Month: April 2016

Domestic Rain Water Harvesting – Botswana

With water shortages being in the news for the last few years the question of “Why can’t we catch this water and use it?” pops up on Botswana Twitter.

One of the popular solutions, and frequently implemented on government staff houses in rural areas, is to put gutters on houses and direct the collected rainwater into plastic water tanks.  Seems like a great idea, but how do the numbers add up?

I did a few calculations using data from our weather station for the 2014-2015 period and it is interesting, with different answers depending on circumstances (no surprise there, then). Continue reading “Domestic Rain Water Harvesting – Botswana”

Francistown’s Spaghetti Road

For anybody looking for plans and renderings of Francistown’s new Spaghetti Road – currently under construction and causing all manner of traffic chaos.

Francistown Spaghetti Junction - 3D Render
Francistown Spaghetti Junction – 3D Render
Francistown Spaghetti Junction - Plan
Francistown Spaghetti Junction – Plan

Continue reading “Francistown’s Spaghetti Road”

Trucking Botswana

Botswana is on one of the main transit routes from the coast (Durban, Walvis Bay) and the South African industrial hub (Johannesburg) so we get lots of interesting stuff passing through for domestic consumption and in transit to the north (Zambia, Democratic Republic of Congo, even Tanzania).

Here are some terribly exciting pictures of big things (and a few normal sized trucks) seen on the roads of Botswana:

Transformers

Transformer stuck on the A1 outside Francistown.
Transformer stuck on the A1 outside Francistown.

Continue reading “Trucking Botswana”

Orange Botswana – Worst Service Ever

Just sent an email to Orange Botswana complaining about their unreliable service.

Probably won’t make any difference but maybe some negative comments will show on search results for them…

Scroll down to the bottom for some other highlights from a local Consumer Watchdog Facebook page.

Letter of complaint begins:

I am now at an all-time low with Orange Botswana postpaid.

There has been no response regarding the Orange Money issue. (readers’ note: a Virtual Visa transaction of ~P350 to the Steam online gaming service failed last year and has never been credited back to my account – Orange say I must take it up with Steam, the error message from Steam was “transaction failed: card not authorised”)

Our Flybox (79xxxxxx) that is on an “old” Platinum package and so limited to 5GB for P399 per month has reached the data limit after only 10 days of use (16 March to 26 March). The previous billing period it lasted the whole month (16 Feb to 15 March). Your customer service rep Kaone says it is not possible to send me a summary of when the data was used, but that I must wait for the invoice on the 16th of April. Kaone also told me that we should still be receiving a speed limited service, but we have nothing – although the speed in the village is ridiculously slow anyway.

Further on the Flybox, last year Orange “upgraded” the Platinum package to 20GB and a “soft” cap so that once the bundle is finished the connection stays live but is speed limited. I have been told that to get the 20GB “upgrade” we must cancel our existing contract (loyal customers with 3 lines for ~5 years) and pay the penalty fees. So only another year until we get the same service as a new customer.

Regarding the sending of invoices, I had to AGAIN manually request an invoice in March in order to make the right payment.

Since 30 March, my wife’s Blackberry (72xxxxxx), on a Blackberry-linked contract, has had no on-device data (my understanding is that on-device data is unlimited). She is being told her bundle is finished and must send a message to a cellphone number in order to receive a top-up – for which we will no doubt pay the exorbitant rates that service providers in Botswana like to charge for their mediocre services.

Kaone also told me that there was “a glitch” on the recent rollover where some customers were only credited with half their data bundles, but this was not the issue with our Flybox.

I look forward to a meaningful response.

Highlights from other dissatisfied Orange Botswana customers:

#1

I give up on orange.
1-they changed my contract line to prepaid-still waiting for them to reverse the error that was 7 months ago and they still expect to pay for a postpaid service I have 7 months not using (they must refund my airtime)
2-same issue as yours on flybox. This month it seems they cut tgr service a week after the 16th (billing date) but mind you the internet is NEVER used during the day as nobody is home.
3-my mother has been an orange customer for 15 years and this month her ‘data’ finished. She enquired at orange only to get a yeah its finished. She hardly uses mobile data 1-her workplace has wifi, 2-she uses data for whats app and reading news online (thats when the flybox doesn’t work). Orange told her that her data limit is 200mb per month which is false cause that isn’t in the agreed contact.

#2.1

Got the same response two years ago. They bill you by the data cost and then do some kind of conversion to P399. No interest from managers and the accounts department is manned by new graduates with no idea of ‘who pays them’

#2.2

I’ve not been able to engage ‘roaming’ on my phone for 6 months, despite repeated contacts with orange. One clever girl even told me that I have to be in South Africa to request roaming. She’s obviously never been out of signal range.

#2.3

Please help me here. It was on the 4th of March 2016 when I tried to withdraw money from my orange money account using my orange money visa card. The transaction failed due to an orange network problem. The following morning I checked my orange money account to check if the network problem was resolved. Only for me discover that there was no money in my account. I checked my statement which revealed that I made a withdrawal the previous day thou I cudnt get money due to network issues. I then called the Orange helpline to ask for assistant,I hav been to the nearest orange office to complete a dispute form and told my money will b deposited into my account. Its bin a month now and iv not been compesated and when I call the only answer they give me its that they are still investigating. How convenient is orange money really!! How do I get my money back