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BlackBerry speed throttling
2011-09-15
When Vodacom articulated on Monday that they'll throttle the velocity of BlackBerry users from 3G to 2G if they surpass 100MB of information use a month, all hell broke loose on the internet. Vodacom was lambasted for their call by BlackBerry customers using platforms like Twitter, Facebook and MyBroadband. One of the primary themes of the grumbles was that Vodacom is punishing the great majority of their BlackBerry customers because a little minority of users 'abuses' the system. Vodacom Chairperson Pieter Uys was in London when this mess took place, and when calling MyBroadband on his return to SA it was clear that he was similarly perturbed by the situation as almost all of Vodacom's BlackBerry customers. Uys was actually shocked that any mention of BlackBerry speed throttling and a 100MB use cap was ever communicated as "no last call has been made on the way to handle the Blackberry abuse problem". So where did it all go bad? Uys explained that he instructed Vodacom's communications office to let the media know that they have made many enhancements to their Gauteng network which ended in less dropped calls and a way better overall experience. These enhancements included rolling out more 3G base stations, upgrading 2,335 base stations to 43.2Mbps HSPA+ technology, the replacing of all base station apparatus in Gauteng and fibre connections to more sites. This message was however lost thanks to the BlackBerry speed throttling plans which were included in the press statement. The indisputable fact that speed throttling was just one of the options which were considered, and thus should haven't been communicated at all, makes the situation ever worse.
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