Dodo wireless broadband strikes again
I went to Beatport and bought five songs to download. My cap had run out on Dodo so I bought a block of 250mb. The first song was taking over an hour to download (33mb) so I checked my account on Dodo and the usage meter there claimed I had already used half of the data allowance. 125mb!!! see comments for opt-out drama
The song stopped downloading and had only downloaded about half, 18mb in half an hour to an hour.
The second song was over fifty mb and stopped after half an hour only having downloaded 8mb. Beatport recommends using their download manager so I tried downloading that but it requires something called Adobe AIR. That has been downloading for almost an hour and has quite a bit to go. I want my money back from both of these guys this is intolerable.
The download has been running on HSDPA which is apparently a protocol for packet download on mobiles but is also known as notoriously slow in fringe areas> I can attest to that. It is so slow that this should not be called broadband, It is not practical for many online uses it would seem.
More has been happening around here, some great stuff. I will have to bring the blog up to date over the next few days
I was just calculating usage and something stinks here. According to Dodo I used 46 MB yesterday and 64 MB by 3:30 am this morning. I bought the top-up sometime between 10pm and midnight last night so that is three-and-a-half to five-and-a-half hours ago.
The top-up usage meter shows me as using 84% percent of the top-up of 250MB. That is 205MB.
The average speed over the last five hours has allowed about 22MB per hour. Is that even broadband? I think that is very close to my capped speed. The only way I can have used up 84% of the cap is if they have counted backwards to the moment the base usage ran out and even then it is unlikely I used that much. It ran out a couple of days ago and I have not been online a whole lot.
I have been suspecting something wasn’t right for a while but being ill all the time I have avoided the effort of calculating usage rates. This is kinda serious isn’t it?
I contacted Dodo with the following message ….
I topped up my account with 250MB at between 10pm and Midnight on the 4th March. By about 1pm the usage meter showed I had used up 50% of that. My account showed I had used 46MB all day on the 4th. By 3:30pm the next morning when I had used up 67MB on my account The usage meter showed me as using 84% of the top-up
The usage meter showed me as having used 84% by 3:30am which is 205Mb in five hours. The download speed was approx 6KB/s and my logs showed approx 22MB per hour as the maximum amount downloaded during the five hours.
I sat there the entire five hours and watched the downloads so I can verify the amount downloaded.
Can you please explain the different between the usage rates on your meter and the actual rates. Have I been charged for downloads I did not receive at all or which was supplied at the capped rate. Is not 6KB/s well below acceptable broadband speeds and into the capped speed. 1778759
Will my money be refunded for this period as no more than capped service was provided
There we go adding insult to injury. Dodo has somehow concluded I have used up the entire 250 MB of top-up at 4:51 am and despite me having opted-out of the capture connection my connection was locked up and sent to the Dodo connection page so I had to pass through the add page before I could connect up again
Dodo must have received my email. Line speed is now at 110 KB/s and things are downloading as they should. That is the first time since I joined the service I have had proper linespeeds, Pretty cool!!
1778762 I have sent them another email, Kudos to the team and thanks
Next Afternoon.
Perhaps I was hasty to suggest Dod support was onside. There was a phone call from them at about 3:30 pm and a guy was asking about the problem. We both had to speak slowly as we had strong accents neither of of us could easily understand. The phone is full of static so the conversation was difficult. He wanted to upgrade my account as he somehow suggested that my paying more would fix it
He seemed to be unable to read my very concise email and concluded that somehow my logs had worked the numbers wrong and only the Dodo manager was relevant. No matter how many times I told him it was the Dodo management tool that disagreed with the top-up usage rate in that same tool he could not get it. Somehow he concluded he had assisted me and handed me off to a tech to work on the low download speeds. I have been through this before.
After some time listening to music I put down the phone. It is not a technical problem if I can complain about line-speed and half an hour later get blistering speeds from them as I did last night. It would appear to be purposeful supply of low quality service to attempt to get me to pay more for an account upgrade to a more expensive package.
Yeah, I am going to pay more for a service when their delivery has been crap on the one I have. The amount of things I am missing out on using this package, these guys should be paying me or giving me the upgrade for free as they are unable to supply the service they actually came and asked me to use
Two days after opting out of the capture portal where dodo takes my browser once a day to their advertisement after the cap runs out I am hit twice in the last hour
March 2011 (note added. Dodo and I have been getting along fine for the last however long although I cab still only get a signal over a few cm in the front window. I understand all of the wireless broadband suppliers have lots of spots they cannot service at the moment
A girl from Dodo rang a while ago to tell me that I had it all wrong about the captive portal warning opt-out button. It wasn’t a button to opt-out of the warning about the account being shaped to 56k (despite that being it’s title). It was an opt out for another portal that requests personal information when Dodo needs to update or upgrade accounts.
I asked her if that meant when Dodo needed my details I would not get the request.
She back-pedaled. No she said it is another captive portal. The one you get first when you get a cap. I spent several minutes trying to understand what she was saying but it didn’t make any sense. I ended up telling her off generally and reminding her it wasnt personal and not her fault
Contacted the ombudsman and got through their auto phone system in about a minute. Obtained a resolution number and called Dodo back.
The Dodo guy told me my problem was that I didnt have large enough download allowance and if I spent more money on my download allowance I would not have the problem of the Captive Portal showing up.
So the Captive Portal-shaped to 56k warning is a tool to hinder low paying users into buying more data rather than a service. The interfering nature of the portal and the absolute refusal of Dodo to allow someone to opt out would certainly indicate there is nothing altruistic in this device.
Several times the guy from Dodo directed my attention to the fact that he could end my service or even put it back to a dial-up service as though this shabby undersized stingy package is doing me some sort of favor. Each time he said he could drop me off Dodo’s books I asked him why he was threatening to cut my internet. He would say he had done no such thing and when I suggested it was recorded he stated it would not hold up in court. I take that to mean if it did hold up in court any self-respecting barrister or solicitor or magistrate would see it as an underhanded threat very thinly veiled.
We passed some very unpleasant moments. He said I was having problems because I refused to buy enough data to cover all my needs at top speed and I told him I had no more money. He said he was on little money but could afford internet and I would have problems until I did.
I am also assuming that he was angry that I was recording a conversation he had told me was also being recorded at his end because he felt there was some way his recording could be changed, diminished or lost to protect his back if his threats came to a court situation. Why else would he worry about my recording if there was an equal and same recording at his end. An honest man might suggest it protects his version
I think I will make a website about Dodo. Nobody is going to read all the reams of data I have written here.
Contacted the Ombudsman who, as I figured, actually has no real power to front a corporation. It looks as though the Ombudsman is also a venture designed to give the appearance of protection without offering much
Phone call from Dodo who have contacted their development team to try and assist me. That is monster awesome and very unexpected. If they are able to help I will have to edit the upper stages of this blog entry because it goes from an idictment of Dodo to a shout of their praises. Judgment reserved for now but a call-back to the Ombudsman to notify them of the change
How does donating money to a foster home help them?
Sent via Blackberry
This is my way of supporting the senders, Good luck to you all!