ADSL problems frustrate users

[rpm]

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/ADSL/1122.html

 

[kris860911]

Over the past few years ADSL customers have been complaining about poor service and high ADSL charges...

 

[morkhans]

Funny how Vodacom has been having problems for weeks, but they just never seem to make it to the headlines...

 

[ToxicBunny]

morkhans : At least on this forum its because they engage with their customers and try and sort things out. I use 3G exclusively at home, and yes the last few weeks have been painful to say the least, but I knew there was a problem, I knew Vodacom knew, and I knew they were working on pin pointing the problem and fixing it.

 

[morkhans]

morkhans : At least on this forum its because they engage with their customers and try and sort things out. I use 3G exclusively at home, and yes the last few weeks have been painful to say the least, but I knew there was a problem, I knew Vodacom knew, and I knew they were working on pin pointing the problem and fixing it.

While the feedback from v3g in the forums is most helpfull, do you not think a bit of public attention might have sped things up a little? And as I have pointed out in some of my posts this forum only represents a small part of the 3G user base, so who is actually keeping the public (and traditional media users) informed? Quite a number of people (including myself) have called the 155 support desk and mostly the agents are oblivious to the current state of things.

How do you think think the people with unused bundles feel? A bit out of pocket, no doubt. If Vodacom can spend millions on a roller skating rat then surely they can pinch of some money for a quick press-release (as in newspaper or TV) to say: "Our rat is a little under the weather, but the doc is working on him, and here is a free meg or two in good spirit". That in anyone's book is (would be) brilliant PR.

 

[ToxicBunny]

Oh I agree wholeheartedly, a bit of public attention may have speeded things up slightly, and this forum is but a very very small percentage of their 3g userbase, and yes doing something like handing a free bundle or something to everyone would be absolutely brilliant PR.

I just think Vodacom has alot more costumer good-will than Telkom could ever wish to have. Plus of course quite a few business rely on ADSL to do their business whereas 3G is usually a backup connectivity, or for mobile users.

 

[morkhans]

I just think Vodacom has alot more costumer good-will than Telkom could ever wish to have. Plus of course quite a few business rely on ADSL to do their business whereas 3G is usually a backup connectivity, or for mobile users.

While no-one can argue that Telkom is the worst in terms of customer services, we have come to expect that of them (sadly).

I do not agree with your statement about 3G not being mission critical. There are businesses that don't have ADSL in their area that rely on it. There are also support engineers who are on the road or need to be available after-hours that depend on 3G to be able to do their work.

 

[bekdik]

This slowdown seems to happen regularly towards month end. How very convenient for Telkom, as it inhibits subscribers from making use of their full cap .

 

[gregmcc]

Yeah - since I've been subscribed there's been problems at the end of each month. They can't cope with the increased bandwidth from everyone capping out there account.

 

[Praeses]

Troubles at the end of the month, again? We so didn't see that coming...

 

[NameOfBeast]

It really is pathetic: I'm using the dregs of the local portion of my IS account (I doubt I will even be able to use it all, since I'm getting something like 7KB/s on the news servers) and my (expensive) SAIX prepaid account is close to useless --- multiple time-outs on most international sites.

 

[emmanuel]

Internet is mission critical

The main consideration is; Internet is mission critical. This is overlooked due to the market being immature.

As an example, Vodacom's email was down for more than 24 hours some time back and it was considered okay, in the light of oh, we're down and working on it. It should just not be down or stuttering.

The market is not yet robust and mature.

In the early computerized banking days, before getting to the maturity levels they currently are at where 99.9999% uptime is non-negotiable, being down or stuttering wasn't considered unusual. But once the market matured, being down or stuttering became unacceptable. Because being up without stuttering becomes the norm.

Internet in South Africa just isn't there yet. It is not yet seen as mission critical.

As can be seen even from some posts on this thread.

 

[icyrus]

I have to say that I didn't notice that my ADSL was any worse recently than normal. I hardly ever get above 20kb/s to international sites and often have massive packet loss. All this on a 4mb line.

The service is constantly pathetic, so I guess I have come to expect it.

How sad is it that I am always pleasantly surprised when I get more than 100kb/s to an international site?

 

[|tera|]

I have to say that I didn't notice that my ADSL was any worse recently than normal. I hardly ever get above 20kb/s to international sites and often have massive packet loss. All this on a 4mb line.

The service is constantly pathetic, so I guess I have come to expect it.

How sad is it that I am always pleasantly surprised when I get more than 100kb/s to an international site?

Hey bro

http://mybroadband.co.za/general/speedtests.htm

Use the Stanford speed test on that link.

After you've completed the test, click on both the statistics and more information buttons, scroll down and read through it. The great thing about it is it allows you to see where the bottleneck and or congestion is.

I'm on 4mbps as well, I just couldn't accept that I downloaded from 1 site at 400 kb/s and the next at 50 kb/s. Using those test results and the info they provided, I set my NIC to Full Duplex 100 mbps, which my router supports and I also played with my Network settings, I'm running Vista Ultimate.

The speed has definitely levelled out for me, I hope it does for you as well.

Btw. I'm also experiencing a drop in speed on SAIX, so there's definitely a network issue somewhere

 

[TheREV]

Use the Stanford speed test on that link.

Thanks for the tip, but it doesn't work at all for me. I press "start" and nothing happens.

*spit*telskum*spit*

 

[TheREV]

Er, let me rephrase that ...

*spit*Opera and telskum*spit*

It works perfectly in ie - not in Opera.

 

[|tera|]

Cool It's probably a Java issue, I think you have to download an Opera version with Java.

 

[bekdik]

And then ...

SAIX Network Notice
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Reference ID : STT000000006210
Failure Type : Network Failure
Problem Description : Link down Bellville LIR - Ashburn Impact : Clients may experience slow International Connectivity Time Down : 28 Aug, 2007 at 13:10:00 (SAT) Sites : Bellville LIR Services Affected : International


---------------------------------------------------------------------
All notices available at http://www.noticeboard.saix.net/.
To be removed from this Mailing list send an empty e-Mail to noticeboard-unsubscribe@saix.net.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[LazyLion]

This has been posted before, but if you are on SAIX, make sure you are using the SAIX proxy cache, it definitely does make a difference!!

HTTP Proxy: dsl-cache.saix.net
Port: 8080

 

[|tera|]

And then ...

Yip, I wish SAIX would work for one week without problems, but I think when that happens, it will snow in the Kalahari