Seething!

Flanders

Flanders

Honorary Master
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I'm so @#$*ing sick and tired of losing sync like 30 times a day during the week. On weekends it's generally ok. You know, Telkom, the fact that you guys charge us for every BIT of data compounds the issue. Every time I need to send a 5meg email and I lose sync during the last 10 seconds of sending means I've wasted 5 meg of my monthly "allowance" because of your @#$*ups.

I don't know about any of you guys but this has been on the increase in the past 6 months or so.

And whenever I speak to a techie about this problem, they have *noooooo* idea what I'm on about.
 
Flanders said:
And whenever I speak to a techie about this problem, they have *noooooo* idea what I'm on about.
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That is because they don't know/use their own product. They got a job at Telscum (dunno why and how), somebody showed them how to plug and unplug all those techie lines and boxes and taught them how to follow a protocol. But there is no deeper understanding of what they really are doing.
Well, not all of them, some are excellent and know their job, but many are just trained monkeys.
 
Don't blame Telkom all the time. Check that your mail system is not timing out because of the size of the mail. Set your system correctly. I own an International telecoms company and this usually happens when setting are not correct. 99.99 % of the time. Telkom is actually vastly better than you think. Stop jumping on the band wagon and slating them. Over 90% of the country's business operates on them. If they were so bad nothing would work. Think about it and do your homework. Check your computer and ISP setting that will allow you to send such large mails. If it still a problem call Telkom or your ISP and get them to check the problem. Don't just slate them because everyone else does. They are vastly better than Neotel, I Burst and all cellular providers. Ask for senior personell, not the new trainee. It always works. Throw your toys it works, but have your facts straight.
 
RichieR said:
Don't blame Telkom all the time. Check that your mail system is not timing out because of the size of the mail. Set your system correctly. I own an International telecoms company and this usually happens when setting are not correct. 99.99 % of the time. Telkom is actually vastly better than you think. Stop jumping on the band wagon and slating them. Over 90% of the country's business operates on them. If they were so bad nothing would work. Think about it and do your homework. Check your computer and ISP setting that will allow you to send such large mails. If it still a problem call Telkom or your ISP and get them to check the problem. Don't just slate them because everyone else does. They are vastly better than Neotel, I Burst and all cellular providers. Ask for senior personell, not the new trainee. It always works. Throw your toys it works, but have your facts straight.
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It's not my email. I only used email as an example of how I lose "precious" bandwidth when the connection drops. I'm sitting here 2 feet away from the router and every day without fail I watch my DSL link light go off and I lose connection. It's not my ISP either because I have 2 accounts with different ISP's and both accounts suffer the same interruptions. This happens numerous times throughout the day, mostly in the AM and mostly during the week. Sometimes I watch it happen around 20 times before noon. On the weekend it's nowhere near as bad and funnily enough it never happens at night. I'm not an expert by any means but this would lead me to believe that there is some sort of overload on the exchange at peak times. Maybe my exchange can no longer cope? I don't know. Why should that be my problem?

As for jumping on the bandwagon - well, I'm not normally one to do this but it strikes me funny that of all the services on offer, whether telecomms related or not, this is the only "service" I subscribe to where I have to continously check up MYSELF to make sure that I'm getting what I pay for...and to be honest, that p!sses me off big time. On a related note but not directly related to this thread, why on Earth does Telkom charge for a 4mb line when they can only guarantee 1/4 that speed? Why not cap (thought I'd use a Telkom buzzword there) the charge at the cost of a 512 line and offer more if one's line can handle it? Then they can shrug their shoulders when this type of error occurs on a faster line.

As for Telkom being vastly better, well...when it comes to fixed line ADSL, I think they are the best right now but only because a company like Neotel is in its infancy and is not well established. It's undeniable that Telkom takes us all for a MASSIVE ride. They have upgraded their customer service of late but the one and only reason for it is because of Neotel's competition. Even then, I've waited over an hour and given up on attempting to call ADSL customer service at 6pm.

If Telkom could take at least one of their claws out of our backs, I think it would alleviate some of the negativity associated with them from a customer point of view. For example, give us uncapped bandwidth for crying out loud. We still have to pay a line rental. Sound ridiculous? Why? The rest of the world doesn't seem to think so. This is Africa? Maybe so, but then why do we pay more than 1st world countries for a far inferior service.

I'm sorry but back in 2003 when we heard a Telkom spokesperson trying to justify things like internet caps by saying "the public has been abusing the broadband service with bandwidth-hungry applications such as gaming", I knew we were going to be in for a very rough ride with this bunch.
 
Try putting your Modulation on G.Lite in the wan setup this usually works for bad lines ;)
 
all these people complain about telkom and are always comparing us to the states or europe. take some time and think about the market size that these companies have to work with. In the states your have a population of round about 300 million, lets assume that only 5 % of those people use dsl(but im sure it is more), that makes 15 million customers. How many dsl users do we have here in SA, last I saw it was 500000, thats 3.3 % of the number of customers that are available in the states. Simple economies of scale here, we will never get the prices that you can get in the states because we simply don't have the market size to warrant, or for that matter, sustain it. Throw in the fact that all of there content is on there own servers with very little need for "outside" connections (which are costly) and you have a completely different situation.

I am note saying that we should accept poor service but when we do complain at least compare "apples with apples".
 
Stogy said:
hoegh


do you by any chance work at Telkom ? :rolleyes:
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i sense some sarcasm there :D and no i dont, but it does irritate me a bit when people blame telkom for everything that goes wrong with there adsl and then compare it to a country where the situation is completely different. One must remember that we are at the arse-end of the world not close too any "net super-powers" and we have a relatively small consumer base, keep that in mind there next time you complain about not being offered an uncapped 10mb service for $50 ;)
 
hoegh said:
i sense some sarcasm there :D and no i dont, but it does irritate me a bit when people blame telkom for everything that goes wrong with there adsl and then compare it to a country where the situation is completely different. One must remember that we are at the arse-end of the world not close too any "net super-powers" and we have a relatively small consumer base, keep that in mind there next time you complain about not being offered an uncapped 10mb service for $50 ;)
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Same could theoretically be said about New Zealand, yet even they have better services.

I'm starting to wonder if you've ever had to actually deal with Telkom before. I'm sorry, but when I'm forking out R1000 a month for a service that only half-works, then I'm being screwed whichever way you look at it.

While the rest of the world upgraded their infrastructure to fibre or whatever other new technologies are out there, Telkom's been replacing its pathetic copper cables again, and again at the expense of its clients. Never good enough to be impressive, but only ever good enough to "work acceptably."
 
Lycanthrope said:
Same could theoretically be said about New Zealand, yet even they have better services.

I'm starting to wonder if you've ever had to actually deal with Telkom before. I'm sorry, but when I'm forking out R1000 a month for a service that only half-works, then I'm being screwed whichever way you look at it.

While the rest of the world upgraded their infrastructure to fibre or whatever other new technologies are out there, Telkom's been replacing its pathetic copper cables again, and again at the expense of its clients. Never good enough to be impressive, but only ever good enough to "work acceptably."
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good point, but NZ is still a bit closer to the asian giants than us. We really are in the middle of no where when it comes to access to the outside world. Also NZ simply "piggie backs" off aus when it comes to basically everything. And take a look at the size of NZ, its about the same size as KZN, nice and small making it easy to deploy services.

I will concede that having had a look at their prices over there it gives us something to aim for in terms of costs and hopefully these new cables will improve things.

I have had to deal with telkom on a few occasions, granted, not as much as others but when I have dealt with them it has been a fairly good expirience. Im not defending their poor service to certain people but there are a fair few people who also get good service from them and don't post anything any where and this makes telkom look like "spawn of the underworld".
 
hoegh said:
I have had to deal with telkom on a few occasions, granted, not as much as others but when I have dealt with them it has been a fairly good expirience. Im not defending their poor service to certain people but there are a fair few people who also get good service from them and don't post anything any where and this makes telkom look like "spawn of the underworld".
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Deal with them when you have a problem consisting of words larger than three syllables and we can talk again. They have poor service. Not just to "some" people but to everyone. They will always choose the fastest and least time-consuming resolution FOR THEM, which will always leave you in the lurch, either now, or later on.

Right now the DSLAM I'm connected to has been giving issues. I've been through two technicians, multiple phone-calls and constant reduction in my synchronisation speed because they refuse to accept that their DSLAM is the problem, regardless of BOTH technicians pinpointing it as the problem, and since I get more than 1024Mbps in speed on average, it's not their concern.

You call that good service? Yet I complain because I can "feel" the difference and it's a damn significant one, but to them, "There's no real difference between 4Mbps and 1Mbps." BS of the highest calibre - after all it's just a 400% difference :rolleyes:

Telkom is run by a bunch of incompetents and the majority (note, not ALL) of its staff aren't any better.

When I do find a diamond and get to deal with them, I'm put through to someone at an ADSL fault desk that doesn't even know the meaning of "bit rate."

I've dealt with Telkom for 2 years in my previous residence, and they gave me grief. Now I'm in a new residence and I've had grief since I've had my line installed 2 months ago. Just because the general populous accepts less-than-satisfactory standards, doesn't mean that I do.
 
Gee, well you'd think that a CEO raking in R73k per day would be at the helm of a corporation just brimming with customer-satisfaction. What a laugh.

Where would Telkom be today if there had been some strong competition over the past decade or two? Either a lot better OR nowhere to be found.

Since I got ADSL in 2003, I've been very suspicious of the workings of Telkom's ADSL offering. I remember that back then, before the explosion of ISPs and the bandwidth price wars, on which Telkom stomped and put an end to to very quickly, their bandwidth offer was this: 3Gig international + uncapped local. Of course they neglected to mention that the first 3 Gigs you used, regardless of whether it was local or international, counted as your international usage....unfortunately....somehow. :confused: I enquired about this and was told that it was far too much of a logistical impossibility for Telkom to track a user's local and international bandwidth usage and charge/monitor/cap accordingly. A sentiment they still share to this day. Funny then that as soon as you go one bit over your alloted international bandwidth, you're capped before you can say "oh, &*%$!". They must be able to track that important little fact then, it would seem. One man (and not a team employed by the Telkom empire) fixed this problem from our side at least, by creating RouteSentry. Couldn't Telkon have done something remotely similar with the resources they have instead of giving us yet another "sorry" followed by the usual shoulder shrug?

Then there's how they came up with the numbers. 3Gigs international and uncapped local. They enticed us with BIG numbers and FREE bandwidth. Hmmm, seemed pretty good...ish, I thought. But wait a second - consider this. Just prior to that, anyone keen on having internet at home used a 56k modem (at best). We all used Telkom's R7 Callmore system where from 7pm 'til 7am your call charge stopped at R7. I could download on average 100 megs in those 12 hours. I base the 100 megs on: 56k modem (at least with my connection) never ever got 5,6k per second. At best I would manage 3,6 and often less. So, let's say 3k X 60 seconds = 180k per minute or 10.8 megs per hour. So 130 megs per day (of 12 hours) X 30 in a month = 3.6Gig per month. So, in one month we got to download the same or less using "broadband" than we did before, using a modem that could theoretically D/L @ 1/10th the speed of then-fastest ADSL speed of 512k/sec. That doesn't seem right, does it? But what about the uncapped local?! Well, that costs Telkom zilch so that was really a bonus (for them) since at the time there was a miniscule amount of locally hosted content anyway. I'd bet that email was probably the biggest portion of locally sent/received traffic in 2003 for ADSL customers and hey, what were we really going to do with all that free South African bandwidth anyway?

Telkom flipped their lid when clever people started setting up download servers in SA. Wow, didn't see that one coming. Suddenly people were klapping their int. caps in no time and hitting (I've heard) up to 100gigs per month on juicy local content. That's when Telkom suddenly changed its tune and renaged on the FREE local bandwidth offering and that's when we heard their spokesperson try to justify an additional cost/cap on local bandwidth by uttering some garbage about people abusing their broadband on bandwidth-hungry applications such as gaming. (refer to my previous post)

I could go on. Another clever person/persons came up with the revolutionary idea that a person's voice could be carried as data - VOIP. Wow, now we could use the internet to talk to others. But hang on...Telkom didn't like that because they would lose out on money so....they banned it. Not to mention that they didn't even see it coming. It is, of course, no longer banned but you hopefully get my drift. In '03 we had to secretly host TeamSpeak servers and the like because if you were caught with VOIP software installed on your machine, you would feel the wrath the T-SCUM!

I'm sorry but in my opinion, Telkom's BS wore thin a long, long time ago. Sure, not everything is their fault but we get screwed royally by Telkom on a daily basis. Incidentally, I'm not even a huge downloader - I just used the numbers to try illustrate what we get/don't get. Anyway...for all you 'Telkom is not so bad'ers, my little rant is over.
 
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