Telkom Unecessary Callout - Will I be charged

[Diesal]

Yesterday, phoned Telkom to log a fault, I stated that the ADSL was unstable and kept on re-sycing. I also made it clear to the call centre agent, that the fault has occurred after 7 PM on Monday and Tuesday (18, 19th respectively). I also made it clear that there was noise on the line, the call centre agent should of heard it as well.

Today (between 12:30 and 13:15) a techie appears at our house, unannounced and tests the line and determines that there is no fault? - Which I stated on the phone, as the issue appears after 7PM.

Will I be charged now for an unnecessary call out, by my logic I think I should not be charged, as I made it perfectly clear there was a fault, the recording of the call should testify to that?

Thoughts anyone?

 

[chrisc]

Well, if they do, you must immediately lodge a complaint. I had the same a few months back, the Telkom fellow came in when I was not there, picked up the phone handset and said there was no problem

Then another tech came a week later and replaced over 10 metres of corroded cable. I was charged but got a refund about 3 or 4 months later

 

[Dean]

Yesterday, phoned Telkom to log a fault, I stated that the ADSL was unstable and kept on re-sycing. I also made it clear to the call centre agent, that the fault has occurred after 7 PM on Monday and Tuesday (18, 19th respectively). I also made it clear that there was noise on the line, the call centre agent should of heard it as well.

Today (between 12:30 and 13:15) a techie appears at our house, unannounced and tests the line and determines that there is no fault? - Which I stated on the phone, as the issue appears after 7PM.

Will I be charged now for an unnecessary call out, by my logic I think I should not be charged, as I made it perfectly clear there was a fault, the recording of the call should testify to that?

Thoughts anyone?

Were you clear that the noise only occurs after 7pm rather that you having only noticed it after 7pm on Monday and Tuesday?

Generally noise on the line is due to broken links/joins/cabling. I lived with the issue for years before it finally got to the point where I could hardly sync, and the techie had to rewire the one junction point in my house.

It's rare that the noise would come from outside a house, so anything that they rewire inside would be for your account anyway (not that he did anything - a once-off "line test" doesn't seem to be the best way to test for an intermittent noise issue).

 

[Spynx]

I've logged many faults, techie came out, stated no faults. I have never been charged for any call-out.

 

[Leftfoot]

No you should not get charged for that fault. That call out charge is specifically for customer equipment faults where customer owned equipment is the root cause of the faulty condition.

Telkom expects you to remove all private equipment (faxes, alarms, modems, filters etc) from the line thereby eliminating the possibility of the fault not being on the line.

"Cleared while localising" faults are not considered unnecessary call-outs, especially if they are intermittent.

As for a noise fault....In my experience noise such as a hum (50hz) is most likely an "earth" contact fault. ie somewhere alone the line the copper is touching "ground". Look for trees touching the dropwire coming to the house as branches can rub through the insulation and when the dew settles in, hum is heard.

Scratchy noise are most often "dry" or loose connections in plugs and connectors. While listening to the dailtone on the phone, wriggle any plug or connection you can see. Clean or tighten that connection.

Overhearing (other phone lines) noise is most likely to be in the multicore cables where we dont have any access. Usually its moisture in the cable. ADSL lines "hearing" each other can results in sync errors and bad connectivity.

In the past the techs used test equipment to test the lines for these conditions. Nowadays each line is supposed to be tested prior to the tech going out. The test results had to fit within certain tolerances:
Earth < 10Mohms is a fault condition
Contact (-ve) > 8V DC is a fault condition

I always query the line test results before a tech leaves, this ensures that they have actually tested the copper and that I know that the results are within tolerance. All to often lazy techs just listen for dailtone, or connect their laptop to the router and tell you all is well. Actually, its just not as simple as that.

Line capacitance also plays a role with ADSL but that's another issue entirely.

 

[MickeyD]

^above post should be bookmarked^

 

[Diesal]

Thanks all for the replies, however if I do get billed I'll post it here.

Were you clear that the noise only occurs after 7pm rather that you having only noticed it after 7pm on Monday and Tuesday?

Generally noise on the line is due to broken links/joins/cabling. I lived with the issue for years before it finally got to the point where I could hardly sync, and the techie had to rewire the one junction point in my house.

It's rare that the noise would come from outside a house, so anything that they rewire inside would be for your account anyway (not that he did anything - a once-off "line test" doesn't seem to be the best way to test for an intermittent noise issue).

While I was on the phone to the Call centre there was noise, it was bad it sounded as if someone was messing with the lines at one of the green boxes, ranging from dial tones to hissing, along with this there were huge fluctuations in SNR? Sometimes it was at 20db and then dropped down to below 6db.

 

[Dean]

Thanks all for the replies, however if I do get billed I'll post it here.




While I was on the phone to the Call centre there was noise, it was bad it sounded as if someone was messing with the lines at one of the green boxes, ranging from dial tones to hissing, along with this there were huge fluctuations in SNR? Sometimes it was at 20db and then dropped down to below 6db.

Do you by any chance not have ADSL/POTS filters on your telephones, etc.?

Is it possible that it's happening whenever someone makes a call? eg. after 7pm for callmore time and also while you're on the line to Telkom... or am I being ridiculous

 

[Diesal]

All connections have filters, except the router ofc, the issue has stopped since the techie has been here the line has been solid again, at least until it rains again.

Edit there were no phone calls being made at that time, which means it could've been outside interference.

 

[oldhat]

Good luck Xzib1t! I once reported that my Telkom line was noisy whenever it rained. They sent out a techie to test it after a hot, dry week & billed me for the callout. Tried complaining to them but they just ignored me