In today’s world, access to the “world-wide web” has become almost essential. Most people seem to have Wi-Fi or at least mobile data access at home. Our home is no exception. We recently signed up for a service provider’s offering of 10GB anytime data + 10GB “Night surfer” data on a monthly LTE contract. 10GB monthly sounded like a decent amount, but between mobile phone apps updating, part-time studies, after-hours work and internet browsing, it turned out to be quite easy to use up that amount of data. As a result, by around the 25th of the month, zero connectivity. Annoying, but one of those things that one has to accept. So, now to decide what to do about it. Living without connectivity for the last few days of the month wasn’t really an option, so we looked around to see what top-up packages were available. It appeared that the most cost-effective option was another 10GB + 10GB “Night surfer” data, which was valid for 30 days. So we took the plunge and bought the package, reckoning that it would at least boost the bandwidth that we had available for the following month.

By around the 25th of the following month, we had run out of bandwidth AGAIN, which REALLY didn’t make sense. Even disregarding the “night surfer” data, my rudimentary calculations told me that if my 10GB allocation had last me until the 25th of the previous month, I was averaging around 400MB per day. Therefore, assuming that our usage patterns hadn’t changed drastically (which they hadn’t), the 10GB which I had bought plus the next month’s allocation of 10GB should have been more than enough for the month, yet we had run out. Something was definitely not right, but how to trace the discrepancy? Also, we again had to deal with the immediate problem of no connectivity. Again, we bit the bullet and bought the same top-up package, but this time I monitored it more closely. As a result, we were able to work out what was happening.

Again disregarding the “night surfer” data, the 10GB which we had bought on the 25th (and which is only valid for 30 days, remember) gave us connectivity for the rest of the month. During that period, we used about 2GB, leaving a balance of about 8GB. Then, on the 1st of the new month, the new monthly allocation of 10GB became available. Cleverly (sneakily?), our router then stopped using the purchased bandwidth, and started using the normal monthly bandwidth. This meant that the 8GB of purchased data just stayed there, unused, while we used the monthly 10GB allocation. And therein lies the problem. At our average usage, our 10GB monthly allocation runs out by the 25th of the month. BUT, the 8GB that we have left over from our purchased data EXPIRES on the 25th as well. Effectively, therefore, the service provider is selling us 10GB, but only allowing us to use 2GB and just leaving the balance to expire.

We went to one of the service provider’s stores to challenge this. The initial response was that we were told (with a rather superior sneer) that the system doesn’t work like that, and it would first use the purchased bandwidth before reverting to the normal monthly bandwidth. When I retorted that I had monitored the usage, and confirmed that the unused portion (8GB) of the purchased bandwidth had remained static until the expiry date, the sneer disappeared, and they logged a query with the client services call centre. To their credit, the call centre did call back but, frustratingly, I had to have exactly the same argument with them. After some back-and-forth, the consultant claimed that my line was “breaking up”, and that we therefore couldn’t resolve the issue. I then went to another store, where I got a similar sneer to the one from the first store. After giving the same retort (and again seeing the sneer disappear), I was told that there must be a fault in the setup and that they would log a query with the technical support division, which they did. Needless to say, there was no offer to make restitution for the lost, “expired” bandwidth.

So, what’s the point of this story? Well, it’s two-fold:

1. If this was happening to us, I’m confident that it’s not an isolated occurrence. I hope that, by posting this, it could give others some insight, and save some unnecessary bandwidth purchases, and
2. Service providers (well, their staff, anyway) often respond to challenges and queries by making the complainant feel that they’re just being stupid. To my mind, that’s a bullying tactic, and I hope that this story will prevent others from being intimidated, and stand up for their rights.

We as the buying public are asked to pay for products and services, which is fair enough. However, it’s also only fair that we get what we’re paying for (not just 20% of it).

Postscript: Having drafted this post, we decided to withhold posting it to give the service provider a chance to respond.
A couple of days later, I received an SMS stating that the issue had been resolved, and I could phone the Telkom call centre for more information. Upon doing so:

1. It took 51 minutes (!) to get to speak to a consultant;
2. The system had only been updated to state that the issue had been resolved, so the consultant had to ask me to hold AGAIN while he tried to get more information;
3. The additional information which he finally managed to obtain was that Telkom’s system is set up to work exactly as I’d described (i.e. to stop using the purchased bandwidth as soon as the monthly allocation became available), and there was nothing that could be done to change this.

So, as regards the reason for this story, our first point (i.e. that our experience was not an isolated occurrence) has been proven correct, and leads to another point: Be aware that when you purchase additional bandwidth from Telkom, you may only be getting a fraction of what you’re paying for. It also goes to show that superior sneers don’t always equate to superior knowledge!