Vodacom LTE apparently only for contract subscribers

<p>I have been a vodacom contract subscriber for more than 10yrs and it has been mostly good. When my last contract expired at the end of April I decided to go onto prepaid for a while as I don't need to be on one right now.</p> <p> </p> <p>The difference in the quality of the service has been like chalk and cheese. Primarily because I no longer get a LTE service on my iPhone 6. When I called customer service I was told that contract subscribers get preferential access to the LTE network. Only when there is additional available capacity in my location would there be a possibility that I can connect to it. When I told the call centre agent I had not once received an LTE signal over the last few weeks where I normally got one, she said this was normal. This was confirmed by the call centre manager after I asked to speak to him.</p> <p> </p> <p>I still have a work phone on contract with vodacom which receives LTE nearly everywhere I go as it always has. So clearly there is an LTE service in the area.</p> <p> </p> <p>Vodacom may well be entitled to reserve the good parts of their network for contract subscribers. However, it is false advertising to claim they have the best network based on the experience of a small subset of users ( 3g only is rather poor when compared to LTE of any network). If that was the case, CellC could give preferential treatment to all customers spending more than R1000 per month and say they are the best based on the experience of this smaller group of customers.</p> <p> </p> <p>Has anyone else experienced this? I think a few screenshots of my phones in different locations will be more than enough evidence in a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority. I am likely to do this next.</p>