How can Telkom improve?

the folllowing will be brialliant:
- only 1 monthly line rental which includes both ADSL and Telephone. No seperate charge.
- Reduce the cost of the line rental.
- Provide the 1st level of internet free with 5GB of international data and 5 GB local data (currently 384kbps being upgraded t 1Mbps) as this is an introductory level and should be included automatically as part of the rental.
- 5 GB local and 5 GB International must be calculated seperately and not first from the International data and thereafter only local data.
- Modem to be charged seperately aand to allow for monthly repayment of the modem.
- User should not be tied to a contract.

Reason for low cost..... surely after a year of what is being paid for line rentals, the cost of the equipment has been paid and now it's just occassional maintenance.
 
Give me what I am paying for

How can Telkom improve?

For starters how about giving me what I am paying for?

Attached is the results from an automated speed test for the past 24 hours showing my speed on my 1M line. Its been like this for the past 5 odd months. Faults are logged weekly only for the service to shoot up to 1M for a day or two before it drops back to this p**** poor sub-standard service where the norm is connections of 50% or less if anything at all.

I know the service is, according to Telkom, provided on a 'best effort' basis. What will Telkom do if I start making my monthly payments on a 'best effort' basis? Guess I will be cutoff immediately.

So you want to improve? Then give me what I am paying for

ZEVa2cPXz
 
Upgrade the exchanges of your current customers- there is nothing worse that paying for a service that you can't use becasue the exchange can't cope with the number of users (connections). I don't mind that my exchange can only offer 4mb- I do mind paying for 4mb and only getting 2.5 or 2mb or sometimes even 1.5mb or whatever- it gives me the feeling that I'm being taken for a ride and that I'm being cheated out of my money.

Educate your technicians/staff. I've lost count of how many times I've reported the same fault for intermittent connectivity and the line losing sync. I've tried different routers wit and without line filters and it's the same every time. Yet they tell me nothing is wrong with my line- obviously something is not working somewhere and it's definitely not on my end. Better trained staff that are able to find permanent solutions to faults is a must.

I have to give credit to Telkoms online fault reporting service- it's fast, efficient and there is usually someone to look at the problem within a day or two, which is a great improvement of the waiting period of weeks/months in the past. Still- the service is only worth as much as the technicians are able to find a solution. because if they can't, that fault reporting service isn't worth much now is it?

So, in a nutshell, I would say improve technical reliability of your phone lines and improve the quality of the training/education of your staff- especially the technicians.
 
A few special requests to our friendly Telkom:
- change focus to become infrastructure provider of choice instead of infrastructure provider of necessity - talk more to your ADSL customers specifically. This type of forum should be spread wider and run by Telkom to understand what their customers really want. Ever heard of Voice of Customer (VOC) exercises?
- make bundles for ADSL and voice for customers that do not use Telkom Internet. So, if you just have voice a certain price, but when you get ADSL as well the voice portion reduces or is eliminated.
- rollout MetroNet faster and get rid of the bottlenecks so that we can more easily move to affordable, fast and uncapped ADSL for viable video-on-demand and VOIP services. Let's all get Netflix / Hulu / Skype / Vonage / etc
- continue the improvements in being able to get ADSL quickly for people that move into existing houses

Just my 2c
 
1) Naked ADSL - We simply do not use land-line telephone anymore, and if, very rarely.

2) Take all the millions/billions that Telkom has made out of consumers (http://tinyurl.com/ctorqdz / http://tinyurl.com/c2qzs4r) and invest in the South African broadband infrastructure and/or if the infrastructure is available (which I assume it is, due to the amount of money that is taken home by the Telkom exec's) then make the services available at affordable prices.

3) "personal note" - I wish DFA could merge with Neotel and or some telecom giant and put telkom where they belong just as they have been doing with all broadband users.
 
  1. Improve the speed and layout of the page where I can monitor the bandwidth usage.
  2. Improve the speed and layout of the page that allows me to buy top-ups for my bandwidth.
  3. Improve the page where I could subscribe to bandwidth notification emails.
  4. Improve the layout and readability of the daily bandwidth report that is emailed to me. I really don't mind a text only email, but the legibility could be improved. A nice one sentence summary at the top of the email that says something like "The account [email protected] has got 10GB of it's 11GB cap left." I don't care if I have a 10GB cap and purchased a 1GB top-up, that information is below in the main body of the email. A nice, simple, one sentence summary would be great, thanks.

In addition, for points 1, 2 and 3 above, please allow me to use a browser besides IE! I'm on Windows 8 x64 and I can't use Firefox to interact with those pages. I can browse to them, but then they freeze up. Also, these pages are sloooowwwww.

Thanks
 
rpm said:
Are there areas where Telkom can improve its support?
Click to expand...
I'm inclined to say nuke it from orbit & start from scratch. There is zero hope of fixing it. Behold my own experience with Telkom:

<rant>
Absolutely nothing happens with my ADSL install for like 2 weeks. Eventually someone phones me & tells me their still waiting for my deposit. I'm like what fckin deposit? :mad:

Didn't get my 8ta modem. Drive to the shop and ask them WTF is their deal. *Then* they give me the modem.:rolleyes:

Same with the airtime - nothing loaded on the modem. Drive to the shop and ask them WTF is their deal. *Then* they give me some type of prepaid scratch cards because their system is down.

Ask them whether debit orders are the only way to pay. They say yes - has to be debit order. Fine whatever. 1st bill is 1.5 months which exceeds the debit order limit _they_ suggested. *Then* they tell me no you can EFT the excess.:confused:

Get the first bill...overbilled. Drive to the shop and ask them WTF is their deal. Spend 10 mins explaining to the useless staff that yes I know its pro rata, but the bill is just plain *wrong* regardless of pro rata. Next time I'm bringing crayons & drawing them pictures to explain. Finally the part about it being *wrong* sinks in...and then tell me they don't/cant fix billing issues in store & I must call their callcentre.:mad:

Ask them which amount do I pay? No I have to pay the *wrong* amount & dispute it afterwards. WTF.

Ask them for a wifi dongle to go with the wifi router...they try and sell me a 3G dongle (which I've got already). WTF. Queue me quickly leaving in-case their incompetence is contagious.

Get the second bill...overbilled again. They promote a R499 product...and bill R555. How fckin incompetent must one be to manage that?

It should be easy: I pay & they provide a service. But no you have to follow up at every skip of the way to make sure they deliver. If this were heart replacement surgery, they'd just take out the existing one, sow it up and then when your dead they act all surprised and go "Oh so you wanted the replacement heart you paid for put in too?".

Undoubtedly this will still involve me spending many hours of _my_ time fixing _their_ incompetent sht...
</rant>​

On the plus side the techie who did the install was decent & friendly. Perhaps he should be running the show instead of the fool who currently presides over the farce know as Telkom service. Aside from the actual installation literally *everything* they did was wrong / incompetent / straight up lies. So yeah, nuke it from orbit.
 
Telkom could start to improve by fixing my 4 year old line fault. Yep every time it rains I disconnect. Haven't had Internet for 2 weeks now.
Last time I spoke to a tech I was asked 'where do you want me to dig?'

Keep up the great work Telkom. I'm sure as soon as there is an alternative to fixed line infrastructure you guys will retain all your loyal clients.
 
I think it goes without saying that Telkom need to LISTEN to the public, something they haven't really had to do ever because of their fixed line market share. The public have been crying for unbundling of voice and data for absolute ages. That's the single biggest thing Telkom can do for South Africa. The honest truth is that I don't know if I should be addressing Telkom or Government on that issue. Sad but true.
 
One price ADSL rental and you get the fastest speed your line supports.

Naked ADSL even if it means it will be slightly more expensive than the current ADSL rental.

20Mbps to customers on ADSL2+ DSLAMs that can support it.
 
There are plenty of issues requiring improvement but my biggest gripe is communication.

Telkom forever seem to be hiding behind a "closed period" and never give out information on their future plans. It's almost as if they are scared of making big promises but not delivering on them, i.e. promise nothing and deliver something, which is never enough.

A typical example is their MSAN/ISAM rollout currently underway. After a promising start where they took journos (MyBB included) to a new site and gave them a full rundown of what is happening. Since then, nothing except vague promises. Why not give Joe Public a full program of all future MSAN/ISAM projects to be undertaken with approximate cutover dates? Keep the info on the Telkom website and keep it updated.

I would rather want to know, firstly, whether my exchange will ever get an MSAN/ISAM and also approximately when it will be available.

The same goes for Telkom's future plans for broadband... what will be happening to those areas that are not scheduled to get MSAN/ISAMs, typically rural areas?

Also linked to communication are their Call Centres... please Telkom, get some technically minded agents in there!!! Hiring contract workers to man their Call Centres and to read off pre-determined answers does not cut the mustard.
 
  • Which new products would you like to see?
    - Bigger variety of capped & uncapped products
    - Unbundled voice & ADSL services
    - FTTx (Fibre to the Home) in areas where copper cables are stolen on a regular basis
  • Are there areas where Telkom can improve its support?
    - Facebook, Twitter and myBroadBand presence (accompanied with actual support) - like all the majority of the decent ISP's have
    - Easier to escalate your faults and allowing you to attach trace routes to the fault report - because navigating their telephonic support centre's menu is painful and you can't explain technical things to the telephonic support staff
  • Can they make it easier for you to buy their products?
    - They can make their online payment easier, because you have to click like dozens of links before you get to their payment page
  • Where do you think the company is losing ground against its competitors?
    - Support
    - Limited amount of ADSL account options

How can Telkom improve?
They should ensure that the exchanges and infrastructure can handle the additional load before simply upgrading all their customers' line speeds.

Secondly, they should give businesses preference with regards to high speed Internet access, rather than giving home users 10Mbps.

Thirdly, have more transparency in terms of network upgrades, maintenance schedules and network load.

Lastly: they should have better minimum service level agreements - even with home users
 
• Which new products would you like to see?
- More options in terms of of capped & uncapped products and more flexibility or perhaps a custom tool when going the capped bundled route ( a la Do Broadband ) as current options are rather limited.
- Naked ADSL
• Are there areas where Telkom can improve its support?
[+1 credit to Pada]
- Facebook, Twitter and myBroadBand presence (accompanied with actual support) - like all the majority of the decent ISP's have
- Easier to escalate your faults and allowing you to attach trace routes to the fault report - because navigating their telephonic support centre's menu is painful and you can't explain technical things to the telephonic support staff
• Can they make it easier for you to buy their products?
[+1 credit to Pada]
- They can make their online payment easier, because you have to click like dozens of links before you get to their payment page
• Where do you think the company is losing ground against its competitors?
- Pricing and customer service
- Lack of innovative ideas in terms of ADSL and other broadband offerings
 
Whipme said:
I would like to see voice and data sold separately, this isn't 1998 anymore. If I only need a data line why should I pay for a voice line as well?
Click to expand...

This is probably my main issue. Drop the voice requirement and offer me a 1Mb/s+Uncapped for R300.
 
Telkom JUST FIX my ADSL line would be a good start! I have been waiting over two months and had four technicians out and they still cannot fix my ADSL line!
My ADSL line drops connection repeatedly on off on off from 16:30 until 23:30 in the evenings and on some mornings.
The biggest problem with Telkom is that I cannot communicate with a qualified telecommunications engineer that will understand my ADSL line problem and then be able to fix my ADSL line.
The Telkom Call Centre you call to report the fault to don't have a clue what they are supposed to be doing other than sitting and answering a phone and just lie to you most of the time. Some do try to sound clever but still do not do anything to help. The Telkom Call Centre may just as well be completely automated as the people are completely useless.
The Telkom technicians are not really interested in fixing the fault so will do as little as possible and claim a fault is fixed when it clearly has not been fixed.
The Telkom shop cannot do anything for my ADSL line fault other than close my non-working Telkom ADSL Line which is my last and only option.
Until Telkom starts employing intelligent people that can change Telkom for the better in all departments it will hold the whole of South Africa back!
Are there any non-bogus qualified telecommunications engineers working for Telkom?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X