local
http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/5050670437
international
http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/5050693168
It might be the only post I have seen that has both. Enjoy
Nice!
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FTTH - Blairgowrie - Vumatel
- Thread starter Sinbad
- Start date
Nice!
Its the 50/5 uncapped from cool ideas. They have been great with service and support so far. Vuma service was also top notch and well above expectations.
Same package will be going for as well, can't wait.
DERoestorf
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What a weekend.
Please see the communication from Vumatel's CEO, it was emailed to almost everybody:
Dear Blairgowrie Residents,
My team and I would like to apologize for the immense inconvenience and frustration suffered during the period from Monday to Thursday this past week.
I will be available from 18:30 on Tuesday (9th of February) at the Gym Hall at Delta Park Primary School to answer any questions you may have regarding the incident that took place. You may also direct any comments and suggestions on the handling of the matter to myself at [email protected]. We are committed to the community and resolute in our pursuit to bring world class FTTH to residents in the best possible way.
I would like to express my thanks to the BCA, the ward councilors and concerned residents who have gone out of their way to assist us with this challenging matter. I would also like the opportunity to briefly explain the chain of events.
We rely on the Wayleave process and pilot holes for the identification of services. Wayleaves are plans provided by each service (water, electricity, Telkom etc.) detailing their location underground. So far these methods have served us well over the 650km trenched and we have only had a few incidents previously where major power cables were struck. This week in Blairgowrie these preventative measures failed us. The cable that was damaged by us was found 5m away from where the documentation indicated it should be. The cable was also hit at 700mm depth compared to the indicated depth of 1.2m. Even with inaccurate documentation we are normally in a position to identify the services with pilot holes. These are holes cut perpendicular to the road verge every 50m to expose services before trenching begins so we can identify their “line”. In this incident the cables did not run down the road verge as is normal practice but across it. I can assure you that no matter how much care the trenchers took, in my opinion there is no way this damage could be avoided.
The first outage happened on Monday in Hillcrest Ave. A cable blew causing the lower end of Blairgowrie to trip. This cable was not struck by us on that day. It was nicked the previous week by our team. We logged the call with City Power at the time, but since none of the residents were affected then, it was indicated to us by City Power, that there would be no need for the repair and we resumed installation of the fibre. Clearly the cable deteriorated to the point of “blowing” causing the outage.
City Power was immediately called and the power was restored at 3.45 am. This was done by rerouting the network onto a different cable to temporarily bring up services.
On Tuesday, we struck a cable near the corner of Judy Rd and Morris Ave. Again as per protocol a call was logged immediately with City Power.
For these types of cables we are reliant on City Power to do the fix.
City Power was onsite on Wednesday afternoon and began repairing the Hillcrest Ave cable.
Without going into the details City Power was dealing with several faults across their network at the time and their resource availability was scarce. They also had several challenges on site in rectifying the issue ranging from material availability, difficulty to access the cable, adequate equipment and the technicality of the repair. Following the repair they then had to restore power at the substation and reroute the power. This started at 9:15pm and the team moved from substation to substation. They then attended to the repair in Morris Ave. The cable was repaired at 03:30 am and started to restore the power in some areas. By Thursday morning power was still off in many parts of Blairgowrie. We drove through the area in the early hours of the morning and estimated about 8 blocks were still affected.
We ceased all trenching for the remainder of the week to avoid potentially exacerbating the issues.
Restoration continued and power was finally restored around 12:00 on Thursday.
I want to assure you that during this time our full attention was directed at resolving the problem. We followed up and escalated within City Power to prioritize the Blairgowrie faults. We did this telephonically and by sending our staff directly to the Depot to try and improve their response. We constantly contacted City Power for updates and communicated their feedback, if any, to residents via the different communication channels. For residents that required power for medical or other specific needs we supplied mobile generators. We received immense support from the Ward Councilor and other residents to raise awareness up to the mayoral level. Once City Power arrived we escorted them and assisted them in any manner possible to help with the repair. We were on site from the time of the incident until power was restored so that we could monitor the situation and manage it best as we could. We updated the residents on all communication channels, including social media, via email, Twitter posts, Facebook updates, and in person with residents who came to visit us, in an effort to keep you informed.
I cannot convey how sincerely upsetting this has been. We have used all the available means to us to rectify the problem but the net result, your comfort in your home, we were not able to achieve and for that we are truly deeply sorry.
We will be doing the following to mitigate the risks going forward.
Meeting with senior members of City Power and other service providers in order to put better structures and communication channels in place.
We wish to see, if acceptable to council and City Power, if we could directly employ teams that may be dedicated to us, to enable us to direct and take responsibility for fixing these problem when they occur, rather than be reliant on third parties.
Look at means, technological and otherwise to address the uncertainty of service locations. We can take measures to improve the effectiveness of the response and repair, but without finding a solution to the underlying cause, damages will continue to occur.
Please accept our sincerest apologies. We might have been the party that initiated this incident, and deserve the full wrath of your response, but the cause exposes a bigger problem that all service providers, including ourselves, need to address collectively.
This incident is evidence of the fact that upgrading infrastructure does not come without its difficulties. We hope that in time, the benefits of open access fibre optic infrastructure will start to outweigh the inconvenience you have suffered over the past week.
Kind Regards
Niel Schoeman
CEO, Vumatel
Please see the communication from Vumatel's CEO, it was emailed to almost everybody:
Dear Blairgowrie Residents,
My team and I would like to apologize for the immense inconvenience and frustration suffered during the period from Monday to Thursday this past week.
I will be available from 18:30 on Tuesday (9th of February) at the Gym Hall at Delta Park Primary School to answer any questions you may have regarding the incident that took place. You may also direct any comments and suggestions on the handling of the matter to myself at [email protected]. We are committed to the community and resolute in our pursuit to bring world class FTTH to residents in the best possible way.
I would like to express my thanks to the BCA, the ward councilors and concerned residents who have gone out of their way to assist us with this challenging matter. I would also like the opportunity to briefly explain the chain of events.
We rely on the Wayleave process and pilot holes for the identification of services. Wayleaves are plans provided by each service (water, electricity, Telkom etc.) detailing their location underground. So far these methods have served us well over the 650km trenched and we have only had a few incidents previously where major power cables were struck. This week in Blairgowrie these preventative measures failed us. The cable that was damaged by us was found 5m away from where the documentation indicated it should be. The cable was also hit at 700mm depth compared to the indicated depth of 1.2m. Even with inaccurate documentation we are normally in a position to identify the services with pilot holes. These are holes cut perpendicular to the road verge every 50m to expose services before trenching begins so we can identify their “line”. In this incident the cables did not run down the road verge as is normal practice but across it. I can assure you that no matter how much care the trenchers took, in my opinion there is no way this damage could be avoided.
The first outage happened on Monday in Hillcrest Ave. A cable blew causing the lower end of Blairgowrie to trip. This cable was not struck by us on that day. It was nicked the previous week by our team. We logged the call with City Power at the time, but since none of the residents were affected then, it was indicated to us by City Power, that there would be no need for the repair and we resumed installation of the fibre. Clearly the cable deteriorated to the point of “blowing” causing the outage.
City Power was immediately called and the power was restored at 3.45 am. This was done by rerouting the network onto a different cable to temporarily bring up services.
On Tuesday, we struck a cable near the corner of Judy Rd and Morris Ave. Again as per protocol a call was logged immediately with City Power.
For these types of cables we are reliant on City Power to do the fix.
City Power was onsite on Wednesday afternoon and began repairing the Hillcrest Ave cable.
Without going into the details City Power was dealing with several faults across their network at the time and their resource availability was scarce. They also had several challenges on site in rectifying the issue ranging from material availability, difficulty to access the cable, adequate equipment and the technicality of the repair. Following the repair they then had to restore power at the substation and reroute the power. This started at 9:15pm and the team moved from substation to substation. They then attended to the repair in Morris Ave. The cable was repaired at 03:30 am and started to restore the power in some areas. By Thursday morning power was still off in many parts of Blairgowrie. We drove through the area in the early hours of the morning and estimated about 8 blocks were still affected.
We ceased all trenching for the remainder of the week to avoid potentially exacerbating the issues.
Restoration continued and power was finally restored around 12:00 on Thursday.
I want to assure you that during this time our full attention was directed at resolving the problem. We followed up and escalated within City Power to prioritize the Blairgowrie faults. We did this telephonically and by sending our staff directly to the Depot to try and improve their response. We constantly contacted City Power for updates and communicated their feedback, if any, to residents via the different communication channels. For residents that required power for medical or other specific needs we supplied mobile generators. We received immense support from the Ward Councilor and other residents to raise awareness up to the mayoral level. Once City Power arrived we escorted them and assisted them in any manner possible to help with the repair. We were on site from the time of the incident until power was restored so that we could monitor the situation and manage it best as we could. We updated the residents on all communication channels, including social media, via email, Twitter posts, Facebook updates, and in person with residents who came to visit us, in an effort to keep you informed.
I cannot convey how sincerely upsetting this has been. We have used all the available means to us to rectify the problem but the net result, your comfort in your home, we were not able to achieve and for that we are truly deeply sorry.
We will be doing the following to mitigate the risks going forward.
Meeting with senior members of City Power and other service providers in order to put better structures and communication channels in place.
We wish to see, if acceptable to council and City Power, if we could directly employ teams that may be dedicated to us, to enable us to direct and take responsibility for fixing these problem when they occur, rather than be reliant on third parties.
Look at means, technological and otherwise to address the uncertainty of service locations. We can take measures to improve the effectiveness of the response and repair, but without finding a solution to the underlying cause, damages will continue to occur.
Please accept our sincerest apologies. We might have been the party that initiated this incident, and deserve the full wrath of your response, but the cause exposes a bigger problem that all service providers, including ourselves, need to address collectively.
This incident is evidence of the fact that upgrading infrastructure does not come without its difficulties. We hope that in time, the benefits of open access fibre optic infrastructure will start to outweigh the inconvenience you have suffered over the past week.
Kind Regards
Niel Schoeman
CEO, Vumatel
Sinbad
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What amuses me is that City power claim 5 cable faults. Vuma acknowledge 2.
That tells me that there were 3 existing faults that were never repaired, and were exposed by this cockup.
As for that one on the 29th that CP decided not to fix - whoever made that decision needs to be held accountable
That tells me that there were 3 existing faults that were never repaired, and were exposed by this cockup.
As for that one on the 29th that CP decided not to fix - whoever made that decision needs to be held accountable
DERoestorf
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Please note that this letter was written on the 6th, before the latest fault.
The fault you are referring to is the 3rd cable fault. And as stated, City Power did come to investigate the cable, they deemed it not damaged. The rain then caused it to trip.
There are a lot of questions that need to be answered.
But from the WhatsApp groups, people shouting in my ear, name calling, facebook posts etc. I can honestly say I do not like a lot of people in Blairgowrie anymore. They even got Jed upset last night in our one WhatsApp group. Also, they blame only VUMA for everything. The fact that City Power did not fix problems that was raised are besides the point.
But anyways, I am ranting here. Tired and fed up.
Sinbad
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i'm with you, I think everyone is over-frustrated and just lashing out.
I'm going to look at their wayleaves tomorrow, and see whether vuma is trenching according to plan and how accurate the city power info is.
If it's as I suspect, I'm gonna find some way to make City Power take ownership of this mess. Dunno how, but I'll find a way.
I'm pretty sure that in the past when there's been an MV fault, CP have pulled their back-feed trick to bypass the cable to restore power, but then never actually fixed the fault. And now they ran out of cables to backfeed from.
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DERoestorf
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I suspect Vuma may have deviated from their plans somewhat, I am not 100% sure, but there is sometimes large rocks. At the same time, The cables that was hit, was nowhere close to where they were suppose to be or the depth they were suppose to be. Those cables needed to be burried at 1.2m. When you hit a cable 6m from the location and at a depth of 600mm, you have to start asking questions.
And I know a lot of people are saying, but why aren't they using cable detecting equipment. They do use some equipment, but it is also not feasible to use it everywhere. As that equipment can be wrong as well. Especially when it comes to High Voltage cables (we are talking about 11k - 22k volts running through these cables.
As for the other MV faults. Yes, City Power has not fixed cables all over Blairgowrie. The interesting fact, the cable that was out yesterday, that was on the corner of Morris and Elbon Street, is the only cable that carries power for almost the entire Blair and Bordoux. They could not backfeed, as all the other cables don't work. So we are relying on a single cable for everything.
The fault that happened Hillcrest Ave on Monday is an example. MV cable was hit, City Power came, and backfed the power. This caused another cable, that was nicked, to get overloaded, and blow at the corner of Nielson and Judy. Since they could not backfeed into that area, they had to fix both cables. Which happened on Wednesday. But this went on and exposed further faults in the network.
On Wednesday already, VUMA stopped trenching, to make sure no other cables get hit in the meantime, and as they try to make sure it does not happen again.
Things was stable by Friday, Then Saturday the rain came down, and another cable, that was hit essentially 2 weeks ago, breaks. If that cable was fixed from the beginning, we would not sit in the position we are in today.
Sinbad
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Yup, that's pretty much how I see it to.
Years of neglect...
Anyway...
Do you know how they're doing with the rest of the rollout?
My phase (8) said Fibre ready 12 Feb last I looked ...
That's this week!!!
so much excite...
Come on baby light my fibre...
/edit 24 Feb now... /sigh
Years of neglect...
Anyway...
Do you know how they're doing with the rest of the rollout?
My phase (8) said Fibre ready 12 Feb last I looked ...
That's this week!!!
so much excite...
Come on baby light my fibre...
/edit 24 Feb now... /sigh
Last edited:
DERoestorf
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Have a look at the map again. I believe with everything it has probably moved out. Atm, everything is on damage control.
Sinbad
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I did, 24th.
The fibre-blowing and connecting in already-trenched areas shouldn't be affected, surely?
DERoestorf
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I will know more by tonight. But essentially, it sounds like they have put everything on hold till they can have a meeting with the residents. They don't want to look insensitive, and really cares about the community.
They feel they will rather be late, than cause another situation as last week, and as such are changing a lot of how they operate. Even if their operational standard were on par with the rest of the world, they want to be better
The problem is that Vuma is pro-active and responsive, whereas CP is not. Somehow this makes ppl believe they can throw all their complains at Vuma as they know will get a response, even if CP is to blame.
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DERoestorf
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So I can confirm that VUMA is gonna be delayed a bit. You will see in tonight's meeting, that City Power will also be there. VUMA has decided that to better manage the City Power relationship, it would be best to take some hits, to ensure that going forward, they get quicker service from City Power.
They are also taking other steps.
But in the end, no trenching will happen until they have hammered out the details with City Power.
What is sad is, that 80% of Blairgowrie has already been trenched, and only now did they hit some cables
They are also taking other steps.
But in the end, no trenching will happen until they have hammered out the details with City Power.
What is sad is, that 80% of Blairgowrie has already been trenched, and only now did they hit some cables
Sinbad
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So I can confirm that VUMA is gonna be delayed a bit. You will see in tonight's meeting, that City Power will also be there. VUMA has decided that to better manage the City Power relationship, it would be best to take some hits, to ensure that going forward, they get quicker service from City Power.
They are also taking other steps.
But in the end, no trenching will happen until they have hammered out the details with City Power.
What is sad is, that 80% of Blairgowrie has already been trenched, and only now did they hit some cables
Is that going to delay other stuff as well (blowing/connection?)
DERoestorf
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It may delay it slightly. They will be updating the timelines soon.
We had a long discussion tonight, and TBH, I think it is the right move. The CEO received calls with death threats, etc. Honestly, people in Blair disappointed me a bit. Even I got phone calls, and believe me, those calls weren't pretty. I don't even want to know the calls Jason and them took.
requiem
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You should put a Vumatel sticker on the porta potties you have placed in Blairgowrie.
Would have been nice to know it was a Vumatel porta pottie and not the neighbour oozing onto the pavement...
Just a suggestion. I think it is awesome that you provide porta potties for your workers.
Would have been nice to know it was a Vumatel porta pottie and not the neighbour oozing onto the pavement...
Just a suggestion. I think it is awesome that you provide porta potties for your workers.
Sinbad
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Wow, I hope he reported those threats to the police.
So I can confirm that VUMA is gonna be delayed a bit. You will see in tonight's meeting, that City Power will also be there. VUMA has decided that to better manage the City Power relationship, it would be best to take some hits, to ensure that going forward, they get quicker service from City Power.
They are also taking other steps.
But in the end, no trenching will happen until they have hammered out the details with City Power.
What is sad is, that 80% of Blairgowrie has already been trenched, and only now did they hit some cables
Damnit!
DERoestorf
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