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What prompted me to write this article is the experience I had with Cell C a few months back. I’m one of those people who, had I not had the experience I had, I would probably have signed up on their latest infinity offer. It sounds good on paper but I highly doubt that you will get your money’s worth. Please note that I have not been paid by any network provider to write this article but just me sharing my experience with South Africans out there. I have never been brand loyal in my life and will only take up any contract that will fulfil my needs as compared to who is offering it.
I had a data contract in 2011 with MTN for me to be able to do my staff on the internet. Because I could not afford much then I was quiet settled with their 1gig/month contract. Because of its ability to fit into my budget at R70 per month I had to use it sparingly. I had to limit my TV series downloads to 4 episodes a month and the rest on internet surfing.
In 2012 I saw a Billboard advert in Fourways of a 5gig contract for R99 per month. I couldn’t believe my eyes. To me it translated into triple my usage at an added cost of only R30 per month. I could not wait to sign up but I first wanted to find out more about it so I visited their website. It stated that the 5gigs is divided into 2gigs day and 3gigs night. That was fantastic and I the same day I signed up and bought the modem same time. The modem itself came with a welcome 1gig data on it which I quickly spent on downloading the whole season of my favourite TV series.
On my first month on the contract I noticed that the network is not the best and I don’t want to say it’s the worst. For an example, you can’t download anything during the day as the network is very bad. I started using it only at night and was better at dawn. Even though the network is bad but at least I was be able to download some of my episodes and at what cost, you don’t wanna know.
I later noticed a trend that during month ends starting from the 25th of the month right up to the 4th or5th of the following month whether during the day or at night accessing the net was almost impossible. It is only better from the 11th of the month at night right up until the 21st. Don’t mention during the day as you can’t access the internet at all no matter what time of the month all of which I have never experienced with MTN. With the latter I only experienced problems only month ends which are normally temporary but the problem is that with only 1gig there’s very little I can do compared with the lot I want to do.
It got worse and worse that I ended up cancelling the contact because from last year march I was unable to use the contract I was paying for. One time I was so desperate to get the last few episodes of my favourite Gang Related TV series that I kept trying to access it throughout the day on Friday and only managed to do so the following morning at 3:30.
On the departing note, I would like to state that Cell C’s infinity offer looks good on paper but with the above experience still fresh in my mind I doubt that I will ever take up a Cell C contract. I’m noting saying that I will never ever just that not anytime soon or up until they improve their network drastically.
