Vodafone

Victor

I wasn't sure where to post this, so feel free to move / abuse / burn this post.

I tried last night (for an hour) to contact the lads (to go see the fireworks), but couldn't get a line on my mobile (I had a signal, but couldn't connect).

So I've come to the conclusion, where once we has Esh*t, then Errorcom, now we have Woe-the-phone.

Frenzy

Same thing happened to me at Witnness last year.
The network must have been too busy
but what can you expect,
at the end of the day its Ireland isnt it?

Victor

Originally posted by Frenzy
Same thing happened to me at Witnness last year.

The difference being, you had too many people (say 20,000 for 512 lines) in the one 'cell', if anything, my cell(s) (between Eirpage house and the RTE mast - I wonder if I could pick up a second cell? Duh!) was underpopulated.

billy the squid

Have found that same problem with meteor, when your lucky enough to get signal your hoping and praying that the network aint busy like it was for hours last night

then what do meteors do, crash and burn

esat dodgyfone is ok i guess never had problems with them

vodaphone eh its eircell painted red

and has anyone noticed that they are getting rid of the subsidised phones its now "buy and bill" buy the phone and pay in installments.

Victor

Originally posted by fcddunne
and has anyone noticed that they are getting rid of the subsidised phones its now "buy and bill" buy the phone and pay in installments.

It's much the same, just the rip-off is more transparent now.

cournioni

I heard this complaint from a few lads from down this part of the country too. So I'd doubt if it was overcrowded lines. Maybe they were upgradine something? I dunno.

amp

Open letter to Vodafone:

I'm fine thanks. Stfu.

SantaHoe

God almighty... just use a land-line.
Damn mobile freaks - "oh no! an hours downtime, my life is over!"

elexes

santa u clearly aint seeing the point of a mobile phone .

ye yesterday network was down from 6-9 i think
week b4 the top up cards werent working
week b4 that they cut me off by computer error
week b4 that they were down for 6 hrs

im not one bit happy with voda since they took over

Toast

What really gets my goat about Vodaphone is their current ad campaign.

Lets take our ad filmed by the english, acted by the english and produce with an english audience in mind and show it to the Irish.
Then!!!! lets wait 2 weeks and stick some irish words on it.

Im not a xenephobe but I find this insulting. If they are going to make an ad for the irish market dont just recycle a blatantly english ad and stick irish words on top of it. I can understand they may not have had the resources to make a new ad for the irish market straight away (that dandy warhol song must have cost them a few bob) but the showing it for 2 weeks and then sticking irish words on top of it is beyond belief! As if that makes it suddenly irish.
Gah!

flamegrill

i've had an eircell sim for 4 years, in that length of time i can safely say i have had very few problems with their network. As said previously a few hours downtime here and there isnt so bad.
also on the nite of the fireworks i had no problems sending txts or ringing people, but i am a billed customer, so i presume that we would get network access over Ready to go customers, my GF has an 087 RTG phone and she couldnt send txts or ring on that nite. it must have been over loading, as there was 1/5 a million in town that nite, and the billed customers got preference...

regards,

Paul

Saruman

Just bought a Vodaphone ready to go 3310! My old esat one was dead, kept turning off.. needed a new one so i got a Vodaphone.. idea being waste the €60 Euro credit i get on it and then stick in my Esat sim.. i would stay with vodaphone if you did not have to top up every 30 days.. Esat you dont have to! Anyway i ordered a flash cable to unlock the phone.. not got it yet but i decided to tempt fate and try changing sims! after i got the cover off.. damn hard first time... i stuck it in and it worked!! amazing.. vodaphone have not got around to locking the 3310's yet.. wonder if they have made the same mistake on the other phones in their range....

Victor

Originally posted by flamegrill
but i am a billed customer, so i presume that we would get network access over Ready to go customers, my GF has an 087 RTG phone and she couldnt send txts or ring on that nite

And dare I ask why you should get priority?

Originally posted by flamegrill
it must have been over loading, as there was 1/5 a million in town that nite, and the billed customers got preference...

I was in donnybrook, not the city centre ....

Originally posted by SantaHoe
God almighty... just use a land-line. ...

And what if you don't have one?

seamus

My phone worked fine all day, and I was in Donnybrook from 10.30-6.30 that day. My mates Meteor refused to work all day, coming back online at around 11:30pm. Yes billing customers get priority when channels are sparse. Why? For exactly the same reason as they get a freephone helpdesk number, and much more heavily subsidised phones - they spend waaay more than RTG customers, and so are more valuable to keep. (Not an official Voda statement btw). Be expecting some regular outages over the May-july period btw..............

flamegrill

quote:

---

Originally posted by flamegrill
God almighty... just use a land-line. ...

---

first off i didnt say that, SantaHoe did.

Originally posted by Victor
And dare I ask why you should get priority?

As said by seamus, bill pay customers will always get priority over RTG customers, simply because we Pay more and are guarenteed to actually use the phone each month, instead of just stickin in a fiver here and there. I would presume this, i dont know if its actual fact.

plastic membrane

Originally posted by Victor


So I've come to the conclusion, where once we has Esh*t, then Errorcom, now we have Woe-the-phone.

Skodaphone is my preferred abusive twist on the name..

Tazz T

There are at least half a dozen pubs in the central Dublin area that my Meteor phone won't work in - on the ground floor. Really annoying on a night out.

On a better note, I understand that their MD has been complaining about the other big two using their monopoly to prevent Meteor from reducing call costs.

billy the squid

On a better note, I understand that their MD has been complaining about the other big two using their monopoly to prevent Meteor from reducing call costs.

and how may i ask are they doing this

might be a stupid question but i thought i would ask anyway.

The Clown Man

For events like the fireworks the other night most network companies would bring in mobile cells to try to cater for the huge increase in calls made during the period of mass congregation. Unfortunately, it is usually very hard to predict the amount of the present population that will need to use thier phones at the time. I can say for sure that the mobile comanies do try to make the ability to call out in such circumstances more accessable but usually, because of the undetermined demand for network usage, the extra lines get clogged, and it is difficult to get a line out. You will find that this happens with all mobile companies across the world.

I don't work for vodaphone but I do know the ins and outs of mobile network usage.

Irish_Ranger_IR

Originally posted by SantaHoe
God almighty... just use a land-line.
Damn mobile freaks - "oh no! an hours downtime, my life is over!"

ROFL.......


Hahahhaa

Victor

Originally posted by fcddunne
and how may i ask are they doing this. might be a stupid question but i thought i would ask anyway.

Interconnect rates are kept too high by the effective duopoly (it's about 53/44/3%)

rymus

I'm gonna take a different stance here and say that in the last 2 years I've had a contract with Eircell/Vodafone and never had any problems. Sure the rates are expensive when compared to the likes of Vodafone in the UK but otherwise no complaints (apart from the truly wacky way they chose to spell my name on my bills - Ms. Chanandler Bong comes to mind)

Makaveli

In the 4 years I have had my RTG phone the only real problem I had was that for quite a while it was impossible to get through to 1741 to top up and when you finally would get through you would get cut off.
As for saturday night, I couldnt make phone calls between 8 and about 12, I could still send messages though.

Rumblefish

radio channel congestion is common for all networks when there is a 'mass call event' - slane concerts, st. paddys etc. they can put in a temp. cell sure, but each GSM operator only has been given ~30 frequencies for the entire country (which they reuse in non-adjacent cells) and each freq can handle only 8 calls, it is a technology limitation. think of the equivilent in road traffic terms. If once a year you get 500,000 people wanting to drive to the same place you're not going to build a six lane motorway to it to mean the spike in demand are you ?

It is technically impossible to prioritise prepaid and billpaid customers on GSM radio channels. the radio resource allocation doesn't know how you are billed - this is done in a different part of the network.

also bear in mind it may be congestion in the network of the person you are phoning, not the network of your phone.

on the topic of adds I especially like the new eircom add about mobile calls being 7 times more expensive than home phones - this is essential an admission by eircom that they screwed us on mobile bills for the years and years that they owned eircell.

Panda

I' ve yet to have a problem with skodafone (better than woe-the-fone, soz Victor)
But i can be sure to have a prob at witnness this year, as i have whenever i go to a concert.

As for meteor, their network is such a steaming pile of ****, even when you do have a signal (in very few areas this is true) it takes ages to send a sms to another meteor phone and even longer again to send it to a phone on another network.

Victor

How about "Nearly Ready To Go"?

Tazz T

@fccdunne

read it in a recent article in the indie.

MD wasn't happy about prices on Vodafone and Esat and said they were not competing fairly. Preventing Meteor using their infrastructure or somfin. Something like eircom do. Maybe just MD-speak, but at least Meteor are a competitor trying to make a difference to us - the consumer.

That's why I'd rather have a **** signal than a company more interested in profits than customers.

billy the squid

Well me thinks that the meteor network will be the way to go once thier network is in place

only thing that annoys me about meteor is that in order to untie a phone from their network you need a credit card, no money you just have to give them your credit card number to get the phone untied. probably to bombard you with junk mail later on i suppose.

I take your point about the other two companies preventing meteor from being more competitive .

The costumer care people at meteor are probably the nicest too

the ones at dodgy phone are evil and nasty (that s if your battery lasts long enough to get6 through to one)

and with the help of god vodaphone will replace all the eircell cc staff with new more polite people

Panda

Originally posted by fcddunne
only thing that annoys me about meteor is that in order to untie a phone from their network you need a credit card, no money you just have to give them your credit card number to get the phone untied.

Ehh, thats not true fcddunne, i had my free meteor phone unlocked for a fiver by someone.

Originally posted by Tazz TThat's why I'd rather have a **** signal than a company more interested in profits than customers.[/B]

Lol, i all honesty dont you think thats being a little bit naieve?
Since when are compaines more interested in customers than profits.
Its just a simple advertising ploy.

Tazz T

at least they're trying.

billy the squid

Ehh, thats not true fcddunne, i had my free meteor phone unlocked for a fiver by someone.

Was talking about the legal way of getting it unblocked

fi

Originally posted by fcddunne


and has anyone noticed that they are getting rid of the subsidised phones its now "buy and bill" buy the phone and pay in installments.

this is NOT true, after reading this yesterday i went to blanchardstown and into the Vodafone shop there, i asker her could i upgrade my phone, she said are you elligable for an upgrade i told her not untill april 28th as that was the date i bought my current fon, she said well come bak then and she would be happy to look after me.

they even have the displays set wtiih admitedly some buy and bill fons but also upgrade prices too.

mind you the fon i want Voda have decided not to clear it, stupid yokes. :rolleyes:

Victor

Apparently huge parts of their network have been down since last night (so says the guy in their shop this morning). Everyone is getting:

Call barred

I tried to use the Woe-the-phone website:

Error

Sorry, an error has occured, please try again later

Sound familiar?

fi

i had service last night

and i got an upgrade, and the phone i got cost €100

in the eircom shop it was €119 for the same fon for upgrade for the same server

in the carphone warehouse it was €199

what a difference!!!

anyway my new phone can be connected to my pc and palm so im a happy wee girl today