Painfully slow Telkom ADSL speed in Honeydew Ridge area

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percyt

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What has happened to the Telkom ADSL line speed in the Honeydew Ridge area? I have for the past month or more been having a major problem with the connection speed slowing to a crawl. Telkom (who is also my ISP) cannot seem to solve or even acknowledge the problem. They say that they are unaware of any 'general' line speed problem in my area. The ADSL speeds are now so bad that I cannot even get to read my Gmail at the best of times. I have resorted to using my MTN 3G card (meant for when I am travelling) at home, full time.

Is anyone else in the Honeydew, Strubens Valley, Allen’s Nek, Weltervreden Park, Randpark Ridge area having the same problem?

Is Telkom trying to persuade (force?) me to upgrade to their fastest line speed? And if I do (upgrade) what guarantee will I have that the same won’t happen in future?
 
I'm also in Honeydew Ridge. And I also have such slow speeds that at times it's almost impossible to browse. And this is on my 4mb line which I got a short while ago.

The Telkom techie told me that the exchange has a single 4mb line going from it to wherever it goes next. So we are all sharing that line. That is if he knows what he is talking about. I'll give them a call tomorrow to complain. The techie also said that they are planning to upgrade it but he doesn't know when and it can even only happen next year. Lets all complain and complain until they do something about it. I don't know what else we can do.
 
Yeah, next time you take a drive around Honeydew (or anywhere on the West Rand really), take note of the Telkom poles on the side of the streets, I'd bet that at least part of the reason Telkom's network is crippling is because 90% of those poles have no copper wires between them. Not exactly the ideal meshed network it should be... and it's not exactly like there's nothing they could/can do about it - they were paying a security company to secure the cables - a company which an investigation revealed does not even exist. Guess where that money went? probably into the same pockets that September's R2mil 'performance' bonus went into
 
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DOoODODODoooDDDDDDDOOOOOOODDDD

im in littlefalls and i my line speed is also on the fritz

im trying to play starcraft2 and im tearing out my hair.

This is bs.

Lets all phone telkom at a specified time tomrow and complain so they listen for once and for ****in alL!
 
I have logged a fault with Telkom and was given a reference number. That's it. Just a number and nobody responded over the last 4 days.
The technician may still be on strike, methinks. Should I hold my breath until I look like a smurf?
 
Must be contagious. Am with WA, based in Randburg CBD, and for past three, four days a lot of sites, local and international refuse to open or take ages to do so.
 
Hi Guys,

Check my earlier post and I am exactly in your area - spoke to sources in Telkom and they did confirm what the techie told you guys and me.

I hope we get this resolved soon and keep it resolved!

>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The whole truth as described by Telkom:

Telkom has implemented Metro Ethernet DSLAMs at many locations resulting in Customer connecting to exchanges through these Metro Networks.
These metro networks (basically the box that you see in the street that says Telkom) connects to the exchange with one fibre cable. At this point in time these fibre cables connecting to the exchanges runs at ONLY 4mb. Therefore, if you have 16 customers in one metro network and all of them are using 4mb services, you will effectively end up with a 4/16mb service. This is the reality and this is where Telkom is at this point.

I big project has been launched within Telkom to upgrade these Metro Networks which will also prepare them for the 10mb lines.

Basically we are paying for 4mb lines which almost never can provide 4mb line speeds and this was raised with icasa by complaining clients.
We must now rally and log calls to identify all these oversubscribed areas, and this may result in a refund for the months where services were slow to you, the customer.

The bottomline, all the speed "promises" of a 4mb or 10mb line will NOT happen until their back-end infrastructure is in place.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
 
Thanks for the info Cyclone. Now I've got a better idea of what the techie was talking about. Man I hope they upgrade this soon!
 
another though to consider:

water in the man hole where some cable is housed:

1.i'm not in honeydew but i'm close to there
2. i have 4 ref numbers over the past 2 weeks
3. yesterday i finally got told that there was water in the manhole that feeds the steeet box.
4. they have made a temp plan to get water out the joiner, so it will work for now. BUT they will have to replace the joiner & some of the cable over the next few days. Problem will then be resolved
5. Until then he says I might have problems at times.
6. Will be sorted during the later part of next week.
7. I'm on higher ground than Honeydew, so it's possible that a similar problem has occured there?
 
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I'm also in the Randburg area and for over a week now I've had poor speeds and latencies for most of the day. Have gotten telkom to send two technicians to my area with both responding to us saying that the problem is fixed... but yet it still persists. :(
 
I'm also living in the Honeydew Ridge / Wilgeheuwel area and I've logged over a dozen calls to sort out my latency, but my calls just simply get closed without anything getting resolved. I have a 4mb line and I'm using a axxess unshaped(SAIX) account. I mostly use it for gaming but with local latency almost always over 500ms it's impossible.

Speed: http://www.speedtest.net/result/831819864.png
Latency as I'm posting this:
Pinging games.saix.net [196.43.22.222] with 32 bytes of data
Reply from 196.43.22.222: bytes=32 time=1259ms TTL=244
Reply from 196.43.22.222: bytes=32 time=1250ms TTL=244
Reply from 196.43.22.222: bytes=32 time=1317ms TTL=244
Request timed out.
Reply from 196.43.22.222: bytes=32 time=44ms TTL=244
Reply from 196.43.22.222: bytes=32 time=22ms TTL=244
Reply from 196.43.22.222: bytes=32 time=200ms TTL=244
Reply from 196.43.22.222: bytes=32 time=169ms TTL=244
Reply from 196.43.22.222: bytes=32 time=132ms TTL=244
Reply from 196.43.22.222: bytes=32 time=505ms TTL=244
Reply from 196.43.22.222: bytes=32 time=551ms TTL=244
Reply from 196.43.22.222: bytes=32 time=181ms TTL=244
Reply from 196.43.22.222: bytes=32 time=305ms TTL=244

Just feels like I'm getting ripped of. I've been complaining for months now and really don't know what to do. Going to one of the wireless providers is out of the question since they also have notoriously high latency.
 
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Thanks to everyone for the replies and comments; it is appreciated.
I finally got hold of a friend that works at Telkom. He works in a different area of the company but offered to get feedback on the problem. Copied below is the actual email reply from the responible person.

"There is a network fault logged for slow speed on this Mini Dslam 88BRK060710 webforce ref 8854603.

The fault is with NIP. latest update on the Network fault ticket is " NIP Update / 2010/07/22:Upgrade to STM1 was unsuccessful will increase the 2 mg to the site"

Hi NF team . Please link the Customer fault ref (XXXXX) to the network fault ref 88BRK060710 ( Mozart 2 Dslam)".


I trust this will help all of us having this problem with our Telkom ADSL. My question now is, should we plan a coordinated complaint with ICASA?
 
I hate this. Tonight I can't load most sites. It took multiple tries to load this page and it's probably going to take multiple tries to post this message.

So what exactly (in layman's terms) does that email mean percyt? I can't google to check up on it. I'm all for doing something about this. The worst is that the Telkom box thing at the end of the road is halfway overturned.

Argh.

My pings:
Pinging games.saix.net [196.43.22.222] with 32 bytes of data:
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 196.43.22.222:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss)
 
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savana said:
I think firstly, we should all implement this for fixing this problem and if in case this will not work out then, we can make a complaint.

What say??
Click to expand...

So how much longer must we wait for this to get implemented? Honestly, we started with fault logging in July already!
I know a meeting between Icasa and Telkom Quality took place in this area once already and see where we are - I think we should lodge a complaint.
 
I just spent an hour on the phone with Telkom. The guy says that everything looks good from his side. I don't know what to do.

IS ADSL Local Speed Test to Internet Solutions Rosebank Data Centre

Please wait testing speed now...

Start Time: 19:42:55
End time: 19:43:54
IP Address: 41.245.34.159
Download Size: 409600 bytes
Time Delta: 58.882656097412 seconds
Download Speed: 7 KBytes/s
Line Speed: 56 kbits/s

This is on a 4mb line. Is there an email address where I can send proper information about my problem? The people on the phone do not seem to be able to do anything.

*edit*
Spoke to another person at 0800 375 375 this morning. This guy was impressive. A technician will be going to the exchange and if they can't find a fault there then the technician will go to my place.

To the other people in the area. How are your speeds the last couple of days? And what speed lines do you have? I'm thinking of dropping down to a 384k line and hoping it will make a difference. Or do those of you who have 384k lines also got problems?
 
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Anyone have any good news on this? I'm in Glen Nerine (Douglasdale) and I've had my fault open for over 3 months now. Telkom promised a DSLAM upgrade to fix the problem but the implementation date has been and gone and nothing. I've escalated, but I'm not holding my breath.

Anyone successfully had their 2 year contracts annulled and maybe even their money refunded? Surely it's illegal for Telkom to advertise and sell a product/service they are fully aware they cannot provide?
 
My fault is still open. They try to close it every now and then but then I let them know as quickly as possible that it's not fixed. I don't know what to do since I doubt it will be fixed this year and I'm still getting dial-up speeds. So yes maybe I should try and get my money refunded.

If we can get enough people together we can try and do something together. I'm not sure what we can do though.
 
Well I'm in if something can be arranged. I'm not much of an organiser though. :(
 
Lets do it this way. Everyone in the Honeydew Ridge area (or nearby) who are struggling with adsl issues, send me a pm. When we've got a couple of people I'll try and organize a meeting with the regional manager or someone in charge. If we can do this together then maybe they will listen.
 
Well I don't know whether Telkom fixed the problem or whether tonight is just a freak occurrence but hey for the first time since I had this line installed I'm getting proper speeds and decent pings.

Not 4mb line speeds but 2mb line speeds with a ping of about 50ms to games.saix.net. If it stays like this I'll be very happy. :) How about you JamesvdS, are things looking better on your side too?
 
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