Telkom fixed-line and ADSL shocker

Newsfeed

Newsfeed

MyBroadband Newsfeed
Staff member
Joined
Jun 28, 2017
Messages
6,805
Reaction score
648
Telkom fixed-line and ADSL shocker

Telkom has released its financial results for the year ended 31 March 2018, which shows the biggest fixed-line and ADSL subscriber decline since the company listed in 2003.

Telkom now has 2,678,000 fixed-line subscribers, down from 2,954,000 a year ago. This is a year-on-year decline of 276,000 lines.
 
Lets see, no upgrades to the infrastructure, it can sometimes take years to get an ADSL line, when you do it's stuck at 4megs and you charge a fortune. As soon as there was another viable option did ya think people weren't gonna go for it Telkom?
 
R500 uncapped will sell way better the R600 somewhat package that includes land line which nobody uses
 
No surprises here

OCP said:
Fibre ... Duh!
Click to expand...
This is a year-on-year decline of 276,000 lines.
Telkom fixed broadband subscribers have dropped, down by 22,345 subscribers over the past year.
Click to expand...
Cell Phones & VoIP cheaper than POTS accounted for the 276,000 lines lost.
Slow ADSL speeds and expensive per/mbit vs Fibre, fixed LTE, WISP accounted for 22,345.

What is a surprise is that Telkom has any ADSL & POTS subscribers at all.
 
My neighbourhood is getting fibre. Installation should be complete in a couple of months. Once that happens, expect many of us to disconnect our lines. I cancelled my landline a few years ago due to unusable ADSL - replaced with mobile Internet. I am beyond excited!

May Telkom continue to lose more customers!
 
Scan_2218.jpg

Do I understand this correctly? Telkom has 981 176 active Broadband connections. TelkomInternet has 572 402 subscribers. That is a 58% market share!!
 
Nobody pointing out the similarity to DSTV?

Once again an entrenched encumbent not moving with the times and being soundly punished.
 
I am not sure I buy these numbers - unless it is because Telkom is frustrating cancellations.

I reason existing ADSL subscribers would be the first that jump to fibre ... and I am pretty sure the other FTTH providers has been adding *a lot* more than 20 -odd thousand customers.

Vumatel and Octotel is connecting 100 customers a day in Cape Town alone at this moment...
 
Not in the least bit surprising. What is surprising is that they've lost so little. This is what happens when you sit back on your laurels thinking you rule the roost. It won't be long before fixed lines and ADSL will be totally extinct. I hope Multichoice is making notes because their necks are on the chopping block as well.
 
InfidelGastro said:
Not in the least bit surprising. What is surprising is that they've lost so little. This is what happens when you sit back on your laurels thinking you rule the roost. It won't be long before fixed lines and ADSL will be totally extinct. I hope Multichoice is making notes because their necks are on the chopping block as well.
Click to expand...

Hmmm.... not so sure I agree with you on that. Fixed lines includes fibre.
 
Number of subscribers dropping should mean improved performance however it seems like performance gets worse.
 
InfidelGastro said:
Not in the least bit surprising. What is surprising is that they've lost so little. This is what happens when you sit back on your laurels thinking you rule the roost. It won't be long before fixed lines and ADSL will be totally extinct. I hope Multichoice is making notes because their necks are on the chopping block as well.
Click to expand...

I can almost say with 100% certainty that the numbers should be higher and I would put it down to how difficult they make it to cancel their services.
 
I was on a 2MB ADSL connection, but max speed was 1.5 Mbps - Telkom's "best effort". When wireless broadband became an option in my area (no fibre yet), I immediately jumped ship and cancelled both ADSL and POTS on 21 March 2018. I received an acknowledgement of the cancellation request, which should have occurred on 21 April.

When I followed up I was initially given the run-around, but when I threatened to take steps against them they explained that it may take up to 2 months to update their billing system, after which I must request a refund for the 2 extra months they billed me.

With this sort of behaviour I suspect the cancellation numbers might actually be higher, as they will likely add my March cancellation to the June 2018 stats.
 
telkoms purse man. majority of us stuck on 4mbps while they chase fast internet for a handful. R500 for just their infrastructure a month for that blazingly fast 4mbps. ****ing insane. i have no alternative.

actually thats a lie. i think the lte is a bit more than what im paying now. and vox is working on my last nerve peak times. in bed with the devil i know i suppose.
 
Last edited:
It's all related to Service, or the lack of service. In the city of George there is a local Facebook group and almost every day there is someone complaining about the Telkom service and the lack of support. Telkom came and wanted to install Fibre for us twice, even after we said that we already have fibre.

People's lines go down for weeks. The lines at the Telkom office are long... Telkom even stopped accepting cancellation of services and eventually came out with some online system. People are billed for services that are not working.

The only answer for Telkom is to upgrade it's service system. From the user coming to the Telkom shop to following up every day when there is a service down. Its easy, but I doubt there systems have been correctly setup. Closing support tickets just because they are old and forcing people to open new ones do not work for clients. It might look good on your call centre stats, but they are paying lots of money for a useless call centre.

Luckly, most Telkom services can be replaced with another service from another company. Telkom's monopolies will slowly die, as monopolies are bad. Bad in every way.
 
Arzy said:
Nobody pointing out the similarity to DSTV?

Once again an entrenched encumbent not moving with the times and being soundly punished.
Click to expand...

Not quite the same, Telkom doesn't have a monopoly on content like DStv does - it's not like you can't go to another ISP and not be able to access Facebook.
 
Hellkom are definitely frustrating cancellations: busy doing one for my Dad now as he had to move. It took 3 months just for someone to get back to me about transferring the line that I bit the bullet and went LTE instead. Now when you try and cencel you find the online process doesn't work as all emails bounce back, but if you go into a Telkom 'shop' they tell you no, they can't do it you must use the online process!! AND it takes 60 days to go through and then you have to call their useless call centre to 'claim your outstanding balance back' from Billing.

If anyone who has been thru this knows of a better way... I'm all ears.
 
quovadis said:
Not quite the same, Telkom doesn't have a monopoly on content like DStv does - it's not like you can't go to another ISP and not be able to access Facebook.
Click to expand...

Telkom was a protected entity (monopoly) for decades and getting connectivity without them was rather difficult as they effectively owned almost all the infrastructure. If you didn't go with Telkom you had nothing, similar to DSTV for content.

With the advent of new technologies (WiFi, Mobile, Fibre) and additional breakouts (Seacom, WACS) Telkom's hold was broken and they needed to innovate in order to keep customers, which they didn't, and are now dealing with the fallout.

Similarly as streaming is becoming more popular (mostly thanks to the technologies that are killing Telkom) DSTV is bleeding clients.

In my mind the similarities are definitely there irrespective if you refer to infrastructure or content.
 
The minute people were given the opportunity to get rid of that idiotic monthly line rental, they took it.

I'm not surprised by the numbers
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X