192kb subscribers take actions NOW

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Debbie

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Following what's been said in another thread, to me it makes sense for all 192kb subscribers to contact Telkom and pretend to want an upgrade to 1024kb NOW. See what Telkom says about whether your line can support higher speeds or not, and try get this in writing. This is in case Telkom tries to pull something as described here, and not give 192kb subscribers their 'free' upgrade.

If you do this, please post what Telkom says in this thread.
 
My experience

I actually needed to upgrade my 192kbps to 384kbps anyway, and will probably need to go to 512kbps sometime soon. After reading Debbie2's posts I decided to start the process now, instead of waiting for them to do the 'free upgrade'.

So I phoned this morning at 8:05. Was quite surprised when it was answered within a minute or two. And it took only 15 minutes do finish the call - my normal waiting time for the repair side of DSL to answer. And the lady was very helpful too.

We managed to establish the following:
1) Yes, my exchange supports speeds higher than 192 (not all can, apparently :confused: )
2) Yes, there is an imminent "upgrade everyone to 384 coming" (but what about point 1, then?)
3) The reason for me doing this (Yes, I had to supply one)
4) That I am not a Telkom Internet subscriber. And I don't want to be. And own my own modem.
5) It is not entirely clear to her if a technician will need to come out to my residence. She suspects not, that he will only need to install software at the exchange for me. :rolleyes:
6) That it will take them 30 working days to do. Which puts us in the middle of July (Someone needs a new calendar).

All-in-all it may have been better to wait until August. According to her everyone will be upgraded on August 1st. After my phonecall today I somehow doubt that it will happen overnight. After all, all those techs have to install software for thousands of users in a single day ...
 
Yep, sounds like telkom. Well I know, when i first started up and connected my dsl, only minustes after they installed at the exchange, my line synced at 1mb. So if they tell me that mine is too slow, I will know they bullsitting me.

Also when I first installed my adsl only a few days ago, they had moved my installation date from the 7th of this month to today(14th). I phoned them non-stop untill my call got answered by some one saying that he will speak to his "people" and see what he can do. All the others said, no you have to phone the manager. Mr Peters I think it was. I got my adsl that night, I was so happy and found that bothering them untill you get lucky and speak to the one person that knows what he's doing works. What also works is if you know someone on the inside, they always know the tech's and can get them to do after thier working hours if you lucky.

So I'm hopeing that this aproach will work again. :)
 
192k users should do speed tests and take screenshots of the results to see if the speed is bumped up after 1 August.
 
Valerion, thanks for the useful post.

I firmly believe Telkom is going to find some way out of not upgrading the 192k speeds. I am very familiar with this company, and I know how they operate. I know that sounds arrogant and egotistical, and I don't mean to, I just want to restate that I stick by my beliefs that come August 1st, the vast majority of 192k subscribers are not getting a free upgrade.
 
I know that mine is capable in excess of 512k. When I first got my 192 installed, they accidentally configured it to 512k (modem was syncing at 640k) for 2 months while charging me 192 rates. Yeah I got lucky for a few months, but I know that it's capable of high speeds. The question is what do I do if they don't upgrade me come 01/08 (citing line quality and distance from exchange)?
 
Try get it in writing. The more people that get confirmation of increased line speed capability from Telkom pre-Aug 1, the better. We will see what we can do with this info after Aug 1.
 
They have an email contact form on their site now. Try that? I know, virtually impossible to get anything in wrioting from them except lies. Or else keep record of time and date of your call, and who you spoke to. They can hardly claim to have 'lost' a whole bunch of recordings of them saying customer's line speeds are capable of higher speeds.
 
Well if Telkom is going to lie to us all the time, I can lie to them too :p

Gonna try an idea tomorrow to get them to send me proof, if it works i'll post here so others can try it.
 
I feel the same way you do, if they can screw us over, then we can definately return the favour. looking forward to what you get from them though. My bet is that you will get their "we will get back to you" or we will send this and that to you as soon as possible. A typical "don't phone us, we'll phone you" situation.

The only problem is that if they can out loyer ICASA then no amount of proof is going to stop them, sadly :(
 
bullfrog said:
I feel the same way you do, if they can screw us over, then we can definately return the favour. looking forward to what you get from them though. My bet is that you will get their "we will get back to you" or we will send this and that to you as soon as possible. A typical "don't phone us, we'll phone you" situation.
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LOL yeah kinda figured that would be their typical response, which is why I'm going to ask them to send the email while I'm on the phone with them and I'm not putting the phone down until I receive it from them. Suggest everybody does that. After all you've waited for almost an hour for them to answer alone, you have every right to speak to them for as long as you wish. Eventually they should get sick of your nagging and just send the thing ;)
 
All the "upgrade" will be is Telkom adjusting their software from 20KB to 40KB, whether or not your line is set up to handle faster than 192kb will become your problem, and you will have to chase after them if not.
 
Having read all this, I just want to drop my own wee 5c into this discussion.

What about users joining after Aug 1st, and being getting told that their exchange only supports 192kb while their exchange is capable of doing 1Mb?
 
When I got ADSL last year the Telkom tech that came to my house said he could get 4mb on my line.
 
ic said:
IMO the story about some exchanges only being capable of 192kbits/s ADSL, is yet another Telkodemonopolies lie
Click to expand...
From what I've heard about the absolutely ****ty ADSL equipment they've installed, its probably entirely possible.

Second rate crap that's been paid off over, and over, and over.. and over, and over etc etc
 
whoiswarren, how much did you bribe him for it?
 
Upgraded after 2 days

Mmmm .....

I was doing an update on my Linux box this morning and saw my traffic graphs suddenly go WAY up. So I checked Telkom's ADSL Speed Test, and it said I was transferring at 336.2kbps. My router reports that it's synched at 512kbps downstream and 256kbps upstream.

For a change I am impressed with Telkom. This is WAY faster than I thought it would be.

Still not sure what the call centre agent was doing when she tested if my exchange could handle 384, though. It took her at least 8-10 minutes to do, keeping me on the line while she typed. I was so surprised by what she said I didn't think to ask her what she was testing exactly. That and I didn't want to ruin my dumb-guy routine I practice on call centre agents ;)
 
When I first got my ADSL connection in 2002, my modem was synced at 5mpbs. I am quite sure this is the same for most people. Telkom have you believe that you are constrained but it is utter rubbish. If you are within 4km of the exchange, I am sure you are able to get at least 1 mbps. Telkom just doesnt know what they are talking about! 196k to 384k should not even be an issue!
 
Kryon_MC said:
When I first got my ADSL connection in 2002, my modem was synced at 5mpbs. I am quite sure this is the same for most people. Telkom have you believe that you are constrained but it is utter rubbish. If you are within 4km of the exchange, I am sure you are able to get at least 1 mbps. Telkom just doesnt know what they are talking about! 196k to 384k should not even be an issue!
Click to expand...


Soon it will be the end of the line for Telkom excuse the pun!!!! With so many options in the future for internet access i think that all they'll be useful for is to set up post offices again:eek:
 
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