[KNOWN ISSUE] Longer than normal wait times for self serve

[Tiana_V]

Update as of Dec. 4 2:02PM ET:

Earlier today we launched our More is Merrier campaign, which included wide spread communications to our customers as well as taking over the YouTube home page. This resulted in much higher than normal traffic on our website and self serve portals. Due to high traffic to our self serve portal, you may experience longer than normal wait times for the portal to load (and see a blank screen in the mean time). Please refresh the page or come back to the self serve portal at a later time or date.

If you are trying to add one of our More is Merrier free add-ons (1GB of data or 400 international minutes) please know that these will be available until December 25th 2019, so you have plenty of time to take advantage of this give away. We are anticipating lower traffic levels later this week (likely even Thursday Dec 5th), so you should see full speed access to self serve then. 

Thank you for your patience. 

- The Public Mobile Team

[Korth]

@joekoop

This is an old thread.

The free gifts were available until three months ago (Dec 25, 2019). They're gone now.

I think PM decided to require customer action on this offer for a few reasons: 1) they received some complaints about their previous "forced" freebie which they didn't want to repeat, 2) they wanted to determine how much feedback their Community announcements generate, and 3) they wanted to load-test their Self-Serve portal to determine priorities for upgrade.

[Like2cook]

Sorry could you please tell me what you are talking about?

[joekoop]

Instead of giving everyone a button to press, PM should just apply the free promo to everyone's numbers and send an SMS saying they did so.

[Like2cook]

Patience Patience.........the great service and the fun you will enjoy once set up  !!!!

All the teething problems will seem like a walk in the park

[JFF]

It took long time to load, but keep trying, it will come around at one point of time. 

[JenL]

@computergeek541 great advice and easy to do.

[dwoods99]

No issues today, Monday the 9th. Quick response times.

[Rosalea]

Wait time was not long, it was worth waiting to claim the freebies today.

Thank you Public Mobile!

[Brandoncf56]

I'm having the same issue today. How was it resolved?

[peterbingsu]

I just active the new. The speed is not bad.

[Korth]

@Like2cook

I suspect a lot of people want it right now so they ccan start using it right now. 

Canadian consumers also have a lot of inherent suspicion and mistrust towards Canadian telcoms. Especially after one or more bad experiences which drained their pockets. So the prevailing attitude is to take (and use) freebies right now because there's an expectation that the gifts will somehow be taken back.

(I admit I rushed into claiming my gifts. But not because impatience - these gifts will likely languish unused on my account for a long time - more because I'm basically absent-minded enough about little things that if I know if I don't do it now I'll probably forget all about it until it's too late.) 

[Like2cook]

I am very surprised with the lack of patience of people when setting up anything. Especially when the prices are so economical. And that too for free.

True everyone wants everything for nothing. But that doesn't work in the world at length.

Yes when I fly, I want the luxury of Business Class. But am I willing to pay 3 times more than I normally do for the Economy or Cattle class ticket.?

So people, have a little patience and as my mother used to say " Good things come to those who wait........"

Thanks Public moble for the free data and the long distance for Free.

Have a Merry, Joyous and Holy Christmas .......you and your families.

[Billyraymond]

Thanks a million 4 the free data 

[Jamal01]

Same here.

I paid for it the other night and my service hasn't been working since.

I've been wondering what was going on.

[stargirl]

Try again tomorrow or in a few days time. Site is busy but it did just work for me. You have until dec 25 to add them give away 

[Korth]

I'm guessing that PM announced their free gifts to us (early) for several reasons. 

One of these reasons: it lets them assess PM Community influence, on and off their own site, and it lets them take measure of maximal peak traffic on their site.

To provide PM with exactly the sort of data they need to rebalance or upgrade their web-side stuff enough to prevent all the sorts of QoS/timeout frustrations described in above posts. If their managerials are into "continuous improvement" then this "stress test" could even foreshadow their anticipation of more huge traffic peaks (vague intentions to compete aggressively, run killer promo, etc?) within the next year. 

[MWCMA]

All good things take time.lets just hope not alot more time.have a great day

[Newfiescreech]

Thanks so much for a wonderful early Christmas gift ..sure appreciate 

[Irene01]

Thank you so much for the free 1G of data and the International Calling add-on. These are great to have for the holiday season. For several years I've enjoyed excellent service from Public Mobile. You're the best!

[James1977]

Thanks for all the free gifts!

[yim-snow1984]

I've found trying to signin to my account during this free offer is slow, and trying to navigate to the Purchase Add-On was a lot slower.  Switched to my desktop browser and no issues, everything was performing well and no major delays.

Happy 1 Year Customer.

[jor123]

Yeah, the forums are mobile responsive but the self serve portal isn't. 

[Sirius]

They should have an APP because their website is very hard to navigate on a cell phone. I know they have a lot of data to manage but their server is under-powered. Always slow. Having an app with less data on every page would make it easier on the server. A cell phone operator without a cell phone app is a fly-by-night operation. I'm wondering if they've tried their websites on a cell phone and see how bad it can be. 🙄

[MWCMA]

The site is likely slow because of all the people on over the holidays

[CalvinW]

nice.

[MWCMA]

It seems to be slow every where it must be because of the holidays

[jor123]

---

@dna2016 wrote:

@Tiana_V thanks for the heads up on that. I noticed the self serve site wasn't working so it was obvious that everyone was trying to add it within minutes. Guess people haven't learned that a system/site can only handle so much activity all at once. If large companies like Apple & Disney have their systems / site crash due to heavy activity then this doesn't surprise me one bit. I figured I'll wait till later in the evening when more people are going to bed, and exactly as expected I was able to log in and add the free features within minutes, practically no issues and no wait time. Really glad PM is giving customers PLENTY of time to add these free options so that people can take their time and add them later and not congest the site.

---

To be fair the sort of infrastructure you need for content delivery on something like Disney+  is a totally different story compared to a self serve portal for a small prepaid provider. pm self serve has been pretty slow and lackluster for as long as I can remember, I think it's long overdue for an overhaul. 

[dna2016]

@Tiana_V thanks for the heads up on that. I noticed the self serve site wasn't working so it was obvious that everyone was trying to add it within minutes. Guess people haven't learned that a system/site can only handle so much activity all at once. If large companies like Apple & Disney have their systems / site crash due to heavy activity then this doesn't surprise me one bit. I figured I'll wait till later in the evening when more people are going to bed, and exactly as expected I was able to log in and add the free features within minutes, practically no issues and no wait time. Really glad PM is giving customers PLENTY of time to add these free options so that people can take their time and add them later and not congest the site.

[MoreYummy]

We need more freebie like this to crash your site.   I dont mind the site doesnt work!  

[FAUJ2]

Yes, Thank you Public Mobile for looking out for your new AND EXISTING customers.