I connect to the internet using my prepaid Vodacom sim card and I purchase Vodacom airtime which I convert to data bundles. It costs me and R on average about R2000 per month for internet and all this for the pathetic unapologetic services that we get from Vodacom.
This entire week, Vodacom has been buggy and internet connection was up and down all day every day. When it was up it was slow mostly.
Just as I get comfortable at my desk this evening, nicely settled into online mode and checking up on emails and things, the internet connection died – this was approximately 21:40 (09:40 PM).
The steps:
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First assumption was that my data bundle has expired or that I used all MB up which I found hard to believe
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I dialed *111# and received a message saying “This service is not available. Please check the number you entered to request string and try again”
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At 21:44 (09:44 PM) I got an sms from +27 8200 90004 saying “Your airtime has run out. Please re-charge your account before you try to connect again”
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After dialing *100# I got confirmation that my balance was actually R1, 34??
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At 22:14 I dialed 121 but got through to my voice messages .. hehe
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At 22:15, I dialed 100 but that was the number for prepaid services and only had:
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Press 1 – to recharge
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Press 2 – for your current service expiry date
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Press 3 – to exit
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For more information about Prepaid offerings dial 082 1187 free from your Vodacom number
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At 22:17 dialed 112 rang at least six times before a voice message greeted me saying I’m through to the Emergency centre … oops!
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Thought and thought about it as we couldn’t remember the customer services number but then at 22:23 tried dialing 111..hooray!
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Press 1 – to learn how to use XXX
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Press 2 – voicemail / MMS
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Press 3 – Data products
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Press 4 – pin / puk
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Just Hold – for more options
After holding I then got more options being:
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Press 1 – to report network problem…YAY
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Press 2 – FAQ
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Press 3 – Prepaid products
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Press 4 – talking points
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Press 5 – logo’s
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<Holding> bla bla bla Did you know that you get rewarded for every something something something… We are transferring your call to an assistant…
After holding to speak to a consultant, I got a “Good day this is Nokhaya” and I wanted to start speaking as it sounded like the usual greeting that they do, but then realised I was actually speaking to a voice message! This was a female voice. A boom phone call ended.
I retried, exactly the same thing but didn’t manage to get the name but that was a guy’s voice and beep call ended.
No customer support at all tonight, just a bunch of voice messages! How pathetic!
So no internet also tonight for me I guess.
If you wondering, I had to dial up using a CellC connection which is more expensive but I just HAD to get the word out there now! I then also used the opportunity to check my data bundle balance by logging onto the Vodacom website and confirmed that I still had 243.44 MB left over.
Just another reason why I hate using Vodacom!
…or should I be hating TELKOM for owning 50% of the company?
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Afrihost has a 10gb adsl package for R290, a 4mb line is about 500 odd, so you could get a great deal using them.
I have a VSAT SSE-512 with 3Gb cap from Telkom @ R1600 / month. No problem with “You Area Does Not Support ADSL”. No problem with “Only Edge Available In Your Area”. I am on a farm that is not even colored for Cell Edge service and I Skype, Remoet Desktop, Live Messanger (Incl. Video), Browse the web, download from ANY site (Found Vodacom was Killing some in their DNS – DNS Error). Send and receive email without being intercepted (Vodacom Intercept your Send emails!! See Below, My configured mail smtp server for sending is the one at the office – and yip they intercept government emails)
“This is the mail system at host relay2.vodamail.co.za.
Your message was successfully delivered to the destination(s) listed below. If the message was delivered to mailbox you will receive no further notifications. Otherwise you may still receive notifications of mail delivery errors from other systems.
The mail system : delivery via mailgatectn01.sita.co.za[196.36.###.##]:25: 250 ok: Message ######### accepted”
I use Linux and Mozilla Firefox is my browser and so no, that is not the problem. I stay as far away from IE as possible.
Opera mini I use on mobile.
Thank you very much though for your suggestion.
If you use Internet Explore vodacom will eat your data bundle, Use Opera Mini on your PC with an emulator it is easy just search in Google : Use opera mini on PC. You will found How. Bonne Chance
I have to agree with Lilji25 here, for far less than R2K you can get a 4mbs ADSL line and a 10Gb cap (I get mine from OpenWeb for R459 p/m). All that together is about R600p/m less than you spend now.
It’s hardly ever down and it has much lower latency (wireless links are always high latency).
Sheez, never though I would be reccomending a telkom product – but in this regard they really do beat everything else.
Neotel has come up with some interesting consumer products too, though their caps are still a bit low for my liking and it’s still wireless (different kind though) so may be worth looking into as well.
CellC is worse than Vodacom with regards to customer service …
For R2k p/m u cn get a creme dela creme connection from telkom.
Voda’s service sounds a lil’ unreasonable.