Tag Archives: telkom

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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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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Telkom – denial of service, part 2

Posted by on March 9, 2008 1 comment

In one of my previous posts I raised the issue about Telkom’s incompetence. Telkom is obviously good in even outdoing themselves and needless to say – 8 weeks and still no phone line installed.

Yes, the technician arrived (to my surprise at 9am on a Saturday). He was surprised not to find any lines installed – NO SHIT SHERLOCK, that’s why it was a NEW LINE INSTALLATION. He then proceeded unenthusiastically to open manholes and eventually decided that he will need to come back to get the lines pulled through from the exchange. The exchange is in line of sight of my house (all 30 meters away from it). HE NEVER RETURNED and had the cheek to phone Telkom’s call center to tell them that I was not home.

In sheer frustration I went out and bought a 3GB uncapped IBurst bundle with desktop modem which is now connected to my Belkin N1 router. Speed is 700Kbs downstream and connectivity wirelessly 100% around the house.

Let’s see how Telkom is outdoing the competition – NOT.

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Telkom denial of service

Posted by on March 6, 2008 No comments

Trying to get decent (and cheap) broadband in South Africa is like finding a virgin in a brothel. Mobile and wirless technologies are good but the latency associated with such service is unbearable when playing games online. If you have ever attemped playing COD4 against international players you will know what I mean.

So it is the most patriotic thing to do, and choose the national carrier: Telkom – this was my first mistake.

Having moved into a new house, for whatever bizarre reason, I can not not have ADSL installed right away. I need to first have a phone line installed, and once this is done can I apply for ADSL. For another bizarre reason, Telkom is only able to tell me if I will get ADSL for certain once that line is installed.

Telkom staff expect you to remain at home waiting for them, if they choose to pitch up to install a line. So it is more than natural to expect that if you specify that you’re not at home and need to be called when their technician comes out, surely they should call when their technician comes out? NO.

IS TELKOM BREAKING THE LAW? – apparently so: ICASA published its ADSL regulations in August 2006, calling for – among other things – the installation of an ADSL service within 30 working days. It has now been more than 30 working days (since initial application on 19th January) to just get a telephone line installed.

The installation date given by Telkom translates into 30 to 40 working days – clearly in contravention of ICASA’s ADSL regulations. This may however not be the only regulation which Telkom is in contravention of. The ADSL regulations prohibit port prioritization – something which is still part and parcel of Telkom’s standard ADSL offering.

If you happen to choose an ISP other than Telkom you get further penalised by not getting the prompt service of having an ADSL port allocated to you (this would be bad, Telkom can certainly not give the same customer service to the competition).

Needless to say – I am still without a telephone line and will probably have another 4-6 weeks waiting time to have ADSL access installed – in short it is quicker to go and visit the Northpole:

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