Telkom Customer Care

[Fulton17]

So, for past 5 odd weeks have been battling with latency issues on my line. WA reports fault and the fun begins.

Still not resolved so in desperation I phone Telkom Customer Care (sic) on 0800 201 228 and end up with a bored, negative lady who could not care 1 bit about my issues. Why she is in customer care is beyond me.

She does not care and can do nothing. Tells me Telkom calls 3 times and then close the fault because you are not available. Now how Telkom does this is to call you; if you are busy and do not answer, they call you 2 seconds later and then again a few seconds later. Now they can say they called 3 times and close the fault. Or else they say they called when in fact they did not even bother.

According to this warm hearted, caring and charming old dear, all that Telkom is concerned about is that your line is clear.

One Tech guy did come to my home to "test" my line and ran the Telkom speedtest and told me I had a 4 meg line. What a revelation!! After all this time that I have being paying for a 4 meg line I am told I have a 4 meg line. Who would have guessed. When I spoke about latency, he did not know what I was talking about.

Instead of escalating the problem, the fault was closed and I get WA to report it again, and the circus continues.

I hate HATE helkom. No wonder they are such a useless company

In fairness I did once deal with a gentleman at customer care who actually does care, but sadly he was out today.

[Pada]

If you're suffering from high latencies, then your exchange is most likely congested and then there's nothing that a Telkom operator/techie can do about it, except perhaps to report it.

I'd suggest that you rather go to a Telkom Direct store and try to sort it out from there.

[Mr.Jax]

@OP.

Been there...took me 18 months of struggling with Telkom. Long story short, the exchange/backhaul/whatever is overloaded...it's still overloaded.
They changed something, probably because they got tired of my spamming, because I now have perfect latency, but loads of packet loss and still pathetic throughput.

All I can say is, you're welcome to try again and again .....and again, but I reckon you're not going to get anywhere, so just give up on them. Will save yourself a lot of frustration.

[Fulton17]

@OP.

All I can say is, you're welcome to try again and again .....and again, but I reckon you're not going to get anywhere, so just give up on them. Will save yourself a lot of frustration.

Problem is that my browsing is about as good as ISDN days - and then 64K not 128K

I do hear you re frustration though!!

[diegoa]

I am currently sitting with same issue between WA and Telkom for last 9 months
WAAngelo, how can we speed this up, its getting ridiculous?

[who.is.michael]

I am currently sitting with same issue between WA and Telkom for last 9 months
WAAngelo, how can we speed this up, its getting ridiculous?

I had the same issue, my solution was to move to Cybersmart, cheaper and far better throughput...

[Fulton17]

I am currently sitting with same issue between WA and Telkom for last 9 months
WAAngelo, how can we speed this up, its getting ridiculous?

Now I am depressed!!!!

[jackshiels]

Amazingly today I actually was quite impressed with the customer service. The waiting time is a little long but the reps were very friendly/helpful... It doesn't make sense - it just isn't natural!

[HermanTheGerman]

I had the same issue, my solution was to move to Cybersmart, cheaper and far better throughput...

Your link brought me to TRL, is that Cybersmart? And further, are they working around Tekom? I don't think so. AFAIK all last mile infrstructure is owned by Telkom, so TRL is probably just another bandwith reseller. But the problems most of us have are not in the backhaul but on the last mile, the local mutiplexer (DSLam), so just swapping bandwith providers won't help.

[Fulton17]

I had the same issue, my solution was to move to Cybersmart, cheaper and far better throughput...

For me the problem is not WA as when I did a speedtest with an IS account, the result was the same. It is a helkom issue

[who.is.michael]

For me the problem is not WA as when I did a speedtest with an IS account, the result was the same. It is a helkom issue

@ HTG - yes, it is...

@ F17 - trying to test / compare anything via IS; is of no value as IS' network is the most unstable of any of the local networks...
(suggest you ask for a small test account from TRL and confirm)

- I was repeatedly informed by WA that it was my local exchange, I had the port swapped, telephone line rewired, swapped modems, etc. nothing helped - the moment I switched to CS, (moved my line back to Telkom); all "Telkom issues" magically disappeared.

[wamatt]

@ HTG - yes, it is...

@ F17 - trying to test / compare anything via IS; is of no value as IS' network is the most unstable of any of the local networks...
(suggest you ask for a small test account from TRL and confirm)

- I was repeatedly informed by WA that it was my local exchange, I had the port swapped, telephone line rewired, swapped modems, etc. nothing helped - the moment I switched to CS, (moved my line back to Telkom); all "Telkom issues" magically disappeared.

Hi Mike

I've seen you were rather upset in a large number of posts about this. I know it can be exhaustingly frustrating to deal with when it happens, but I feel perhaps it's easy to jump to conclusions given your observations.

But what I can say is right from the top down, Web Africa have absolutely no reason to intentionally discriminate one user from another on the same plans and be sneaky about it, that just makes no business sense and there is just no way that we'd ever engage in that or try "cover it up" and make excuses for poor speeds.

Our guys try as hard as possible to help every single client get what they want and it unfortunate that we have to rely on Telkom. It's not an excuse, we try as hard as we can regardless, but it simply a reality we have to navigate through.

Perhaps when you transferred your line back you got allocated a new "cleaner" port?

Have you since tested WA speeds etc since your line has been moved back?

Check your PM box just now (going to organise something for you).

[wamatt]

For me the problem is not WA as when I did a speedtest with an IS account, the result was the same. It is a helkom issue

Hi Fulton, I'll ask our operations exec to look into it with Telkom management for you. I believe you've been dealing with Jeff but it is taking way to long to get it resolved.

[diegoa]

I am also experiencing issues with Telkom via WA. Its been almost since June/July last year that I am still having packet loss on my line and I cant use my line at all for VoIP or online gaming with the amount of packet loss I am getting. My line is completely useless for me, even though I am still paying for it. I keep getting bounced between Telkom and WA with different information without any resolution to the problem in sight. No-one can give me an answer on when my problem will be resolved. Today I rang Telkom and was told Telkom has been waiting for 2 months for feedback from me which WA has not informed me and I am getting completely different information that what I was getting from WA. I feel like I am going around in circles.

[who.is.michael]

Hi Mike

I've seen you were rather upset in a large number of posts about this. I know it can be exhaustingly frustrating to deal with when it happens, but I feel perhaps it's easy to jump to conclusions given your observations.

But what I can say is right from the top down, Web Africa have absolutely no reason to intentionally discriminate one user from another on the same plans and be sneaky about it, that just makes no business sense and there is just no way that we'd ever engage in that or try "cover it up" and make excuses for poor speeds.

Our guys try as hard as possible to help every single client get what they want and it unfortunate that we have to rely on Telkom. It's not an excuse, we try as hard as we can regardless, but it simply a reality we have to navigate through.

Perhaps when you transferred your line back you got allocated a new "cleaner" port?

Have you since tested WA speeds etc since your line has been moved back?

Check your PM box just now (going to organise something for you).

I appreciate the phone call from the WA consultant, however I have cancelled the 50 GB Titan account as it does not suit my clients' or my needs and I feel it only fair to inform MyBB users that there are alternatives available that do deliver at a fair price.

Should you wish to continue this discussion, you are welcome to contact me telephonically or via PM/email.