Afrihost and Telkom: shocking service (2 weeks and counting without internet)

[Pixelled]

I signed up for a line with Telkom late December 2015. I then signed up for an Afrihost uncapped package when the line was migrated and in place.

I had service for a day and a half before the line went down on 10 January. Afrihost told me it was a DSL problem and a fault was logged with Telkom. It took a week and a half before the fault was handed to a technician and another half week before the technician arrived at my house. Since Afrihost originally logged the fault, the contact number was theirs, which meant that I did not receive any contact from the technician prior to him arriving at my house.

When the technician arrived this past Saturday, the DSL line had started working again without him doing anything. He checked the line and said it was fine. Four hours later, the line was down again and it still isn't working.

It has now been over two weeks without service. I am incredibly unhappy at the service I have received as all I kept getting told was that the query was being escalated. No one could even give me an ETA on the technician.

I paid Afrihost over R550 for my package this month and so far I have had no more than two days of service.

I am now once again waiting for a technician to arrive, which could take another two weeks.

 

[Icemanbrfc]

So Afrihost logged the call for you as they should have, and Telkom came out a week and a half later? So Afrihost played their part, and Telkom didnt. Am i right in understanding that?

 

[koosbeer]

This is absolutely horse****! This is a colleague of mine. I recommended she try afrihost. I am regretting this a lot. I look like a tit for telling someone to use afrihost. This is a primarily Telkom problem bit because afrihost manages the line they are responsible for dealing with all their nonsense. None of this is happening.

This is also not a unique thing. I have another colleague who applied at the same time (on my recommendation) having similar problems. So aparently I am the devil now!

 

[Johnatan56]

I agree with you, my last fault took 4 days to get assigned to a technician and then another couple of days for them to actually show up.

It's Telkom's fault, not Afrihost, nor any other ISP, they are all at the mercy of Telkom. No one else is allowed to touch the copper lines.

 

[Pixelled]

That is correct. Except that Afrihost claims to manage the line with Telkom on your behalf. Simply handing it over to Telkom on my behalf is not managing it. They didn't follow up at all. In addition, I am paying for a full month of service and receiving nothing. I should be receiving a rebate for this month.

So Afrihost logged the call for you as they should have, and Telkom came out a week and a half later? So Afrihost played their part, and Telkom didnt. Am i right in understanding that?

 

[Johnatan56]

That is correct. Except that Afrihost claims to manage the line with Telkom on your behalf. Simply handing it over to Telkom on my behalf is not managing it. They didn't follow up at all. In addition, I am paying for a full month of service and receiving nothing. I should be receiving a rebate for this month.

You apply for rebate after the line is back up, it's one of Telkom's policies. Be sure to keep the fault numbers. Talk to an Afrihost rep on this forum about any data refunds.

 

[DERoestorf]

I have the exact same experience, but my ISP is MWEB. The bigger difference is, I phoned telkom and kept on nagging them daily, I have been moved to a different exchange, and my line has been changed, yet the exact same problem persist.

MWEB was useless in helping me, as they quite litterally just log a call, and then leave telkom to do their own thing. It sounds like Afrihost does the same. If they really cared about their customers, they would have a more stringend SLA with Telkom, or even allow telkom to have their own technicians to fix issues.

My brother in law is with Vox, and his line went down. He phoned vox, and 3 days later it was fixed. Vox gets priority apparently

 

[Icemanbrfc]

This is absolutely horse****! This is a colleague of mine. I recommended she try afrihost. I am regretting this a lot. I look like a tit for telling someone to use afrihost. This is a primarily Telkom problem bit because afrihost manages the line they are responsible for dealing with all their nonsense. None of this is happening.

This is also not a unique thing. I have another colleague who applied at the same time (on my recommendation) having similar problems. So aparently I am the devil now!

Again, Afrihost manages the line and contacts Telkom yes. So they log the call and so on. Its unfortunately still Telkom that takes their own time to get a technician out to a customer. the ISP's as far i know have no control of when a technician is sent out or their schedule

 

[Icemanbrfc]

That is correct. Except that Afrihost claims to manage the line with Telkom on your behalf. Simply handing it over to Telkom on my behalf is not managing it. They didn't follow up at all. In addition, I am paying for a full month of service and receiving nothing. I should be receiving a rebate for this month.

The problem is, that you need to follow up with Afrihost. In normal circumstances, with me for instance, Telkom manages my line. If i log a fault with Telkom, its my duty to follow up and nag and nag with them to sort out the issue and get the technician out. Afrihost and other isp's have a tremendous load of queries coming in, so its not always easy to remember what is happening, unless you follow up.

Its another reason we stress, that rather let Telkom manage your line and not the ISP to avoid things like this. Having a middle man sorting things for you is asking for trouble

 

[Icemanbrfc]

I have the exact same experience, but my ISP is MWEB. The bigger difference is, I phoned telkom and kept on nagging them daily, I have been moved to a different exchange, and my line has been changed, yet the exact same problem persist.

MWEB was useless in helping me, as they quite litterally just log a call, and then leave telkom to do their own thing. It sounds like Afrihost does the same. If they really cared about their customers, they would have a more stringend SLA with Telkom, or even allow telkom to have their own technicians to fix issues.

My brother in law is with Vox, and his line went down. He phoned vox, and 3 days later it was fixed. Vox gets priority apparently

i don't think this is the case. when you say the line went down, was a technician sent to sort the line, or was it sorted remotely by Vox?

 

[Icemanbrfc]

I agree with you, my last fault took 4 days to get assigned to a technician and then another couple of days for them to actually show up.

It's Telkom's fault, not Afrihost, nor any other ISP, they are all at the mercy of Telkom. No one else is allowed to touch the copper lines.

correct. The fact that an ISP manages your line, doesnt mean you just sit back and wait. You are paying the ISP, so you have to nag the ISP to nag Telkom. That is one of the reasons we recommend that you keep your line with Telkom, right Johnatan

 

[Johnatan56]

correct. The fact that an ISP manages your line, doesnt mean you just sit back and wait. You are paying the ISP, so you have to nag the ISP to nag Telkom. That is one of the reasons we recommend that you keep your line with Telkom, right Johnatan

you do know you can multiquote, right?

 

[AfriMan]

I signed up for a line with Telkom late December 2015. I then signed up for an Afrihost uncapped package when the line was migrated and in place.

I had service for a day and a half before the line went down on 10 January. Afrihost told me it was a DSL problem and a fault was logged with Telkom. It took a week and a half before the fault was handed to a technician and another half week before the technician arrived at my house. Since Afrihost originally logged the fault, the contact number was theirs, which meant that I did not receive any contact from the technician prior to him arriving at my house.

When the technician arrived this past Saturday, the DSL line had started working again without him doing anything. He checked the line and said it was fine. Four hours later, the line was down again and it still isn't working.

It has now been over two weeks without service. I am incredibly unhappy at the service I have received as all I kept getting told was that the query was being escalated. No one could even give me an ETA on the technician.

I paid Afrihost over R550 for my package this month and so far I have had no more than two days of service.

I am now once again waiting for a technician to arrive, which could take another two weeks.

This is really terrible, I can't imagine anything worse than having such a bad experience with a new line.

We should be able to do better, but I do know that Telkom are still dealing with a huge backlog of faults from December.

Please send me a PM and lets see what we can do from this side

 

[AfriMan]

I have the exact same experience, but my ISP is MWEB. The bigger difference is, I phoned telkom and kept on nagging them daily, I have been moved to a different exchange, and my line has been changed, yet the exact same problem persist.

MWEB was useless in helping me, as they quite litterally just log a call, and then leave telkom to do their own thing. It sounds like Afrihost does the same. If they really cared about their customers, they would have a more stringend SLA with Telkom, or even allow telkom to have their own technicians to fix issues.

My brother in law is with Vox, and his line went down. He phoned vox, and 3 days later it was fixed. Vox gets priority apparently

That would be very unfair if it were true. Since Telkom are on MyBB I hope they will also confirm that no ISP gets priority over another, not even Telkom. Openserv (who service all ISPs) address all faults equally according to my knowledge.

 

[Icemanbrfc]

you do know you can multiquote, right?

yes, sorry i wont do it again

 

[MickeyD]

Openserve (who service all ISPs) address all faults equally according to my knowledge.

That is correct. The schedulers and technician do not know who the client pays for the line or even their ISP. A line fault is a line fault...

 

[MickeyD]

You apply for rebate after the line is back up, it's one of Telkom's policies. Be sure to keep the fault numbers. Talk to an Afrihost rep on this forum about any data refunds.

I don't think Afrihost will give you a rebate. Their rep can confirm this...

 

[DERoestorf]

i don't think this is the case. when you say the line went down, was a technician sent to sort the line, or was it sorted remotely by Vox?

Line went down. Voice was working, ADSL was not. Was a fault at the exchange. And yes, telkom technician was sent out

 

[DERoestorf]

That would be very unfair if it were true. Since Telkom are on MyBB I hope they will also confirm that no ISP gets priority over another, not even Telkom. Openserv (who service all ISPs) address all faults equally according to my knowledge.

May be unfair, but that is the experience. Also, when my brother in law looked for ISP, he asked the ISP's this question, Vox told him they get priority, and when his line went down, they proved it. We both went down on the same day, his line is fixed, my line is still broken.

Guess who cancelled their MWEB account

 

[MickeyD]

May be unfair, but that is the experience. Also, when my brother in law looked for ISP, he asked the ISP's this question, Vox told him they get priority, and when his line went down, they proved it. We both went down on the same day, his line is fixed, my line is still broken.

Guess who cancelled their MWEB account

Unless Vox is bribing the scheduler they do not get priority. And I doubt that they pay bribes.