Telkom Line Speed

[werfie]

Hi Guys,

So I am entangled in a fight with Telkom at the moment. I need to give some background...

I got my ADSL line in 2014. It was a 10mbps line at the time through Afrihost. I remember having to fight for two months with all sorts of excuses from Telkom before they eventually installed the line.

After about 4 months of the line running fine, I downgraded it to 4mbps also through Afrihost - money saving exercise. The line ran at that for about another year when I decided to go to a 2mbps line, moving the line back to Telkom to make use of a DoBroadband bundle. Once again no issues. I always checked my line stats and my attainable rate on my router was always around 9-11mbps. It then suddenly jumped up to about 17mbps. It stayed like this for a long time. About two months ago I was out of the country for more than a month, when I got back my 2mbps line struggled more than usual. My attainable rate was suddenly just about the same as the speed of my line, it also fluctuated to anything between 1800 to 2200. I logged a line fault with Telkom, which they just closed. I left that there. A while ago I won a Showmax voucher on MyBB and decided to give it a good test. I phoned Telkom and requested that the line gets upped to 10bmps again. #enter a very long bad service story here#. Boils down to me having spoken to 15 people on different levels, explaining to them that the line used to be 10mbps and 4mbps in the past - I can hear there blank expressions over the phone when I say that, then they promise to get back to me then... nothing. They just blatantly refused to do anything saying I am too far from the exchange and eventually just closed the order despite me explaining to them over and over it used to work just fine a short while ago.

Neither my house, nor the exchange moved, so how is this possible???? I am attaching my line stats at the moment and don't know if there is any indication on what the problem may be.

I am at my wits end, there is no alternative where I live, no Fiber, no LTE coverage... I have to say this and previous experiences has made Telkom the worst company I have ever dealt with. Hands down. It is as if they teach incompetence and ignorance as part of their induction or something.

Any advice, soothing words, strong liquor or illegal medication will be appreciated!

(Note how my rate is slightly higher than the attainable rate in the screenshot :wtf

 

[Mr.Jax]

Make sure everything on your side is perfect, you can try/check the following:

a) If you can hear noise (clicking, scratching sounds) on the telkom phone, log a noisy phone line issue (don't log it as an adsl issue) -- this works sometimes.
b) Replace your POTS filter
c) Remove everything else from the phone line (filter, phone, fax?, alarm system?, everything except the modem)
d) Check all the wiring yourself; check the connector box where the modem plugs in and if you can, check where the line enters the building, there's usually another connector box.
e) Try a different router.
f) If your line terminates in more than one place, make sure both ends have POTS filters.
g) This could also be caused by external interference, but unlikely. (any new appliances, unplug everything except the modem/pc)

 

[werfie]

Make sure everything on your side is perfect, you can try/check the following:

a) If you can hear noise (clicking, scratching sounds) on the telkom phone, log a noisy phone line issue (don't log it as an adsl issue) -- this works sometimes.
b) Replace your POTS filter
c) Remove everything else from the phone line (filter, phone, fax?, alarm system?, everything except the modem)
d) Check all the wiring yourself; check the connector box where the modem plugs in and if you can, check where the line enters the building, there's usually another connector box.
e) Try a different router.
f) If your line terminates in more than one place, make sure both ends have POTS filters.
g) This could also be caused by external interference, but unlikely. (any new appliances, unplug everything except the modem/pc)

Thanks for the advice, I will try some of these. The line is purely used for ADSL, I don't even have a phone to plug in to listen to the line. The line also comes directly from the pole to the box where I plug the router in. Don't have a POTS filter (never had one - the router never synced at all when I connected that). No new appliances or any systems connected to the line.

This is what baffles me. Nothing has ever changed with the line. The router is plugged in and sitting there next to everything that always was in the immediate vicinity but now Telkom tells me I am too far from the exchange???

I will see what of these I can try, I know sometimes the weirdest thing causes problems, but it still don't see how anything like this can have such a severe effect on the line, even from Telkom's side, but who knows.

 

[vorman]

is this ultimately about gettign back to the 10Mbps line speed?

You may check your highest available line speed here http://www2.telkom.co.za/checkadsl/check.htm

Maybe the exchange no more supports the 10Mbps for some ridiculous reason.

you may also check with afrihost and maybe then eventually get your line from them or any other line service provider?

 

[krustyrsa]

Hi Guys,

So I am entangled in a fight with Telkom at the moment. I need to give some background...

I got my ADSL line in 2014. It was a 10mbps line at the time through Afrihost. I remember having to fight for two months with all sorts of excuses from Telkom before they eventually installed the line.

After about 4 months of the line running fine, I downgraded it to 4mbps also through Afrihost - money saving exercise. The line ran at that for about another year when I decided to go to a 2mbps line, moving the line back to Telkom to make use of a DoBroadband bundle. Once again no issues. I always checked my line stats and my attainable rate on my router was always around 9-11mbps. It then suddenly jumped up to about 17mbps. It stayed like this for a long time. About two months ago I was out of the country for more than a month, when I got back my 2mbps line struggled more than usual. My attainable rate was suddenly just about the same as the speed of my line, it also fluctuated to anything between 1800 to 2200. I logged a line fault with Telkom, which they just closed. I left that there. A while ago I won a Showmax voucher on MyBB and decided to give it a good test. I phoned Telkom and requested that the line gets upped to 10bmps again. #enter a very long bad service story here#. Boils down to me having spoken to 15 people on different levels, explaining to them that the line used to be 10mbps and 4mbps in the past - I can hear there blank expressions over the phone when I say that, then they promise to get back to me then... nothing. They just blatantly refused to do anything saying I am too far from the exchange and eventually just closed the order despite me explaining to them over and over it used to work just fine a short while ago.

Neither my house, nor the exchange moved, so how is this possible???? I am attaching my line stats at the moment and don't know if there is any indication on what the problem may be.

I am at my wits end, there is no alternative where I live, no Fiber, no LTE coverage... I have to say this and previous experiences has made Telkom the worst company I have ever dealt with. Hands down. It is as if they teach incompetence and ignorance as part of their induction or something.

Any advice, soothing words, strong liquor or illegal medication will be appreciated!

(Note how my rate is slightly higher than the attainable rate in the screenshot :wtf

View attachment 376236

What I think is ASSIA detected a line fault, and changed all your stats to accommodate the 2mb line. Happened to me as well. My line synced at 4mb and just one day it dropped to 2mb, my ATT and SNR changed. I had to change my Modulation to get my 4mb line back. I struggled for almost 3 months to get it fixed, they eventually replaced the entire copper cable up to the telephone pole and its now back to normal, I also managed to get ASSIA removed from my line and that helped a lot. Check your PM's try my solution, It helped me a few times

 

[werfie]

is this ultimately about gettign back to the 10Mbps line speed?

You may check your highest available line speed here http://www2.telkom.co.za/checkadsl/check.htm

Maybe the exchange no more supports the 10Mbps for some ridiculous reason.

you may also check with afrihost and maybe then eventually get your line from them or any other line service provider?

Thanks...

On that url, my exchange says 10. So I don't know what Telkom is smoking. I will phone Afrihost to find out if they can force a certain speed or if they are also dependent on what Telkom says you can get...

 

[werfie]

What I think is ASSIA detected a line fault, and changed all your stats to accommodate the 2mb line. Happened to me as well. My line synced at 4mb and just one day it dropped to 2mb, my ATT and SNR changed. I had to change my Modulation to get my 4mb line back. I struggled for almost 3 months to get it fixed, they eventually replaced the entire copper cable up to the telephone pole and its now back to normal, I also managed to get ASSIA removed from my line and that helped a lot. Check your PM's try my solution, It helped me a few times

Thanks, I will try your suggestion, it is just very frustrating not getting hold of anyone at Telkom to have a problem solving discussion on a more technical level. There is a barrier of entry into that company like you cannot believe. All you get is "Computer says NO". I have asked them to speak to someone in this "Technical Department" they keep on referring to, but to no avail.

 

[krustyrsa]

Thanks, I will try your suggestion, it is just very frustrating not getting hold of anyone at Telkom to have a problem solving discussion on a more technical level. There is a barrier of entry into that company like you cannot believe. All you get is "Computer says NO". I have asked them to speak to someone in this "Technical Department" they keep on referring to, but to no avail.

lol its just a excuse to hide their laziness. They can go the extra mile, but just refuses to