Turn off your virus scanner, Telkom tells internet client

In addition to Telkom's recent call answer service software glitch which prevented some customers from being able to dial up to access the internet, one customer who experienced problems with his broadband connection over the same period was told by Telkom technicians to disconnect his anti-virus software in order to use his e-mail, making his computer susceptible to viruses.

Personal Finance editor Bruce Cameron said yesterday that he worked from home a lot and from Friday until Monday night he kept receiving error messages when he tried to send and receive e-mails on his telkomsa.net account.

During three separate phone calls to Telkom technicians, he was alternately told to disconnect his anti-virus software permanently and disconnect it for 15-minute intervals so that his e-mail service could work.

"It takes hours to get through to these guys and they're giving contradictory messages.

"To tell people to disconnect their virus scanners is downright irresponsible," Cameron said, adding that the technicians were implying that the anti-virus software was the problem.

Telkom spokeswoman Lulu Letlape said via e-mail that Telkom detected a network problem on Sunday which affected the voice message platform and acted "promptly in repairing and restoring the service".

She did not respond to multiple questions relating to Cameron's experiences.

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ubercal said:

Lets be honest - Enabling outgoing and incomming mail scanning does sometimes cause problem.Its a fact.If people cant configure there Norton Internet security correctly then its easier to just disable it.Tough **** live with it.

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