Ironically I wrote Vodafone an upset letter several months ago. They never responded. Thought I'd share it here:

9th June 2010

Dear Vodafone Australia VH3,

You might know me. I'm that guy who two years ago came to your network for the awesome that was and still is the iPhone. You'll probably also remember I was number 6 in line, just incase you forgot my dedication or colossal nerdisim (you be the judge), to stand in the blistering cold for hours to get one. I have had a problem with the network but I've let this fall by the wayside too many times and finally after contacting your company on several occasions to voice my concerns, they have fallen on deaf ears with no resolution. I have little choice but to write you this diatribe related to your network.

I live in Gawler, South Australia. Don't recoil in fear, it's okay, I don't wear flannelette, (Okay, I did once for a themed party at uni, but the shirt belonged to a friend). However, I have chosen to subscribe to your network for my mobile telephone and iPad 3G data services, this is where the problem is. Your company's website maps for coverage dictate that Gawler has full 3G network service, which when you're using peripherals that use your network, you'd believe it too based on the full bars you see in the signal indicator. This is where this shit gets real. The minute you access data or calls, it suddenly becomes slow and laggy and unresponsive, inside or outside, trust me, I'm like a nomadic gypsy trying to find a good spot for reception. I have even been known to stand in bizarre positions to act as a human antenna to increase signal. All of this and resolution. Nothing works and i'm pretty sure it is because it's your fault. Not my house, not my geographical location but the speed at which you allow data to be delivered at my location. I know this because when I'm closer to Adelaide the speeds are normal. I used Speed test.net's official ass kicking application to test your network speeds and in the town of Gawler, main street near my house and It clocks 40.8kb/sec download where as with Gawler's sister hood, Elizabeth and the major city of Adelaide attain speeds of around 258KB/sec and higher. Full signal in all locations, yet so much variation in speed, sickening isn't it? PS I'm aware the city uses HSDPA technology which is why I also mentioned Elizabeth's hood, that is the same as Gawlers but with a bigger population, probably less teeth and more flannelette though.

Initially I thought I was crazy or heaven forbid, maybe the iPhone who gets a bad wrap for signal was to blame but I've even had a blackberry, same old story. I really didn't want the iPhone to be the blame because I love it which can be supported by the fact that the girls at uni have learnt to convert my iPhone rants into chemical energy like plants converting light energy in to chemical enrtgy as food but I'm glad to say, it's certainly not the iPhone, iPad or Blackberry as the myth was busted by the aforementioned. These speeds akin to dial up of circa 1997 are probably suitable for some of Gawler's subscribers but they don't have any teeth, I do, and I feel that it's one of the reasons why they settle for the less that I can't stand for.

So I decided that instead of just bitching in my mind about it every time I tried to access google boob search (you might know it as google image search) and I, as a result, die a little bit inside from frustration of slow speed. Left with that feeling similar to one of jumping on a bag of puppies. I decided I'd call in to let you guys know and maybe you could check it out and fix your tower or something and I could get on board and be in love with you again. So I placed a call, presumably to india. I spoke to lovely bunch of people that had names more Australian and generic than mine, PS no one is called 'Betty' or 'Gavin' anymore (You should remind them of this when they're assigning themselves 'Australian' names). Anyway, they were up to their old tricks again both times, those tricksters! They hand balled me to all sorts of other service teams, back and forwards about 4 times on each occasion until someone would finally pretend to log my problem and a technician would call me back within 72 hours to give me the results. Well I'm not sure and I forgot to ask but I've been overseas lots before and all the places I've been use the same day and time format that Australia uses. India may be the exception but even in Indian hours, a week of Australian and 'normal' time, should at very least be equivalent to 72 Indian hours, if this isn't the case, are they even in 2010 yet?

Based on this I would like Vodafone Hutchings 3 Australia to take this letter as a formal complaint against your services and finally take action and rectify your claims if you are not otherwise prepared to bring your network up to the standards you claim. Otherwise I shall be forced to move to network that doesn't hurt me anymore. I guess at this point I should probably also point out that I decided to stand in Vodafone's line those fateful two years ago only because you opened a whole hour earlier than any other store, grounding isn't it? Yeah, that's what I thought...

Regards,


Andrew
South Australia.