Telkom Temporary Cable

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Lanthie

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The overhead portion of my ADSL line was stolen last week (around 500m from my property). Telkom has finally run a new line. However, according to the technician - it is a temporary cable. I enquired why it was a temporary cable as surely it is the same amount of effort to run a new "permanent" cable as it is to run a temporary cable. He agreed but stated that Telkom is no longer running permanent cables and if they do, it could take them a year to run a new cable. Apparently is is a budgeting issue??

My question is: what does a temporary cable mean - does this mean that my line is inferior and more prone to errors etc? And if so, how do I get them to run a decent cable?

My line has never been 100% stable in the first place - I think my speed etc is slow, but am I just looking for reasons to complain or is a temporary cable as good as a permanent cable?
 
Maybe it's ecofriendly and decomposes after a while?
Or, much more spectacular, like a vampire it turns to dust once exposed to sunlight or water!

What it means in reality is: "We give you a temporary and inferior fix while we think about ways to cancel our service to your house completely. Because, you sir, are no longer a profitable source of income for us. In other words: We're pissing you off until you cancel, this is cheaper for us."
 
Strange that they say they are no longer installing permanent cables, I had issues with my SNR margin being very unstable for a couple of weeks. So I log a call with Telkom, next morning the technician phones me to say that he's at the exchange looking into the problem. At about 16:00 he phones me again and tells me he's replaced the cable from the pole running into the house, I nearly fell off my chair as I know Telkom rarely replaces cables. So when I get home I check the cable to make sure it was replaced and I could clearly see that it's a new cable.
 
Haven't heard of this temp cable thing. But am still waiting for over 3 years to have a cable fixed that has made itself comfortable over some trees.
 
My parents once had a "temporary cable" for their SDSL/ADSL connection, where Telkom literally laid a cable over our front lawn and then it went along the gutter (visible on the street) for quite a bit down their street.
 
HermanTheGerman said:
What it means in reality is: "We give you a temporary and inferior fix while we think about ways to cancel our service to your house completely. Because, you sir, are no longer a profitable source of income for us. In other words: We're pissing you off until you cancel, this is cheaper for us."
Click to expand...
Having had to endure no service as a result of cable theft myself (mine took nearly 2 years, and now I'm also sitting with a 'temporary service' connection... so a week is nothing @Lanthie, seriously - consider yourself lucky), this is one of the possible reasons that explained the lack of service restoration for me. Eventually I changed my mind about that though... I think the real reason is pathetic management and planning thanks to incompetence and greed. Why else would Telkom be offering their 3 month free DSL promotion? Why would they still be perusing the last mile with 20/40Mbps DSL offerings? It's their reluctance to actually do anything about the cable theft problem which would be the reason for why they'd not be making a profit in the copper last-mile
 
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