Got my ADSL384 Installed!

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Nebula

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Telkom came last week Thursday to install ADSL at my home. It took them 3 weeks after my application to complete the installation (not bad for Telkom).
Overall my experience with Telkom (so far) are quite satisfactory.

I use to be an iBurst subscriber but I'm glad I cancelled my noBurst subscription. Compared to iBurst ADSL rocks :D
 
You like me are definately one of the lucky few - also took 3 weeks for me and I've only had one problem with connection, due to a dumb-ass technician not completing an upgrade and disconnecting me.

Since then, I've had 6 solid months of connectivity with rock-solid reliability.
 
Good to hear that there are other satisfied ADSL users out there.
 
ADSL is absolute winner for residential and SOHO (staticIP, uncapped) user connection, no others can beat (ISDN, variant wireless solotion, cable, powerline etc). ONLY one can be a threat, that'll be WiMax in near future.
 
Well, the only threat to ADSL is whether you can get it or not and Teklom seem to be really cr@p on rolling out ADSL to more areas - people are waiting months and months to see if there will be an exchange near enough soon, or if there will be DSLAM ports available in a nearby exchange.

If anything, this info should be added in the next Broadband report - the fact that although it's a very reliable service, getting it installed is an absolute nightmare for at least 50% of homes/businesses.
 
bb_matt said:
Well, the only threat to ADSL is whether you can get it or not and Teklom seem to be really cr@p on rolling out ADSL to more areas - people are waiting months and months to see if there will be an exchange near enough soon, or if there will be DSLAM ports available in a nearby exchange.

If anything, this info should be added in the next Broadband report - the fact that although it's a very reliable service, getting it installed is an absolute nightmare for at least 50% of homes/businesses.
Click to expand...

bb_matt, you're absolutely right, our company is in Hyde park area (such an up-market area), we applied ADSL 1.5 year ago, were told no infrastructure availible and Telkom hasn't any time schedule to do that. We are forced to upgrade our Diginet to 256/128 package with R12K/pm cost to meet our bandwith demand.

i'm from oversea, am talking about the advantages of ADSL over the world, but not in SA, even though, ADSL still the best as long as you can get it ;)
 
At last. Must say it helps to phone Telkom everyday. I requested the line on 2 May 2005 got it installed 14 May 2005. Now this is not bad at all!!!
 
Excellent. Seems like Telkom is improving the service. In which area did you get the installation done? I'm on the Panorama exchange.
 
Defenitely scarce to hear something positive about Telkom, good for them...they still suck however.

Does anyone know whether there is a big difference between ADSL512 and ADSL384. I would think the browsing is the same, but what abouth the downloading...
 
It's like this - your browser/downloading app/whatever makes a request for a chunk of data from a resource on the internet. The maximum size of this chunk of data depends on your windows TC/PIP settings, but can be anywhere around 4096 - 538 bytes.

Now, as soon as your computer recieves that chunk of data, it'll ask for the next one.

Now, with 512, the size of the chunk will stabalise at about 4096, but it may be smaller for a 384, but I personally doubt that it would be smaller.

The above is all just one request. The big difference between the 512 and 384 comes in when 2 or more requests for data are sent at the same time, here is where things go moggy, and the width of the pipe becomes important.

Remember that, by default, windows is set to automatically optimize the size of these packets, but you can turn that off and manually set your MTU + Max window size + stuff.

Now, to complicate things further, the server sending you the data can specify the maximum size, and thereby restrict the rate of data-flow back to you.

So - short answer, if windows is optimising itself, one or two or more threads will result in the same performance figures, unless the sending server is limiting you, but if you start tweaking the settings yourself, then the 512 will out-perform the 348 when you run multi-threaded.

Eish - garble garble gobbeldy.
 
Stoke - Thanks, must say...you're realy good informed. Your type realy makes these forums worth while! I'll rather query MyADSL than call my ISP, etc. :)
 
King - don't be fooled - it's mostly theory and part practice and sometimes pure speculation. But, for the most part, the theory is sound.
i.e. Don't just take my word for it.
 
Nebula said:
Excellent. Seems like Telkom is improving the service. In which area did you get the installation done? I'm on the Panorama exchange.
Click to expand...

Pretoria.
 
Nebula said:
Excellent. Seems like Telkom is improving the service.
Click to expand...

Nope, I'm afraid Telkom are not improving, I ordered over three weeks ago and am still waiting, and know people who are waiting over four weeks now. I've called them several times, am now calling them on a daily basis, each time they just tell me they are "escalating" my query to the person who schedules the installations, who "will call me back", but nobody ever calls me back. Today the woman tells me that it will take three days just to call back, that this is normal when they 'escalate' a query! Where TF in the world does a company take three days just to call someone back, for an "escalated" query?

She also then told me that it's NORMAL for ADSL to take four weeks to install. I told her that is rubbish, as in every other country I know of (I have a number of friends overseas in several countries) it often takes only ONE DAY to install, from order to installation. So she then tried to tell me that the ADSL used in South Africa is 'different', and takes four weeks to install!

She then asked for my cellphone number (which they already had) and then she blatantly lied to me to try make me think there was a reason I hadn't been called yet: she claimed that my cellphone number had been entered incorrectly into the system, and I know this cannot be true because yesterday I got a call on my cellphone from the ISP division to give me my ADSL logon details.

Yesterday a different person also claimed it is taking long because they had to do "a lot of tests" and that they had to install various things, but, there are people on my exchange and in my area with ADSL already.

Chester says that taking 12 days to install is "not bad". Well even though that is probably a record for Telkom, I'm sorry, I refuse to allow them to lower my expectations so far that I would ever consider 12 days to be "not bad". 12 days is totally, completely pathetic, let's be clear about that. My expectations remain fixed to "international norms", and I will keep complaining and fighting until we at least match those norms, and in fact exceed them. Deliberately creating low expectations is exactly how companies like Telkom manipulate the public into accepting rubbish. Don't let them. SA deserves better.

All this is not to mention their prices, which are totally off the charts too.
 
I just ordered my ADSL so will see ...

I am not surprised about the 1 month waiting for ADSL because as everybody knows Telcum is retrenching more and more staff every year so I guess they are understaffed to begin with and then you add the useless management and incompetence and you get that ...

I will post later my experience with my installation ... but they said straight away it takes up to a month, so I have 1 month to wait without compalining for a start and see what happens ...

At least from what I heard from other people, once installed, there are seldom problems, so after the painfull month or so waiting you get proper connectivity. With iBurst you are up and running in 5 minutes but you never get "real" internet connection, with ADSL is the opposite :-)
 
Turtle - I vouch for that....South African's have a missperseption on quality of service, not only in our telecommunications. And we should not accept this, so.......

Let's keep complaining about Telkom and give them hell untill they decide in the near future (I mean next 500 years) to give us the service a multi-billion company should do, which they are.....except for the service part off-course :)
 
Yeah Telkom are definately not improving.

We applied for a phone line at the end of Decemeber, after many calls and a lot of frustration Telkom arrived on the 1st March to install it. That was over 3 Months of waiting (I live in Fourways JHB).

We then applied for ADSL on the 9th March and they installed it yesterday 17th May. Thats about 10 weeks.

The only service that Telkom is really good at is their Billing service. You will get your bill on time, without a doubt.
 
You can say that again.....they have this automated system to leave messages on your Telkom Voice Answer, they sms you and call me if I go over my limit, which is a mere R 1500.

MY ADSL line alone cost me R 700, and we reach our limit always within a month not eaven, because have a sort of business running from home also..........they even cut me off once, before I received my invoice and I told them on the phone previously, I cannot and will not pay before I receive my physical invoice. It's just standard business ethics.

I tried to up the limit, but see they haven't made any changes yet, although they said they did on the phone........whatever!

But (you, the client), don't call them about a query of service, maybe the operator knows anything, otherwise, someone will call you back. (which never happens, as all know.)
 
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