Sign up with Googlejacobstone
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Sep 23, 2003
- Messages
- 155
It was a glorious day, spring was approaching, and there was a pleasant feeling of love in the air. It seemed just as good a day as any to order myself a bit of ADSL. Little did I know that I was about to embark on one of the most lengthy, arduous journeys of my life, with a telecommunications giant they call Telkom. The day I’m talking about was August 26, 2004. I placed my order just like any other fine gent and waited in anticipation for ‘that call’ from a friendly Telkom technician saying he was ready to come over and install my line.
Needless to say this call never came, I sat around thinking thoughts no man should be left alone to think whilst waiting for that call. So eventually I called them. After being redirected through the labyrinth of Telkom call centres I was eventually told that my order had been cancelled because of the service not being available in my area and that I should place my order again within a month or so when the service would be available. I did just as they’d instructed. The result was exactly the same. I phoned all over, my local Telkom office, people dealing with ADSL sales and installations, all anyone could tell me was that I should place it again within a month, “It should be available then”.
I could make this story really long, but this is what it comes down to: I placed approximately 8 orders for ADSL, each time these orders were cancelled (usually without informing me) and I was told that the service would be available soon. After about a year of this I started making some real plans to find out what was cooking. I should also mention that it was hard to understand what the problem was because a couple of people living about 1km from me had received their ADSL lines within the standard 3 weeks of ordering it.
So the reason was of course that I was not connected to any exchange that was equipped with a DSLAM. It took _really_ long to get this information out of Telkom. Once I knew this I began to regularly correspond (nag) with the local Telkom guys in my area. In one of the emails that were forwarded to me I managed to establish the contact information of the project planner (not project manager) dealing with the installation of the DSLAM in my area and this is where my story took its first turn for the better.
I managed to get his direct office number and began phoning him, every Monday at 9am sharp. Just to ‘check on the DSLAM progress’. Every time it was pretty much the same story – ‘project is in hand’ etc. I must mention though, that this guy I was dealing with was extremely helpful and genuinely tried his best to sort things out for me. So to update the story’s timeframe – it was May of this year that I first contacted the project planner. Eventually after having probably phoned him 50 times he told me that he had done all that he could (he really had) and that he was now referring me to someone higher up in the food chain so that I could drive them nuts. This was some other manager guy in another city. He was less friendly but also seemed to want to sort my problem out given how long it was outstanding.
And this brings me to the end of my tale – On Tuesday, the 3rd of October 2006 my ADSL line was installed and I am posting this message over it. It only took 25 months since my first order and hundreds of Rands worth of phone calls. And well there’s not much moral to the story. I’d like to say “Here’s how I got my DSLAM installed, you do the same”. But the reality is that there is no formula for this. Telkom will do what they want, when they want and how they want. On their terms. My only advice to someone in a similar position would be that you HAVE to get in contact with someone higher up. Phoning the call centre is the biggest waste of time - they listen to your problem and literally forget about it the moment you put the phone down. But if you manage to get the number of a big dog right there in his comfortable chair, you’re going to start getting on his nerves and he’s going to want to make a plan to get you off. It’s incredibly difficult to penetrate the fortress that is Telkom but there are ways. Just get hold of any pleb on the inside, they have access to Telkom’s internal Outlook address books and can probably get you telephone numbers from it. It’s a pretty big mission and there’s little reward except the service that you’ll be paying an exorbitant amount for anyway but if you’re in a situation like me and ADSL is imperative to your well-being or work situation then you have little choice.
And that’s my story – the 2 year ADSL order. What a ride.
Needless to say this call never came, I sat around thinking thoughts no man should be left alone to think whilst waiting for that call. So eventually I called them. After being redirected through the labyrinth of Telkom call centres I was eventually told that my order had been cancelled because of the service not being available in my area and that I should place my order again within a month or so when the service would be available. I did just as they’d instructed. The result was exactly the same. I phoned all over, my local Telkom office, people dealing with ADSL sales and installations, all anyone could tell me was that I should place it again within a month, “It should be available then”.
I could make this story really long, but this is what it comes down to: I placed approximately 8 orders for ADSL, each time these orders were cancelled (usually without informing me) and I was told that the service would be available soon. After about a year of this I started making some real plans to find out what was cooking. I should also mention that it was hard to understand what the problem was because a couple of people living about 1km from me had received their ADSL lines within the standard 3 weeks of ordering it.
So the reason was of course that I was not connected to any exchange that was equipped with a DSLAM. It took _really_ long to get this information out of Telkom. Once I knew this I began to regularly correspond (nag) with the local Telkom guys in my area. In one of the emails that were forwarded to me I managed to establish the contact information of the project planner (not project manager) dealing with the installation of the DSLAM in my area and this is where my story took its first turn for the better.
I managed to get his direct office number and began phoning him, every Monday at 9am sharp. Just to ‘check on the DSLAM progress’. Every time it was pretty much the same story – ‘project is in hand’ etc. I must mention though, that this guy I was dealing with was extremely helpful and genuinely tried his best to sort things out for me. So to update the story’s timeframe – it was May of this year that I first contacted the project planner. Eventually after having probably phoned him 50 times he told me that he had done all that he could (he really had) and that he was now referring me to someone higher up in the food chain so that I could drive them nuts. This was some other manager guy in another city. He was less friendly but also seemed to want to sort my problem out given how long it was outstanding.
And this brings me to the end of my tale – On Tuesday, the 3rd of October 2006 my ADSL line was installed and I am posting this message over it. It only took 25 months since my first order and hundreds of Rands worth of phone calls. And well there’s not much moral to the story. I’d like to say “Here’s how I got my DSLAM installed, you do the same”. But the reality is that there is no formula for this. Telkom will do what they want, when they want and how they want. On their terms. My only advice to someone in a similar position would be that you HAVE to get in contact with someone higher up. Phoning the call centre is the biggest waste of time - they listen to your problem and literally forget about it the moment you put the phone down. But if you manage to get the number of a big dog right there in his comfortable chair, you’re going to start getting on his nerves and he’s going to want to make a plan to get you off. It’s incredibly difficult to penetrate the fortress that is Telkom but there are ways. Just get hold of any pleb on the inside, they have access to Telkom’s internal Outlook address books and can probably get you telephone numbers from it. It’s a pretty big mission and there’s little reward except the service that you’ll be paying an exorbitant amount for anyway but if you’re in a situation like me and ADSL is imperative to your well-being or work situation then you have little choice.
And that’s my story – the 2 year ADSL order. What a ride.
