Telkom LTE service scam

[haswegen]

You will receive your LTE equipment along with a letter inviting you to activate it and that a technician will contact you to install the external antenna.

The 7 day cooling off period will expire and no technician will ever contact you.

So, we are stuck with an LTE service that is at best similar to 3G. We have tried in vain since 24 June to get hold of a Technician to come and install the external antenna. At least 8 calls and escalations and repeated promises but no joy.

Net result is Telkom will claim we "accepted" this service when we activated the sim (as the letter invites you to do) and as such we are now suckered into an expensive 2 years contract on a product that does not deliver any joy!! I am very angry!! Just empty promises, a lot of time wasted holding on and a heap of money each month.

Do anyone here perhaps have a number or contact detail other than the 081180 number so I can actually reach the Telkom Technical department and beg them to come install this poynting antenna in the Durbanville area! Hell I will even pay a private person who knows his stuff. I tried putting it on my daughters netbal pole and turned in all directions I could find towers using an app and a map but my 4MB/ps ADSL (crap as it is) is still faster. I am +-80% into the LTE coverage area so if done properly this should work.

Peace
Herman

 

[Noob-Noob]

You will receive your LTE equipment along with a letter inviting you to activate it and that a technician will contact you to install the external antenna.

The 7 day cooling off period will expire and no technician will ever contact you.

So, we are stuck with an LTE service that is at best similar to 3G. We have tried in vain since 24 June to get hold of a Technician to come and install the external antenna. At least 8 calls and escalations and repeated promises but no joy.

Net result is Telkom will claim we "accepted" this service when we activated the sim (as the letter invites you to do) and as such we are now suckered into an expensive 2 years contract on a product that does not deliver any joy!! I am very angry!! Just empty promises, a lot of time wasted holding on and a heap of money each month.

Do anyone here perhaps have a number or contact detail other than the 081180 number so I can actually reach the Telkom Technical department and beg them to come install this poynting antenna in the Durbanville area! Hell I will even pay a private person who knows his stuff. I tried putting it on my daughters netbal pole and turned in all directions I could find towers using an app and a map but my 4MB/ps ADSL (crap as it is) is still faster. I am +-80% into the LTE coverage area so if done properly this should work.

Peace
Herman

It should actually work without the antenna if you are in the covered area. Install the Huawei Toolbox and check your signal strength. anything below -80dBm should be pretty good. You can get this information when logging into the router as well. If your signal strenth is good, then unfortunately you fall in the same bus as most of us on the forum...http://mybroadband.co.za/news/cellular/171901-telkom-lte-problems.html

Anyway, Regarding your installation problem, you can PM TelkomZA on this site and ask him if he can assist. The Previous TelkomZA rep assisted me with my aerial installation. Unfortunately the previous rep is no longer working here and the new one has a pure 100% Telkom mentality, but go ahead : http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/member.php/258937-TelkomZA

But good luck.

 

[Muttley]

You will receive your LTE equipment along with a letter inviting you to activate it and that a technician will contact you to install the external antenna.

The 7 day cooling off period will expire and no technician will ever contact you.

So, we are stuck with an LTE service that is at best similar to 3G. We have tried in vain since 24 June to get hold of a Technician to come and install the external antenna. At least 8 calls and escalations and repeated promises but no joy.

Net result is Telkom will claim we "accepted" this service when we activated the sim (as the letter invites you to do) and as such we are now suckered into an expensive 2 years contract on a product that does not deliver any joy!! I am very angry!! Just empty promises, a lot of time wasted holding on and a heap of money each month.

Do anyone here perhaps have a number or contact detail other than the 081180 number so I can actually reach the Telkom Technical department and beg them to come install this poynting antenna in the Durbanville area! Hell I will even pay a private person who knows his stuff. I tried putting it on my daughters netbal pole and turned in all directions I could find towers using an app and a map but my 4MB/ps ADSL (crap as it is) is still faster. I am +-80% into the LTE coverage area so if done properly this should work.

Peace
Herman

Contact Jacqui O Sullivan on twitter @jacquiosully

She'll get it sorted.
If you lived in jhb, id offer to come help with the install as this is crucial to this product working properly.

Also bear in mind that the wifi on the B315 router is rubbish so you may need to invest in a decent access point at some stage but I would first try get the device to work properly.

Lastly, nearly everyone who's signed up for this product on mybb (myself included) has experienced quite a bit of frustration in terms of getting the device, installation or general product performance issues so advice would be to breathe and have a bit of patience and persistence in getting them to come out.

 

[haswegen]

Thank you for the advice Lament.

The poynting antenna is hanging off a netball pole in what I believe is the general direction of the Telkom tower. I get -85dBM and 8dB SINR so I should probably not complain too much right?
Thing is my Ookla local speed test tells a different story:
Ping = 24 (no complaints)
Download speed 0.94 Mbps !
Upload speed 8.88Mbps. (Can live with that)

I have it set to use the external antenna in the router settings. Auto was default before.

I also sent a PM like you suggested - I really hope someone replies to that. Feel totally bullied by the mighty Telkom.

 

[haswegen]

Thank you for the advice Lament.

The poynting antenna is hanging off a netball pole in what I believe is the general direction of the Telkom tower. I get -85dBM and 8dB SINR so I should probably not complain too much right?
Thing is my Ookla local speed test tells a different story:
Ping = 24 (no complaints)
Download speed 0.94 Mbps !
Upload speed 8.88Mbps. (Can live with that)

I have it set to use the external antenna in the router settings. Auto was default before.

I also sent a PM like you suggested - I really hope someone replies to that. Feel totally bullied by the mighty Telkom.

 

[marvinFM]

I know someone who returned an their equipment lock stock and barrel. Contract cancelled.. Monies refunded. Reasoning was poor reception area

 

[TofuMofu]

I know someone who returned an their equipment lock stock and barrel. Contract cancelled.. Monies refunded. Reasoning was poor reception area

How did he go about doing that?

 

[marvinFM]

How did he go about doing that?

from the horses mouth

After waiting for somebody to call me about the installation of the antenna, I ended up doing it myself. Logged on to the router to check signal strength etc and according to Google I am sitting in the "Good" range. HOWEVER..... the download speeds were nowhere near what was quoted. Best I saw was 15Mbs out of a claimed 90Mbs and it mostly sat at around the 4-7Mbs mark and the latency was a joke

Had a chat to a Telkom tech who was looking at my faulty telephone line and he reckons I am wasting my time with LTE at my address. The signal in that area is cr@p.

Chatted to the consultant that signed me up and she said no problem. Bring the stuff back and they will log a case and get the contract cancelled due to lack of service.

 

[Noob-Noob]

Thank you for the advice Lament.

The poynting antenna is hanging off a netball pole in what I believe is the general direction of the Telkom tower. I get -85dBM and 8dB SINR so I should probably not complain too much right?
Thing is my Ookla local speed test tells a different story:
Ping = 24 (no complaints)
Download speed 0.94 Mbps !
Upload speed 8.88Mbps. (Can live with that)

I have it set to use the external antenna in the router settings. Auto was default before.

I also sent a PM like you suggested - I really hope someone replies to that. Feel totally bullied by the mighty Telkom.

That's not good, it should be below -80, preferably -70 or below.
With my bunny ears i get -83dBM and i still get +- 20mbps download (During day that is), with the Antenna I get -72 which increases my download speed to between 25 and 30mbps.

You can try getting your signal better, but I doubt the signal is the main problem, even though -85 is bad, you should still get much better download speeds than what you are getting, unfortunately you have to get the your signal to -75dbm or below to eliminate that as the reason.

 

[haswegen]

I am not sure if it was the TelomZA PM or the stink I kicked up in HelloPeter but the technicians arrive this afternoon at 1 and left just before 4PM.

My stats are now a consistent -73dBm. The speed is not much higher than 20Mbps and 9.76 Mbps upload. Having been stuck on a 4Mbps line at the edge of its usefulness for countless years I now feel like that snail on the tortoise's back. wheee...

If I may share my "installation" experience...I was half expecting serious techs with gadgets and meters and oscilloscopes. Instead 2 blokes arrived here, used my internet to locate the closest Telkom LTE on a map and then looked at me to point them in the direction it was. They then explained that the antenna only has to point in the general direction of the tower. It was clear that no strong vocabulary like angles or degrees was required to keep up with this conversation. This is more or less where I took over. I helped them on to the roof and had the guy walk around pointing the device in the general direction of the tower till the spot where I had the best numbers. I then got them to mount it on a pole right there. You could see their drill and ladder was brand spanking new - bought yesterday. The bracket was a bit rusty and the pole was secondhand. It was clear I was one of their first customers. No complaints though - glad to help out up and coming entrepreneurs we need so dearly.

Now perhaps there is more to this installation than pointing the device in the general direction of the tower but if I had known 2 weeks ago what I know now I would have installed the darn thing myself and saved all of you an earful complaining about telkom (the still don't deserve a capital "T") - maybe later.

I took care to pull out the power each time I attached or removed the external antenna wires. I also figured out a couple of day ago that the signal inproved even on the netball pole when setting it to System > Settings > Antenna Settings > External 1 + 2.

Thank for the replies and valuable advice. Sure I am going to learn heaps more in time from you guys and will keep tweaking away to keep that snail happy.

Peace
Herman