ADSL pissing contest

SmartKit

SmartKit

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So here I stand with an ADSL line that is syncing but won't connect. The ADSL line is with Afrihost. The router works correctly on a second ADSL line, so we can rule out my own stupidity.

Afrihost assures me that they've escalated the problem to Telkom, which indeed happened, albeit only after I called to follow up 24 hours later.

Within two days I receive a phone call from Telkom informing me that it would be pointless for them to investigate because once they determine it is syncing they will then put the blame on Afrihost and charge me an unnecessary callout fee. I told them I don't care, if it is the case I'll fight it out with Afrihost, please send a technician. That was almost a week ago.

Subsequent to that Afrihost, to their credit, has contacted me to let me know Telkom is "very busy" in my area.

My honest to goodness belief is that they are blatantly ignoring Afrihost clients (despite my R150 a month copper tax that I pay the thieving b*****ds) in favour of their own clients. It's turned into a giant pissing contest in which Telkom is flexing their muscle to show the disdain for having to give their ADSL portion away.

So here I sit, Afrihost blaming Telkom, Telkom blaming Afrihost and not sending a technician whilst I'm the a*****e unable to do an honest day's work because I forced onto a sometimes-maybe 3G connection.

So what is there left to do? Abandon Afrihost and go back to Telkom just to get my line fixed? Is it ever worth giving your ADSL portion to an ISP like Afrihost if they're held to ransom by a SOC bully?

Honestly, right now, I feel that both companies can go f**k themselves.
 
Read this thread:
http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php/588175-Getting-to-know-your-Telkom-folks

Telkom Wholesale have every interest in fixing DSL line problems that are under an ISP as they have nothing to gain by treating internal sale preferentially and a whole lot of hurt if the do. It is a breach of company policy and the Comp Comm settlement for staff to afford such a preference.

Hold Telkom to task but do so properly
 
We always laugh at the joke that Africa is not for sissies but it seems there is a lot of truth in that statement as there is basically nothing easy in/about this country [okay i know, I'm being negative to the extreme].

The only thing I can quickly think of that is quite is easy is paying taxes. In regards to your line, I think it best to keep control over your line. Been there done that i.e. the position you are in with A blaming B etc...
 
Paul Hjul said:
Read this thread:
http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php/588175-Getting-to-know-your-Telkom-folks

Telkom Wholesale have every interest in fixing DSL line problems that are under an ISP as they have nothing to gain by treating internal sale preferentially and a whole lot of hurt if the do. It is a breach of company policy and the Comp Comm settlement for staff to afford such a preference.

Hold Telkom to task but do so properly
Click to expand...

So you're telling me it's just the usual general incompetence, not preferential treatment?
 
phaktza said:
So here I stand with an ADSL line that is syncing but won't connect. The ADSL line is with Afrihost. The router works correctly on a second ADSL line, so we can rule out my own stupidity.

Afrihost assures me that they've escalated the problem to Telkom, which indeed happened, albeit only after I called to follow up 24 hours later.

Within two days I receive a phone call from Telkom informing me that it would be pointless for them to investigate because once they determine it is syncing they will then put the blame on Afrihost and charge me an unnecessary callout fee. I told them I don't care, if it is the case I'll fight it out with Afrihost, please send a technician. That was almost a week ago.

Subsequent to that Afrihost, to their credit, has contacted me to let me know Telkom is "very busy" in my area.

My honest to goodness belief is that they are blatantly ignoring Afrihost clients (despite my R150 a month copper tax that I pay the thieving b*****ds) in favour of their own clients. It's turned into a giant pissing contest in which Telkom is flexing their muscle to show the disdain for having to give their ADSL portion away.

So here I sit, Afrihost blaming Telkom, Telkom blaming Afrihost and not sending a technician whilst I'm the a*****e unable to do an honest day's work because I forced onto a sometimes-maybe 3G connection.

So what is there left to do? Abandon Afrihost and go back to Telkom just to get my line fixed? Is it ever worth giving your ADSL portion to an ISP like Afrihost if they're held to ransom by a SOC bully?

Honestly, right now, I feel that both companies can go f**k themselves.
Click to expand...

Have you tried buying a 1gig capped account from another ISP(Not Axxes) and testing?
 
phaktza said:
So you're telling me it's just the usual general incompetence, not preferential treatment?
Click to expand...
it is more likely to be incompetence than preferential treatment but if it is preferential treatment (such as with silly call centre agents) being armed with the fact that it breaches policy may be worth pointing out in a friendly chat with the ops manager

so something like "I really don't know where the service problem is and I know you guys can't show any preference to Telkom holding the account but it seems getting the fault properly provisioned to be solved by wholesale isn't happening"
 
Paul Hjul said:
it is more likely to be incompetence than preferential treatment but if it is preferential treatment (such as with silly call centre agents) being armed with the fact that it breaches policy may be worth pointing out in a friendly chat with the ops manager

so something like "I really don't know where the service problem is and I know you guys can't show any preference to Telkom holding the account but it seems getting the fault properly provisioned to be solved by wholesale isn't happening"
Click to expand...

I will give it a shot tomorrow, thanks for pointing me to the thread!
 
Paul Hjul said:
so something like "I really don't know where the service problem is and I know you guys can't show any preference to Telkom holding the account but it seems getting the fault properly provisioned to be solved by wholesale isn't happening"
Click to expand...

I'd pay to see the look on the face of the call center agent to which the above is told. I can imagine a lot of headscratching, a wide open mouth followed by a few eishes, followed by a "eehhh, What?"
 
A client had a problem once, where the line sync'd but the ISP (Mweb) account wouldn't connect.

After loads of back-and-forth, it turned out to be that the Telkom account had gone into arrears and the line had previously been suspended. Somehow they had unsuspended the line but didn't unsuspend the ADSL access portion of the line.. which resulted in a sync but no connection.

Technically, I'm not sure how that's possible (I would assume in this case that the line wouldn't sync at all - but clearly I was wrong), but at the end of the day, a call to the Telkom accounts department had the problem sorted out in minutes.

Maybe worth calling them just to double-check they haven't mistakenly blocked/suspended any type of service on the line, despite the phone still working and the router sync'ing.
 
Dean said:
A client had a problem once, where the line sync'd but the ISP (Mweb) account wouldn't connect.

After loads of back-and-forth, it turned out to be that the Telkom account had gone into arrears and the line had previously been suspended. Somehow they had unsuspended the line but didn't unsuspend the ADSL access portion of the line.. which resulted in a sync but no connection.

Technically, I'm not sure how that's possible (I would assume in this case that the line wouldn't sync at all - but clearly I was wrong), but at the end of the day, a call to the Telkom accounts department had the problem sorted out in minutes.

Maybe worth calling them just to double-check they haven't mistakenly blocked/suspended any type of service on the line, despite the phone still working and the router sync'ing.
Click to expand...

Afrihost holds the ADSL portion. Should this be the case they would look like right nanas and owe me a refund.
 
Paul Hjul said:
Read this thread:
http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php/588175-Getting-to-know-your-Telkom-folks

Telkom Wholesale have every interest in fixing DSL line problems that are under an ISP as they have nothing to gain by treating internal sale preferentially and a whole lot of hurt if the do. It is a breach of company policy and the Comp Comm settlement for staff to afford such a preference.

Hold Telkom to task but do so properly
Click to expand...

No answer. Useless as f**k, as expected.
 
phaktza said:
So here I stand with an ADSL line that is syncing but won't connect. The ADSL line is with Afrihost. The router works correctly on a second ADSL line, so we can rule out my own stupidity.

Afrihost assures me that they've escalated the problem to Telkom, which indeed happened, albeit only after I called to follow up 24 hours later.

Within two days I receive a phone call from Telkom informing me that it would be pointless for them to investigate because once they determine it is syncing they will then put the blame on Afrihost and charge me an unnecessary callout fee. I told them I don't care, if it is the case I'll fight it out with Afrihost, please send a technician. That was almost a week ago.

Subsequent to that Afrihost, to their credit, has contacted me to let me know Telkom is "very busy" in my area.

My honest to goodness belief is that they are blatantly ignoring Afrihost clients (despite my R150 a month copper tax that I pay the thieving b*****ds) in favour of their own clients. It's turned into a giant pissing contest in which Telkom is flexing their muscle to show the disdain for having to give their ADSL portion away.

So here I sit, Afrihost blaming Telkom, Telkom blaming Afrihost and not sending a technician whilst I'm the a*****e unable to do an honest day's work because I forced onto a sometimes-maybe 3G connection.

So what is there left to do? Abandon Afrihost and go back to Telkom just to get my line fixed? Is it ever worth giving your ADSL portion to an ISP like Afrihost if they're held to ransom by a SOC bully?

Honestly, right now, I feel that both companies can go f**k themselves.
Click to expand...

Hi

I'm really sorry we haven't been able to attend to this as quickly as you'd like.
We definitely do our absolute best to push as hard as possible to have our clients faults attended to and resolved as quickly as possible. As you can imagine though, on some occasions our hands do become tied in terms of getting a resolution.

Unfortunately we don't own the infrastructure - this is all in Telkoms hands, so they're responsible to roll out fixes, upgrades and run maintenance.
Our team escalate faults as much as possible with Telkom - so as soon as we here anything we pass it on.
 
phaktza said:
Afrihost holds the ADSL portion. Should this be the case they would look like right nanas and owe me a refund.
Click to expand...

Telkoms ownership of the line overrides our management of the line. If we suspend DSL service, you still get voice service on the line. If Telkom suspend the line from their side, you get no service at all.

Telkom can override our suspension, but we can't override theirs :(
 
AfriGuy said:
Hi

I'm really sorry we haven't been able to attend to this as quickly as you'd like.
We definitely do our absolute best to push as hard as possible to have our clients faults attended to and resolved as quickly as possible. As you can imagine though, on some occasions our hands do become tied in terms of getting a resolution.

Unfortunately we don't own the infrastructure - this is all in Telkoms hands, so they're responsible to roll out fixes, upgrades and run maintenance.
Our team escalate faults as much as possible with Telkom - so as soon as we here anything we pass it on.
Click to expand...

I do understand the issues, and LLU has been an issue close to the heart of this forum for many a year. However, that's just it, isn't it. It's great when the times are good, but when it's bad we all have our nuts in a bind.

I wonder, however, whether having the line with Telkom would not have allowed this to be resolved quicker.

I can wax lyrical all day about the DoC and Telkom SOC but in the end I'm still sitting without an ADSL line. Unfair for Afrihost? Yes. Unfair for the consumer? Well, ss a consumer I must unfortunately make the best choice with regards to my needs, even if it screws Afrihost over.
 
AfriMan said:
Telkoms ownership of the line overrides our management of the line. If we suspend DSL service, you still get voice service on the line. If Telkom suspend the line from their side, you get no service at all.

Telkom can override our suspension, but we can't override theirs :(
Click to expand...

This is by no means resolved, and for now I do give Afrihost the benefit of the doubt; but if it becomes a game of "he said, she said" I will be forced to move my line to Telkom just to get it working again!
 
If you going to move your line back to Telkom you going to regret it.
 
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