Problems frustrate broadband consumers
TelkomInternet’s ADSL customers were once again cut off due to problems regarding international connectivity yesterday afternoon. The problems started around 15:30 on Sunday and according to user feedback were resolved just before 19:00 that day.
Telkom however did not ‘officially’ detect any problems. “We have no confirmed outages from Telkom’s side on Sunday,” stated the incumbent.
Telkom is not the only operator plagued by problems. Internet Solutions’ ADSL customers are also suffering from international connectivity issues.
The latest problems occurred on Friday with many users reporting problems connecting to international sites. Users are growing increasingly frustrated with these outages and many IS customers are voicing their grievances on the MyADSL forums.
IS informed MyADSL that these problems may be related to ESR or DSLAM problems from Telkom’s side, but that not all ISDSL customers were affected.
Internet Solutions are aware of the frustration caused by irregular connectivity and are addressing the issue.
“Please bear in mind that during bad weather related incidents, ISDSL will not loose complete international connectivity for an extended amount of time, but will still have intermittent connectivity. To mitigate this affect that bad weather has on the ISDSL service, IS is in the process of launching an alternate international satellite service in a geographically different area local and international as a backup to the current service. We expect this service to be operational by 1 April 2006,” Internet Solutions said.
“IS will also be launching a fibre ISDSL service soon which will give our customers the option between satellite and fibre for their international connectivity on their ISDSL service,” they continued.
South Africa’s other large 1st tier ISP, Verizon (the old UUNet), was not spared as they were one of the companies affected by a Telkom hardware failure on the ATM network in the Rosebank exchange late on the 2nd of March.
“A STM-16 card failed at 16:03 & Telkom managed to replace the hardware by 12:07 that night. It was really a Telkom failure that impacted their customers – no problem between the networks,” Verizon said.
The wireless providers are not immune to these types of problems and WBS is the latest company to be dogged by connectivity issues.
Yesterday many iBurst users complained about international connectivity problems. Very low speeds were reported from various locations in Gauteng.
To exacerbate WBS customer frustrations they are also struggling with SMTP issues.
“WBS has unfortunately been temporarily blacklisted due to the irresponsible use of email by a small minority of iBurst users. Blacklisting is a risk faced by ISPs worldwide and WBS has already drafted a policy aimed at limiting email abuse in response to today’s temporary inconvenience,” WBS said.
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