F--k Telkom! - problems in Observatory Cape Town

[Rustum]

Right, time for Telkom.

Observatory, Cape Town

My line (voice and ADSL) goes dead sometime on Wednesday, 24 Nov. My partner called me, but the call went to a business answering service. My partner logs a fault with Telkom from her line.

They'll send a tech round the next day. The tech will let me know when he/she is on the way.

In the meantime (Thursday), my partner learns from Telkom that there is a bigger problem at the exchange.

Right. I decide on patience.

Friday, 26 November: still no tech. I give up on internet access (freelancer, working from home, internet is vital, etc.), for the weekend.

I call on Monday, from borrowed office and phone. Quote my ref number. Oh, no sir, that fault has been fixed.

What? I say no, my line is dead. Customer care says, wait, let me check on the 'other' system. What other f--king system?

Oh, he says, yes, they're replacing 'a cable and a card' at the exchange. (a friend of mine, in same hood, also has a dead line)

And this takes them how many days? Customer care, because they are after all just call-centre drones, don't have more information and can't give more detail so that I at least can understand the scale of the problem and why it's taking so long.

What.the.le.f--k?

Anyone in Observatory, Cape Town experiencing this? Is it in fact a bigger problem?

[irony, of course, is that I don't have access to internet from home where I can check responses]

 

[SteveO]

something liek this happened to me. logged a fault cos my line was dead, but the line rang if called. after 2 weeks of hounding I found that some stupid techie had connected my line to an empty location at the exchange.

This was after 2 techies had said that there was a problem with the neigbourhood box and that it needed to be replaced.

 

[Rustum]

Fixed, finally. The story I hear from the tech is that a streetbox was hit by a car a few months ago and Telkom simply replaced the box (i.e. the housing) without checking integrity of the wires and stuff inside, and now it's blowback...

I pity the techs, who seem knowledgeable and friendly and helpful. But Telkom's systems for fault reporting suck BIG hairy hippo nuts.