Tag Archives: service - Page 2

Telkom: Superior service

Posted by on November 30, 2008 No comments

Despite the bad wrap, Telkom seems to get from the ADSL-user base, I must say, that I have been wowed with the consistency of service delivered. My stats-monitoring application has been a good “invention” as it allows me to track service levels:

Over the last 4 weeks, SNR/attenuation have been consistent and without a drop of dB’s, I have been able to get a consistent 4Mb/sec service. Surprisingly there has even been a case where my line delivered a max 600KB/sec – not sure how this is possible. I also don’t believe that the stats are skewed, as those figures are taken straight off the modem-routers WAN-port.

If you want to use the scripts, donate below (you require a running version of Perl with Net::Telnet and Net::Ping, rrdtool — the scripts will run on the Synology out of the box).

 

 

 



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Bye Bye iBurst – whoop whoop Telkom

Posted by on October 14, 2008 No comments

Finally my frustrations are over – although iBurst has tried the best the possibly could, it was too little too late. Amazingly, I ordered a 4MB ADSL line on 29th September and within two weeks line was installed and working. A BIG WOW to Telkom – superior service and this does not seem to be an isolated case either – many people mention the same turnaround times.

The ADSL line has perfect attenuation 17db (down) and 8.5db (up) and an excellent SNR – 28.4db (down) / 14db (up) — so it is no surprise that the line syncs perfectly all the time.

The download speeds are amazing: International ping to New York is 327ms (vs 2 seconds on iBurst), download speed is 1800kpbs (vs 285kbps on iBurst).

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iBurst: Almost wowed me…

Posted by on October 6, 2008 No comments

After putting enough pressure on iBurst, the company decided to provide me with a free installation of a directional antenna. Installation team arrived last week Friday and install went smooth (bar the fact that for whatever unexplainable reason, they chose the longest route for the cabling – I assume its related to charging for extra cabling).

Although I had an omnidirectional antenna before and used to get 600-750kbps, I do now notice a huge improvement on direct iBurst-speed (speedtests come close to 1Mbps). However (and there always is one) – just because I now have perfect line-speed, this does not solve the lack of international speed. Service is not consistent – some international downloads come in at about 500-700kbps, while others still average at about 350kbps. Other customers at the MyAdsl-forum say, that 350-500kbps is as much as you can expect.

Truly amazing (if only iBurst would cache downloads / websites) is the after picture:

2008-09-26 (Omnidirectional):
iBurst speedtest: Download 464kpbs / Upload 138kpbs
Speedtest – Johannesburg: Download 509kpbs / Upload 253kpbs
Speedtest – Capetown: Download 362kpbs / Upload 123kpbs
Speedtest – NY: Download 272kpbs / Upload 92kpbs

2008-10-03 (with the directional antenna)
iBurst speedtest: Download 979kpbs / Upload 204kpbs
Speedtest – Johannesburg: Download 991kpbs / Upload 286kpbs / ping 170ms
Speedtest – Capetown: Download 350kpbs / Upload 138kpbs / ping 870ms
Speedtest – NY: Download 251kpbs / Upload 75kpbs / ping 999ms

Personally I don’t notice much of a difference as it appears that international backhaul capacity (or oversubscription on the towers) is the issue.

Not sure where to go from here (other than to wait for ADSL installation on 13th October). For customers experiencing similar issues, I learnt:

  • iBurst helpdesk take for ever to assist
  • They will initially brush you off with excuses such as MTU or other things
  • They will initially show no responsibility or customer service and even want you to pay for a site-visit
  • The sad part is, that if you shout loud enough (such as in my case), they will conduct the site-visit for free, reimburse you for lost bandwidth and even pay for the installation of a directional antenna.
  • If that level of service would be available to all customers without having to escalate to the CEO, that would be grand service. Unfortunately such treatment is only offered to “difficult” customers such as myself. I pity people who don’t have the perseverance to follow through – truly amazing is that people pay quite a bit of money and then fail to push companies for better service. Unfortunately it is not just about complaining, a customer and a company should find an acceptable agreement.
  • I must say – iBurst well done, you have tried very hard to assist in resolving my problems, try and apply the same level of service to your complete customer base and your company will really excel.
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iBurst: Still no broadband

Posted by on September 30, 2008 3 comments

In a previously related post. I detailed my “journey” into the getting no broadband anymore. iBurst’s service is still degraded.

Due to all the download issues and retries I eventually exhausted my 5GB-bundle and my 3.5GB top-up and was forced to topup by another 3.5GB last week to just make it through the month and be able to work. The 5GB are generally sufficient, but the last 30 days I spent downloading the same 120MB (non-resumeable) file 13(!!!) times as iBurst disconnected the network and download-speeds had been below 200kbps (this is KiloBits, which is 25KB/sec — compare that to 400KB/sec on ADSL or 250KB/sec on 3G).

The call-centre will find any excuse (check your MTU settings, have you rebooted your computer, did you install the latest Windows service-pack) for not helping you. They will then also send you to their own speedtest site, which shows a sugary-picture:

It’s just a pity, that I never download anything from iBurst’s website and a real-life scenario shows a picture like this:

Yes, most downloads, news etc originate from US and Europe, and this is where iBurst does not deliver broadband. Before we blame it on international traffic being congested, how come that ADSL- or 3G-users don’t have this problem. Clearly points out that iBurst is in trouble.

The recent site visit from the iBurst engineer, also did not prove an issue on my end of the wireless internetlessness. My signal quality is 100%, no frame-errors, perfect throughput on modem and router, but still speed issues.

During a further Speedtest this morning I noticed a brief improvement of speed (lasted between 6:00-6:30 and fluctuated between 300-500kbps) – after 6:30am however it was back to the previous state. Also still experiencing the same disconnects and fluctuation in speed.
iBurst speedtest: Upload 464kpbs / Download 138kpbs
Speedtest – Johannesburg: Upload 509kpbs / Download 253kpbs
Speedtest – Capetown: Upload 362kpbs / Download 123kpbs
Speedtest – NY: Upload 272kpbs / Download 92kpbs

You will notice, that the further you get away from your connected location the more speed drops. In contrast, this is not the case with other connection types. Hell, even pairing my Nokia N95 via Bluetooth on 3G is faster than iBurst. Still waiting for a resolution, as the problem is currently looked at by the network team. It has been confirmed during the site-survey, that the issue is not on my end though!

Update 2009-01-01: I had cancelled iBurst with 1st December 2008 and have been on ADSL (4mb) since November. iBurst did not really care addressing the problem and customer service is just horrible. Moving over to ADSL (via Webafrica) is the best thing I could have done. Downloads are coming in at 400KB/sec – not comparable to the 40KB/sec on iBurst.

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iBurst: Fix your broadband

Posted by on September 23, 2008 1 comment

There is no doubt that iBurst is one of the worse broadband providers out there. Look at the over 500 complaints in the last 12 months on HelloPeter or HellBurst.

While most users complain about incorrect debit orders and the accounts department being up to sh#t, I pay via EFT and avoid surprise debits exceeding several thousand Rand a month. Yes, choosing iBurst was my choice — Telkom was not capable installing a copper line (after 5 months), Neotel did not launch and 3G is too expensive, but the incorrect advertising (broadband) and the (lacking) level of service is consistently delivered by iBurst.

While I originally used to get 500-700kbps (with omni-directional antenna and 100% signal), over the last 2 weeks my download speed looks like this (note that this is in KiloBits per second and not KB):

and a Speedtest reveals this:

Great ping-time, but iBurst completely lacks the backhaul capacity to provide any level of service. Incident was logged with them 19th September with the promise to have an engineer call within 1 hour. Phoned again today and was told that “everyone” is working on this.

On the MyAdsl forum you will notice posts like this one, that one, or this one, or that other one, or this one. By now you should get the hint, that not everything is as rosy as we are led to believe.

What does it mean to me: Tried to download since Thursday a 150MB patch for PS3 Burnout Paradise. Sofar the download was interrupted 12 times (4x on Thurs, 5x Friday, 3x Sat). This has cost me over 1GB of my bandwidth and iBurst is refusing to fix or compensate —- bad business practices.

Although Telkom could not get their act together in January, I have re-applied and hope that in a few months I will be on ADSL. PM me if you would like to purchase the iBurst Desktop modem (not that I have not warned you…)

Update 1: It has been now 3 days since I started notice the bad connectivity. Between 18/09 and 21/09 I wasted already 2869MB on trying to redownload a 120MB file. This is using up the additional R599,00 bundle I bought – iBurst will unlikely provide compensation for this.

Update 2: The call-centre now tells me that my local setup is wrong – iBurst see screenshots below (100% signal strength, no frame-errors, but your magic link-speed is 293kbps):

Update 3: Close to a week later, several phone-calls and emails, iBurst has now decided that the problem is on my side. So how is it possible that I can have great speed-tests against iBurst servers, but any international download suffers from lack of speed (download this morning of a 64MB Synology Firmware was going at a hot 5KB/sec). I will get my site-visit now on 26th – a week after reporting the incident the first time. Will be surprised to see what the resolution will be.

From some people I heard that iBurst does not have sufficient international back-haul capacity and all their towers are oversubscribed, this would then explain an international SpeedTest:

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Eskom: Hallelujah!

Posted by on July 11, 2008 No comments

Eskom’s service is generally up to shit (only Telkom is worse), and in my specific case I cancelled my Eskom account on the 7th September 2007 and have been impatiently waiting for the refund of my R 1,800 deposit.

It has been a long road: After 9 months, 4 different service calls, 48 calls (during which I spoke to 43 different people and managed to waste 8 hours of my time) Eskom finally managed to get my refund processed. This did not go smooth either as they decided to post me a cheque although in 13 calls I had to give them my banking details (which have been logged against those pesky service calls).

But today is my luck day – Nonhlanhla Shabalala, perhaps the only dedicated debit-controller at Eskom not just phoned me back after I sent Eskom head-office an email, she also personally resolved the issue and confirmed via phone that the refund will be processed within 7 days.

Perhaps Elton, Nomhale, Mercy, Nomzakaza, Gregory, Joyce and the other 36 people at Eskom’s call-centres should learn from Nonhlanhla and actually do their job properly.

(For the math-geniuses: Interest lost on the above, had Eskom done the refund in time, would have been R 130,00)

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Awesome service: Silver Thread Interiors

Posted by on March 31, 2008 No comments

It is always nice to come across companies in South Africa which go out of their way to provide exceptional service at reasonable prices. After moving into our new house, we required blinds as well as curtains – while you might believe this should be a trivial task – don’t fool yourself.

Sevens was not interested in sending someone out for measurements, unless we come into the store and commit on selecting fabrics first. A “decor” company in Broadacres sent someone out to measure and provided us a quote equivalent to the annual budget of a small african country.

It was refreshing to come across Silver Thread Interiors in Fourways Crossing. The team came out to measure sizes for blinds and curtains, provided valuable recommendations and delivered within a few hours quotes which did not break the bank.

The wooden ventian blinds are custom-made and fitted and the installation team managed to install all blinds in eight rooms in just under 2 hours. No mess either, since they considerately used a vacuum cleaner to catch any dust while drilling. Over the weekend the custom made curtains and rails got installed – absolute fantastic quality and workmanship.

So if you are interested in excellent interior design service, contact Karrim Noorbhai on his mobile (+27 83 642 6515) or via email.

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Hellkom – lost another customer

Posted by on March 22, 2008 No comments

I decided to abort my Telkom-science project in the pursuit of getting broadband. Although I had an existing IBurst connection, I thought it would be most patriotic to use our nations broadband service provider. It is just a pity that Telkom does broadband really badly and half of their service-staff and installation teams seem to have no clue what is going on or how to provide customer service.

It is now 64 days after I applied and during that time Telkom did not (as promised) phone me to arrange an installation date. I have now decided to cancel my line installation and stick with IBurst – at least they could provide me with broadband service within 2 hours.

Find the history of this ordeal below:
2008-01-19: Allocated telephone number. Was told that line will be installed within 21 days.
2008-01-29: Phoned for status. Was told installation only available on 28th Feb. Asked to get higher priority.
2008-01-31: Phoned for status. Still end of February.
2008-02-05: Phoned for status. Contact number was missing. Install date 27th Feb. Complex seems to run on optic fibre, might require conversion fee. Spoke to Johann/Springs
2008-02-21: Phoned for status. Installation still on 27th Feb.
2008-02-27: Telkom installation team arrived un-announced. Installation team did not want to wait for 30 minutes and left.
Spoke to Andries (technician 082 373 7586) to arrange for installation on Saturday 1st March.
2008-03-01: Technician did not arrive. Spoke to 10219 and was told that installation will happen on 8th March. Phoned Andries and was told that he is on leave.
2008-03-05: Spoke to 10219 and reconfirmed that installation is on 8th March. Also confirmed that line will support ADSL. (Not given an answer, this can only be established once the line is installed)
2008-03-08: (8:30) Phoned to confirm installation for today. Engineer arrived at 9:00am – no line installed since he did not bring cabling. Got phone-call at 15:30 from head-office that engineer got denied access – confirmed with guardhouse and no-one from Telkom arrived.
2008-03-11: Spoke Johann/Springs and he will follow up.
2008-03-18: Spoke to Leon – still have not received any notification that cabling will be pulled through. Has been escalated as very important – will receive feedback within 4 hours.
2008-03-20: (12:25) Spoke to Mkangeli. Was told that this will be escalated again and I should receive a phone call with order installation by COB.

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Marlboro License Department rocks!

Posted by on March 16, 2008 11 comments

My car’s license expired (back in October) and I have never found time to get it renewed. My professional engagement did not allow me to spend hours waiting in a queue to have my license renewed. So I decided to go with the queue service of Kya Sands Testing Station which was completely incompetent in getting this sorted and after 4 weeks of waiting on them, I decided to do it myself.

Initially I made the mistake of driving through to Centurion where I was turned away since I do not live in Pretoria – how stupid is this and someone explain why I can drive anywhere in South Africa but can only renew my license where I live? So I went through to Marlboro (Sandton’s) traffic department. The queues at 10am were bearable and I could literally walk up to a cashier and had my license renewed (with a R 500,00 penalty for a 6 month overdue renewal) within 2 minutes. While there I organised a duplicate of my traffic register which also only took 10 minutes.

The above begs the question why a queuing service was not able to do this in 4 weeks and charges a bundle for it?

Update (2009/12/29): A large amount of people keep on asking me for directions – why don’t you look it up – here we go: S26 05.623 E28 05.395. For Google Maps, go here.

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Public warning: Adrian Charles Maritz

Posted by on March 16, 2008 No comments

I generally refrain from mentioning names, id-numbers or even telephone numbers, but in a case where someone misrepresents the service offered, refuses to answer or return phone-calls in 3 weeks and then walks off with 800 Rand of my hard-earned cash, this is in my opinion more than justified.

About 8 weeks ago I engaged the services of Kya Sands Testing Station to have my car’s license renewed and get a duplicate of my traffic register. This request was then handed over to Adrian Charles Maritz (ID: 7805285034083, Cell: 083 731 1986) and I transferred R803,00 to the testing station.

While the above should have been a trivial exercise not taking more than a few days, it took 3 weeks for Adrian to realize that he needs my passport. I gave him the passport on 8th February and two weeks later still nothing happened and by then he needed to have copies of my permanent residence and a number of other documents. While I had never been kept in the loop of the progress it was impossible to get hold of him and voice-mails/SMSs remained unanswered. I only received a returned phone call after two weeks once I threatened with a criminal charge.

So don’t request his services because it is not worth the effort and to sum it up:

  • It took all of 2 hours (including driving to the traffic department) to have the above done. Adrian was not able to do this in over 2 months
  • The traffic department was more than satisfied with copies of the documents and did not require originals.
  • He refused to return phone-calls or SMSs. Even my SMS to ask for the money back remained unanswered – eventually resulting in this post and a visit to the police station in a few days.

In defense of Kya Sands Testing station: Although Maritz stopped working for them a number of days after I engaged with them, they are partially to blame for this fuck-up, since I engaged with them and paid all money to them. Maritz however is to blame for his incompetence to fulfill a simple request.

REFUND OF THE MONEY? Can pretty much forget about this – would you think that a dishonest person would return the cash (and some of my original documents)?

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