Looking for WiFi? Avoid Rain. Unreliable for Business Use: Frequent Outages, Poor Support, Misleading Cancellation.

As a professional relying on steady internet, my long experience with Rain, paying over R800/month, was deeply disruptive. It wasn’t until I switched to fibre on 1 December that I realised how bad it had become.

1. A service unfit for purpose Connection speeds fluctuated dramatically and at times dropped to levels where the service was effectively unusable. Critical tools like QuickBooks, ChatGPT and even email often failed. Independent tech support from Xneelo indicated that the issue appeared to stem from Rain’s network instability and not my equipment or software. Despite many calls and emails, Rain’s response was minimal to nonexistent – except for meaningless automated emails with headings like: ‘we're here to help’ and ‘help is on its way’ and nothing else.

2. Impact on business and health The stress of running a business and doing key financial planning work with unstable internet and lack of support from Rain led to high levels of stress and a midnight emergency room visit. Cardiac issues were ruled out and the episode was attributed to stress.

3. "Nice-speak" without solutions Rain agents were consistently sympathetic and kind, but they did not seem to have the authority or tools to resolve the failed or poor connection issues beyond promising to "escalate" my complaints. These never resulted in a resolution and, with one early exception, I never received follow-up from Rain’s technical team.

4. Local profits without local investment? I don’t know if Rain contributes to CSI, SED or ED. Their website has minimal information. Fact is: many support agents I spoke to were based outside South Africa – several confirmed they worked from the Philippines. As a South African business owner, I would have welcomed support structures that are local and accountable. Businesses have a social responsibility to help train and develop the people they expect to pay their bills – especially in South Africa, where we have a crisis of unemployment.

5. Misleading cancellation communication Rain’s cancellation communication was confusing and, in my view, misleading. I received a cancellation letter that only app**** to hardware, not the service. This undisclosed “router = subscription” setup caused me to remain unknowingly tied to a second active contract even after cancellation.

6. Fibre vs. Rain I have replaced Rain with dedicated fibre. The difference is night and day. Rain’s network fluctuated wildly, with speeds dropping as low as 170Kbps and frequent packet loss making online tools barely usable. Fibre has provided a rock-solid, stable, symmetrical connection (300Mbps+ up and down) with no packet loss so far.

7. Ongoing dispute I have lodged a formal complaint with ICASA (Case: CAS-256538-X8Q9M1). I will only release Rain's equipment after a full refund for October, confirmation of no November charges, and written proof that all my account data is deleted from their system.

To anyone considering Rain: Protect your business and your peace of mind by choosing a provider that takes responsibility seriously.