Telkom ADSL Woes

PhreeMe

PhreeMe

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Hi Guys

Earlier this month I started experiencing severe speed issues on my DSL line. I though little of it at the time as for some reason it happens regularly, but rectifies itself after a few days. Those few days turned into a week after which I reported my a fault. Said fault was closed with no comms with me and no fix to my problem. Which led to my second fault report. After asking specifically to be notified by the techie so I could test, I got another sms with no phone call saying my fault had been resolved, yet I still had the problem.

So on to the third fault report, which only got attention after blasting the manager (after a 33 min wait on the phone). I got 2 seperate calls, one from a techie who promised to be there the following day and never pitched and the second from some helpcentre that assured me my fault would be seen to. Four days later I phoned again as nothing had happened. My fault was marked as "unattended"! At that stage I was a little unimpressed..... Had words with the call centre person (I know its not their problem but I was gatvol) and was told it would be attended to.

So anyhow, after kicking myself for thinking of this 3 weeks later, I phone a person I know in telkom. I get told they are fully aware of my fault, but don't expect anything to be don about it. Apparently they have halved some area's 4mb connections to make provisions for the WC and due to the extra strain, it is making the connections work even worse.

So... I am paying for a 4mb line through Telkom. I am getting between 4 and 70kB/s (Im guessing pending the strain mentioned above). My question is can I do anything? I was basically told to just wait for the WC to finish. To me that is absolute BS. I am paying for a service. Even if I got 1mb consistently (the minimum a 4mb should offer?) I would be happy, but 85% of the time I sit at arounf 10-20kB/s.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

To anyone who read all of that, you have levelled up :)
 
Woohooo! So that means I am level 1 now :D I would like to thank my mom and by dad, and my girlfriend for always standing by me, even when posts were long... they supported me all the way :P

Oh, and I don't have a solution, I'm sorry! I'm having trouble activating a line, so line speed troubles would actually be a step up for me...sigh! But I agree, it is total BS that you have to pay for something they skim down to 70kb, just so they can look good to the international crowd, while we just have to get more and more pissed off with their service!

Oh and yesterday I waited on the phone with telkom twice for 15 minutes and no one answered, so I feel your pain!
 
Speeds in general over saix based accounts during the day are slow for me as well, i think it may due to WC.
Iv had DSL since 06 and have been on 4mbit since 08 and have only recently since WC started did my speed begin to degrade.
Make note my router still synchs at 4mbit down/512k up
 
Thanks PhreeMe. That's pretty much confirmed my first conclusion that it was WC related, because it started 1 June and has continued since then. I've got an outstanding fault just sitting there, and I've grown tired of phoning the call centre only to have someone tell me to reset my damn router everytime.

Here's my post btw: http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthr...Telkom-to-fix-a-possible-network-problem-(KZN
 
PhreeMe said:
Apparently they have halved some area's 4mb connections to make provisions for the WC and due to the extra strain, it is making the connections work even worse.
Click to expand...

That sounds like a load of bollocks to me.
 
ponder said:
That sounds like a load of bollocks to me.
Click to expand...

Telkom can change your line speed with their software. I had a problem a few months ago and while I was on the phone with the call centre they changed my speed from 4Mbps to 1Mbps to test the line (Back to 4Mbps later again). That is why it normally goes quick if you upgrade from say 512Mbps to a 4Mbps line.

So I can believe it that they might restrict some people's line speeds to accommodate the World Cup.

Congratulations, you have levelled up again.
 
benitok said:
Sorry you have gone down one level. (Just kidding, don't take it too seriously) :-)

Why do you say they cannot? What stops them from changing the line speed?
Click to expand...

Legal and contractual issues.

In the same vein, has every single ADSL user in SA been throttled since the beginning of the SWC? If Telkom were going to throttle users why pick on just a few?
 
moggie said:
Legal and contractual issues.

In the same vein, has every single ADSL user in SA been throttled since the beginning of the SWC? If Telkom were going to throttle users why pick on just a few?
Click to expand...

lol you guys complain about your speeds i have a 384k line and its stuck on 12k it never goes faster, now how do i download a movie, series with that speeds, thats ****!

it will take me 5 days to complete a small game

its only happent to me for almost 2 weeks now
 
moggie said:
Legal and contractual issues.

In the same vein, has every single ADSL user in SA been throttled since the beginning of the SWC? If Telkom were going to throttle users why pick on just a few?
Click to expand...

Moggie I hear what you're saying, but this was now told to me by the helpcentre as well as a technician that came out.
I find it toooooooo coincidental that my line (when I am freakishly lucky) sticks at ~204kB/s. If I had not been told that, I would probably be searching for other answers, but seriously, how would you explain that? The techie that cam out yesterday with apparently a 'more qualified' guy both said there is nothing wrong with my line. I'm still syncing perfectly at 4mb. I was told to phone them after the WC if I'm still having problems....

I really am sick and tired of argueing with them over my line. Telkom tells me that it's a 1 TO 4 mb line but fail to hear me when I say I get decent speed for minutes, as opposed to the rest of the day I'm stuck with near dial-up speed.

Is there anything I can do?
 
bullzeye said:
lol you guys complain about your speeds i have a 384k line and its stuck on 12k it never goes faster, now how do i download a movie, series with that speeds, thats ****!

it will take me 5 days to complete a small game

its only happent to me for almost 2 weeks now
Click to expand...

Bud you're lucky, most times I dont see that speed on my 4mb line!!
 
Telkom cannot per customer throttle

PhreeMe said:
Moggie I hear what you're saying, but this was now told to me by the helpcentre as well as a technician that came out.
I find it toooooooo coincidental that my line (when I am freakishly lucky) sticks at ~204kB/s. If I had not been told that, I would probably be searching for other answers, but seriously, how would you explain that? The techie that cam out yesterday with apparently a 'more qualified' guy both said there is nothing wrong with my line. I'm still syncing perfectly at 4mb. I was told to phone them after the WC if I'm still having problems....

I really am sick and tired of argueing with them over my line. Telkom tells me that it's a 1 TO 4 mb line but fail to hear me when I say I get decent speed for minutes, as opposed to the rest of the day I'm stuck with near dial-up speed.

Is there anything I can do?
Click to expand...

Whoever mentioned WC bandwidth throttle is a scumbag who is ill informed.

The port between exchange DSLAM and customer can be configured with an upto profile 384K or 4096K. The 512 K is fixed. The upto profiles mean that a line sync will step down at 32K blocks for a stable and reasonable connection (adapt at startup), i.e a 4096K can autorate down to worse than 384K. The profiles within 4096k allow port to be locked either at 3,2,1 meg because of attenuation/SNR thresholds due to copper cable conditions/length. The DSLAMs are connected to the core network with a factored usage allowing expansion capacity which cannot be changed willy/nilly because lots of planning and provisioning involved. Telkom monitor traffic on backhaul and supply reports if congestion flat lining occurs, hence new orders generated for expansion. WC Telkom configs does not in anyway use bandwidth already allocated.

Suspect line conditions as primary failure in ADSL xfer rates, customer premise wiring with no filters, modem set to multimode can be changed to GDMT for further stability. a Telkom techie must test the line before he gets signoff ref, something else the tech does not perform is speedtest, speedtests can be performed at customer and at exchange DSLAM port, variation will indicate cable issue, he must fix, fix, fix, else report repeatedly and after 2nd, request for an ARS investigation (National exec escalation), then will get sorted out.
 
Dosti said:
Whoever mentioned WC bandwidth throttle is a scumbag who is ill informed.

The port between exchange DSLAM and customer can be configured with an upto profile 384K or 4096K. The 512 K is fixed. The upto profiles mean that a line sync will step down at 32K blocks for a stable and reasonable connection (adapt at startup), i.e a 4096K can autorate down to worse than 384K. The profiles within 4096k allow port to be locked either at 3,2,1 meg because of attenuation/SNR thresholds due to copper cable conditions/length. The DSLAMs are connected to the core network with a factored usage allowing expansion capacity which cannot be changed willy/nilly because lots of planning and provisioning involved. Telkom monitor traffic on backhaul and supply reports if congestion flat lining occurs, hence new orders generated for expansion. WC Telkom configs does not in anyway use bandwidth already allocated.

Suspect line conditions as primary failure in ADSL xfer rates, customer premise wiring with no filters, modem set to multimode can be changed to GDMT for further stability. a Telkom techie must test the line before he gets signoff ref, something else the tech does not perform is speedtest, speedtests can be performed at customer and at exchange DSLAM port, variation will indicate cable issue, he must fix, fix, fix, else report repeatedly and after 2nd, request for an ARS investigation (National exec escalation), then will get sorted out.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice bud.... I'll hope my fourth fault log is the charm. I run both MWEB and Telkom at home and when I originally spoke with MWEB about it, the guy ran me through changing from ADSL 2+ to GMDT etc. After we ran through a few more things he said it doesn't appear to be a fault on their side, which is when I smartly decided to test Telkom as well :o

So far there has been 2 techie visits to my premesis and 2 to the exchange. None have given me any joy.
 
PhreeMe said:
Thanks for the advice bud.... I'll hope my fourth fault log is the charm. I run both MWEB and Telkom at home and when I originally spoke with MWEB about it, the guy ran me through changing from ADSL 2+ to GMDT etc. After we ran through a few more things he said it doesn't appear to be a fault on their side, which is when I smartly decided to test Telkom as well :o

So far there has been 2 techie visits to my premesis and 2 to the exchange. None have given me any joy.
Click to expand...

Similar story here. One of the techies that came to my house actually used his own laptop and modem and port filter, and still couldn't get it above 512Kbit/s speeds (i.e. 50KB/s). He then said he'll reset the exchange and see if that helped. It didn't, but he felt he could close the ticket in any case. So, I promptly re-opened, and that was 3 weeks ago. Whenever I phone Telkom they say it's "being looked" at, which I doubt because they say there's no feed back on the ticket, and then they ask me to reset my modem. sigh.

Weird how this all started on exactly 1 June. And I have a feeling it will suddenly "go away" on about 15 July. (at least that's what I'm hoping)
 
My ADSL worked fine towards the end of last month (Perhaps people got capped and couldnt DL anymore), then on the 1st july just after 12am, speed deteriorates again. Doubt its just a coincedince.
 
Update on my line:

Got a second technician come over to my house this morning. Once again I detailed the speed issues I was having, and straight off he said there's nothing he can do, and that I have to wait until after the World Cup. He went on to say that "FIFA controls the traffic", prioritizing what they need, and some people's lines are suffering because of it. He added that Telkom can't do anything at the main exchanges at the moment, and it will only come right from the 11-12th of July.

Now, he's probably misunderstanding the network freeze, but it's obvious that Telkom has screwed this one up royally for their customers, and can't provide the service advertised. If they weren't able to provide 4Mbit users in some areas with even a 512Kbit service, they shouldn't charge for it.
Click to expand...

http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthr...-the-linespeed-because-of-the-World-Cup/page2
 
bullzeye said:
lol you guys complain about your speeds i have a 384k line and its stuck on 12k it never goes faster, now how do i download a movie, series with that speeds, thats ****!

it will take me 5 days to complete a small game

its only happent to me for almost 2 weeks now
Click to expand...

12k You're lucky, i get about 8k on my 384 line on a normal day and on a good day I get between 16k and 25k !! (".)
 
I share the pain. I have been on a 4096 line for the past 2 to 3 years. Middle of last month, my phone line suddenly can't get a stable 4096 connection anymore. I phone up Telkom, and they only useful thing they did was set my ADSL speed to 2048. They didn't give me the World Cup as an excuse, but rather that there were too many connections on my exchange, and that exchange can't handle 4096 connections anymore. Phone line went completely dead yesterday (no dial tone, no adsl). Phoned Telkom again, and it (unbelievably) working again this morning. Unfortunately for me, my line speed is now 512. Techie tells me that the exchange can only handle 512 connections now. If I want faster speeds, I must move to a less congested area.

The cherry on the top, Telkom are insisting that I pay for the 4096 line this month. Apparently there computers say I'm connecting at 4096.

/wrists
 
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