MWEB / Vumatel Fibre Hostage Situation

[Athos]

I am sitting with a problem that cannot be unique to me. I want to find out if anyone else has had this issue and what steps you took to speed up the process or resolve it.

Issue:

I bought a property and subsequently moved into that property. There is a Vumatel fibre connection installed and working on the property. The previous owners have a contract with MWEB. The problem is they have a small cap and I keep hitting the cap within a week or two then I sit without internet access.

When there is an account active on a Vumatel line, Vumatel's Object number becomes linked to that account. The Object number then becomes locked and cannot be transferred to a new service, which means, I cannot apply for a new account with another ISP.

I am not the account holder with MWEB, so MWEB will not follow my instruction to release the Object. Vumatel will also not help me re-allocate the Object because it is linked to the MWEB account.

The previous owners are not cooperating with me and will not help me request MWEB to release the Object so that I can continue with my life. So essentially my fibre line is being held hostage and it seems there is nothing I can do.

MWEB also won't let me pay to add data to the account even though I have the account number because of some "legal" problem.

Even with a cancellation from the previous owner it will take a Month before the Object is released.

This all seems pretty ridiculous considering I own the property and as such assumed responsibility for the line.

 

[Athos]

My line has been sorted.

In this situation with instruction of the MWEB account holder MWEB are able to release the object number immediately as long as the account is paid in full for the last month of the service. From that point the Object Number takes up to 48 hours to become available on Vumatel's network (mine took less than 24 hours). Object number migration is an automated process and I was told by Vumatel that there is no way to speed this up. I assume that the system refreshes each night at midnight.

Once available on Vuma's network you can apply for a new service directly on shop.vumatel.co.za as long as you are connected to the CPE (Raycore FO converter) in your home.