Updated 6 November 2009.

I just cancelled my Neotel service. Here’s why.

As you can see at the bottom of this post, when I first started posting speed tests on my Neotel connection (it is the high-end consumer offering NeoFlex Data 15GB), I was proactively contacted by a Neotel employee, Albert Goosen. This really impressed me, and I hoped this meant that the non-responsiveness for which Neotel’s client services has become famous would be spared me. Unfortunately it meant no such thing.

From the moment I received my EVDOx1 router from Neotel, the quality of the service disappointed me. At times I got half-decent speeds of 400-500kbps, but more often it hovered in the 50-200 range. And that is an average with the connection dropping to a few bytes per second several times per minute. Worse, every few days, for hours at a time, or even for the whole day, the connection would be highly unstable with speeds averaging less the 100kbps. I though this might be a signal strength issue, so I tried to test the latter with the bundled software. No luck, the CD that shipped with my router could not be read. I hunted around the internet and managed to download a piece of software called “Axesstel Manager” (the modem is manufactured by Axesstel). However, the version I found (apparently the one supplied by Neotel) would not speak to my modem, complaining that I should insert a valid “RUIM”. I gathered that this is a simcard-like item not used by Neotel (but on other CDMA networks) and that other Neotel customers had the same problem. Eventually I managed to find a forum posting on Mybroadband by one reslient Neotel customer who managed to get a technician to provide him with an up to date version of the software that could actually measure signal strength on the NeoFlex routers. In the mean time I had ordered a R600 Poynting cellphone aerial with adapters for the Neotel devices. Once I ran the software, I discovered that my signal strength was fine even before attaching the large outdoor aerial, and the latter improved signal strength only marginally (from an “RSSI” of -75 to about -65).

But my data speeds remained unchanged and at times the modem would even refuse to connect to the Neotel network. Inexplicably, on a few occasions the speeds would be very high (more than 1Mbps) but only for very short periods. And then I’d be back with my dialup-quality “broadband” service. This obviously made for a highly unsatisfactory experience, especially given that I was replacing a 4Mbps Telkom ADSL line with this (in the hope of saving money). All I expected was reliability and speeds within the range advertised by Neotel. It should be noted that I am situated slap bang in the middle of the Cape Town CBD – a prime business market for telecoms. All I can

So I lodged a complaint with Neotel customer care and they promised to get back to me. They never did. I sent an email to complaints@neotel.co.za and to network@neotel.co.za. No response. Then Albert Goosen contacted me on this blog (within a few hours of posting my first speed test — I was highly impressed). This is the email I sent him on 30 October:

Dear Albert

First, let me thank you for contacting me on my website, it is certainly refreshing to be proactively contacted by a representative of a telecoms company. For reference: my username on the network is 0218010210@neotel.co.za

My problem has been that the NeoFlex product I signed up for has delivered significantly inferior speeds to what is advertised (see the email below). In the last day or two, matters have actually improved somewhat, and like on the speedtest I posted, download speeds are now often in the 400-500kbps range. However, it is extremely variable and my fear is related to the two year contract I signed. If matters worsen again to what I was experiencing earlier this week and last week, it is almost unusable for me. So I have been thinking of trying to cancel the contract and rather making use of an ADSL product like I have done in the past. But perhaps you can give me advice as to what can be expected. Further, I wondered whether your Wimax product would provide a superior experience, but unfortunately the WImax packages advertised on your website are prohibitively expensive. If I could subscribe to something like the NeoFlex 15GB package I am on, but use the superior Wimax access technology, that may have been a good option.

I insert below my email to Neotel sent a few days ago and which also refers to a telephonic query I lodged.

From: Eduard Grebe
Date: 2009/10/27
Subject: Absurdly bad quality of service in the Cape Town CBD
To: network@neotel.co.za, complaints@neotel.co.za

Dear Neotel Network and Complaints teams

(Please note, I logged a call on this issue with customer service, with reference number 101728 and am awaiting feedback.)

I recently signed up for your NeoFlex Data 15GB service. A website coverage check indicated “excellent” coverage at my address. (An Altech person also physically checked coverage at my flat and it was apparently fine.)

However, I experience extreme variability in download speeds (ranging from a few bytes per second to a maximum 20KB/s or approximately 200kbps it probably averages around 100-150kbps at most). This is compared to the advertised peak download speed of 3.1 Mbps and average download speeds of 450-900kbps. I have purchased an external aerial in the hope of improving my experience. This slightly improves my RSSI values from -75 to about -65, but has had absolutely no effect on download speeds. Since these scores in any event apparently reflect fairly good signal strength this is unlikely to be the problem. I cannot but conclude that this is an issue with the quality of the service — either the number of users using the base station, backhaul capacity or a similar issue. In any event, it is an entirely unsatisfactory user experience and is significantly inferior to what is advertised for this product.

This has been a severe disappointment, as I was planning to replace an ADSL connect for my home office with this product. The disappointment is especially acute given that I had no reason to suspect that a product aimed largely at business customers in the central business district of a major service could possibly be so unreliable.

Could you kindly indicate whether there is any chance of improving my experience, and if not, how I can go about nullifying the contract which I have signed with Neotel.

Kind regards
Eduard Grebe

Once again, thank you and I look forward to your response.

Unfortunately, I received no response to this email. So, what could I do? I cancelled my service.

Original post. Here are the speed tests I conducted (keep in mind that when my connection was down or very slow I couldn’t even conduct these tests, the page would take too long to load):

It’s really important to support open video on the web. Currently the best way to do so is to embed Ogg Theora videos using the new HTML5 video tag. It’s supported by Firefox 3.5. I’m posting this code snippet by Michael Verdi and based on Kroc Kamen’s Video for Everybody mostly so I can easily find it again. It involves using the video tag but also fallback options (flash etc.) for browsers that don’t yet support it.


<!-- correction to modified Video For Everybody code at graymattergravy.com
not tested in all environments, see <camendesign.com/code/video_for_everybody> for original
Kroc Camen
-->
<video width="480" height="270" controls="controls"><!-- Adjust width and height to match your video -->
<source src="VIDEO_URL.ogv" type="video/ogg" /><!-- Firefox 3.5 will play this -->
<source src="VIDEO_URL.mp4" type="video/mp4" /><!-- Safari 3 and 4 play this -->
<!-- Flash video code - this is for my JW Player installed on this server - also requires swobject.js -->
<object width="480" height="270" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="FLASH_PLAYER_URL.swf">
<param name="movie" value="FLASH_PLAYER_URL.swf" />
<param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" />
<param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" />
<param name="flashvars" value="file=VIDEO_URL.mp4&amp;image=IMAGE_URL.jpg&amp;controlbar=over" />
<!-- End of Flash video code -->
<!-- No Flash? (iPhone) fall back to a QuickTime -->
<!--[if gt IE 6]>
<!-->
<object width="480" height="270" type="video/quicktime">
<param name="src" value="VIDEO_URL.mp4" />
</object>
<!--<![endif]-->
</object>
</video>

Here’s an example of the code in use: Video of 2008 SLSJ Seminar.
Update This seems to work too:

<video width="640" height="384" controls="controls">
<source src="/downloads/play_playable_playing.ogv" type="video/ogg"/>
<source src="/downloads/play_playable_playing.mp4" type="video/mp4"/>
<object width="640" height="384" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="/mediaplayer/player.swf">
<param name="movie" value="/mediaplayer/player.swf" />
<param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" />
<param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" />
<param name="flashvars" value="file=/downloads/play_playable_playing.mp4&amp;controlbar=over" />
</video>

And here’s the handy tool to convert code into HTML readable text.