Telkom fixed-line and ADSL shocker

donal said:
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.
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i cancelled online and it was done in just over a month, you just need to chat with them online to see how far the cancellation is, they will escalate it.
 
Arzy said:
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.
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You don't know what you are talking about. Fall out? Telkom knew years ago that ADSL is a dying technology and they stopped investing in it and started to pump money into fibre. Telkom has a solid fibre network and most of the people that dropped ADSL are still Telkom customers in some way.
 
ngwe23 said:
You don't know what you are talking about. Fall out? Telkom knew years ago that ADSL is a dying technology and they stopped investing in it and started to pump money into fibre. Telkom has a solid fibre network and most of the people that dropped ADSL are still Telkom customers in some way.
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So you are saying that the 276k decline isn't fallout?
 
I'm still on ADSL (so my parents and brother). Fibre not available. When Fibre is here, were are gone from ADSL. Cheers to telkom for charging me landline (which I don't use)
 
TelkomUseless said:
I'm still on ADSL (so my parents and brother). Fibre not available. When Fibre is here, were are gone from ADSL. Cheers to telkom for charging me landline (which I don't use)
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They are digging up sidewalks for fibre in my area currently. Will hopefully be connected this year some time :D
 
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Also got fed up with "up to" ADSL.
Pay for 8Mbps ADSL - get 5Mps.
Telkom ADSL should only be allowed to charge for the sync speed and not the marketing speed.
Anyway, 5Mbps was just not cutting it in 2018.

Switched to WISP at the beginning of the year - so far it's reasonably good.
Waiting for Fibre.
 
Arzy said:
So you are saying that the 276k decline isn't fallout?
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No, it's not. ADLS is on its way out. Even Telkom themselves are encouraging people to migrate to Fibre if they can. Telkom wants to consolidate their services around one technology: fibre. Having fibre and a legacy ADSL in tandem is costly for them.
 
ngwe23 said:
No, it's not. ADLS is on its way out. Even Telkom themselves are encouraging people to migrate to Fibre if they can. Telkom wants to consolidate their services around one technology: fibre. Having fibre and a legacy ADSL in tandem is costly for them.
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You seem to be missing my point, this isn't simply about ADSL. Telkom is losing subscribers in general, just to highlight again:

Newsfeed said:
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.
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and from the article directly:

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
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According to the article, they lost 9% of their userbase in a year. This isn't just ADSL, its lines in general.

The likes of Vodacom, Vumatel, MTN and anyone else with a bit of capital spare are dumping fibre into every area and securing the customers faster than Telkom can react.

Telkom isn't consolidating anything at this point, they simply didn't move with the times when they had the opportunity to do so.
 
MickeyD said:
Hmmm.... not so sure I agree with you on that. Fixed lines includes fibre.
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Maybe now. When I was still at Telkom, they did not publish any figures on fibre services. They only published the number of "homes passed" . Actual takeup was a big secret.
 
Arzy said:
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.
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There is a very big difference between a monopoly protected by legislation (as Telkom's was) and a "monopoly" protected by commercial licensing agreements (as DStv currently has). These are inherently different concepts. If I move from DStv to Netflix I cannot access certain content I previously had access to. If I move from Telkom to Afrihost I can still access the same services which is why comparing Telkom to DStv isn't a proper comparison.
 
I firmly believe that it is because of their shocking customer service.
 
Arzy said:
You seem to be missing my point, this isn't simply about ADSL. Telkom is losing subscribers in general, just to highlight again:



and from the article directly:



According to the article, they lost 9% of their userbase in a year. This isn't just ADSL, its lines in general.

The likes of Vodacom, Vumatel, MTN and anyone else with a bit of capital spare are dumping fibre into every area and securing the customers faster than Telkom can react.

Telkom isn't consolidating anything at this point, they simply didn't move with the times when they had the opportunity to do so.
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This article focuses purely on fixed line services, it ignores the fact that Telkom's business is more than fixed line. There was a time when Telkom's fate was intrinsically tied to thier fixed line numbers. THis is no longer the case because they have divesified into new technologies. Thier fibre customers are growing even as thier fixed line numbers are droping. The drop in fixed line numbers is by design. ADSL is old, expensive and limited technology that Telkom wants to phase out eventially.
 
ngwe23 said:
You don't know what you are talking about. Fall out? Telkom knew years ago that ADSL is a dying technology and they stopped investing in it and started to pump money into fibre. Telkom has a solid fibre network and most of the people that dropped ADSL are still Telkom customers in some way.
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That would be nice if it was true.

Not too many years ago, Telkom initiated a massive drive to replace all their ADSL network (including brand new 10 mb/s systems) with VDSL. A MAJOR contact was awarded to a well-known Chinese company, in accordance with ANC policy to sell South Africa to China.

When people pointed out that other countries (and Vumatel at that time) were deploying fibre to the home, these people were either shussed-up or transferred to another section.

Now Telkom is deploying fiber in the same areas that have the new VDSL infrastructure. Fibre systems are supplied and installed by the same Chinese company.
 
dennis.se.foon said:
That would be nice if it was true.

Not too many years ago, Telkom initiated a massive drive to replace all their ADSL network (including brand new 10 mb/s systems) with VDSL. A MAJOR contact was awarded to a well-known Chinese company, in accordance with ANC policy to sell South Africa to China.

When people pointed out that other countries (and Vumatel at that time) were deploying fibre to the home, these people were either shussed-up or transferred to another section.

Now Telkom is deploying fiber in the same areas that have the new VDSL infrastructure. Fibre systems are supplied and installed by the same Chinese company.
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The point being what? Which part of my post are you disputing? The fact that Telkom has over the years been investing in fibre?
 
ngwe23 said:
The point being what? Which part of my post are you disputing? The fact that Telkom has over the years been investing in fibre?
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Yep. They started with VDSL deployment when they should have started fibre deployment. This gave their opposition a window of about 3 years to get their foot (s) into the door.
 
Entirely due to their shocking service. Especially subcontractors who know zilch but have pas in Telkom
 
dennis.se.foon said:
Yep. They started with VDSL deployment when they should have started fibre deployment. This gave their opposition a window of about 3 years to get their foot (s) into the door.
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Debatable, but I will grant you that. But the point of my original post was that there is not "fall out" because of this drop in fixed line numbers.
 
Is anyone surprised?

Telkom battled to keep the last mile monopoly. They screwed everyone.. well, time has come to pay the piper..
 
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