at the end of the month, having loaded up airtime for my recurring data bundle purchase, then that gets gobbled without warning if I go out of bundle.

So I'll be looking at Vodacom, although I've had a 3G card from them before via a client, & wasn't terribly impressed.

(I have an E220 HSDPA modem & a prepaid sim)

Caro
 
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