ADSL issue since Friday - Telkom

[jodywicomb]

Hello there,
I cannot seem to get any insight or traction into my ongoing issues with my ADSL line.
My line speed suddenly declined to 1.3Mb/s on Friday and remained like that with intermittent dead air I logged a fault with TELKOM (line and isp) and they have since closed the case and my line speed is only up to 3.
Does annyone know where or who I can go to / speak to. I reached out to Telkom's social media team who doesn't respond and the query button on their Telkom app doesn't work.
Area is Cape Town, Southern Suburbs

 

[fundutzi]

If Telkom is not motivated or not capable of assisting you, we can try.

Please provide:
a. Approximate address of dsl point {within some +- 500 meters}
Gives an idea how how far you are from an exchange. CPT, south is too vague.
b. Make model of DSL router.
c. Line stats of DSL. {An example of this can be seen here}
We need the SNR and attenuation}
d. How many Telkom sockets do you have inside the property. I hope this dsl socket is the only one.
e. How long did this line work at what speed before the issue occurred?
{You indicate 1.5 and 3mb recent, what 2 months ago}
f. What are you paying to whom. Example, you pay Telkom for the line and DSL connection speed of 20 MB and you pay Vox for the data.

 

[jodywicomb]

Hi, thanks for replying

Answering in line:
a. Approximate address of dsl point {within some +- 500 meters}
Grassy Park , Maroon Road

Gives an idea how how far you are from an exchange. CPT, south is too vague.

b. Make model of DSL router.
Hauwai (cant confirm model number right now)

c. Line stats of DSL. {An example of this can be seen here}
We need the SNR and attenuation}

d. How many Telkom sockets do you have inside the property. I hope this dsl socket is the only one.
1 socket


e. How long did this line work at what speed before the issue occurred?
{You indicate 1.5 and 3mb recent, what 2 months ago}
Line speed up to and including Friday morning was Roughly 16Mb/s
IT would fluctuate between 16Mb/s and 12Mb/s


f. What are you paying to whom. Example, you pay Telkom for the line and DSL connection speed of 20 MB and you pay Vox for the data.

Telkom is my ISP as well.
Telkom for line rental and Telkom for ISP

 

[fundutzi]

Thank you.
Re DSL.
1. Seems you are a far from an Exchange. The attenuation indicates +- 2 km`s.
Seems Telkom VDSL map confirms this. {Based on VDSL centroids, we guess where the Exchanges are}
Thus your speed wil not be great but good enough as you indicated it was before issues.

2. Hinting at a solution, the SNR are very bad.
You report these as +- 4 -5. But a line will fail if less than 8 {source}. You lucky it works. [Based on past speed you want the SNR to move up to say +- 14 ~ 30, say you do something to cable, look if SNR improved. Look at down SNR to keep it simple]

Since Telkom will not help. Try and determine what changed. Most problems occur near the end point your house/ Huawei router. Something changed between your router and the Telkom pole outside. Was the cable disturbed, a new electrical device installed near the cable, did anyone chew on the phone cable etc.
If you are sure the line is ok and still bad.
Try change the DSL splitter, try test with different router.

Others in forum reported in past, if you ring Telkom and report you cannot make voice phone calls this may yield a result. As rule of thumb, do not tell an ISP anything about speed, they will stop listening.

3. Solving your future.
Checked all the Fibre operators. {DFA, Frogfoot, Mitsol, Openserve, Vumatel, Telkom, Octotel}
Only DFA is near.
Try and place an order with DFA. Others can help you with this. I do not know how DFA decide if and when they extend the network. There is a school nearby, how this is not already linked to fibre I do not understand.



Please give us feedback on your progress.

 

[jodywicomb]

thank you fundutzi
Your response here is amazing! and greatly appreciated.
As far as I am aware nothing changed anywhere near the lines / telkom pole. However I may be mistaken as Telkom is usually up and down in the Area. I'll try the voice call issue as my next point of call.

 

[jodywicomb]

Contractors came out this morning and confirmed a cable break on the line that terminated towards the telephone pole outside my house.

for reference after the line fix:

 

[fundutzi]

That was quick.
Glad it is solved.

Signal to noise ratio is slightly better, still very poor.

Try and work towards fibre. It is near you.
Some effort now will perhaps save you some trouble in the future.

The before and after:

 

[jodywicomb]

thank fundutzi
As soon as FIbre is available I'm definitely switching! thanks for your feedback and assistance!