Telkom and Openweb.

[bradrap]

You protect the companies as if you own shares in their markets!

The point I'm making is that they (Openweb in this case) are not willing to negotiate a to-the-day monthly debit and yet are prepared to take your money for a full month even if you only get one or two weeks use out of it.

Don't you think there should be an explicit warning about this, not just the stupid fine print?

How can this be justified?

 

[mikef]

Quick bradrap, I've PMd you my bank account details. Pay R1500 into it, and maybe you'll get exactly what you think you'd get.

Would YOU do that? Would you be surprised if you didn't end up with exactly what you thought you'd get? Parting with a substantial sum of money without ensuring that you understand exactly what you're buying is irresponsible. It's not the company's (ANY company's) responsibility to educate its clients.

The portion in bold has been debated to death in this and the related threads.

Openweb, imo dropped the ball in this case although thriel was also negligent. I suspect that OW lost a lot more support than they have realised.

However if you sell a product to consumers I believe it is your responsibility to provide value and avoid selling a more expensive product when a cheaper product in your range would have met the customers requirements.

 

[HapticSimian]

Two words - 'U N C A P P E D' & 'I N T E R N E T' - simple, really.

And no, I don't have shares in OW. To tell the truth, my ADSL was only connected on Saturday morning. But, I have been lurking around these parts for a couple of years (almost like yourself, I see) and I've seen MrBEEP's approach to his clients.

I'm also not impulsive enough to randomly toss money about. I research my purchases properly. If our buddy thriel here could get his account details via a PM on this forum, it means he was online. He could've popped onto OW's website & spent 10 seconds reading...

 

[thriel]

Two words - 'U N C A P P E D' & 'I N T E R N E T' - simple, really.

And no, I don't have shares in OW. To tell the truth, my ADSL was only connected on Saturday morning. But, I have been lurking around these parts for a couple of years (almost like yourself, I see) and I've seen MrBEEP's approach to his clients.

I'm also not impulsive enough to randomly toss money about. I research my purchases properly. If our buddy thriel here could get his account details via a PM on this forum, it means he was online. He could've popped onto OW's website & spent 10 seconds reading...

reading what ?

Am suppose to guess that they keep the terms on their website ? Is the sales guy not suppose to disclose that info over the phone or direct me to where i can see it ?

Whenever you sign ANY contract, read the fine print.

good point, but show me where you find my signature, i dont see it anywhere. please read properly before you post nonsense.

 

[LazyLion]

please read properly before you post nonsense.

Bwahahaha! You're telling others now to read something properly before acting on it??? That's classic! Just think about what you said...

 

[IdlePhaedrus]

I have watched this thread and others with interest over the last few days. Interestingly, in March, I had exactly the opposite problem to Thriel. I ordered an 8 Gig SAIX account from OpenWeb to urgently download some software from Europe, and couldn't get it activated 'cause they thought I only wanted it from the first of the following month.

However, I am probably a bit more proactive than Thriel, and did manage to get it activated after about eight hours, but did have to apply a little pressure in the end.

Also, I had exactly the same problem as Thiel with Axxess a month later (though for a much smaller amount). Though I just chalked this up to my own stupidity for not reading their T&C's and product information very well.

I had been a long time user of OpenWeb, using one of their IS accounts for topup at the end of the month, but stopped that awhile ago because the IS accounts were generally just not up to par, and that is certainly not OpenWeb's fault.

I like MrBeep very much, and his approach to me as a customer has always been affable. I have never found him to be offensive or felt that I have had legalease or T&C's pointed at me when I have had an issue, though it was a disappointment to have such a delay to get the 8 gig account activated despite a number of emails (about 5).

MrBeep has addressed the issue in his own inimitable way, and I do believe we can expect the systems at OpenWeb to improve over the next week or two. I have every reason to believe that they will if that is their stated intent, and hopefully I will not be proved wrong.

Having said all of that, it must be remembered that the reason we use Axxess and OpenWeb and various other 'smaller' ISPs for similar products here in South Africa is that internet access here is expensive. In such an environment, issues are bound to crop up because things are being run on a shoe-string budget and all the money is going to the incumbent. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the real issue here, the rest is just blather.

Now, this is probably where I hijack this thread, which probably deserved to be hijacked anyway. Seacom. The way I understand it, the 'smaller' ISPs like OpenWeb and Axxess don't have direct access to the bandwidth, they have to purchase it through the larger ISPs like Neotel, Verizon and IS etc.

None of the larger ISPs (besides Seacom itself) have made any comments about pricing come Seacom, not really, and none of the smaller ISPs have given any indication of what their pricing will be like after Seacom is operational, and this seems rather strange to me, as go live date is less than 20 days away. So what is really going on here?

I for one would appreciate it if OpenWeb, Axxess, et al, would give some indication of what their relationship with Seacom is going to be, surely they must all be in negotiations with the bigger ISPs by now. I know I certainly would be if it gave me a bit of an edge, even if it was a small one.

We have had "pricing will drop dramatically come Seacom", we have had "pricing will probably not come down for a few months", we have had "pricing will probably not come down until more cables have landed", we have had "we cannot use Seacom because it is not 'SAFE'". Oh and don't forget the pirates.

The basic issue is, we have a second cable going live shortly, and on the face of it, the price for bandwidth is about ten times cheaper than SAT3/SAFE (despite Telkom's recent propaganda). If I was a smaller ISP I would be banging on Seacom's door and saying let me in!!!! Let me in!!! And then doing a bit of intelligent routing so I have fail-over across both cables, spending a 10th on SAT3 and the rest on Seacom to ensure a steady service. Surely this is not rocket science?

So, a challenge, and perhaps a new thread is required for this, up to the mods:

A bit of transparency from the larger ISPs on what their pricing is going to be come Seacom and what the routing possibilities are between Seacom and SAT3 for failover.

A bit of feedback from the smaller ISPs as to their progress with negotiations with the Seacom resident ISPs. Folks your products are all gonna be pretty much the same. I think it is time we knew what you are going to offer as a result. Even if it is "the tits who own the Seacom bandwidth are colluding", because that would be a bloody good start, and can be taken somewhere.

Long post, sorry, and well, so it is.