GITweekly

Hot on the heels of Mr Whale’s recent frustrations with mobile network reception, I thought I’d write in to share my own experiences. You see, like our esteemed tech-savvy cetacean, I’ve been experiencing my own unenviable set of problems, chiefly revolving around, to put it bluntly, rubbish reception!

Put simply, I’ve been suffering at the hands (or ears, as the case may be) of gradually deteriorating call quality since I signed up with my previous carrier, who shall remain nameless. Suffice to say, ‘Yes’, they’re fond of using animals in their TV advertisements…

So after much to-ing and fro-ing, we decided enough was enough, it’s time to change carriers. The inevitable wrangling over contract exit fees ensued, and of course, like so many others, we ended up knocking on the doors of our local regulator, the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman. Seemingly the posturing was enough, because our exit fees were reduced to a token charge to pay out the phones, and we were happy with that.

We’ve since migrated to a carrier widely reputed to have far superior signal coverage and I must admit, I did so with some trepidation. Not wanting to swap rubbish for garbage, I was understandably nervous about making the transition. Read the rest of this entry →

Psychotic blogger in the wild

So here I sit. Savouring the last of my double full fat Swiss cheese, triple ham, French’s classic yellow mustard, on wholemeal. Thinking and musing. You know, I think to myself, I was a real dick. My endless agitation over the poor Telstra coverage at home and our in-store embarrassment ended in almost hysterical fervor and, to be honest, ended with me achieving just slightly more than hypertension and disharmony at home. Yep, I was a dick. Read the rest of this entry →

Boy, when you jump out of the fry-pan you sure as heck can land in the dog poo. And that, my dear friends, is where you find us at the moment. In the dog poo. Confused? Me too. Let’s take a walk and have a chat about it. From my side of things. Biased and slightly apologetic.

It all began some time ago with a house move. A move on to a hill. Our then mobile phone provider, we’ll call them 4 to maintain their anonymity, appeared to offer little or no coverage at our suburban home. Undaunted we fought them in the trenches and open fields until the spectre of the telecommunications ombudsman smote them. When the smoke had cleared we found that we’d been released to continue our mobile journey across to our savior. The bringer of coverage. The charger of premium prices. But that was okay with us, for coverage is what we desired. End dramatic monologue. Read the rest of this entry →

Look I know. It’s been such a long time. How have you been?

Great. Knee not playing up?

Great. Me?

Yeah, I’ve been cheating on you with My Green Australia. Sorry. I like them. A lot. See, here’s a link of us together. Oh yeah, there’s this other thing. iFieldtests. It’s really a love hate thing though.

Sorry – let’s focus.

iFieldtests is a Tumblr page or Tumblog, if you like, of my experiences with the Vodafone network in Australia. True, it’s pretty niche as it only covers the places that I frequent. Makes sense though – if I’m having issues with my coverage in the areas that I live in there’s trouble to be had. And unfortunately there is.

So pop on over and have a peek at the pics I’ve posted. If you’ve had a good experience with Vodafone we’d love to hear it, along with the bad. Don’t hesitate to send us your screen captures (on the iPhone press the home button and the power button at the same time) and we’ll pop them up on the page – include your location and any other relevant details.

So what’s prompted me to create the iFieldtests page?

Well it’s a saga that’s been going on for about six months and began on the 3 mobile network. We began experiencing dropouts and call fails at our home and at several other places that we hang around. After a load of chatter between 3 and us we, stupidly, agreed to move to the Vodafone network to see if the coverage would improve. The answer was yes and no.

Since the swap to Vodafone we’ve seen an improved coverage, for calls, around our home. On the other hand we can’t go down to the family holiday home due to no coverage at the house and at the RSL next door. Due to the nature of my “day job” I have to be contactable at all times – with Vodafone I’m off the air. At least with 3 we roamed.

We’ve also seen that since the change from 3 to Vodafone the data reliability has been awful. Low speeds and frequent timeouts. Again we didn’t experience these issues as much with 3. With 3 I could even stream audio from the internet – now – no hope. As you’ll see, if you find it, compared to the 2008 average 3G data speeds of 759kbps I should be using my iPhone to its full capabilities. I can’t.

So that’s what I’ve been mulling over for the last wee while. Vodafone now tells us that for them to do anything they need to do a network check. They also say that this could take a month. A month! They could tell me that we live 2 streets away from a known black spot. These delays is what causes me to get so angry.

What do I want?

I want out. Out of the contract that I made with 3 – the same contract that sees me pay for 2 mobiles in our household that are so unreliable. Not once have we been offered recompense. Not once have we seen our service truly improve despite us changing carriers for them and changing sims for them.

Just do the right thing Vodafone. We want out.