Vodafone still on the hook despite claimed improvements?

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Wednesday, 20 July 2011 20:33

Opinion and Analysis

Although Vodafone has recently announced major upgrades to its networks, grumblings by some still continue over voice and data quality, but not from everyone.

Vodafone has twice announced major network updates in the past two months.

The first came on June 1 stating hundreds of new base stations and upgraded sites, with the rest of the rollout happening over the course of 2011, and then in July 7 announcing that customers in Newcastle, parts of the Central Coast and the Hunter had access to 'Vodafone's network equipment upgrade'.

Unfortunately for Vodafone, two major publications have come forth in the last couple of days suggesting Vodafone's network woes are far from over, with reader comments describing issues of their own far outweighing the more positive experiences.

The first, well-researched and detailed article was by Angus Kidman in Lifehacker, whose article 'Vodafone's network improvements don't seem to be making much difference' has a headline that speaks for itself.

The second big article was from The Sydney Morning Herald's Ben Grubb, whose article entitled ''Better, faster, stronger' Vodafone not so hot for some' looked at the appropriateness of new ads from Vodafone boasting of a better network while plenty still seem to be suffering service little different to when the Vodafone was dubbed Vodafail by social media-savvy and suffering customers.

That article also garnered a host of negative commentary sprinkled with some more positive experiences.

The main problem for the worst affected is claims of constant dropouts and an Internet connection that either doesn't work or takes forever to actually display pages.

What are a couple of anecdotal experiences from a couple of current Vodafone customers I know?

Please read on to page two.