Vodafone's Ready to Go service...

PH01

Has anyone noticed that Vodafone's Ready to Go service (087) has go worse over the past couple of months? Or is it just me and my phone?

Another 087 person is sitting beside me and she has got network coverage and I don't. But, she's a fee paying customer.

I reckon that the service for the Ready to Go customers are getting a lower prioritisation?

Anyone else suffering out there?

rymus

excuse me if I sound cold but "you get what you pay for". In my opinion it makes sense for mobile operators to offer better service to contracted customers over pre-paid users that could decide to stop using the service at the drop of a hat.

seamus

Your lack of coverage is probably your phone. But to echo rymus, bill pay makes up around 20% of vodafone's customers, but is worth around 85% or thereabouts of their income. They'd prefer there was no RTG customers at all........

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

PH01

OK, I'll have to figure out if it's my phone or not.

But that a side, if Vodafone is being discriminatory with their network coverage don't you think that's unfair?

It's like saying that it would be OK for Eircom to restrict the the time when low value customers can make phone calls?

seamus

Originally posted by PH01
OK, I'll have to figure out if it's my phone or not.

But that a side, if Vodafone is being discriminatory with their network coverage don't you think that's unfair?

It's like saying that it would be OK for Eircom to restrict the the time when low value customers can make phone calls?

I don't think they *can* be discriminatory with coverage, the technology doesn't work that way. Your eircom example is flawed because everyone pays line rental. If you only just paid for your calls (in advance) on a landline, I'd have no problem with you being restricted on the quality of your voice call service. RTG customers don't pay line rental.

Mutz

Originally posted by rymus
excuse me if I sound cold but "you get what you pay for". In my opinion it makes sense for mobile operators to offer better service to contracted customers over pre-paid users that could decide to stop using the service at the drop of a hat.

I think thats fairly inaccurate and I would have to agree with seamus here. There would be no way to do this and if it was found out without it being stated in the Terms and Conditions, ready to go customers would start a riot.

Imagine......

PH01

Originally posted by seamus
I don't think they *can* be discriminatory with coverage, the technology doesn't work that way.

I'm not a dentist but when a user logs on to a network their access can be restricted. Now whether that works for mobiles I don't know but I'm willing to bet that it can.

Now if I was Vodafone I would be doing all I can to better the service to the bill paying customers. At least from them I'm getting a regular and predictable income stream. But how do I improve they're coverage without incurring extra costs by spending money we don't have on infrastructure. Solution? I know let just discriminate between our customers. Once our bill paying customers log on to the network route them through the faster network that would be less conjested, while the RTG cusstomers are put through the slower network.


But maybe I'm just getting wrapped up in a conspiracy theory, and maybe its just my phone

MiCr0

Originally posted by PH01
Once our bill paying customers log on to the network route them through the faster network that would be less conjested, while the RTG cusstomers are put through the slower network.


But maybe I'm just getting wrapped up in a conspiracy theory, and maybe its just my phone

i work for a phone telecoms company
conspiracy theory it is!
we have our own gprs network here and we often see two handsets side by side - one with full coverage - the other unable to connect.

often its down to signal strength, aerial power, battery strength etc etc

i don't think its in vodafones interest to route RTG customers calls slower - think about it?? this would just delay the whole network for everyone.

just out of interest - what were the two phones that you used for the comparision?

PH01

Originally posted by MiCr0
i work for a phone telecoms company
conspiracy theory it is!
we have our own gprs network here and we often see two handsets side by side - one with full coverage - the other unable to connect.

often its down to signal strength, aerial power, battery strength etc etc

i don't think its in vodafones interest to route RTG customers calls slower - think about it?? this would just delay the whole network for everyone.

just out of interest - what were the two phones that you used for the comparision?

Absolutly, I take your point on the signal strength, aerial power, battery strength. My phone is a Nokia 3310 and I'm comparing it against newer 3310 who is a bill paying customer. I'm going to test my sim card on a newer phone and I'll get back to you with my results.

But the jury is still out on that conspiracy theory though.

rymus

Originally posted by Mutz
I think thats fairly inaccurate and I would have to agree with seamus here. There would be no way to do this and if it was found out without it being stated in the Terms and Conditions, ready to go customers would start a riot.

Imagine......

Well yeah I'm not saying they are doing it but I 85% of the revenue from 20% of the customer base speaks for itself. You couldnt really blame them if they did give preferential treatment to their doting bill payers.

seamus

Originally posted by PH01
I'm not a dentist but when a user logs on to a network their access can be restricted. Now whether that works for mobiles I don't know but I'm willing to bet that it can.

But maybe I'm just getting wrapped up in a conspiracy theory, and maybe its just my phone

It would probably cost more and be more of a pain in the ass to operate such a system. Everyone uses the same network, so the only way of making RTG customers suffer would be to leave them connected to a cell longer, ie to allow a lower minimum signal strength. This would involve; When the cell detects signal strength going below the threshold, it would have to query from a database, whether the phone was RTG or not. If it is RTG it leaves it as is. If it's not, it initiates the handover to a cell closer to the phone. All very time consuming and expensive. Especially for example in the mornings, if you have 1500 people stuck in traffic, ie 1500 phones connected to the one base station.

LegacyUser

To answer the original question, Vodafone can give priority to bill phones over RTG units. The problem was uncovered in Galway around 2 years ago by what became known as ‘Friday night text syndrome’ (as the local papers called it). Every Friday evening, the base units in Galway city/county would overload with people making calls/texts to make plans for the weekend. It was particualrly bad over the bank holiday weekends.

I remmeber reading in the paper that an eircell spokeswoman said that an increase in call/data traffic meant the base stations couldn’t handle all the info, and bill phones were automatically given priority for texting and phone calles.

All phones would have shown a strong signal, but if you rang from an RTG mobile, it would try to make the connection, beep and then automatically end the calling process (or ‘message sending failed). With my phone I wouldn’t have any problem. It was amusing one night with people coming into the pub saying “my phone is fuçked” — it was only the RTG customers that said it though.

That said, one weekend , the whole system went down, and RTG customers got free calls to any number (including the expensive sex lines — quite amusing in the pub again) — the costs were never deducted from call credits.

PH01

Cheers Buckfast.

So does this prove that this customer prioritisation over a mobile network is possible?

LegacyUser

Absolutely PH01, and if Skoda-fone tell you anything different, they’re full of the bown stuff. That story appeared in either the Connacht Sentinel or the Galway City Tribune around this time two years ago, so i presume you can get the story in their internet archive if they have one.

PH01

...what say you now???

rymus

Originally posted by Buckfast
... bill phones were automatically given priority for texting and phone calles.

I say..... GOOD! The world makes sense again

seamus

I echo rymus. We (billpay) pay line rental. You don't. Therefore we have more right to guaranteed service. You must put up with 'best effort'.

I'll get a copy of that newspaper too, to verify Buckfast's statement (easily done by me)

PH01

Originally posted by seamus
I echo rymus. We (billpay) pay line rental. You don't. Therefore we have more right to guaranteed service. You must put up with 'best effort'.

I'll get a copy of that newspaper too, to verify Buckfast's statement (easily done by me)

How much are Crapafone paying you? They must love you?

Well if you're happy paying more money for the service then fair enough. But aren't RTG customers entitled to some kind of reliable service?

I hope you get your hands on that newspaper article. And while you at it you might get them to investigate this again?

seamus

Originally posted by PH01

How much are Crapafone paying you? They must love you?

Well if you're happy paying more money for the service then fair enough. But aren't RTG customers entitled to some kind of reliable service?

I hope you get your hands on that newspaper article. And while you at it you might get them to investigate this again?

Strangely enough, I work for them, but not in the phones part. If Vodafone are doing it, them so are O2 and Meteor.......

I pay the same amount of money per month that I did with RTG and I make more calls. RTG customers are entitled to make the calls that they've paid for. Nothing else. As was said before, you get what you pay for. I thought that even when I was on RTG, Besides, you *do* get a reliable service on RTG, just a pity about the cost.......

rymus

Originally posted by PH01
But aren't RTG customers entitled to some kind of reliable service?

Some kind of reliable service? yes... A completely reliable service? no.

If you want a better service, sign a contract... thats the way things are. Its like when you get webhosting for free.. You get ads put on your pages, the server may and inevitably will go down from time to time without warning. However when you rent a virtual or dedicated server, it will be up all the time*, you'll get extra functionality like email server, php, mysql etc..

In short, you get what you pay for. Sure you're paying for credit but youre not actually paying to be on the network in essence. When you pay line rental youre paying to be on the network and so its realistic to assume that you will be able to make and recieve calls as long as you have coverage. As for coverage - No I would not presume that the network discriminates between who gets the most bars on their signal strength but I would assume that if both an RTG and contract customer tried to make calls and the node was low on capacity that the contract customer would have their call put through and the RTG customer's call would be rejected. C'est la vie!