Crystal Web ADSL performance feedback thread Part 3...

[AfricanTech]

So Telkom ISP now has your line... which is exactly the same as any other ISP.

They do?

But Telkom is not my ISP ie I've never been a Telkom Internet customer.

I have a landline which is enabled for ADSL - are they going to move my landline number to someone else as well or does Telkom ISP now look after landlines as well?

It's all a bit confusing innit?

 

[Ho3n3r]

They do?

But Telkom is not my ISP ie I've never been a Telkom Internet customer.

I have a landline which is enabled for ADSL - are they going to move my landline number to someone else as well or does Telkom ISP now look after landlines as well?

It's all a bit confusing innit?

I get what MickeyD is trying to say though - technically Telkom and Openserve are supposed to be totally separate. But I agree with you that, in practicality, they're not, and in my experience it's still exactly the same as it was 4 years ago when I first had to deal with them.

 

[MickeyD]

They do?

But Telkom is not my ISP ie I've never been a Telkom Internet customer.

I have a landline which is enabled for ADSL - are they going to move my landline number to someone else as well or does Telkom ISP now look after landlines as well?

It's all a bit confusing innit?

Openserve OWNS all the network infrastructure, whether POT or DSL. Telkom ISP (a section of Telkom Consumer) leases those lines and resells it to consumers.

The price they charge is the same as to all the other ISPs.

Right now the battle is for the Telkom Group to "release" the POTS lines for wholesale purposes as well.

 

[new_in_za2]

It's all a bit confusing innit?

It's only confusing if you insist that Telkom and Telkom are two completely separate things. As soon as you accept that Telkom and Telkom are the same, then it all makes sense. The only thing that changed with the split-in-name-only-if-at-all was that instead of Telkom being the default "operator" of the ADSL "portion" of your line, it's now "the holding pool". Aka Telkom. Of course, even if you're paying a different ISP for this service, and they then pay Telkom, it's still Telkom who operates and maintains the line, the network and the equipment, exactly the same as if you pay Telkom yourself directly.

 

[new_in_za2]

But hey, to change the topic back to the problem at hand... I believe it's now been an hour and a half since Sinbad told us to have faith in the people who refuse to communicate at all, and who would communicate 1 hour later. So what's going on, Crystal Web? Are you ready to talk yet?

 

[MickeyD]

I get what MickeyD is trying to say though - technically Telkom and Openserve are supposed to be totally separate. But I agree with you that, in practicality, they're not, and in my experience it's still exactly the same as it was 4 years ago when I first had to deal with them.

I can guarantee you that there is a massive Chinese Wall between Openserve and "Telkom". It is a direct result of the Competition Commission / Tribunal findings where Telkom was heavily fined. This led tot he wholesale / retail split and I can assure you that ICASA and the CC monitor it extremely closely.

 

[AfricanTech]

I get what MickeyD is trying to say though - technically Telkom and Openserve are supposed to be totally separate. But I agree with you that, in practicality, they're not, and in my experience it's still exactly the same as it was 4 years ago when I first had to deal with them.

Yep.

I suppose they could turn round and tell all of us landline customers that the line is 'locked' to Telkom and Telkom products only (ie Telkom Voice, Telkom ADSL, Telkom Data, Telkom ISP, etc) but I'm not sure that's legal is it?

 

[Ho3n3r]

I can guarantee you that there is a massive Chinese Wall between Openserve and "Telkom". It is a direct result of the Competition Commission / Tribunal findings where Telkom was heavily fined. This led tot he wholesale / retail split and I can assure you that ICASA and the CC monitor it extremely closely.

I can't refute that, and it's obviously true (since you know your stuff), but in my practical experience, it's still exactly the same - and again, the only thing that has changed to Openserve, are the bakkies.

Maybe your experience is different, but up here on the other side of the Worsgordyn, not much has changed.

The new Telkom offices here in Centurion are on the exit of Witch Hazel avenue, which is where I work, and it's just a flurry of OpenServe bakkies in and out of there at times - but no distinction between them is made on the premises - everything is Telkom branded.

 

[MickeyD]

I can't refute that, and it's obviously true (since you know your stuff), but in my practical experience, it's still exactly the same - and again, the only thing that has changed to Openserve, are the bakkies.

Maybe your experience is different, but up here on the other side of the Worsgordyn, not much has changed.

The new Telkom offices here in Centurion are on the exit of Witch Hazel avenue, which is where I work, and it's just a flurry of OpenServe bakkies in and out of there at times - but no distinction between them is made on the premises - everything is Telkom branded.

Thank goodness I left as that exercise started... I can imagine it being a logistical nightmare and, quite frankly, I would not purposefully spend time and money on changing the logos on equipment already installed. All new stuff... no problem.

 

[Ho3n3r]

Thank goodness I left as that exercise started... I can imagine it being a logistical nightmare and, quite frankly, I would not purposefully spend time and money on changing the logos on equipment already installed. All new stuff... no problem.

Don't get me wrong - I couldn't care less about what the logos say - as long as it just works as it should. But it's clear that some breakdown in communication is occurring, as in October one person was telling me one thing, and someone else was telling me another. And there's no accountability as a result, it seems. For them to first tell me it's exchange congestion and then lightning(with no lightning in the preceding 6 months) and changing my port apparently fixing that (it didn't), and then it turning out to be a fault on something called a 100G link (at the exchange), is not exactly "service excellence".

I guess you've added many years to your life by leaving, eh.

 

[Crystal Web Management]

Crystal Web and Webafrica had a confidential commercial relationship to manage DSL Lines together which resulted in numerous benefits to both parties. It is unfortunate that such confidentiality has failed.

This engagement model recently changed together with Openserve’s involvement, and while it was intended to only be an administrative change, Openserve have downgraded numerous lines while placing them into the holding pool. This adjustment to the lines was never agreed to. We are constantly engaging with Openserve and we have their promise that these lines will be reinstated to full speed by close of business today. We will continue to communicate with them to ensure that this is done.

We were unfortunately only made aware of this change by Openserve today, and they have acknowledged the issue and promised a swift resolution.

We are currently discussing internally how we can make this up to you, and further communication in this regard will be communicated to affected users.

We intend to ensure that this is made up to any inconvenienced users in a big way.

 

[SauRoNZA]

Thanks for popping up to address the issue here CWM.

 

[new_in_za2]

Am I hallucinating? Communication! Thank you! I do have one question, though, which I doubt will be answered, but anyway...

We were unfortunately only made aware of this change by Openserve today, and they have acknowledged the issue and promised a swift resolution.

This has been a problem for 2 full days, we're well into the the third day now. Openserve was blamed by support staff 2 days ago already in a prepared copy/paste message. I'm assuming that this has just been worded poorly, but you make it sound like you were waiting for 2 days for someone to tell you that there was a problem with Openserve rather than investigate and fix as soon as you were aware of the problem on Tuesday.

But thanks again for actually commenting. I'm looking forward to having a working internet connection again tonight.

 

[Mr Scratch]

Nice CW! Wonder why the tech I spoke to knew of the issue before you guys though. Crazy stuff.

 

[Iwojima]

Nice CW! Wonder why the tech I spoke to knew of the issue before you guys though. Crazy stuff.

Likewise. The support person I spoke to on day 1 seemed to know it was Telkom/Openserve related.

 

[new_in_za2]

We intend to ensure that this is made up to any inconvenienced users in a big way.

To be honest, the best compensation you can give me is that you promise (and keep) the following things:
1) When there is a problem, don't hide. Communicate. Even if the communication is "we're aware that there is a problem, but we don't know what the problem is yet", then that's a lot better than the radio silence that's your current MO.
2) If you don't know, say you don't know. Tech support told me that this was an issue affecting other ISPs too and not Crystal Web-specific, which is now confirmed to not be true.
3) Own up to your problems. I don't care who you blame internally. My relationship is with you and you alone, not Openserve, not Telkom, not Web Africa, not IS and not whatever supplier lost your customer database twice. You won't earn any reputation points by blaming others, quite the contrary in my book at least.

If you could promise the above, and keep it, heck even just one of the above things, then I'd much prefer that to anything else I can think of that you could do to compensate for this week's problems.

 

[Crystal Web Management]

This has been a problem for 2 full days, we're well into the the third day now. Openserve was blamed by support staff 2 days ago already in a prepared copy/paste message. I'm assuming that this has just been worded poorly, but you make it sound like you were waiting for 2 days for someone to tell you that there was a problem with Openserve rather than investigate and fix as soon as you were aware of the problem on Tuesday.

We have been aware of the issue since the very beginning as it impacted our own lines at our offices as well.

We have been communicating with Openserve continuously as this was not an overnight decision.

What they did not tell us, actually specifically avoided telling us, and what we would never have agreed to, was that the lines would be downgraded for any length of time. That they only told us today. It was always only meant to be a purely administrative process.

 

[Iwojima]

We have been aware of the issue since the very beginning as it impacted our own lines at our offices as well.

We have been communicating with Openserve continuously as this was not an overnight decision.

What they did not tell us, actually specifically avoided telling us, and what we would never have agreed to, was that the lines would be downgraded for any length of time. That they only told us today. It was always only meant to be a purely administrative process.

Fair enough, but a line of communication, either here or via email, would have been appreciated by all and avoided people delving into things themselves/making certain assumptions that paint CW in a negative light and create more frustration for your customers.

The key here is being pro-active in communication.

 

[MickeyD]

I can't refute that, and it's obviously true (since you know your stuff), but in my practical experience, it's still exactly the same - and again, the only thing that has changed to Openserve, are the bakkies.

Maybe your experience is different, but up here on the other side of the Worsgordyn, not much has changed.

The new Telkom offices here in Centurion are on the exit of Witch Hazel avenue, which is where I work, and it's just a flurry of OpenServe bakkies in and out of there at times - but no distinction between them is made on the premises - everything is Telkom branded.

My personal standby techie's bakkie

 

[Anakha56]

Crystal Web and Webafrica had a confidential commercial relationship to manage DSL Lines together which resulted in numerous benefits to both parties.

Wait, what? I havent visited this page in a very long time, what this about WebAfrica managing DSL lines?