Getting Telkom to sort out my line?

[nihilist]

Okay here's the kicker. Got a 4Meg circuit from Telkom, my own router, and an Openweb account.

From time to time, my line goes a little fuzzy and kinks out, reconnects with a less than ideal upstream, sometimes downstream.

The line isn't great, but it does work and I get full speed on this puppy.

However, on the times the line does act up badly, Telkom just go ona bout they only give you 1Meg and anything else is a bonus, fine.

But is there a way to actually get these idots to come and fix cabling so that I can get a better connection?

Some of the idots are so rude as to go ona bout "Oh but you don't really need more than 1Meg" and crap like that.

Downstream Upstream
Down : 4096 kbps
Up : 512 kbps
Line Attenuation down: 47 db
Line Attenuation up: 14 db
Noise Margin down: 9 db (this fluctuates between 7-12db)
Noise Margin up: 14 db



The line works reasonably well, the line quality could be better, there's little breathing room for when the wind blows, somebody sneezes etc; And yes I have done the obligatory ritual of testing other micro filters, unplugging the single land line and so forth.

I know I'm being a fussy twat, but when you're paying top dollar for the fast line you kind of expect results. Damnit.

Edit: I'm very pleased 'twat' isn't on MyBB's swear filter

 

[Leathal]

Yes there is a way I have done it before.

But its not easy. . .

You have to convince them that you hear noise on your phone line and the dsl keeps dropping but focus more on the noise on the phone calls. Then they can replace the copper from your home to the nearest overhang pole. This normally sorta alot of issues out, if not also ask for a new physical port on the exchange.

I have done this beofre and it has worked. But I will tell you now the phonecalles I made to get it done took forever... But it does work.

Goolduck.

 

[werfie]

I experienced exactly the same. I logged onto their website on Sunday evening, logged a fault on their website. Monday Morning 8:15 a tech was at my house. There was a problem with the connection of the line at the box on the pole. They fixed it, now my line works perfectly. It all depends on who you speak to, so I bypassed that and spoke to their server. That worked much better. Good Luck!!

 

[MajorProblem]

I'm having a similar problem with horrible line quality and frequent packet loss/low speeds. For some inexplicable reason the line quality actually dropped to a tenth of what I managed originally, which was a 1Mb connection already. Remember that I have to pay for that as a 4Mb connection... Playing with the router settings I could see that just a slightly better attenuation I could probably achieve a 2Mb sync, but anyways. Going to replace the microfilter and try a different router but if that doesn't solve it, I'll try the server route and make a special note of the line noise.

 

[nihilist]

Leathal - Yeah, I live in a block of flats, there's a box on the 2nd floor that seems to be where all the lines get joined up to the various apartments and such, this box looks like it came from the Titanic, it's rusted up and such. They replaced that wire once when we had constant noise, since then it's been it's usualy 'mostly good' self.

When I last phoned Telkom about my line and told them about the noise, all they offered to do was syn cme at 3Meg with a cocky "You know we only sell 1Meg lines.." story.

I somehow doubt Telkom are gonna help but I'll keep your idea in mind

 

[PAYBACK]

Nihilist I have exactly the same issues with my 4 meg line, bad weather/wind and the line constantly drops noise on the line. SOmetimes it is so bad I have no telephone line whatsoever. I've had these guys here four times over the last year to try and fix the line. Last week I finally lost it and went ballistic, the guy said he would escalate the problem to the supervisor and they would come inspect. Got a call this morning so let's see what happens.

 

[grok]

I also have problems with a 2meg line that drops constantly and have also started to quote noise on the line as the fault. Will try payback's ballistic method one of these days.

Handy program to log your router's stats http://www.vwlowen.co.uk/internet/files.htm

Not that Telkom cares but it effectively takes a snapshot off your router's html stats page & plots SNR/Attenuation etc over time.
One of my previous graphs .. http://mybroadband.co.za/photos/sho...5/title/snr-captured-with-routerstats/cat/500

 

[VindicatoR]

Cool information here guys, been having the same problem on our 2mb(now 1mb just for some stability) line, but it still just drops at random times.

Thanks evilstebunny, that program looks like it could be very handy for what I wanted to check as well.

I've got a ticket logged with Telkom since December and they also asked me if the Technician should call me for an appointment and I said yes, I found out yesterday some Telkom oke might've been at my house while I was at work... *sigh* let's hope I can get them out again to come check the lines when I'm actually home...