Ineptitude, thy name is Cell C!

OK, it's official...the Cell C "whoosh" wireless connection thingie sucks. Big time. Constant drop outs, reconnects that don't actually reconnect to the network. Long dead times while you connect, reconnect, and reconnect again. Save your money and stay away from this turkey! This review is based on the following, an experience capping seven days of drop outs, emails lost in the ether, and endlessly repeated reconnections (which are not automatic…every time it drops out, you have to go into a window and reconnect manually).


Wednesday, 8 December, 2010
Sandton

One (1) Cell C Speed Stick and one (1) Dell laptop computer.

Speed Stick loses connection to the Internet at 12:26 pm: it can connect to the Cell C network but is unable to download any data from the web (meaning it cannot even refresh an open page, like the email).

For testing purposes, a second Speed Stick is plugged into a ThinkPad laptop: it connects to the network but it also cannot download any data from the web.

Forty (40) minutes and nine (9) telephone calls to Cell C result in seven (7) transfers to technical assistance that went into endless selection loops or that were cut off, and one (1) person who gave us a telephone number for Tech support, which we had to dial ourselves because transfers go into an endless selection loop.

Fifty (50) minutes after the things stopped working, connection to a technician who, for some bizarre reason, seemed to think that fiddling with the Internet Options settings on one of the computers will resolve a problem affecting two (2) computers and two (2) sticks.

At 1:36…one hour and ten minutes (1/10) after the data stopped flowing, the tech support person refers the problem to the Network Services department and tells us someone will call us back.

Seventy (70) minutes chewed up to find out that not only does Cell C not know why my Speed Sticks are not working, but to learn that Cell C itself does not even know its network has a problem!

At 1:56 the signal is intermittently back. But it comes and goes, causing the light on the stick to cycle randomly through green/blue/indigo/dead without warning.

This wasn’t my idea and, believe it or not, Telkom and an ISP that is growing too fast for its own good (and efficiency) is a better option. Save your money until Cell C can tell, without you wasting an hour on the phone (at Telkom rates), that there is something is wrong, wrong, wrong with their network!

Hubby, hear my plea! Take this turkey back to the farm for a refund and give me my ADSL back!!