FTTH Port Elizabeth

[Bryn]

ISPAFRIKA told me that they cannot give me an order number as my application had to be submitted manually and that they work through openserve so I wouldn't be able to get feedback from the normal telkom channels.. I know it has only been a week but i feel left in the dark... Will someone phone me to arrange site survey , are they gonna rock up randomly when I'm not home... I'm 35km from home during the day, I can't just quickly pop out to come home.

I received an order number the day I applied over a month ago and the installation hasn't happened. Don't feel like you're missing out.

A guy stopped by my house early in the morning two days after I applied. He decided on the course of action to take and then left. I wasn't home, and he didn't leave a name or contact number. All he told my gardner was that he was contracted by Telkom.

 

[sirbluepants]

Damn, based on your experience i guess I'll put on my patience hat and wait it out.. It's pathetic actually.. I mean, what are they doing? Where are they working? There is only SO many ftth homes in PE. Maybe you should try to phone openserve with your order nr and find out what's happening..

 

[Bryn]

Damn, based on your experience i guess I'll put on my patience hat and wait it out.. It's pathetic actually.. I mean, what are they doing? Where are they working? There is only SO many ftth homes in PE. Maybe you should try to phone openserve with your order nr and find out what's happening..

- Contacted ISPAfrika, Garth said he's trying to get info but nothing is forthcoming.
- Phoned Telkom, they don't know anything about a FTTH order for my number.
- Phoned OpenServe, they apparently can't help with such enquiries.
- Phoned local contact at Telkom, they haven't called back.
- Received call from the fibre people at Telkom trying to sell me fibre, and they claimed that they'll work hard to get to the bottom of the situation and call me back. Haven't heard from them again.

There's nothing else for me to do but wait now. I wouldn't be surprised if it's another month or two.

 

[sirbluepants]

- Contacted ISPAfrika, Garth said he's trying to get info but nothing is forthcoming.
- Phoned Telkom, they don't know anything about a FTTH order for my number.
- Phoned OpenServe, they apparently can't help with such enquiries.
- Phoned local contact at Telkom, they haven't called back.
- Received call from the fibre people at Telkom trying to sell me fibre, and they claimed that they'll work hard to get to the bottom of the situation and call me back. Haven't heard from them again.

There's nothing else for me to do but wait now. I wouldn't be surprised if it's another month or two.

Eish... Really bleak :|

 

[Bryn]

Eish... Really bleak :|

What amazes me is how someone out there knew to come to my house and plan the installation, but no one seems to know that they should actually come over and do the installation. Or at the very least, give me a ring and tell me what's going on.

 

[sirbluepants]

What amazes me is how someone out there knew to come to my house and plan the installation, but no one seems to know that they should actually come over and do the installation. Or at the very least, give me a ring and tell me what's going on.

Totally agree. Somewhere your order is lying either physically in a stack of files, or in the installers email, or system - collecting dust. An nobody knows what's happening since the first visit

 

[Bryn]

A crew has been working with cables on the corner next to my house today, and they told me they're with MTN and are installing fibre. So those plans weren't abandoned then.

I have to wonder which genius is responsible for installing MTN fibre where Telkom fibre is already available. Just checked their website and the pricing hasn't changed - R879pm for 100Mbit line rental and R1500 for 500GB data. And it still says that upgrades and downgrades aren't available at this stage. Yeah no.

 

[The_Imp_ZA]

Got the call last week that FTTH is available at my place in Newton/Mill Park.

Anyone know what costs are involved? I'm assuming that there's an initial installation cost. Probably won't be able to afford it, but I'm curious anyway.

 

[Bryn]

Got the call last week that FTTH is available at my place in Newton/Mill Park.

Anyone know what costs are involved? I'm assuming that there's an initial installation cost. Probably won't be able to afford it, but I'm curious anyway.

My installation cost R1710. Hasn't actually taken place though. You'll need a fibre capable router. Decent ones start at around a grand. Mine cost R1.8k from Web Africa.

Don't fall for the expensive combo deals from Telkom, Vox and Web Africa unless you have lots of money to spend. ISPAfrika has great Telkom FTTH line prices, and you can get cheap (but quality) data from Afrihost thanks to their Afrihost Plus addon that doubles your data.

The total cost for my 400GB @ 100Mbps is R1227pm. That's Afrihost (R399 + R99) and ISPAfrika (R729).

 

[The_Imp_ZA]

My installation cost R1710. Hasn't actually taken place though. You'll need a fibre capable router. Decent ones start at around a grand. Mine cost R1.8k from Web Africa.

Don't fall for the expensive combo deals from Telkom, Vox and Web Africa unless you have lots of money to spend. ISPAfrika has great Telkom FTTH line prices, and you can get cheap (but quality) data from Afrihost thanks to their Afrihost Plus addon that doubles your data.

The total cost for my 400GB @ 100Mbps is R1227pm. That's Afrihost (R399 + R99) and ISPAfrika (R729).

Thanks for the info.

When I can get a decent package around R700-800 a month, I'll look into it again. A 25Mbps + a Midnight Surfer type deal would be more than enough for me.

 

[Bryn]

Thanks for the info.

When I can get a decent package around R700-800 a month, I'll look into it again. A 25Mbps + a Midnight Surfer type deal would be more than enough for me.

You haven't said how much data you need. If you can get by with 150GB and uncapped midnight data, the below might suit you:

ISPAfrika 20Mbps line - R549pm
Afrihost 75GB - R149pm
Afrihost Plus - R99pm

That's R797pm for 150GB @ 20Mbps, with uncapped midnight data, a Simfy account, 500MB mobile data, soft capping and 2-for-1 topups. And on month-to-month contracts.

If you can manage R80pm more, you can change that to 40Mbps.

 

[sirbluepants]

Thanks for the info.

When I can get a decent package around R700-800 a month, I'll look into it again. A 25Mbps + a Midnight Surfer type deal would be more than enough for me.

I agree with what Bryn said up top. Look at your budget and broadband needs and structure your package accordingly. I got the following:

ISP Afrika 10mbps fiber for R469
Afrihost 100gb + unlimited midnight data R200

So I'll be paying R669pm, the bonus is, no voice line rental, and the feed showing speedtests from guys who's lines have been installed are showing some insanely good latencies!

 

[sirbluepants]

A crew has been working with cables on the corner next to my house today, and they told me they're with MTN and are installing fibre. So those plans weren't abandoned then.

I have to wonder which genius is responsible for installing MTN fibre where Telkom fibre is already available. Just checked their website and the pricing hasn't changed - R879pm for 100Mbit line rental and R1500 for 500GB data. And it still says that upgrades and downgrades aren't available at this stage. Yeah no.

lol!! Someone at MTN fiber is going to get into trouble for that one! Ridiculous pricing anyway!

So listen, a far down the bloodline relative of mine on my mothers' side works for telkom in PE with DSL installations. I sent him a message regarding my ftth order. He basically told me that he doesn't work in that dept so can't help, but that the ftth guys only started working this week. Therefore all of the orders have now stacked up. You ordered pretty early so you should be near top of the list. They took a long holiday from the day they went to your house until this week resuming work. Hopefully they do our installs soon,, going on 1 day per install, they've got 14 days before I get agitated.

 

[sirbluepants]

My installation cost R1710. Hasn't actually taken place though. You'll need a fibre capable router. Decent ones start at around a grand. Mine cost R1.8k from Web Africa.

Don't fall for the expensive combo deals from Telkom, Vox and Web Africa unless you have lots of money to spend. ISPAfrika has great Telkom FTTH line prices, and you can get cheap (but quality) data from Afrihost thanks to their Afrihost Plus addon that doubles your data.

The total cost for my 400GB @ 100Mbps is R1227pm. That's Afrihost (R399 + R99) and ISPAfrika (R729).

My router I ordered from Takealot arrived today. Cost me R350. Any ethernet WAN enabled router will work, no need to buy those expensive routers from WA. The router I got is the TP-Link TL-WR841ND. You can even go a model cheaper at R150 but I think that one will struggle on a 100mbps fiber.

 

[MickeyD]

lol!! Someone at MTN fiber is going to get into trouble for that one! Ridiculous pricing anyway!

So listen, a far down the bloodline relative of mine on my mothers' side works for telkom in PE with DSL installations. I sent him a message regarding my ftth order. He basically told me that he doesn't work in that dept so can't help, but that the ftth guys only started working this week. Therefore all of the orders have now stacked up. You ordered pretty early so you should be near top of the list. They took a long holiday from the day they went to your house until this week resuming work. Hopefully they do our installs soon,, going on 1 day per install, they've got 14 days before I get agitated.

Not quite a holiday but a lack of the correct tools to do the job!!

 

[sirbluepants]

Not quite a holiday but a lack of the correct tools to do the job!!

Should have guessed it would be something like that. Especially in PE where there isn't many active ftth areas. Besides laying infrastructure it's a massive undertaking to get staff members and technicians trained and equipped when new products like this comes along. So one should expect to have hiccups.

Speaking of equipment. I read somewhere in the news that syndicates are targeting the fibre installers for those splicing devices... Wouldn't want to know what one of those babies cost to replace...

 

[Bryn]

lol!! Someone at MTN fiber is going to get into trouble for that one! Ridiculous pricing anyway!

So listen, a far down the bloodline relative of mine on my mothers' side works for telkom in PE with DSL installations. I sent him a message regarding my ftth order. He basically told me that he doesn't work in that dept so can't help, but that the ftth guys only started working this week. Therefore all of the orders have now stacked up. You ordered pretty early so you should be near top of the list. They took a long holiday from the day they went to your house until this week resuming work. Hopefully they do our installs soon,, going on 1 day per install, they've got 14 days before I get agitated.

Thanks for the info. I think it's possible that a third party contractor received my FTTH order, sent someone over to check the situation out, decided that they're not fiddling with the Telkom poles for my installation and handed the order back to Telkom to eventually get around to.

If that's not what happened, then I can't understand what sort of incompetence is going on.

My router I ordered from Takealot arrived today. Cost me R350. Any ethernet WAN enabled router will work, no need to buy those expensive routers from WA. The router I got is the TP-Link TL-WR841ND. You can even go a model cheaper at R150 but I think that one will struggle on a 100mbps fiber.

I'm wary of using a cheaper router. I looked up quite a few router reviews before ordering mine, and it seems that many routers don't pull in the max bandwidth possible on a high speed connection. I also really like the management features in my Zyxel router - I can provide guests with capped and P2P-restricted wifi access.

 

[MickeyD]

Should have guessed it would be something like that. Especially in PE where there isn't many active ftth areas. Besides laying infrastructure it's a massive undertaking to get staff members and technicians trained and equipped when new products like this comes along. So one should expect to have hiccups.

Speaking of equipment. I read somewhere in the news that syndicates are targeting the fibre installers for those splicing devices... Wouldn't want to know what one of those babies cost to replace...

They have trained many of the local technicians to do the installs...

The splicers / cleavers are not too bad. It is the specialised test equipment used by the test section specialists that costs around R400k per kit.

 

[sirbluepants]

I'm wary of using a cheaper router. I looked up quite a few router reviews before ordering mine, and it seems that many routers don't pull in the max bandwidth possible on a high speed connection. I also really like the management features in my Zyxel router - I can provide guests with capped and P2P-restricted wifi access.

I had the same concerns at the start but did some research on mine and it all checked out. Haven't had a tplink router before so cannot comment on the interface. I didn't have a big budget for a router and takealot had 100bucks off this one, so couldn't refuse. I do love the zyxel routers though, had one for VDSL. That feature you mention really comes in handy for the leachers who come visit to steal your interwebz

 

[Bryn]

I had the same concerns at the start but did some research on mine and it all checked out. Haven't had a tplink router before so cannot comment on the interface. I didn't have a big budget for a router and takealot had 100bucks off this one, so couldn't refuse. I do love the zyxel routers though, had one for VDSL. That feature you mention really comes in handy for the leachers who come visit to steal your interwebz

Yeah it was a major consideration for me. You can imagine the damage a single person can do on a 100Mbps capped connection.