What's new
Carbonite

South Africa's Top Online Tech Classifieds!
Register a free account today to become a member! (No Under 18's)
Home of C.U.D.

Rain 5G Network Quality

PrismZA

Member
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Joined
Dec 6, 2018
Messages
17
Reaction score
4
Points
1,385
Age
32
Location
Pretoria
Hi everybody!

I've been doing some research into the uncapped 5G contract offered by Rain as advertised here. I was wondering if anyone here who has tried it out could give me their opinion on the quality of the product?
My main concern is that Rain have been known to over-saturate their network which leads to really crappy performance. Apparently 5G is supposed to suffer less from this issue.

FWIW The reason I'm asking is because I'm weighing up different wireless options since there is no fibre in my area at all and my ADSL just can't cope anymore. I don't do huge amounts of downloading, mainly just gaming and streaming. Multi-gig updates are the bane of my existence T_T
 
Tried it out over december, one thing that i encountered and didn't expect is that you can't take your 5g sim outside of a 5g area and expect it to work on the rain 4g network (even though the router is 4g capable). It'll default to 4g when 5g isn't available and you're in a 5g area, but otherwise you're out of luck. Maybe as they expand their 5g footprint this won't be an issue, but don't expect that to be any time soon.

Re performance, I did a few basic tests and in the real world scenarios, I was getting 40-80mb/s with the odd burst above that. didn't compare with my 100mb/s fibre so returned it within their 30 day no-penalty window.
 
I have Rain 5G and get about 250 to 450 with My Broadband speed test.
 
It should still be great since that part of the spectrum isn't yet filled by a million people, like in the early Rain 4G days.

Yeah I'm guessing this would be accurate and should remain for a while since the majority wouldn't necessarily pay R1k p/m. I'm currently paying R850 for a 20mbps. For R150 more to get somewhat consistent speeds of 100mb+.... Sign me up!

Only downfall for me is the whole 24 month contract thing. I prefer M2M.
 
Yeah I'm guessing this would be accurate and should remain for a while since the majority wouldn't necessarily pay R1k p/m. I'm currently paying R850 for a 20mbps. For R150 more to get somewhat consistent speeds of 100mb+.... Sign me up!

Only downfall for me is the whole 24 month contract thing. I prefer M2M.
If my area was covered I would move over in a heartbeat, I also remember something of members saying they won't activate your connection if you don't at least break 80Mbs or something like that.
 
What about peak-time speeds?
Will post a test run tonight when i get home this evening. As a note i can make, when i first received the router i had it on my desk and was only getting about 80. Then i mounted the router on my roof and speeds went up.
 
Tested at 19:00 Today
My Broadband speed test
Ping: 12ms
Download: 216.01Mbps
Upload: 14.32Mbps

Google speed test
Ping: 8ms
Download: 197.8Mbps
Upload: 12.7Mbps

Speedtest
Ping: 13ms
Download: 187.59Mbps
Upload: 12.43Mbps
 
Re performance, I did a few basic tests and in the real world scenarios, I was getting 40-80mb/s with the odd burst above that. didn't compare with my 100mb/s fibre so returned it within their 30 day no-penalty window.

I wasn't aware there was a no-penalty window. The salesperson that I spoke to just told me that they don't do tests before you sign up.

Honestly the feedback I'm seeing here is really surprising. Everything I've seen on social media so far has been really negative, it seemed like the customer service was non-existent. Any opinions on their effectiveness with after sales support and troubleshooting?
 
I wasn't aware there was a no-penalty window. The salesperson that I spoke to just told me that they don't do tests before you sign up.

Honestly the feedback I'm seeing here is really surprising. Everything I've seen on social media so far has been really negative, it seemed like the customer service was non-existent. Any opinions on their effectiveness with after sales support and troubleshooting?

The signup was great, they delivered the next day and RICA was a non-issue because RAM does that for you when they deliver (they validate your ID and proof of residence). It was working 2 hours after delivery, less than 24 hours after ordering. Really was a breeze from a sales service point of view.

I found out about the lack of transferability between 4g and 5g networks while I was in the cape in the space between christmas and NY, and there was a consultant on chat without too much of a wait, so although technically I wasn't happy, from their customer service point of view, I can't fault them.

Returning was also fine, they processed it promptly and even came out on a saturday to pick it up because I was close to the end of my 30 day window.

They have a no-penalty window, where in the first 30 days you only pay the R1000 monthly fee, and if you decide against it within 30 days they will take it back, no questions. If you cancel after that, you will be liable for a depreciating early termination penalty, think it starts at R2k.
 
Another thing, they say their provided router is network locked, but I plugged my Vodacom sim in there and it worked without issue.
 
It's been all well and good my side. Had it since November. 600 down and 50 up

However...

Since Thursday I have no 4G or 5G on the 5G router. Got also the standard 250pm service an that's working fine. Comes up for a few seconds then just disconnects. Don't know if it's the router (got the indoor one) or the tower/network. Rain has escalated it today. Let's see how long it takes to resolve.

Other than that it's been great.
 
It's been all well and good my side. Had it since November. 600 down and 50 up

However...

Since Thursday I have no 4G or 5G on the 5G router. Got also the standard 250pm service an that's working fine. Comes up for a few seconds then just disconnects. Don't know if it's the router (got the indoor one) or the tower/network. Rain has escalated it today. Let's see how long it takes to resolve.

Other than that it's been great.

Could it be something to do with that undersea cable that got damaged a few days ago? I've been having issues with our line at work since then. Regardless, I'd be very interested to hear your feedback on the quality of their support.
 
Could it be something to do with that undersea cable that got damaged a few days ago? I've been having issues with our line at work since then. Regardless, I'd be very interested to hear your feedback on the quality of their support.
Yes I think so too:

 
Could it be something to do with that undersea cable that got damaged a few days ago? I've been having issues with our line at work since then. Regardless, I'd be very interested to hear your feedback on the quality of their support.
But to be completely down on internet? I thought it was just international sites that would be an issue? My router says "No service". I placed the Sim into another router to see if I could at least see some signal presumably 4G obviously, it too said no service.

Yet at 18:00 on Saturday to about 21:00 my internet seemed fine. Had 5G signal etc could stream/download but after that it just did the same (connectivity issues/disconnects) until finally no service.

Tomorrow is Monday an I will be on rains case. Will report back what the issue is once rain confirms.
 
update #1 - day 6 with barely any internet

Rain don't know what is wrong

dealt with 3 agents, each one told me to restart my router, hard reset, move router location (as per the initial activation when you setup 5G with rain) nothing worked, already tried this before they advised...

This was then escalated to god knows who within rain. Their response is that my router is not at the location i specified or is further away. i don't know what idiocy is this as i will not give a location where the router is to complain about the internet connection. Plus nobody even bothered to call me.

again my internet both (4+5G) comes alive at exactly 6pm everyday like nothing happened with drops in between until around 11pm then i get "No service".

next step:

1) Take the router down the road to the tower and take a selfie with the connection and post it
2) Advise them to come and collect the router and they can do all the tests they want.
 
update #1 - day 6 with barely any internet

Rain don't know what is wrong

dealt with 3 agents, each one told me to restart my router, hard reset, move router location (as per the initial activation when you setup 5G with rain) nothing worked, already tried this before they advised...

This was then escalated to god knows who within rain. Their response is that my router is not at the location i specified or is further away. i don't know what idiocy is this as i will not give a location where the router is to complain about the internet connection. Plus nobody even bothered to call me.

again my internet both (4+5G) comes alive at exactly 6pm everyday like nothing happened with drops in between until around 11pm then i get "No service".

next step:

1) Take the router down the road to the tower and take a selfie with the connection and post it
2) Advise them to come and collect the router and they can do all the tests they want.

Oh man, this is exactly the kind of experience I've been worried about. It's all over their social media... which is partly what had me concerned in the first place. Best of luck getting it sorted. Keep us posted please :)
 
And I just got an email yesterday stating 5g now available in the Golf Estates lol
 
check with them regarding the external antenna, only issue is that you have to put it up urself.
I have a couple of mates on the Rain 5G and only one opted for the external antenna.
 
So I've decided to give rain a try, hopefully it lives up to expectations. Otherwise I'll take advantage of the 30-day window. Thanks for the help y'all.
 
@PrismZA check out the mybb forums. There are in-depth discussions and speed tests about the Rain 5G.
 
After rain telling me I should cancel, wanting to send multiple technicians and arguing over all of it they sending me a new router today.

Wish me luck for 5G goodness

Sent from my LM-G850 using Tapatalk
 
Rain replaced my router an gave me the outdoor version. Tested it, still no 5G.

Next it's to put it on a pole and see If i can catch anything.

Still can't understand how I went from 5 bar 5G signal from the indoor router to absolutely nothing overnight



Sent from my LM-G850 using Tapatalk
 
Rain replaced my router an gave me the outdoor version. Tested it, still no 5G.

Next it's to put it on a pole and see If i can catch anything.

Still can't understand how I went from 5 bar 5G signal from the indoor router to absolutely nothing overnight



Sent from my LM-G850 using Tapatalk

Sorry to hear you're still struggling.

Just out of curiosity, what's the difference between the outdoor version and the one you had before? On their website the only option I'm seeing is the Huawei 5G CPE X which claims to be both indoor and outdoor. Is that what you had before?
 
Sorry to hear you're still struggling.

Just out of curiosity, what's the difference between the outdoor version and the one you had before? On their website the only option I'm seeing is the Huawei 5G CPE X which claims to be both indoor and outdoor. Is that what you had before?

I was one of the early adopters and got the indoor only version (CPE PRO). The one they gave me now is an "all scenario" router that's both indoor and out door compatible which you will probably get if you sign up now. It's a lot more beefier than the old version in terms of size and weight.





Sent from my LM-G850 using Tapatalk
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top Bottom