Letter to The Star

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Donovan

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Hello everyone,

It's become quite plainly clear that we're not getting our service fixed any time soon unless we do something drastic.

So I am going to write to The Star letters section.

Can you guys make suggestions of what you'd like me to include. Anything and EVERYTHING will be considered for inclusion - please make your suggestions here.

I will post the final letter here before I send it.

Thanks guys,
Donovan
 
Dude you are welcome to use anything from the (as yet unanswered) email I sent to ITWeb:

http://www.myadsl.co.za/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2957

Did I mention how irritated I am at not even getting a reply from Rodney Weidman at ITWeb?? Its common courtesy to at least mail a reciept of message reply...just goes to show ITWeb is nothing but a press release board for corporate SA IT firms...they dont have any ballz of their own...


<font color="blue">Telkom needs a leash, ICASA needs some guts, and the </font id="blue"><font color="red">SA consumer</font id="red"><font color="blue"> needs to make it happen</font id="blue">
 
what about the advertising standards authority? months ago when i applied for mywireless and after a couple of weeks still didnt have it i sent them an online complaint (thinks sentech said 10 days till delivery or something cant remember), and within 2 hours they phoned me wanting details to follow up, but i chickened out and the guys on this forum told me not to crash sentech yet. so i left it, maybe now is the time?? they are advertising broadband at "?????" speeds but are only delivering "?????" speeds. thats bad advertising isnt it?
 
You know what else we can do?

Complain to ICASA? Maybe also send them a letter. This is maybe something for RPM/Myadsl to do.

Although ICASA is a bit of a useless entity...
 
Nice idea donovan [:)]
only snag is that complaining through I***A is going to take ages, as i'm sure they have an escalation procedure when it comes to complaints from consumers. This could take months before anything comes to fruition.

/ponder

This makes me wonder if IS does start reselling MW packages if they will be happy with the problems their customers will experience. AFAIK IS is a very serious company, and i'm sure they wouldn't want their image tainted by crappy Swinetech heldesk staff
 
Sentech is a customer to IS. IS wont start selling MyWireless (or reselling). They are already shafting Sentech with the supplied bandwidth so I doubt Sentech will be happy to give them reseller rights. Unless it is in exchange for a fair bandwidth agreement.
 
Hi Greedy [:)]

http://www.myadsl.co.za/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=3089

Although i think i'm jumping to conclusions saying that it will be from Swinetech...

Cheers

Borris
 
The thing is.. Sentech has the 3G license ie. 2.5GHz. Techinically, WiFi or 802.11 or 2.4GHz is not licensed and free to use. BUT due to ICASA's WLAN policies, it is illegal to provide Wireless internet services in ZA. Except for this new hotspot exclusion for the benefit of Telkom.

One of the reasons I got Sentech MyWi is because of the above. If it were suddenly legalised, they could make us Sentech subscribers look like idiots paying so much for so little. Luckily Telkom will overprice it so we will be ok..

I still doubt that IS will resell Sentech. They are a first tier ISP selling network capacity TO Sentech. It would be a little like a farmer selling you maize meal. As far as I understand it, Sentech gives priority to smaller resellers that are "new ventures" or something like that. Im sure they are also implementing the BEE virus in all their operations as well.
 
Funny that they are going for smaller resellers, as that gives them the option of shafting them more easily when the time comes, of course they could try shaft bigger companies, but we all know that wouldn't work out that well.

Also, if they have smaller companies they can always manipulate them like puppets by saying "We helped you get to where you are today, now you owe us X,Y,Z etc...."

By the way, what the hell is BEE virus????

Cheers
 
It is a phenomenon deployed to remove skilled workers from an organisation in order to create some kind of demographic balance for some or other reason. It is a reason for there being people in high places who know nothing of what they should be doing while smart people are stuck unemployed. If they were hiring the best and most skilled people for the job there would be no need to mention or even create BEE.

I call it a virus because it is rapidly spreading through the IT industry and bringing it to its knees. Just look at Telkom and Sentech..

btw, BEE = Black Economic Empowerment (used to be called Affirmative Action)
 
Careful here, guys - tread carefully/walk softly (and carry a big stick, if you want)... Nothing wrong with criticism of BEE, particularly in terms of its implementation (of which I could spout reams and reams of practical experience, inclusive of abuse, invective, etc.), but steer clear of potentially racist connotations, derived from the invalid perceptions of others...
 
I never said anything racist like people are being treated unfairly or disadvantaged. I only said that the wrong people are getting hired and getting contracts and its stuffing things up. I dont like BEE for that reason. Im all for it if its a matter of giving a group priority if they have the suitable skills. The way that everyone thinks it must be implemented yesterday starting at the top makes it a virus type thing.
 
Hi there,

I was thinking, maybe a nice addon to the site would be a letter writing form with standard contact emails to choose from. In other words, anybody who want to can write a letter to Telkom, the president, ICASA, minister of communications or whoever, straight from this site.

A simple form with a drop down menu from which you can choose who you want the email to go to. [:I] Yes?

Or perhaps even better would be a single letter which can be signed online via MyADSL members and then sent via email and standard mail every once in a while. I am just brainstorming guys. [:)]

Any more ideas?

Cheers
Antowan

He who does not understand the value of war at the right time, cannot comprehend the value of life at any time - Anonymous
 
Good idea antowan.

Only problem with using a web based form is that they might block the sending mail server. I like the idea thought of someone typing out a nicely worded letter for use by all. A template sort of. Maybe text one can copy paste into your own e-mail client and send?
 
Nice idea, ANT, but as MONSTER says, probably will be blocked as spam if noted as sourced from a constant point of origin, whether server or sender. The address list is also a good idea - no potential issues there, as they're all publicly available anyway. So is the template idea for copy/paste - I vote for RPM to draft same, as the most sane and stable oke on this forum (no derogatory intent to anyone - merely a statement of fact based on the prevailing evidence). /aside: what happened to the wiki for the manual?
 
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Donovan</i>
<br />Hello everyone,

So I am going to write to The Star letters section.

Can you guys make suggestions of what you'd like me to include. Anything and EVERYTHING will be considered for inclusion - please make your suggestions here.

<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I specialise in press communications and I have experienced your problems. Until I joined this forum, I didn't know that my problems were not unique. I can get your communications published, but the Star is the last place to expect to be in. The Star Letters editors are technically clueless.

It's better to use the business and technical press - like Business Day, Financial Mail, ITWeb. Your communication, though, has to to be simple and straight to the point. If you have a problem, express it clearly, boil it down to a few key issues and suggest solutions. We're talking less than 500 words here. Write it, read it, and then cut it down again. Make it 300 words. You won't like the end result but it's more likely to be published and you can now communicate your core grievances. That's if you want to go the letter writing route.

There's also the direct route - talk to the journalists personally, explain the issues and get them to follow up and ask the questions you can't get answers to. Believe me, the organisation starts jumping then.

Why don't you send me your proposed letter so I can make suggestions and propose a course?

_______________________________________

I have an inferiority complex. But it's only a little one.
 
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