Class Action lawsuit against Telkom for poor service delivery

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Gezza

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Let me explain myself first.

I moved in to my new residence a year ago to find that our exchange can only handle a 2Mbps line. I was fine with this because I only use the line for gaming and a 2Mbps line is sufficient (for pc games at least). After I got the line I noticed that my ping was always above 200ms. Very annoyed I phoned telkom support to sort this out. The usual "Please restart router, are all the lights showing? Okay, I will reset your line and then please wait 5 minutes to check if it worked."

After 5 minutes I would find that the line does not work at all. After about 2 weeks of struggling, a technician finally came through and noticed that the exchange was congested so much that I would only be able to run a 1Mbps line on it. I've had my line for a month already and paid for a 2Mbps line which I could not use. In the end they were able to sync my line to 1.5Mbps but I still have to pay for a 2Mbps line. The same technician also told me that the exchange is so old that it can not really handle data (The copper is too old).

The actual reason for this thread is to find out the following. Telkom only upgrades the exchanges that already has high ADSL usage. And only those. The exchange I'm on has a lot of ADSL users (as the technician told me) so why does telkom not upgrade it? I get the usual answer from them that they can not give me a date to when it will get upgraded and that.

I know it's not just me facing the issue that Telkom can put you on ADSL on an exchange that can not handle the load at all. So in the end you are paying for a service that you can not fully use.

What steps can be taken to get to the bottom of this? For Telkom to actually upgrade old exchanges? I've sent an email to [email protected] but got no reply from them.

False advertisement. False claims of service delivery. Incompetence to upgrade old hardware.

Has anyone complained about similar issues and got some service because of it?

I'm expecting a lot of replies from people dissing my grammar etc...You will be ignored, as I do not care about it.
 
Best of luck but I doubt you'll get far - ADSL is explicitly a best effort service which covers Telkoms rear end nicely.
 
Paul Hjul is our resident expert on this but I'll give it a go and he can correct me...

Before any external body can take action they will request that you first exhaust all steps with Telkom as per their Code of Practice.

Here's the link: http://www.telkom.co.za/general/termsandconditions/downloads/standard/Code_of_Practice.pdf

Also do your homework regarding the minimum service that Telkom must provide ADSL users, as they will throw the "ADSL is a best effort service" at you!
 
MickZA said:
Best of luck but I doubt you'll get far - ADSL is explicitly a best effort service which covers Telkoms rear end nicely.
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Agree. I understand that Telkom has to do it on a best effort basis as they cannot guarantee in what state the exchange, copper etc is BUT, and this is a very big but, I believe that Telkom should come to the table and only charge consumers for the actual service they are getting.

I do not care how they spin it but in my eyes its nothing but 'fraud' i.e. to advertise a certain product and then deliver less. Like going to buy a BMW M3 but then getting a 4 cylinder engine as a 'best effort' from the factory as their production line is a bit over capacity on the correct engines.

A good example is the recent upgrades where thousands were paying for 10Mbps [and many still are] yet their exchanges could go no higher than 4Mbps and Telkom did little or nothing to inform these consumers and just let them pay for the 'increased' speed. They knew very well who those consumers were and could have rectified their billing beforehand or at the time of the upgrades.
 
MKFrost said:
A good example is the recent upgrades where thousands were paying for 10Mbps [and many still are] yet their exchanges could go no higher than 4Mbps and Telkom did little or nothing to inform these consumers and just let them pay for the 'increased' speed. They knew very well who those consumers were and could have rectified their billing beforehand or at the time of the upgrades.
Click to expand...
Off topic: Telkom billing is late this month, I wonder if they are possibly addressing this very issue?
 
MKFrost said:
A good example is the recent upgrades where thousands were paying for 10Mbps [and many still are] yet their exchanges could go no higher than 4Mbps and Telkom did little or nothing to inform these consumers and just let them pay for the 'increased' speed. They knew very well who those consumers were and could have rectified their billing beforehand or at the time of the upgrades.

MickZA said:
Off topic: Telkom billing is late this month, I wonder if they are possibly addressing this very issue?
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

Possibly! However my last Telkom bill was the lowest it's ever been.
 
MickeyD said:
not... :p
Click to expand...

:o

MickZA said:
It would be if they are crediting past over billing.
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Checked now - doesn't seem like it.

Code: 
DSL Fastest				R372.81
Your Telephone Line			R137.72
TI DO Uncapped Premium			R218.42

Discount: DO Uncapped Premium Bundle	R 83.33 CR
Discount: TOC DO Broadband 25%		R126.98 CR

Subtotal (excluding VAT @ 14%)		R518.64
VAT @ 14%				R 72.60

Total (Charges for Dec)			R591.24

And in previous months:

Code: 
November	R603.25
October		R657.35 <- started getting the discount
September	R893.01 
August		R893.01
July		R891.57
June		R876.61

Seem right to you guys? Apart from screwing myself for a while by not getting the discount.
 
You need to make sure you have your facts completely on board.
[1] Are you being charged for a line product which has minimum and maximum speeds? If so as soon as the minimum speed is not achieved you can immediately log a billing dispute with Telkom which can be escalated and flobbed to ICASA. In the early days you probably would have found having to go to ICASA before a credit would be passed. These days it has happened (to me once and I've had reports of it happening to others so I doubt Telkom has a big note on my account telling them to act in good faith all the time) that my line was down for 4 hours I received a 1 day prorata discount on my service.
The line speed guarantee from Telkom is really the only SLA you have in the ADSL space. Use it - not to get a few bucks discount but to "keep them honest" and to force planning to start working: remember everytime Telkom passes a credit note the bean counters know there is a problem, if the techies and the bean counters are both saying that there is a business case to upgrade an exchange the exchange will get an upgrade. Telkom's wallet plays a role in decision making.

[2] ADSL is a BEST EFFORT service. This is an important factor in the entire service level beyond the exception I mentioned. A lot of components that ISPs use to provide the service include SLAs so a SEACOM outage may result in your ISP getting some money but it doesn't see you getting that money - and Telkom Internet here is very much an ISP. Remember though that you are only paying for a contended best effort service - find as much value within the parameters of the service you are paying for.
It is a major obstacle to broadband adoption in SA that we only have best effort DSL and one of the most important consequences of facilities leased based DSL is the opportunities it would create for SLA backed services using the last mile.

[3] On the particulars of your complaint given here there very much is a case for Telkom to be held for offering and charging you for the 2 meg service when only the 1 meg service could reasonably have been provided. If this occured before the bump on DSL lines you are well within your rights to demand a refund and I strongly believe Telkom will pass a refund as a credit note. HOWEVER it is important to note that the three line speed products are presented with a wide range and if you are getting 1.1 megs on an up to 2 meg service you are treated differently to the guy on the 1 meg service and you might find that they
At the moment there is a particular set of potential problems: I was on the fastest service (up to 10 meg) but my exchange only supports 4 meg, Telkom has every right to assume that I wanted to remain on the service with the upgrade even though my line did not get faster because the fastest guys - regardless of their line speed attained - are on the newest equipment, by choosing to downgrade to save money I am assuming the risk that Telkom might put my line on older equipment. The risk is negligible vs the savings but the point is that I am assuming it. I've seen posts in this forum of guys getting shafted on a 2 meg downgraded to the new 2 meg.

It really is a shortcoming at Telkom that they don't have a credible help desk for billing for inadequate service desk that then reports through the relevant structures.
 
MartyMarts said:
Seem right to you guys? Apart from screwing myself for a while by not getting the discount.
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See you're being billed for a 10Mbps line but have a 4MB Uncapped account, possibly you have a capped account as well where you get the full benefit of the line?

Downgrading to DSL Faster will save over R100/mth and drop the speed you're currently getting on your 4MB uncapped a tad (assuming no other Telkom line hassles).
 
MickZA said:
See you're being billed for a 10Mbps line but have a 4MB Uncapped account, possibly you have a capped account as well where you get the full benefit of the line?
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Yip, I do have an uncapped account but have rarely used it since moving over to TI - it was more of a necessary mweb backup :D

MickZA said:
Downgrading to DSL Faster will save over R100/mth and drop the speed you're currently getting on your 4MB uncapped a tad (assuming no other Telkom line hassles).
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Yeah... I'm going to do this soon :( Now that there's a price difference between a 4Mbps and 10Mbps line one doesn't really have a choice.
 
Paul Hjul said:
You need to make sure you have your facts completely on board.
[1] Are you ...

[2] ADSL is a BEST EFFORT service. ...

[3] On the particulars ...
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Thanks for the reply. I do not care for refunds from Telkom to be honest. All I care about is having our exchange upgraded. Surely they need to upgrade very old equipment that can not handle what they are advertising?

There must be some lawyers on MyBB that can give some advice.
 
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