Octotel vs. WebAfrica // Who Do I Blame For Shoddy Support

[Eye9od]

Greetings, friends.

Forgive me for starting yet another thread re: Octotel X WebAfrica in the Oranjezicht (Vredehoek) area in CPT - there are so many out there, but none that really dealt with my issues, which are:

* Intermittent Connection Drops (few times a week);
* Frequently subpar speeds on a 20Mb down/Mbp up connection;
* Poor streaming quality on Netflix (surprisingly worse than on the 6Mb ADSL connection I've been using during my current trip to GP);
* No response from Octotel Support via email or Twitter, and only curt or obtuse responses via their Facebook page (their position is that I must log any issues with WA, who will in turn communicate with OT on my behalf);
* Very slow responses from WA via email and Twitter (have given up on Facebook), and generally responses entail blame being shifted onto OT.

So, it's the typical "it's their fault/no, it's their fault!" blame game of ye old ADSL = ISP + Telkom days.

I am at my wits end.

I just want a straight answer: who is to blame for this? I could live with it if someone actually said "look, mate. We're busy setting this whole network up, and this is teething. In a couple of months, all issues will be ironed out. Please bear with us." But not knowing what, why or how is incredibly frustrating.

Seeing as I am stuck with OT due to how these companies have carved up neighbourhoods, I'm left with one option: bail on WA and try out another ISP; does that mean I face penalties for ending some kind of contract whose fine print I never read thoroughly (I understand one may have to return the "free router" if you renege on the "contract").

Any and all advice would be appreciated.

Thanks!

(Other info that may be of value: I live in an apartment block that houses about eighty units, many of which are in the process of getting connected.)

 

[harties]

I'm with Cool Ideas Ocotel in Vredehoek. Other than odd rare line drops it has been flying and CISP support tickets tends to be answered pretty quick. Wished they had after hours support though.

Are you on the FB Ocotel page? Many people mentioned about WebAfrica' poor/nonexistent support etc.

Just contact the isps and check what transferring/canceling involves. CISP is a month to month, I think we just return the router upon cancellation.

 

[Eye9od]

Thanks; have only heard great things about CISP; who is their rep on here, PBCool or something? Can he/she advise as to how to go about with transfers, and when support hours are?

 

[WebAfrica Helper]

Thanks; have only heard great things about CISP; who is their rep on here, PBCool or something? Can he/she advise as to how to go about with transfers, and when support hours are?

Hi

Please DM us your customer code so we are able to assist . We take complete ownership of the situation -you being a Web African, yes there are times when we may require our fibre provider engineers to help us resolve network issues - but we acknowledge this as our issue to resolve. We respond to all social media inquiries the moment we see them on our systems and are in process of streamlining this to improve as best we can. Thank you for your feedback though - this will be escalated to the service managers in charge of social media correspondence.

Fibre in itself ,is a service is new - Web Africa has one objective - that is, to provide a service worth our client's time and money. There are times where the performances dips. Cool ideas as per @harties even has somewhat of a issue relevant to the network performance.
You are right, and i admit this is something that could have been communicated to you, that this is a new spectrum of internet connection we embark on and like all things new , we come across things that we can only but improve on. For this we kindly request your most valued patience - please bare with us .

We would like to kindly request a troubleshooting step to determine and isolate, exactly where the issue might be (assuming you @eyegod you have done this a few times and the moment i get your details - we will assist you accordingly)

Have the connection set up with a Ethernet cable directly from the PC (laptop etc.) to the fibre unit, set up a PPPoE connection - please see the following link on how to do this : http://www.tp-link.com.au/FAQ-921.html and test this connection.

Should the speeds come back to your satisfaction that means - that we need to investigate with IS (Web Africa upstream provider) or have a look at the router supplied.
If the speeds then still reflect problematic , when connected as per the above - in that case, we require the support of the respective fibre provider to help us ensure the fibre unit is in order and able to perform as it should.


This serves as a formal acknowledgement of your complaint and look forward to your DM to get cracking on getting this seen to as soon as we are able to.

 

[Syphonx]

Greetings, friends.

Forgive me for starting yet another thread re: Octotel X WebAfrica in the Oranjezicht (Vredehoek) area in CPT - there are so many out there, but none that really dealt with my issues, which are:

* Intermittent Connection Drops (few times a week);
* Frequently subpar speeds on a 20Mb down/Mbp up connection;
* Poor streaming quality on Netflix (surprisingly worse than on the 6Mb ADSL connection I've been using during my current trip to GP);
* No response from Octotel Support via email or Twitter, and only curt or obtuse responses via their Facebook page (their position is that I must log any issues with WA, who will in turn communicate with OT on my behalf);
* Very slow responses from WA via email and Twitter (have given up on Facebook), and generally responses entail blame being shifted onto OT.

So, it's the typical "it's their fault/no, it's their fault!" blame game of ye old ADSL = ISP + Telkom days.

I am at my wits end.

I just want a straight answer: who is to blame for this? I could live with it if someone actually said "look, mate. We're busy setting this whole network up, and this is teething. In a couple of months, all issues will be ironed out. Please bear with us." But not knowing what, why or how is incredibly frustrating.

Seeing as I am stuck with OT due to how these companies have carved up neighbourhoods, I'm left with one option: bail on WA and try out another ISP; does that mean I face penalties for ending some kind of contract whose fine print I never read thoroughly (I understand one may have to return the "free router" if you renege on the "contract").

Any and all advice would be appreciated.

Thanks!

(Other info that may be of value: I live in an apartment block that houses about eighty units, many of which are in the process of getting connected.)

Do the connection drops get resolved by rebooting the router and ONT? Sounds similar to a PPPoE reconnection issue I have seen on Octotel before. However all support is handled by the ISP. They need to liaise with Octotel on your behalf. Octotel don't give direct support to customers, and they wouldn't be able to check much beyond the fibre line itself.

 

[Johnatan56]

Hi

Please DM us your customer code so we are able to assist . We take complete ownership of the situation -you being a Web African, yes there are times when we may require our fibre provider engineers to help us resolve network issues - but we acknowledge this as our issue to resolve. We respond to all social media inquiries the moment we see them on our systems and are in process of streamlining this to improve as best we can. Thank you for your feedback though - this will be escalated to the service managers in charge of social media correspondence.

Fibre in itself ,is a service is new - Web Africa has one objective - that is, to provide a service worth our client's time and money. There are times where the performances dips. Cool ideas as per @harties even has somewhat of a issue relevant to the network performance.
You are right, and i admit this is something that could have been communicated to you, that this is a new spectrum of internet connection we embark on and like all things new , we come across things that we can only but improve on. For this we kindly request your most valued patience - please bare with us .

We would like to kindly request a troubleshooting step to determine and isolate, exactly where the issue might be (assuming you @eyegod you have done this a few times and the moment i get your details - we will assist you accordingly)

Have the connection set up with a Ethernet cable directly from the PC (laptop etc.) to the fibre unit, set up a PPPoE connection - please see the following link on how to do this : http://www.tp-link.com.au/FAQ-921.html and test this connection.

Should the speeds come back to your satisfaction that means - that we need to investigate with IS (Web Africa upstream provider) or have a look at the router supplied.
If the speeds then still reflect problematic , when connected as per the above - in that case, we require the support of the respective fibre provider to help us ensure the fibre unit is in order and able to perform as it should.


This serves as a formal acknowledgement of your complaint and look forward to your DMto get cracking on getting this seen to as soon as we are able to.

This might seem like a strange question, but do you actually re-read what you post? Why do you keep using dash instead of commas? Also, you can become worse. Bare vs bear, using bare is to remove, so you're telling him to leave.
Step should be procedure.

 

[Eye9od]

Hi

Please DM us your customer code so we are able to assist . We take complete ownership of the situation -you being a Web African, yes there are times when we may require our fibre provider engineers to help us resolve network issues - but we acknowledge this as our issue to resolve. We respond to all social media inquiries the moment we see them on our systems and are in process of streamlining this to improve as best we can. Thank you for your feedback though - this will be escalated to the service managers in charge of social media correspondence.

Fibre in itself ,is a service is new - Web Africa has one objective - that is, to provide a service worth our client's time and money. There are times where the performances dips. Cool ideas as per @harties even has somewhat of a issue relevant to the network performance.
You are right, and i admit this is something that could have been communicated to you, that this is a new spectrum of internet connection we embark on and like all things new , we come across things that we can only but improve on. For this we kindly request your most valued patience - please bare with us .

We would like to kindly request a troubleshooting step to determine and isolate, exactly where the issue might be (assuming you @eyegod you have done this a few times and the moment i get your details - we will assist you accordingly)

Have the connection set up with a Ethernet cable directly from the PC (laptop etc.) to the fibre unit, set up a PPPoE connection - please see the following link on how to do this : http://www.tp-link.com.au/FAQ-921.html and test this connection.

Should the speeds come back to your satisfaction that means - that we need to investigate with IS (Web Africa upstream provider) or have a look at the router supplied.
If the speeds then still reflect problematic , when connected as per the above - in that case, we require the support of the respective fibre provider to help us ensure the fibre unit is in order and able to perform as it should.


This serves as a formal acknowledgement of your complaint and look forward to your DM to get cracking on getting this seen to as soon as we are able to.

I just cancelled my service as I've honestly had enough of WA's poor support. Emails and Tweets go unanswered, as do support tickets. On Saturday eve my speed dropped to 0.02Mbps ahead of an outage which lasted till Sunday morning.

I've given WA ample chance to resolve my problems and course correct, but at this juncture I can no longer keep paying for a subpar service in good conscience.

For those forum members perusing this thread, I hope that it serves as a fair warning to stay away from WA when it comes to picking an ISP for use with Octotel in the Cape Town CBD area.

 

[ray]

I just cancelled my service as I've honestly had enough of WA's poor support. Emails and Tweets go unanswered, as do support tickets. On Saturday eve my speed dropped to 0.02Mbps ahead of an outage which lasted till Sunday morning.

I've given WA ample chance to resolve my problems and course correct, but at this juncture I can no longer keep paying for a subpar service in good conscience.

For those forum members perusing this thread, I hope that it serves as a fair warning to stay away from WA when it comes to picking an ISP for use with Octotel in the Cape Town CBD area.

So after all this...who did you end up going to and what is your experience now. Also and still having problems with WA. Our speed goes down on a 100Mbps line to less than 1Mbps. Pathetic.