8ta speeds in Randburg abysmal!

[pardus]

The internet speeds here are still very slow and erratic, yesterday evening a website took more than 4 minutes just to open, emails would not send and this morning I'm not getting greater than 522 kbps download and 40 kbps upload.

SEVEN emails to the 8ta rep, two outstanding case numbers, numerous phone calls & complaints on the 8ta website and on Hellopeter.com and still no resolution in SIX weeks. Last communication was that a request for a booster had been forwarded to the planning department for approval. WHY can't they JUST restore the service to how it was in the first month when I was getting 3584 - 5120 kbps, switch back on whatever they switched off?

Although many are getting good speeds I see there are more and more complaints of slow and erratic speeds, so this problem may well be compounded as more people sign up.

And as to solving the problems the options are limited as customer service is erratic at best, you can't get out of the contract without paying an exorbitant fee, you can't get much joy from the company itself, a lawyer costs way more than you'd lose buying yourself out of the contract, you could stop the debit order but I doubt that'll spur any action except get their monolithic legal team on your case for your failure to honour the contract.

So basically once you sign that contract they have you between a rock and a hard place and there is very little you can do about service quality.

 

[terbo]

Having the same problem on Randburg/Bryanston border. Used to get 5-7Mbps download. Deteriorated to 1Mbps in early December. Now only 0.3Mbps for the last two weeks, but strangely uploads have remained above 1.5 Mbps. A couple of calls to 8ta have not had any response.
How do you manage to get a technician to come out? I would just like to get someone who could give me a response without asking me to reboot my PC.

 

[pardus]

@ terbo - by pestering them daily... (email tm-soc@8ta.com and social@8ta.com or phone their data helpline)

An Update: Amazingly and commendably, two technicians came on Wednesday and installed a signal repeater consisting of a large rudder-like external antenna on a 3m pole, a large internal electronics box, power supply and internal antenna.

My signal is now as expected - awesome!

However the upload and download speeds are nearly the same! In fact if anything the speeds are more consistently slow rather than the occasional spikes I was having before. The technician was mystified as I now have a -69 to -73dbm signal from the -93 I had before. He said there must be something wrong with the tower and promised to follow up but I've heard nothing (You'd think they'd check the tower first before putting up what looks like a very expensive repeater).

Anyone else having 'slow' problems? If enough people report then maybe they'll figure out there IS actually a problem!

 

[djp2k]

Hi Pardus, I've been on these forums since Nov when the speeds plumetted. I am starting to think that it is not a signal problem (I get 90+ signal with my Poynting antennae) but more that some of the towers have lost their ummmph (technical term).

I was promised by Thatayaone that he would visit my house two days in a row but never pitched - complaints and emails don't work and you can't speak to the technical department as the call centre won't put you through...

So if it is a case of some towers not performing we need to find a way to connect to another tower. I am going to (carefully) attempt to point my ariel at another tower and see what the results are. I am not sure if there is a peice of software that would allow you to 'select' the best tower to connect to - or if that would even work.

I'll let you know how far I get and if, by some miracle, someone from 8ta responds..... I just want my fast speeds back....

 

[pardus]

Yeah, I think it's the tower/s too. Something's been switched on or off or messed around with or maybe it's just plain overloaded (although my speeds don't improve during off peak times). My upload is also faster than the download which is odd.

I think we just gotta keep at them, like chipping away at an iceberg...

BTW, there's an Android phone app called 'Open Signal Maps' which show tower locations

 

[Telkom]

@ terbo - by pestering them daily... (email tm-soc@8ta.com and social@8ta.com or phone their data helpline)

An Update: Amazingly and commendably, two technicians came on Wednesday and installed a signal repeater consisting of a large rudder-like external antenna on a 3m pole, a large internal electronics box, power supply and internal antenna.

My signal is now as expected - awesome!

However the upload and download speeds are nearly the same! In fact if anything the speeds are more consistently slow rather than the occasional spikes I was having before. The technician was mystified as I now have a -69 to -73dbm signal from the -93 I had before. He said there must be something wrong with the tower and promised to follow up but I've heard nothing (You'd think they'd check the tower first before putting up what looks like a very expensive repeater).

Anyone else having 'slow' problems? If enough people report then maybe they'll figure out there IS actually a problem!

Hi pardus.
We would like to investigate.
Please email your 8ta number, contact details and case number to social@8ta.com
Please mention your alias and MyBroadband in the subject line.
Thank you
8ta

 

[Telkom]

Having the same problem on Randburg/Bryanston border. Used to get 5-7Mbps download. Deteriorated to 1Mbps in early December. Now only 0.3Mbps for the last two weeks, but strangely uploads have remained above 1.5 Mbps. A couple of calls to 8ta have not had any response.
How do you manage to get a technician to come out? I would just like to get someone who could give me a response without asking me to reboot my PC.

Hi terbo
We would like to help.
Please email your 8ta number, contact details and physical address to social@8ta.com
Please mention your alias and MyBroadband in the subject line.
Thank you
8ta

 

[Telkom]

Hi Pardus, I've been on these forums since Nov when the speeds plumetted. I am starting to think that it is not a signal problem (I get 90+ signal with my Poynting antennae) but more that some of the towers have lost their ummmph (technical term).

I was promised by Thatayaone that he would visit my house two days in a row but never pitched - complaints and emails don't work and you can't speak to the technical department as the call centre won't put you through...

So if it is a case of some towers not performing we need to find a way to connect to another tower. I am going to (carefully) attempt to point my ariel at another tower and see what the results are. I am not sure if there is a peice of software that would allow you to 'select' the best tower to connect to - or if that would even work.

I'll let you know how far I get and if, by some miracle, someone from 8ta responds..... I just want my fast speeds back....

Hi
We would like to help.
Please email your 8ta number, contact details and physical address to social@8ta.com
Please mention your alias and MyBroadband in the subject line.
Thank you
8ta

 

[pardus]

Hi
We would like to help.
Please email your 8ta number, contact details and physical address to social@8ta.com
Please mention your alias and MyBroadband in the subject line.
Thank you
8ta

8ta, you make me laugh.

Emailed you 8 times, you did nothing, zip, nada, didn't even get a response...

 

[djp2k]

@pardus - I was visited by Thabo (technician) who came with a fancy app which logged my signal, the towers I connected to and response times etc. he found that there was a problem with my tower (Fontainebleau) and that I should test me speeds the same time the next day after they made some changes.

Suffice to say I tested again, no improvement, and now what? No one replies to my emails and I am back to square one. So don't get too excited if they come and see you - no benefit for me.

Will keep emailing them, but there's no guarantee they will ever reply.

My CRM case: 538946
Technical ref: 10466991

I am hoping that something will miraculously happen by itself, but after 2 weeks of waiting for them to fix the tower, I doubt anyone is working on my problem. Good luck.....

I got Thabo's boss' email address which I email daily, but he obviously does not care.

 

[pardus]

Terribly frustrating isn't it. My speeds are now just usable with this enormous repeater on my wall, they fluctuate between about 0.4 Mbps and 1.5 Mbps on a good day. The speed is more consistent which is why it doesn't feel as slow, i.e. webpages load pretty quickly. Most people won't notice the slowness unless they actually measure the speed with http://www.speedtest.net.

One characteristic is that uploads are much faster (>2x) than downloads, which sounds to me like tower problems.

Did you get Thabo's number or email? Post his boss' email here so we can all email him.

Another email address which had some effect is tm-soc@8ta.com, it's their complaints dept, I think, send two a day here and two a day to social@8ta.com

I'm going away for a few days and then I'll start pestering them again.

 

[pardus]

Awesome, some people to contact! Thank you, will put those contact details to use.

 

[pardus]

OK, my speeds are up to about 1.5-2Mbps, not back to 3.5-5 that I had before but it's better than 0.3!!

Had two 8ta techies come and do some testing, they said "signal strength is good, quality is bad", I said "that's what I've been trying to tell you for two months!!"

Anyway it turns out that the large repeater antenna that was installed on my roof was pointing at a non-functional tower so after two further visits by other techies the antenna has been moved (a tree was in the way) and pointed at the next nearest (or nearest functioning) tower.

One techie said that in November (when my problems started) 8ta switched from using some of MTN's towers and started exclusively using their own for data hence the quality drop.

I personally couldn't be bothered to pursue any faster speed so here ends my saga. (and hopefully no "until next time...")

 

[Telkom]

8ta, you make me laugh.

Emailed you 8 times, you did nothing, zip, nada, didn't even get a response...

Hi pardus
Please PM your email address to us.
Thank you
8ta

 

[pardus]

Hi pardus
Please PM your email address to us.
Thank you
8ta

no

 

[giraffe1]

My 8ta speed is amazing i love it , better than cell c in my area

 

[pardus]

@giraffe1, are you in Randburg?

 

[Telkom]

My 8ta speed is amazing i love it , better than cell c in my area

Hi
Thank you for the positive feedback.
Enjoy!
8ta

 

[djp2k]

I pestered the 8ta aliases until they advised that they would also schedule me for the repeater. Although I told them that my signal quality was good and I already had an aerial they advised this would be the only solution. I am sure this is installed at great cost to them, so I am grateful they are willing to go through the expense.

Anyway, the installers were great and really wanted this to sort me out. The result is that I am getting between 1.5MB and 3MB downloads. At the highest speeds I am getting around double the speeds as before, so I think I should be grateful. I was hoping for 5+MB but maybe I was just being stingy.

So I think my journey is also over - it took forever and a lot of frustration but I am happy that there was some progress and I should have a stable connection.

 

[pardus]

Just did a speedtest here in the UK. Oh, the delights of high speed internet access -
16.81 mega bits per sec ... read that again...