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VegOtter
Senior Member
- Joined
- May 26, 2010
- Messages
- 745
I decided to do a small write up to share my surprisingly positive experience with getting fibre installed using Axxess and Openserve.
Why did I get fibre
I currently have the Telkom Uncapped LTE package which for general usage is great. However I have 2 gripes with it. The 300GB soft cap is reached within 15 to 20 days of the month at which point it gets slowed to 4MB. This is mainly due to a household of 4 active internet users streaming most of the time and you will be surprised at how much data streaming uses with a combination of 480p and 720p quality. Secondly, gaming on LTE has been getting gradually worse. Mostly attributed to Telkom's great LTE deals which has meant more and more people congesting the tower to the point where evening gaming is not ideal. International latency to EU was sitting at 250ms on a good night to 450ms on average. Before you even say it, I did try switching between 2300Mhz and 1800Mhz, it made no difference. This was also on full signal strength.
Previous history with Telkom/OpenServe fixed line installations.
Initially when we moved into the house I was quite excited to get 40Mb VDSL as I noticed it was available on the Telkom Coverage map. However that ended up in a cancellation after waiting nearly 2 months and having 3 different technicians come up with 3 different excuses why they couldn't complete the installation.
So needless to say, my expectations were kept very low.
Enough background, to the juicy bit.
Ordering Fibre
I looked at various ISP's and decided to settle with Axxess for a few reasons.
Thursday, 16 November 2017
Placed order via the Axxess website. I received confirmation emails about order and about 10 minutes later another email stating that Axxess had logged a call with Openserve for fibre installation.
And so the waiting game started. I was expecting to hear from Openserve in maybe a week at best, but 2 to 3 weeks realistically.
Friday, 17 November 2017
I receive a phone call at around 3pm. WHAT!!? It was a lady from Openserve inquiring if someone will be at home on Monday to do fibre installation. I was very impressed, but still keeping expectations very low due to previous experience with technicians finding any excuse not to complete the job.
Monday, 20 November 2017
Openserve technicians arrives promptly at 09:30. I receive a call from my wife at 10:00 with the what I was expecting to hear. Technician left without completing the installation. His reason was that the line was running on the conduits across the road and he isn't equipped to run the fibre line up the pole, accross the road and then to my house.
At this point I was correct in guessing that well, I'll probably never hear from Openserve again and will probably cancel the order in 2 or 3 weeks.
Tuesday, 21 November 2017
At around 10am I receive a phone call and to my great surprise it was Openserve again asking if they can come at 11am to do the fibre installation.
They arrived at 12 and to my most pleasant surprise they actually finished the installation completely. The trimmed the trees where the fibre line would need to run through to get to the house and did the full installation inside the house too. It did take them 5 hours to do as they only left at 5pm, but to my great delight they had actually completed the installation and all the correct light were on.
That evening when I got home I connected my router that has a WAN port to the fibre box. Gave Axxess a quick call (at 7:30pm) as they need to activate the account and BAM... Fibre was up and running.
I immediately did some speed tests and ping tests. Line was running at full 4Mb as expected and local latencies were between 10ms and 20ms. International pings was about 185ms on average. Much better than the LTE's 270ms at the time.
Conclusion
I would like to thank Openserve for their speedy service and I'm hoping that this isn't just a fluke and that this is hopefully a sign of things to come. The final test will be if (heaven forbid) something goes wrong with the fibre and requires technician to sort it out, but I have definitely changed my opinion of OpenServe.
As for Axxess, their engagement and ordering process is a very pleasant experience with all the information you need provided up front and always being kept up to date.
Should there be any developments or questions, then I will gladly update this thread.
Why did I get fibre
I currently have the Telkom Uncapped LTE package which for general usage is great. However I have 2 gripes with it. The 300GB soft cap is reached within 15 to 20 days of the month at which point it gets slowed to 4MB. This is mainly due to a household of 4 active internet users streaming most of the time and you will be surprised at how much data streaming uses with a combination of 480p and 720p quality. Secondly, gaming on LTE has been getting gradually worse. Mostly attributed to Telkom's great LTE deals which has meant more and more people congesting the tower to the point where evening gaming is not ideal. International latency to EU was sitting at 250ms on a good night to 450ms on average. Before you even say it, I did try switching between 2300Mhz and 1800Mhz, it made no difference. This was also on full signal strength.
Previous history with Telkom/OpenServe fixed line installations.
Initially when we moved into the house I was quite excited to get 40Mb VDSL as I noticed it was available on the Telkom Coverage map. However that ended up in a cancellation after waiting nearly 2 months and having 3 different technicians come up with 3 different excuses why they couldn't complete the installation.
So needless to say, my expectations were kept very low.
Enough background, to the juicy bit.
Ordering Fibre
I looked at various ISP's and decided to settle with Axxess for a few reasons.
They have won ISP of the year for 3 consecutive years, meaning they must be doing something right.
They have one of the cheapest entry level packages as this was mainly for gaming.
They have the free after hours data which is great for scheduling those 60GB game downloads.
Thursday, 16 November 2017
Placed order via the Axxess website. I received confirmation emails about order and about 10 minutes later another email stating that Axxess had logged a call with Openserve for fibre installation.
And so the waiting game started. I was expecting to hear from Openserve in maybe a week at best, but 2 to 3 weeks realistically.
Friday, 17 November 2017
I receive a phone call at around 3pm. WHAT!!? It was a lady from Openserve inquiring if someone will be at home on Monday to do fibre installation. I was very impressed, but still keeping expectations very low due to previous experience with technicians finding any excuse not to complete the job.
Monday, 20 November 2017
Openserve technicians arrives promptly at 09:30. I receive a call from my wife at 10:00 with the what I was expecting to hear. Technician left without completing the installation. His reason was that the line was running on the conduits across the road and he isn't equipped to run the fibre line up the pole, accross the road and then to my house.
At this point I was correct in guessing that well, I'll probably never hear from Openserve again and will probably cancel the order in 2 or 3 weeks.
Tuesday, 21 November 2017
At around 10am I receive a phone call and to my great surprise it was Openserve again asking if they can come at 11am to do the fibre installation.
They arrived at 12 and to my most pleasant surprise they actually finished the installation completely. The trimmed the trees where the fibre line would need to run through to get to the house and did the full installation inside the house too. It did take them 5 hours to do as they only left at 5pm, but to my great delight they had actually completed the installation and all the correct light were on.
That evening when I got home I connected my router that has a WAN port to the fibre box. Gave Axxess a quick call (at 7:30pm) as they need to activate the account and BAM... Fibre was up and running.
I immediately did some speed tests and ping tests. Line was running at full 4Mb as expected and local latencies were between 10ms and 20ms. International pings was about 185ms on average. Much better than the LTE's 270ms at the time.
Conclusion
I would like to thank Openserve for their speedy service and I'm hoping that this isn't just a fluke and that this is hopefully a sign of things to come. The final test will be if (heaven forbid) something goes wrong with the fibre and requires technician to sort it out, but I have definitely changed my opinion of OpenServe.
As for Axxess, their engagement and ordering process is a very pleasant experience with all the information you need provided up front and always being kept up to date.
Should there be any developments or questions, then I will gladly update this thread.