Openserve used Huawei and local unskilled labor to trench our area from June to November 2016. December, an aerial fibre was terminated on the proverbial pole in the back yard. The fancy distribution box was mounted on the pole.
Some days later, a Chinese man and his ladder-carrier did some testing, smiled and said that all is well. There are 8 fibres on the termination box, to share between 3 properties. I was told that we would be live in January.
January, a second Chinese man with another ladder-carrier tested again and confirmed the previous finding - all is well and we should have fibre service within weeks.
The last week in August 2017, we had a visit from ..... you guessed correctly - a third China-person with yet another ladder-carrier. (Maybe they don't have the physical strength to carry a ladder themself? ).
Anyway, testing was surely initiated and completed within seconds. I passed three tests out of 3. Wow!
This time, they said that I could place an order the first week in Sep.
I could hardly hold my breath. Sadly, the area is STILL light purple on the stoopid map. I lodged a "please call me" from the telkom website to query. Surprisingly, I was called within minutes by a youngster who was very eager to place my order. Sadly again, he cannot as I don't have fibre according to the system. He has no idea regarding when the fibre will light-up.
In the meantime, our ancient UMC streetbox has a nasty habit of sending it's battery and power-inverter to Mamelodi at regular intervals. This causes the system to not provide any service until said power is tracked down and chased back to the UMC.
Telkom actually have now set up a tiny tent on the pavement with 24-hour guard for the old copper system, but they stubbornly refuse to activate the fibre that is already in for almost a year.
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