Maybe we should adopt the lets pay them a % of their monthly account and when they query why we only paying part of it, we can say well seeing as how your best effort service is only getting me limited speeds etc i figured i'd give you my best effort payment option...after all, whats good for the goose is good for the gander? no?
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List of congested exchanges?
- Thread starter Blackhand
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Maybe we should adopt the lets pay them a % of their monthly account and when they query why we only paying part of it, we can say well seeing as how your best effort service is only getting me limited speeds etc i figured i'd give you my best effort payment option...after all, whats good for the goose is good for the gander? no?
AngeredOne
New Member
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Hahaha....amazing idea my friend, I'm all for it
Bellville North is actually a joke. I was on ADSL till about 3 months ago, in La Rochelle. If the line isn't physically broken (anyone remember when half the area had zero phone service for a week or so?!), then the exchange is up to no good. Granted, when I did have ADSL there were seldom issues like what we people are experiencing now, it was just slight speed drops, disconnects ect. and also not too often at all.
On the flip-side of the coin though, things are apparently going to start shaping up, I just don't know when this will actually happen. The exchange does not have any spare line ports anymore, and unless Telkom has no interest in new subscribers, they are actually forced to upgrade the excahnge.
We all just need to make a big enough noise about this, complain to Telkom support desk, Telkom Direct stores.... whatever you want to really. As long as your issues get voiced and you keep reference numbers of everything.
Oh and AngeredOne, I PM'ed you
On the flip-side of the coin though, things are apparently going to start shaping up, I just don't know when this will actually happen. The exchange does not have any spare line ports anymore, and unless Telkom has no interest in new subscribers, they are actually forced to upgrade the excahnge.
We all just need to make a big enough noise about this, complain to Telkom support desk, Telkom Direct stores.... whatever you want to really. As long as your issues get voiced and you keep reference numbers of everything.
Oh and AngeredOne, I PM'ed you
nanonyous
Expert Member
'Making noise' by congesting support lines and stores complaining to people that cannot do anything to help you with your problems only means you're making already bad customer service even worse for others that are trying to have issues addressed that a given outlet can actually service.
I do not want to phone Telkom's DSL support number and be told I'll have to wait for 1h30min because some child is trying to convince Telkom to fix their network as a whole.
I do not want to phone Telkom's DSL support number and be told I'll have to wait for 1h30min because some child is trying to convince Telkom to fix their network as a whole.
You are missing the point, completely.
It is not about 'congesting' the support lines and stores, it is about actually making Telkom aware of the issues that have accumulated as a result of their neglect. Getting a formal process going for the issues that numerous users are experiencing and following up on it.
If you deal with Telkom often enough you will quickly realise that going to the stores and voicing your issues there is more effective than waiting for telephone support or for technicians to make changes (etc...), especially after already opening a ticket through telephone help-desk.
No one has mentioned anything about trying to convince Telkom to fix their network as a whole, that would be like trying to dock an ocean liner with a jet ski. All everyone on here wants is for Telkom to address their problems, to at least have someone on the other end say "yes, we will look into it". If I had to wait an hour for something I would get annoyed too, but if people are reporting legitimate issues, then they have as much right to call and be helped, as you or I do. Chances are that they waited just as long to actually be serviced.
nanonyous
Expert Member
9/10 of my reference numbers magically disappear or are assigned to something else, or the tickets are closed as resolved or 'customer did not follow up', despite a variety of factors that would make these incorrect. Telkom is perfectly aware of their issues. Having someone phone in time and again to 'raise some noise' (go look at how most people use that phrase - it's not about simply bringing unknown issues to someone's attention so that they may be addressed as soon as possible, it's about continuously badgering someone regarding an already known issue that is not being addressed) would congest their lines or stores with someone that's either going about it the wrong way, 'reporting' an issue that has nothing to do with that particular service center, or things of a similar nature.
If you want to raise some noise, then create a(nother) Hellopeter petition and get as many people as possible to sign it. Despite how useless it is in reality, it would be infinitely more useful if people are signing a petition regarding the same issue that is known but goes unaddressed than 'raising some noise' in stores or on the support lines would be.
If you want to raise some noise, then create a(nother) Hellopeter petition and get as many people as possible to sign it. Despite how useless it is in reality, it would be infinitely more useful if people are signing a petition regarding the same issue that is known but goes unaddressed than 'raising some noise' in stores or on the support lines would be.
Look, you are still completely missing the whole point.
I hear what you are saying and I do agree with what you are saying, but what you suggest I am saying and what I am actually saying are two different things.
I am not suggesting that people storm the call centres or flood the Telkom Direct stores. I clearly said that it is about "Getting a formal process going for the issues that numerous users are experiencing and following up on it." That was copied from my reply to you. Nowhere did I say that people should badger anyone, it was not even implied.
If you have lousy luck with calling in and following up, that sucks. But it does not mean that the rest of us should just throw in the towel and say "pfft, not worth the fight". If for no other reason, then just on principle.
Do yourself a favour, browse through this thread and similar ones as well. You will find so much conflicting information between call centres and support staff. No one really gives a straight answer.
Coming back to the actual issue though, the major problem is that if you check reports of the DSLam's you will see no 'issues' appearing in the data. Keeping in mind, these are the reports that are used to determine what needs to be repaired/upgraded. Therefore, if there is no visible issue, Telkom does not open a case to investigate and rectify.
This is why people NEED to get things done formally, regardless of if Telkom is aware of the issues or not. Or if they are actually going to get help, for that matter. The whole thing goes much further than just staying on Telkom's case. At least then there is a formal trace, which can be taken to ICASA for example, if Telkom continues to neglect these issues. At that point a petition should be drawn up and everyone that has had an issue can provide their details, along with ref# and dates/times called etc. This would then create a much more solid foundation on which consumers experiencing issues can build a case against Telkom.
I hear what you are saying and I do agree with what you are saying, but what you suggest I am saying and what I am actually saying are two different things.
I am not suggesting that people storm the call centres or flood the Telkom Direct stores. I clearly said that it is about "Getting a formal process going for the issues that numerous users are experiencing and following up on it." That was copied from my reply to you. Nowhere did I say that people should badger anyone, it was not even implied.
If you have lousy luck with calling in and following up, that sucks. But it does not mean that the rest of us should just throw in the towel and say "pfft, not worth the fight". If for no other reason, then just on principle.
Do yourself a favour, browse through this thread and similar ones as well. You will find so much conflicting information between call centres and support staff. No one really gives a straight answer.
Coming back to the actual issue though, the major problem is that if you check reports of the DSLam's you will see no 'issues' appearing in the data. Keeping in mind, these are the reports that are used to determine what needs to be repaired/upgraded. Therefore, if there is no visible issue, Telkom does not open a case to investigate and rectify.
This is why people NEED to get things done formally, regardless of if Telkom is aware of the issues or not. Or if they are actually going to get help, for that matter. The whole thing goes much further than just staying on Telkom's case. At least then there is a formal trace, which can be taken to ICASA for example, if Telkom continues to neglect these issues. At that point a petition should be drawn up and everyone that has had an issue can provide their details, along with ref# and dates/times called etc. This would then create a much more solid foundation on which consumers experiencing issues can build a case against Telkom.
nanonyous
Expert Member
In other words, you misused the phrase 'raise some noise'.
And no, I am not wholly misunderstanding what you are saying. I also went on to agree that people with an actual issue need to at least report them. As for there being no data, I'm fairly confident that it's wholly visible when someone that normally downloads, say, 80gb a month on their 1-4mbit line, phones in and complains that for an entire month they have had wholly poor speeds regardless of account type, network or source of traffic.
As for the 'continues to neglect' and 'take it to ICASA' thing;
Telkom has neglected to address, in a timely manner, issues with their internet services for, at the very least, 9 years now. Various bodies have 'taken these issues to ICASA' over the years, and the result has always been the same.
Telkom says there's nothing wrong and/or gets a marketing guy to try and convince people that they've been improving their quality of service and consistency when, in the overwhelming majority of cases, the specific situations they are addressing demonstrate facts to the contrary.
So yes, if people have an issue that can be resolved by phoning tech support, then by all means, phone tech support, get your (almost always useless) reference number, and hope that the chain of people handling a ticket will actually get around to sorting that issue out.
Do not however expect 'raising noise' to achieve anything with Telkom. They have shown time and again that they are even happy to lose hundreds of thousands of users utilizing their ADSL connections, where those customers are going off to significantly more expensive yet more reliable methods of connectivity. As far as they're concerned it's pretty much a non-issue if there are long-lasting major issues.
Look at the Overberg area; after 3-4 months of people all over the region complaining about practically unusable connections during the daytime, they finally managed to get *something* right; now our connections out here are only really slow, but at least usable, during the day on weekdays. The quality of the connections is still not nearly where it was a year ago in this area, though, and while all of this is happening Telkom is even trying to trial 40mbps DSL in parts of the country. This, again, while their previous trial of 20mbps had limited penetration and worse still, while their proposed '4mbit users will get a free upgrade to 10mbps' thing has seen extremely limited penetration.
If you want to raise your noise, then do it in a direct manner. Get that petition going and take it to ICASA. Go and fight your fight to see how futile it can be to try and get ICASA to gain the power to do something about Telkom.
And no, I am not wholly misunderstanding what you are saying. I also went on to agree that people with an actual issue need to at least report them. As for there being no data, I'm fairly confident that it's wholly visible when someone that normally downloads, say, 80gb a month on their 1-4mbit line, phones in and complains that for an entire month they have had wholly poor speeds regardless of account type, network or source of traffic.
As for the 'continues to neglect' and 'take it to ICASA' thing;
Telkom has neglected to address, in a timely manner, issues with their internet services for, at the very least, 9 years now. Various bodies have 'taken these issues to ICASA' over the years, and the result has always been the same.
Telkom says there's nothing wrong and/or gets a marketing guy to try and convince people that they've been improving their quality of service and consistency when, in the overwhelming majority of cases, the specific situations they are addressing demonstrate facts to the contrary.
So yes, if people have an issue that can be resolved by phoning tech support, then by all means, phone tech support, get your (almost always useless) reference number, and hope that the chain of people handling a ticket will actually get around to sorting that issue out.
Do not however expect 'raising noise' to achieve anything with Telkom. They have shown time and again that they are even happy to lose hundreds of thousands of users utilizing their ADSL connections, where those customers are going off to significantly more expensive yet more reliable methods of connectivity. As far as they're concerned it's pretty much a non-issue if there are long-lasting major issues.
Look at the Overberg area; after 3-4 months of people all over the region complaining about practically unusable connections during the daytime, they finally managed to get *something* right; now our connections out here are only really slow, but at least usable, during the day on weekdays. The quality of the connections is still not nearly where it was a year ago in this area, though, and while all of this is happening Telkom is even trying to trial 40mbps DSL in parts of the country. This, again, while their previous trial of 20mbps had limited penetration and worse still, while their proposed '4mbit users will get a free upgrade to 10mbps' thing has seen extremely limited penetration.
If you want to raise your noise, then do it in a direct manner. Get that petition going and take it to ICASA. Go and fight your fight to see how futile it can be to try and get ICASA to gain the power to do something about Telkom.
Actually no, I did not. "We all just need to make a big enough noise about this" is what I said. Not suggesting we start a riot, just using the phrase the same way many other people do as well, saying that people need to make sure to voice their issues and hold Telkom to their promises. If they say they are going to check things out at the exchange and call back, then call them back if they don't call you etc. Maybe I could have phrased it differently, but "make a big enough noise" is what I settled with.
Look, this thread is going totally off topic now. I am not going to argue with you about the various options that people have or how effective they are. I am telling you how it is, with regards to the data which is used to determine if faults are present and getting Telkom to, if not start sorting out issues, at least commit to looking further into issues. I have worked very closely with staff members from various Telkom departments, and they always guide me through the issues. And this has all been discussed with them as well, I do not just post blindly.
So, thank you for your input. It is always refreshing to hear how other members of MyBB would handle things, or what their experiences are. Thanks for that.
system32
Executive Member
Switching ISP will prove that the last mile is the problem.Okay got a Telkom account and contrary to what I thought being on the Telkom backbone or the Afrihost one makes no difference...this is makin me depressed
The DSLAM/Exchange/Back-haul which is owned by Telkom is overloaded.
In my case, my line was clean, tried 3 ADSL modems, tried 4 ISP's - no improvement.
Eventually I gave up and switched to Cell-C.
Now I get 10-15Mbps vs 0.2Mbps
system32
Executive Member
Perhaps a "best-effort" payment system would work.
Perhaps we should pay for the bandwidth attained, eg 0.5Mbps/4Mbps = 12.5% payment.
That would get them to fix up the last-mile.
I have the same issue in Stellenberg. My latency increased from avg 58ms to 600ms +- 3 weeks back. The telkom specialist complained that this due to the new 3 month free uncapped deal promoted by Telkom. They are apparently installing 100+ lines per week in the area and the bandwidth / ports (insert correct lingo) was not adjusted to keep up with the traffic.
He promised me more feedback by tmwr (he actually called me back this morning)
This makes playing MW3 impossible. I see that Vodacom has a 20Gig special for R499 which i might very well buy and then cancel my telkom adsl contract. On my current Vodacom sim, i get 5.6mb true download with reasonable latency.
He promised me more feedback by tmwr (he actually called me back this morning)
This makes playing MW3 impossible. I see that Vodacom has a 20Gig special for R499 which i might very well buy and then cancel my telkom adsl contract. On my current Vodacom sim, i get 5.6mb true download with reasonable latency.
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techead
Honorary Master
anyone on Edgemead exchange still having issues???
I got a call from Pinky's office yesterday saying that the backhaul has been upgraded.
confirm or deny please
I got a call from Pinky's office yesterday saying that the backhaul has been upgraded.
confirm or deny please
StormBeast
New Member
- Joined
- Dec 9, 2011
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Registered just to throw in my 2 cents here.
I just moved from a rather good connection in Gardens, Cape Town(Completely stable connection @ 6mb/s, dslam's 50m from my flat), to an exchange I see mentioned here - Bellville North.
Line speed varies greatly and gets disconnected at times.
Will be phoning telkom to hear what can be done, not much hope for a result, but maybe they'll notice a problem?
I just moved from a rather good connection in Gardens, Cape Town(Completely stable connection @ 6mb/s, dslam's 50m from my flat), to an exchange I see mentioned here - Bellville North.
Line speed varies greatly and gets disconnected at times.
Will be phoning telkom to hear what can be done, not much hope for a result, but maybe they'll notice a problem?
techead
Honorary Master
i stay in edgemead no further than 200m away from the exchange
yes last week the the net worked fine but this week it is back to its same old crap
as i type this my team speak latency is 290
this problem started on september 13th at roughly 10 pm
their upgrade lasted 1 week
total joke
yes last week the the net worked fine but this week it is back to its same old crap
as i type this my team speak latency is 290
this problem started on september 13th at roughly 10 pm
their upgrade lasted 1 week
total joke