Reply to Telkom

rpm

rpm

Admin
Staff member
Joined
Jul 22, 2003
Messages
66,806
Reaction score
5,057
Location
Johannesburg
Hi folks

I replied to the letter from Steven White. I made my reply as positive as possible and hope it will encourage Telkom to form a working relationship with us in order to improve the service. It might seem that I am not aggressive enough, but I think diplomacy is currently necessary.

Please give your views on the matter.

Regards,

RPM

____________________________________________________________________

Dear Mr. White

Thank you for getting back to us and for the offer to work together to provide an ADSL service that satisfies all users.

I agree that it would be beneficial to have only accurate and socially acceptable information on any forum. Unfortunately this is not a possibility in an environment where free speech and honest opinions are encouraged. The ADSL forum is a place where users can openly speak about ADSL, and unless their opinions or advice contain illegal suggestions or are unacceptable to the moderator’s standards we will refrain from editing or deleting messages. ADSL users must have a place to voice their opinions publicly, and MyADSL provides them with such a place. Having said this, we often edit or delete messages that are objectionable or contain illegal suggestions. If you follow the forum discussions you will notice that most of the members are knowledgeable and constructive.

I think an excellent way in which Telkom can eliminate false perceptions or misinformation is by presenting their case on the forum. We will be glad to open a forum on MyADSL for Telkom where they can discuss issues with our members. This forum can fall under the authority of Telkom. I am certain most members will find this an excellent gesture of goodwill from Telkom and provide evidence that Telkom is truly concerned about them.

Can you please state clearly the channels that must be used for complaints. Most users are well aware of the 0800 375 375 technical service, but what is available apart from this service? I contacted this service many times, and although I have been promised feedback I never received anything. This is the case for many other members. Again I think the forum can play a vital role in handling complaints. The complaints can be grouped and answered in the forum. This will eliminate duplicate replies which is a costly affair for most companies. Even only one active Telkom employee can answer all questions from members.

Thank you for addressing the issues raised on the website. I am certain a good explanation of Telkom’s approach regarding many of these issues will eliminate antagonism towards Telkom and its ADSL service.

I am certain both parties would like to resolve these issues without involving the media and other organizations, and I am glad to see that we are moving in this direction. It will be a pleasure for MyADSL to approach the media with the news that Telkom is working with ADSL users to ensure their satisfaction with the service. This is not only in the spirit of the new South Africa, but also an investment to ensure the long term success of the product.

Regards,

Rudolph Muller
MyADSL
_________________________________________________________________

RPM
[email protected]
 
Well written RPM. Now we await a (hopefully) positive reply from Mr White.

I hope they will take you up on your offer of actively joining the forum - it would be beneficial to both them and us.




----------------
United we stand!
----------------
 
Hi rpm,

I agree fully with the sentiments you have expressed
in your letter to Telkom.
 
What a well written letter.

Sadly, I have a feeling Mr. White is just going to ignore it. I doubt we will have much success dealing with him, due to the arrogance and poor attitude he has shown in the past.

Would it not be possible to go over his head, and find someone in Telkom who actually is prepared to listen to the grievances, and provide a balanced solution? (Both fair for Telkom and it's ADSL users) Perhaps this is just wishful thinking on my part though ...
 
Well done - I'm firmly of the opinion that a little dimplocacy goes a long way and I'm entirely comfortable with the spirit and sentiment expressed in your correspondence. Let's hope Telkom is able to reciprocate the gesture.
 
Good response RPM. While we eagerly await the deregulation of the industry we have to work with Telkom. Hopefully they turn the current sorry state of affairs into a positive one....
 
Great Letter.

However with regards to a telkom forum, I think an atitude change is necessary on the half of myadsl users. A lot of us seem to see telkom in a very bad light, and this tends to show clearly in the posts on this forum. We need to move away from doing this, and towards plainly stating the problems we experience with the service.

"Sadly, I have a feeling Mr. White is just going to ignore it. I doubt we will have much success dealing with him, due to the arrogance and poor attitude he has shown in the past." - While I understand this is an opinion and while I might even agree with it, we need to ask ourselves, is this sort of talk going to encourage telkom to deal with us or push them away. I mean think about it. If telkom opens up a forum, and posts a technical explanation of something, I could forsee a spew of posts tearing it to shreds. The problem with this is not the fact that we may disagree with the post but the idea that it would be laced with anger and dergatory remarks. Yes these may be the opinoins of the poster and what not, but at the end of the day the post could also have been "plainly stated". I think we need to remember that while we may want to see the service improve for our selves (and yes I do believe we are not the majority), Telkom doesn't have to listen to us.

So what I would sugest, is that if Telkom opens up a forum, that we get a representative, such as RPM to answer and speak on behalf of us. That way we could discuss whatever Telkom posts in our forum, and put forward a logical "plainly stated" argument on theirs.

No offense meant to Thimee, it was just a handy example.
 
Accepted.

However, remember that most of us are here because of the terrible service (and by this, I mean shocking) provided by Telkom. Ever spend 45+ minutes on hold? Ever had your DSL connection rendered useless, either by the cap or if you are not one of the "bandwidth greedy" ones, by port prioritization? So no, this forum is by no means Telkom friendly. The only reason Telkom even agreed to meet is because of sheer volumes (400+ members) and bad publicity.

OK, I'll I tone down my posts, however Telkom will find most forums users extremely hostile at first. The onus is on Telkom to change this through technical competance and good communication.
 
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by ItalicBold</i>
<br /><font color="blue">Great Letter.

However with regards to a telkom forum, I think an atitude change is necessary on the half of myadsl users. A lot of us seem to see telkom in a very bad light, </font id="blue"><hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

OK, softly, softly - footsie, footsie for our sensitive Telkomie.

But please don't forget this is about business - R1000.00 per month !!
and if there are 10000 users = R120M per annum to Telkom.

It is Telkom that must respond in a businesslike manner, not the very
unhappy myadsl members. We all pay R1000.00 per month, so we keep up
our end of the deal - we are near perfect. Telkom is ......... [}:)]
 
Hi my name is SS and i am HOSTILE...and i dont EVEN have ADSL. [;)]
because its a useless service to me. Correction: ADSL is the perfect service for me, its Telkoms ADSL service that is useless to me.

I am hostile because i feel let down, by waiting for years for ADSL, and the result is this odd mismatched product, that is of no use to me, with no competitor to provide me with a proper ADSL solution.

I dont even want to fathom what i would post if i was actually forking out R1k p/m on email browsing. [|)]
 
*rant*

It's quite true, most of us don't have too many good things to say about Telkom. Why? It's quite simple. We are being ripped off. We are paying over 3 times what this connection is worth in a first world country. We are getting a heck of a lot less than the average ADSL account offers in a first world country. But the worst thing of all is their attitude. "You're not happy with your ADSL? You're the minority, so too damn bad". I find their attitude to be just like a dictatorship - it's shocking! We are paying R1000 a month, it's a heck of a lot of money for the average person. But we're paying because we need the service. ALL we ask is that we get what we pay for. And that's a great deal more than we're already getting.

The only way for our attitudes to change towards Telkom is for them to give us something to work with. Show you care, instead of turning down all our suggestions. Once we see that they really do want to work with us, you'll see a lot of us changing. But for now, no one, absolutely no one can blame us for feeling this way.

Unlike a lot of other people, I'm very optimistic that things will change with open communication between us and telkom and I would once again like to thank rpm for taking the initiative to start this forum - it is going to make a great difference in our lives.


*rant end*


----------------
United we stand!
----------------
 
I also feel that there are two seperate things we need to look at.

Firstly we need to look at the service Telkom promised us. We all new we were going to be capped, and we all new we had 3 gigs. We also new that we could buy extra accounts.

What we didn't know was how the cap was to be calculated(and that telkom would change this at their whim), that it would include local usage, that after the cap the line would not be usuable. We also didn't know that we would be port priorotized or that the line would be high latency internationaly and localy during the day.

So as far as I am concerned these are realy the only things we can complain about. Eg. We can't complain about the price, or the size of the cap, we new about these things, even though they might be rediculous or unfair.

The second thing we need to look at (and this should be done seperately) is what we feel ADSL should be, or what we would like it to be. This includes the idea of the cap, the pricing, the bw (greater than 512k) and the dynamic ip adresses.


Below are some questions that I feel should be asked at the next interview/letter:

You claim ADSL is an access level product, if this is the case, then why are ISPs so restricted as to their solutions for the "ADSL access product"?

How do you justify changing the way in which the cap was calculated? Including the upward stream into the calculation is effectively the same as hiking the price for the service, by up to 100%.

Could you also explain to us how you informed all ADSL users of this change?

If the cap is intended to stop users from "abusing" the limited international bandwidth avaibable, why does local bandwidth add to it?

Why are our lines unusable internationaly after the cap, when we were told that the service would run at the speed of a 56k modem after being capped?

Why were we not informed that the line would have a high latency during the day locally and overseas at all hours? No other service has this problem.

What gives you the right to sell a product, and neglect to tell your clients that it doesn't offer certain functionality (refering specificaly to port capping), and then later when it is questioned change your advertising or specs, and claim that you informed us?

Telkom expects to eventualy have in the region of 200 000 adsl clients, do you honestly expect that that many people can afford to pay R1000, and that they will pay that much just for browsing and checking their email?
 
I totally agree with your last post ItalicBold. You've made some good points and I'm sure RPM will take note.


----------------
United we stand!
----------------
 
Thanks for the sincere way of dealing with these issues rpm. It does take a lot to be a pioneer and to fight for what is right and to put your life on the line, so to speak. My personal issues with ADSL falls outside that of being a user as I am not. (That makes me less compatible with Mr White's response). I wish I was (an ADSL user) but I couldn't after reading the blunt fineprint. I want to comment further on this.

Interesting, the subdued threats mr White had in his reply to rpm.

ADSL as a technology has been available for several years. I have been very aware of this because I worked in an industry, which manufactured equipment for it, and I knew what was possible and what could be expected from it. I wanted to have ADSL at my house. It was a dream. Until today that dream hasn't been fulfilled. I can't get myself so far as to pay this ridiculous amount for a service that is structured in such a way that is not useful to me and which falls outside the intended use of ADSL.

But to stay closer to the point, in desperation I went to www.telkom.co.za several times to see if there were any announcements on when they were going to roll out ADSL. I noticed to my surprise that there was no way to contact Telkom, they haven't provided any button or contact information on their website and they were hiding in deep ground zero. O.K. that has changed now, there are a "Contact Us" click on, on the website. I would like to know how many people have ever had a response when they used this as a query mechanism. I used it earlier this year and am still waiting for a response.

The "channels" that are supposedly accessible for Telkom doesn't work well, does it?

But there are many other issues regarding Telkom and I have touched on these before in some other writings on MyAdsl. It is not only about the service that Telkom promises they will provide and which they may or may not comply too. It is also about the services that Telkom should provide as the sole access to wireline telecommunications in South Africa. It is not only about what the technical staff at Telkom should solve, it is about how a responsible monopoly should operate to make the world our home, to put us in control of our destiny in South Africa.

I am sick of hearing that South Africa is third world and backwards. This website is full of that and it does play down on the bigger issues here. South Africa has enormous potential, notwithstanding the political constraints that we are experiencing. Our banking system is one of the best in the world even though it got hacked. Many countries in Europe doesn't have such an advanced system as we do. The point here is again that we have the seed of good in us already but somewhere along the line there is an irresponsible organisation that makes it very difficult for us to develop this high tech economy. It obstructs us in every way possible.

I saw an interesting program on some tv channel this past week about Home Automation. This is a technology that is storming onto us and it has lots of good in it because of practical problems that we are going to face in the future with overcongested roads, security etc. In order for it to work we need an affordable "Always On" technology aimed at the same guys that now uses dailup for internet access. It doesn't require high bandwidth but it definitely doesn't tolerate some selfish organisation to reset your IP address every so often.

Mr White can say what he wants but Telkom has just never tried to get "used to competition" as was the phrase that the press used to describe the leeway that politician from P.W. Botha, F.W. de Klerk right through to the current leadership gave them all the years. It uses every trick in the book to ensure that a second operator will have an extremely difficult time and it uses the time that the SNO doesn't have, i.e. now, to achieve it. That has nothing to do with "getting used to competition". It has everything to do with keeping the monopoly at the top.

Now, do we have the right to criticize Telkom in public. Normally companies are not criticized in public because they are governed by supply and demand rules. Nobody takes the time to criticize them because it is much more efficient to go to the competition straight away. What do you suggest we do in your case Mr White? How do we solve them and how do we save our country? We are living here afterall, we have to try to make the best of it.

Mr White, South Africa is a free country and a model democracy in a dark continent full of problems. We will speak our minds, we will play a role to improve our freedom and the lives of ourselves and of others. We will really live to the motto "Proudly South African" even though we can't pay for expensive lip service to it on South African TV channels. Until you have proper competition and allow fair play in the market you will have to tolerate some criticism.

As for the swearing! Yes, I agree that it does reflect on character etc. I prefer the approach of analytical debate above fistfights. But from what I can understand from comments on this website is that many ADSL subscribers have often a non-service for which they have to pay R800-00 (or similar) a month. What do you call it when money is taken from somebody without an equally agreed on exchange of value? Do you understand where the swearing comes from?





-----------------------
| Christiaan |
------------------------
 
Hi guys

Thanks for the lively discussion and relevant points.

I hope we can form some form of working relationship with Telkom to address all these issues. It will definitely not be an easy path, but I think one worth traveling. I do not foresee the telecommunications landscape changing soon and it might therefore be beneficial to work with Telkom. Having said this, as a customer I find it unjust to be told what to do and what to be satisfied with, and this attitude from any company will result reaction from is customers. We hope Telkom sees this in a similar way.

Regards,

RPM
[email protected]
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X