How ADSL in SA can be fixed

It's too late. If you look at the pace smaller companies are rolling out FTTH and Wireless in JHB, ADSL is going to be dead in the water in the next 5 years. I hope these ISP's have a plan to fix that.
 
What a crap article....
Always the same old rich boys' club
 
Napalm2880 said:
It's too late. If you look at the pace smaller companies are rolling out FTTH and Wireless in JHB, ADSL is going to be dead in the water in the next 5 years. I hope these ISP's have a plan to fix that.
Click to expand...

Never, FTTH is still for the high end estates and suburbs, that is going to be the case for the next 5 years or so before it can start filtering down to middle class on after 2020.
 
Sonic2k said:
What a crap article....
Always the same old rich boys' club[/QUOTE]

...? These are most of the major ISPs, who else would you ask besides Crystalweb and webafrica?
ADSL cannot be fixed, it can only be replaced by fiber, it is an outdated technology that costs a lot to maintain, is slower and with higher latency than fiber.
Click to expand...
 
Johnatan56 said:
Sonic2k said:
What a crap article....
Always the same old rich boys' club[/QUOTE]

...? These are most of the major ISPs, who else would you ask besides Crystalweb and webafrica?
ADSL cannot be fixed, it can only be replaced by fiber, it is an outdated technology that costs a lot to maintain, is slower and with higher latency than fiber.
Click to expand...

My ADSL works perfectly... its just a REAL PITY my Internet Service Provider is such a douchebag company
Click to expand...
 
For a start I won't ask ISPs that have a poor track record with the customer, for comment...
 
I was on ADSL(years back) and cancelled(2010?) then came back this June 2015 and I must say the experience has been somewhat horrible(based on the ISP's i'm testing out so far,and I mean to give them all a go even though I've read some comments on forums about their service levels, and this was based on...*see quote below*) compared to the last time(2010?).Of the crop that I'm "sampling" one even promised "DOWNLOAD HEAVEN" from 0:00am - 7:00am yet I could not even open their web page due "error:connection timed out" at 12:45am and this after numerous router reset's.

“Some customers get a decent experience and others not. It can vary quite a lot from exchange to exchange, and even within the same exchange some Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexers (DSLAMs) are congested and others not.
Click to expand...

Then I ask: How the hell does one being a lay person know how to conduct or verify if it is one of the factors that is influencing their experience on the network when subtlety every major ISP is putting the blame on Telkom(and please don't get me started about phoning them,that's another page),is there a DIY on how one can verify who's fault it is when all the basic "parameters"(i.e.synch rate) on the router seem to be correct and speedtests more or less show your advertised speed but pages taking forever to load,15MB downloads taking 15-30min,no streaming whatsoever possible etc etc?

What then an eye opener when testing out the Sim+USB 3G dongle(in anticipation of load-shedding) I got as part of my Telkom smarthome package and pages literally popping out of the screen(and I mean blazingly fast) and then subsequently doing a speedtest as a result and being pleasantly surprised(BLOWN AWAY) at a speed of 9.68Mb/s.

Now I must mention that I was on Telkom Mobile primarily and in my area was constantly,and I mean constantly getting speeds in the region of 5-6 Mb/s and yesterday I wanted to cry.Ai yai yai! ADSL is piss-poor right now.

Ookla.png
 
Johnatan56 said:
ADSL cannot be fixed, it can only be replaced by fiber, it is an outdated technology that costs a lot to maintain, is slower and with higher latency than fiber.
Click to expand...

ADSL can be fixed. My DSL was working perfectly for about 2 years. Had a very stable 10Mbps line.
Then Telkom broke the line when they installed fibre.

Over 10 weeks I logged 5 Faults, I spoke to at least 12 People from Telkom. I talked to about 7 people from my ISP (since the line was with them). Every time Telkom would close the fault and a new one had to be logged. The fault was due to a cable breakage. At least 6 technicians came out to investigate. If you calculate the cost of the fault it is HUGE. The cost is even bigger if you consider that I eventually cancelled my ADSL and analog phone line after I gave up on Telkom.

If telkom was serious about fixing their network they should put monitoring in place to track successful resolution of problems. The only way is to install a special DSL modem that can track line stats over time give report. If there is excessive noise from time to time it points to a weak joint that can be fixed. If the line stats are too weak chances are that the line can be moved to another exchange. Do speedtests every half an hour to determine if exchanges experience any throughput issues.

Telkom's biggest problem is that they install a line, the client complains, technician gets dispatched and closes the issue, technician gets paid. No service was improved and problem persists. Telkom needs to monitor the service level before, and after and make sure their technicians do their work.
For the most part the technician comes out, climbes the pole, listens to the line, unplug, replug, ....ah it sounds ok to me. Closes issue.
 
Provide a 1mbps line at R50pm plus 2Gb of data. This will help those that can't afford large downloads and will increase subscribers. I cancelled my ADSL as I can get at least 2Gb portable 3G for the adsl rental cost. It doesn't make sense for the 'small user' to have ADSL. It will also helps pensioners. Telkom must stop thinking of the rich first.
 
znh said:
ADSL can be fixed. My DSL was working perfectly for about 2 years. Had a very stable 10Mbps line.
Then Telkom broke the line when they installed fibre.

Over 10 weeks I logged 5 Faults, I spoke to at least 12 People from Telkom. I talked to about 7 people from my ISP (since the line was with them). Every time Telkom would close the fault and a new one had to be logged. The fault was due to a cable breakage. At least 6 technicians came out to investigate. If you calculate the cost of the fault it is HUGE. The cost is even bigger if you consider that I eventually cancelled my ADSL and analog phone line after I gave up on Telkom.

If telkom was serious about fixing their network they should put monitoring in place to track successful resolution of problems. The only way is to install a special DSL modem that can track line stats over time give report. If there is excessive noise from time to time it points to a weak joint that can be fixed. If the line stats are too weak chances are that the line can be moved to another exchange. Do speedtests every half an hour to determine if exchanges experience any throughput issues.

Telkom's biggest problem is that they install a line, the client complains, technician gets dispatched and closes the issue, technician gets paid. No service was improved and problem persists. Telkom needs to monitor the service level before, and after and make sure their technicians do their work.
For the most part the technician comes out, climbes the pole, listens to the line, unplug, replug, ....ah it sounds ok to me. Closes issue.
Click to expand...

That sounds more like Telkom technicians do not know how to work with fiber rather than fiber being a terrible replacement. The thing is, if fiber is installed, it requires near no maintenance due to no problems of aging infrastructure except at the exchange and the owners home. Copper rusts over time and you will get issues.

That you had a stable 10Mbps line means you were one of the lucky ones, my 10Mbps is not totally stable at home due to the age of the infrastructure, even if I would lower the sync it would still crash just as often (2 or 3 times a day). And agreed, Telkom should stop just closing faults and then forcing you to reopen them, but it looks good on their reports so they do it.
 
Gian is really AWOL aye , even in the article this time around his smiley/grin face is missing!
 
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