Telkom's Gross lack of service

I'm absolutely disgusted with the fact that while I was on a Telkom contract I rarely had signal on my phone. By the time I decided to cancel my contract with Telkom because for the last the six (6) months I hardly ever had signal on my phone. I blamed my ageing phone but once I cancelled the contract and had to go Pay as you Go so that I could migrate (port my number to another network provider) did I discover that i now have signal on my phone, all the time, everywhere!!!! HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE. Sadly I believe that my contract was not honoured by Telkom because I had just about NO SERVICE the last 6 months... I Paid for no service, I had an emergency and was not able to use my phone to get help....