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Telkom: We're not to blame

2009-09-10 08:31

kalahari.net

Johannesburg - Telkom says it can't be blamed for slow broadband services at a Durban-based company which claims a pigeon can carry its data bundles faster.

"Telkom would like to clarify that the company cannot be blamed for this particular customer's lack of throughput speeds," Troy Hector, executive of business sales and ICT business solutions, told Sapa in an e-mail on Thursday.

"Several recommendations have, in the past, been made to the customer but none of these have, to date, been accepted. It must also be noted that Telkom is not the customer's core service provider," said Hector.

The Unlimited company, which operates call centres, on Wednesday sent a pigeon with a four gigabyte data card strapped to his legs from Howick to Hillcrest in Durban.

At the same time, it started transmitting a four gigabyte file via ADSL.

In total, it took two hours, six minutes and 57 seconds for Winston the pigeon to fly to Hillcrest and to upload the data from the card onto the call centre system.

By that time, the ADSL transmission of the same data size was around 4% complete.

The Unlimited IT head Kevin Rolfe said Telkom phoned him a few days ago to say that if he experienced any problems with its lines, he should log a complaint with the Telkom call centre.

"When there is a [major] problem we do it, but the problems are so ongoing that you will end up continuously logging faults," said Rolfe.

- SAPA

Comments have been closed for this article.

Terence 9/10/2009 8:45:22 AM
"Several recommendations have, in the past, been made to the customer but none of these have, to date, been accepted" Does this mean that unless you spend five figures on a 1024k diginet line, you shouldn't complain about throughput speeds?
Ian 9/10/2009 8:49:00 AM
Love this story - Gives a nice contrast to broadband in this country. The birds can do it better. Telkom will undoubtedly ignore it as much as they can as they are the monopoly at the moment. Monopolies dont care, Telkom included. Catch a wake-up Telkom, hopefully we wont need to use you anymore in the near future.
Martin 9/10/2009 8:50:09 AM
Actually Telkom IS TO BE BLAMED!!!
Conkitty 9/10/2009 8:52:22 AM
Ha ha... very funny Telkom. Since I have a 4Mb/s line at home, with only 2 people on it, and we would not be able to download 4Gb faster than the pigeon flew (being gamers I speak from experience), their excuse is unbelievably lame!
Really Funny 9/10/2009 8:54:01 AM
This is so funny and the fact that Telkom playes the blame game even more hilarious. Would have like to see if they tested it against the other service providers www.mybroadband.co.za published a list with actual speeds against what is promised. A suggestion for advertising : Lightspeed, speed and pigeon speed. ha ha ha!
VANS 9/10/2009 8:54:35 AM
Troy Hector is a typical telkom politician, and knows absolutly nothing about the Telkom problems on the ground. Telkom if you are not a customer's core service provider, THEN STOP ADVERTISING YOUR COMPLETE BUSINESS SOLUTIONS. Another thing, there are probably a 100 "private" busineses your employess at the towers running during business hours, get them to start working and there might be a small change in your service delivery.
VOTED! The blogger 9/10/2009 8:58:14 AM
Telkom SHMELKOM
pop 9/10/2009 8:59:36 AM
Soooo, who's to blame then?
Birdman 9/10/2009 8:59:50 AM
Gooooo pigeon!!!
Kippy6 9/10/2009 9:00:48 AM
I hope that this opens Telkoms eyes. They have for too long been in control of this sector. I cannot wait for them to have SERIOUS competition from Neotel.
Speeds need to come inline with the rest of the world and prices need to drop dramatically as well, we are being fleesed in SA, because they are quasi government and don't give a hoot about anybody or anything but lining their own pockets.
Lets hope that something happens, but I doubt it!
Come on Neotel lead the way into the future and forget about Helkom...... Nobody should have to deal with inadequate service.
james 9/10/2009 9:01:11 AM
what typically crap cop-out excuse for a stone-age service which is holding back the entreneurial drive of this fab country.
TechnologyStudent 9/10/2009 9:01:28 AM
I would just like to say that this trial of line speed is insanely stupid. Nothing more than a gimmick. For one, we do not know what the line speed is of this company. I am not defending Telkom but if you have a 512 Kbps ADSL line (which only gets to about 128 Kbps upload speed due to the contended nature of ADSL) then of course you are gonna have throughput problems. If your company is so cheap that it cannot afford assured rate options, then fly your pigeons. Why do they not try a 2 Mbps Fibre or even Diginet line vs Winston the Pigeon. I'd be shocked if the 4GB upload takes longer than 20 mins over a fibre line.
warren 9/10/2009 9:03:14 AM
hilarious! Telkom really does suck. Now where can i get hold of a pigeon?
David 9/10/2009 9:04:07 AM
Telkom says dont blame us, SABC states that people make mistakes, Banks - just say they will cripple the country if they are questioned, Eskom has financial mismanagement, Judges slur I wathnt dwunk. When are people actually going to start taking responsibility?
Bobby 9/10/2009 9:04:27 AM
And people wonder why I stopped using Telkom ADSL. My little modem that fits in the palm of my hand that is all prepaid, works like a charm.
IT Chief 9/10/2009 9:05:11 AM
well i can certainly vouch for this chap, our internet telkom SAIX line has constantly been on and off for the past few months, every time telkom has a different story. Dealing with telkom is like dealing with eskom and home affairs they really are all in the same kettle of fish. Anyway we are soon going to be giving the telkom that special call to come and collect there crap on site as we are going for another provider. Unfortunately even other providers still depend on telkom to a point. We have to get new providers that can operate totally independant from telkom this is the only way forward.
Ian 9/10/2009 9:05:41 AM
For a much maligned company, I think Telkom's internet response in excellent. I reported a fault at 7.15am yesterday and by 8.30 it was rectified. This was the first down time in more than 6 months.
lol@Telkom 9/10/2009 9:07:01 AM
You got ur a%$ handed to you by a pigeon... and then you try to make a excuse... Sore losers...
MarkG 9/10/2009 9:07:12 AM
I think there are 2 sides to this story. The one being that the people doing their download didn't do their math properly. Downloading a 4GB file at full tilt on a 4Mb line without contention and plugged straight into the exchange, would take over 2 hours to download. On the other side of course, is that Telkom are always trying to shift the blame. Their infrastructure is poor, and the no-one can complain about the service... because there isn't any.
jean-louis 9/10/2009 9:08:39 AM
This is typical, instead of owning the problem and doing something about their core services, they place the blame back on the customer. This is why the younger generation is elaving SA, becuase of companies and people, not owning up and making things better. theoretically, a ISDN connection should have beat that time, let alone adsl, if set up correct. Telkom needs to up it's skills and invest in it's own infrastructure instead of i's pockets.
Good one! 9/10/2009 9:08:46 AM
Where can I get a couple of these pigeons.
Brilliant!!

Mohammed Parak 9/10/2009 9:09:12 AM
What if the bird carried an 8 Gig memory stick? or a 32 Gig memory stick? What conclusions will we then extract from this fun, but silly experiment. If we are comparing High tech to low tech, let the damn bird try and carry 4 gigs of word documents in the hard copy version.
Matt Nel 9/10/2009 9:09:55 AM
Telkom is useless - they have been ripping the consumer off for many years and not even tried to make things better in terms of internet - they should have been laying international cables like Notel has done a long time ago - shows you how rubbish and backwards they are - SA has like the most expensive broadband in the world and the most capped thanks to Telkoms lack of vision.
Alan 9/10/2009 9:10:22 AM
When it comes it responsibility in SA, seems everyone is missing !
Without a doubt, Telkom and in general, SA broadband is by far the slowest and seems most expensive world wide... wonder who is responsible, the previous Apartheid Government ? - I could'nt even get this submitted for a few tries !
Ederik 9/10/2009 9:10:26 AM
What do they say? Nothing? Their comment is just as useless as their service!
Melanie Taylor 9/10/2009 9:10:35 AM
No surprises that Telkom was beaten by a bird..... Would have been surprised if that wasn't the case!
John 9/10/2009 9:11:11 AM
I think Dick King on he's horse would be faster than telkom and more reliable.
Aag Nee 9/10/2009 9:11:18 AM
A call centre the relay on ADSL and transfer file over the internet must be a backyard operation. ADSL is totally unsuited for their application. It is cheapskate companies like The Unlimited that clogs the internet for all of us
Clem Robertson 9/10/2009 9:11:47 AM
Well Telkom certainly CHARGES us rip-off rates for FAST bandwidth and service we never receive. Bastards!
EmTee 9/10/2009 9:13:36 AM
Having to deal with Telkom on the odd occasion for telephone as well as internet issues I can certainly share the pain experienced by The Unlimited.
ed 9/10/2009 9:18:24 AM
So typical of Telkom, pass the buck... no it is your fault that our lines are not working. Internet is still expensive and unusable (slow) in most parts of South Africa
Frank 9/10/2009 9:19:40 AM
Telkom makes it sound as if this is a once off occurance, funny then how many other people are complaining about the same thing. Not one of the people asked to predict the winner between telkom and Winston picked Telkom (and that's almost 2000 people) and they aren't all from Durban either. Surely that says a lot.
Andre 9/10/2009 9:20:38 AM
Well Telkom is my ISP and I would gladly offer my facilities for a similar test - problem is my dsl line is so unreliable that i cannot guarentee that the line will be up when the test is scheduled - my calls to telkom are a weekly ritual but the hell just carries on - Neoltel please hurry to my area
LOL@telkom 9/10/2009 9:20:45 AM
Yes and a moose can speak zulu... Not ur fault... Pffft issue lies with the speed and quality of the broadband were getting for the huge amount we pay. If you compare us to the rest of the world is dang expensive for what we get.
FTelkom 9/10/2009 9:21:52 AM
Telkom en their enabler ICASA are responsible for keeping telecommunications expensive and downright primitive when compared to the rest of the world. Don't believe me-compare throughput speeds for a basket of middle of the road countries and South Africa, much like Bafana Banana should be ranked dead last.
To top it off, the guilty karnts proclaim their innocence whilst showing us the middle finger. Typical.
Faster ADSL with PigeonSpeed 9/10/2009 9:22:33 AM
New advertisement for Telkom. Go to MyBroadbandSA and read the article on actual broadband speed versus what is promised.
G-Man 9/10/2009 9:23:38 AM
I think Hellkom is at fault, charging us ridiculous fee’s for a infrastructure that constantly fails on us lines get stolen, What happened to the SEACOM line or was this all a hoax ? when will this be available to the average Joe ? and what will the prices be ?
Pigeon 9/10/2009 9:24:46 AM
Telkom should blame the Pigeon for flying to fast and violating ICASA rules for transmitting data over a highway. Maybe it is racism because it was a white pigeon.
jhonny 9/10/2009 9:25:13 AM
I think to even up the odds they should have used a penguin, haha telkom, what slap in the face. Awesome
James 9/10/2009 9:25:38 AM
Wishful thinking on Telkom's part if they truely believe that this is an isolated situation ! Bandwidth (or lack thereof)is a problem throughout SA and it is high time that service providers brought us up to speed (no pun intended) by using facilities such as Seacom extensively, not just to add to their existing capacity. Not only are we being ripped off pricewise for the service we get but we have to listen to arrogant talk from the likes of Telkom. The day some company offers unlimited capacity with true worthwhile bandwidth (which is presently available via Seacom) is the day Telkom can stick their ADSL line where the sun don't shine !
pap & wors 9/10/2009 9:25:38 AM
Do it the IBM way. Meaning - It's Better Manually.
Chris in Oz 9/10/2009 9:25:53 AM
Of course.... Don't blame us. Just pay us.
Mike3 9/10/2009 9:25:59 AM
It was a set-up. MarkG already explained it. The outcome was obvious. I can not believe people and SAPA is fallen for it. How stupid is these "journalist"
Telstar 9/10/2009 9:26:42 AM
Thats right. Run a call centre on an ADSL line and then expect miracles.
John 9/10/2009 9:28:16 AM
Correct me if I'm wrong but Telkom is the SOLE provider of the data lines in SA? Who else is to blame then? As usual Telkom thinks all of it's customers are idiots!
John 9/10/2009 9:28:23 AM
Correct me if I'm wrong but Telkom is the SOLE provider of the data lines in SA? Who else is to blame then? As usual Telkom thinks all of it's customers are idiots!
Thys 9/10/2009 9:29:23 AM
We have slow broadband services in the North West - can't believe that Telkom have ads on Television about their services and their involvement in the soccer world cup
adsl 9/10/2009 9:31:17 AM
Problem is that ADSL stands for Assymetric Digital Subscriber Loop, meaning that upload and download speeds are not the same. On the fastest 4Mb line, the download speed is 4Mb/s but the upload speed is only 640kb/s which is about 15%.
Pigeon 9/10/2009 9:31:18 AM
Blame the pigeon for flying too fast or being too white or violating ICASA rules by taking data over a highway... :-)
Lily White 9/10/2009 9:31:49 AM
From my personal experience, why use a pigeon? A snail or tortoise would still be faster than ADSL as served by Telkom. Probably more reliable and consistent too.
shaun 9/10/2009 9:31:52 AM
why was the pigeon so slow, it should fly that distance in about 30minutes, yet as slow as it was it still beat telkom, no surprise
James Laker 9/10/2009 9:31:58 AM
Sounds like a government response.

It's simple to calculate that even at full speed on a 4Mbit, the download (+/- 450KBps) will still be faster by Pigeon.

Good publicity stunt though.
Basil van Bergen 9/10/2009 9:32:03 AM
Try having a Skype call from here in Switzerland to someone in Cape Town.
Thys 9/10/2009 9:34:07 AM
We have slow broadband services in the North West - can't believe that Telkom have ads on Television about their services and their involvement in the soccer world cup
Zee 9/10/2009 9:34:17 AM
What a load of tripe - Telkom is the sole entity to blame for the state of communications in this country. Our ADSL is prehistoric! Correct me if i'm wrong, but isn't SA the only single country in the world where we have to pay for bandwidth? Highest rates in the world, poor speeds and line stability, sorry Telscum but you are the ONLY ones to blame, along with our ministry of telecommunications and to a degree ICASA - supposedly a watchdog but much more of a watchpuppy. These fools are hampering the economy in such a massive way its ridiculous!
Farrel 9/10/2009 9:35:44 AM
And the pigeon is probably USB2.0!!! LOVE IT!
Majik 9/10/2009 9:35:56 AM
Telkom is useless as soon as another telecommunications company comes into SA I and everyone else should boycott Telkom! Hopefully their company will fail after that! Thieves I tell you!
Guru 9/10/2009 9:36:12 AM
adsl Line for a CALL Center ???
Simon 9/10/2009 9:36:56 AM
Telkom is the worst service provider in the country -and that is saying something. I also have a 4meg adsl and get a max doownload of 700K and upload of 230K. Telkom have checked the line and the noise is within their limits and i am close to the exchange. These were the orginal excuses. Telkom told me that the speeds I am getting are within their acceptable parameters. Clearly they are not acceptable to me. No one told me and it is not written anywhere on the telkom paperwork I got that I bought the advertised 4meg but will only get 700K. To me this is false advertising . Nothing I say to Telkom is listened to. Its pathetic
Jim Todd 9/10/2009 9:40:25 AM
As a Scotsman (now living in America for the last 10 years), I find the internet service here in South Africa a complete joke. I have unlimited internet use in The States for the same payment every month, and it is EXTREMELY fast !!!
aelric 9/10/2009 9:40:45 AM
i've heard over the pigeon post that there is currently a complaint pending at Advertising Standards Authourity, that Telkom advertising for its ADSL product is false... it is neither "fast" nor "reliable" lets see how it goes now. IMO it is time ICASA opened up the local loop market to competition.
paul 9/10/2009 9:40:50 AM
before you go hoping that Neotel is going to make the difference. Check who the share-holders are.They too will only line their pockets once you are connected.
@John 9/10/2009 9:41:18 AM
May we correct you? Telkom is not the sole provider of data lines. All the cell-phone companies have data services. There are others such as Dark Fibre, Neotel etc. Where were you the last couple of years?
nasheetha 9/10/2009 9:42:05 AM
None
Cable 9/10/2009 9:42:06 AM
I understand that there is limited bandwidth between Africa dn the rest fo the worl but, why is Broadband in SA sooooo expensive compared tot eh rest of the world, you pay so much and get so little. I will be returing soon and currently I have a 10MB Line with unlimited GB for R140.00 per month not even available in SA and I am sure I won't be paying R140?
mal 9/10/2009 9:42:15 AM
Look at ICASA the regulator 1st you dumb suckers.
IM 9/10/2009 9:42:17 AM
LOL, My internet connection in Malawi was faster than my Helkom connection here.
Anon 9/10/2009 9:43:02 AM
I can't believe Telkoms arrogant attitude. But blame must be shared with their partner (i.e. govent). No disrespect for the deceased, but Ivy (our past Telecommunications minister) single handedly held back IT growth in SA because she wanted to 'control' bandwidth coming in. Bear in mind she was minister from 1999. Telkom, her pet snoephondjie, benefitted wholy from her dictatorial stance. My message to Troy Hector, dont try and pass blame, SA HATES telkom and for very good reason. I believe we will see the demise of Telkom in the next 10 -15 yrs and I for one, will be celebrating. btw, Troy, this was a really bad and arrogant press release, I would be ashamed to have put my name to it.
dylas 9/10/2009 9:44:06 AM
BEExcuses, for crap service.
Bring on Neotel and the sea cables, and hopefully Telkom will be blow out the water.
CTheB 9/10/2009 9:44:38 AM
I think many people are missing the point. Yes, this was not a scientific experiment. Obviously. No one claimed it was. This is not something being put forward for publishing in Nature. A point was being made, that Telkom is charging very high fees for a backward service, that Telkom is deliberately standing in the way of certain avenues for businesses to use technology to work faster and more efficiently.
CTheB 9/10/2009 9:44:56 AM
I think many people are missing the point. Yes, this was not a scientific experiment. Obviously. No one claimed it was. This is not something being put forward for publishing in Nature. A point was being made, that Telkom is charging very high fees for a backward service.
@Basil 9/10/2009 9:45:30 AM
Try paying for your call. You want everything for free and then complain about it.
HaggardGnome 9/10/2009 9:45:30 AM
I wish Neotel would pull their socks up & get cracking. I would love to show Telkom a whole sackfull of Toffees! They were pathetic before privatisation and precious little has changed! Just a pity they had to go the BEE route for a competitor, rather than the best company for the job!
birdbrain 9/10/2009 9:46:02 AM
telkom solution-pigeon pie is now on the telkom menu-shoot the messenger again.
Buks 9/10/2009 9:47:43 AM
Oh well, if you want to beat a dog, you'll find a stick!
Telstar 9/10/2009 9:48:58 AM
Now I am convinced ofwhat I always expected to be true. Most people dont have a clue of what they are talking about. They just jump to conclusions. The person at fault is the bloodsucker sweatshop up and run -away call centre operator. They get huge amounts of money to exploit young kids in their call centres. How stupid and cheap can you be to operate a call centre on an ADSl line? Please read all the good technical, knowledgeable comments.I hope Telkom sues the company.
CarloV8 9/10/2009 9:49:42 AM
TIME TO WAKE UP TELKOM!!!!!
My father-in-law has a 6Mbps internet connection and he is on some farm 100km away from anything in the UK!
Randolph 9/10/2009 9:50:07 AM
On a 4Mbps line, you can download that file in 136 minutes and change, which is still more than two hours, six minutes and 57 seconds, even if UPLOAD speeds were up to the challenge, which they're not.

What weed is Telkom smoking?
Jan 9/10/2009 9:50:48 AM
A typical 'Proudly South African'response by Telkom. Translated it means "Check the worries in my eyes."
Gerri 9/10/2009 9:52:09 AM
WHEN ARE WE GETTING SOME COMPETITION TO TELKOM?! Hate dealing with them, get worked up just at the thought! and who is to blame then Telkom? WE NEED ANOTHER MAJOR SUPPLIER OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS!!!!!!
Sue 9/10/2009 9:52:24 AM
He must think we are idiots. I was out of South African for 5 years. When I got back they were talking about caps. I had never heard of it before! I thought it was a joke! In other countries it's unlimited downloading! Hopefully Neotel will be good competition!
Peter 9/10/2009 9:52:58 AM
Telkom SUCKS!!!!!! We have unlimited "broadband" and it is soooooo slow. What happened to the new capacity???? I'll tell you...the corporates are making more profit from it and leaving us with the same crap access. Thank you for stifeling the economy Hellkom!! Instead of trying to pass the buck why don't you do something about it?
Dwayne 9/10/2009 9:53:22 AM
haha very funny and now after every one complaning about telkoms pathetic service all it took was a pigeon to wake up telkom a pigeon can deliver data faster than them and the want to be part of 2010 mabey pigeons should be doing their jobs wake telkom your getting showed up by a bird with a fraction of your brain size hahaha
Cape Town 9/10/2009 9:55:59 AM
Send it to Cape Town and who wins the race.
Peter 9/10/2009 9:56:46 AM
Telkom SUCKS!!!!!! We have unlimited "broadband" and it is soooooo slow. What happened to the new capacity???? I'll tell you...the corporates are making more profit from it and leaving us with the same crap access. Thank you for stifeling the economy Hellkom!! Instead of trying to pass the buck why don't you do something about it?
TNC 9/10/2009 9:57:15 AM
its the overworked SAT-3 cable.Telkom has long been ripping us off.SEACOM! where are you?
Frank 9/10/2009 9:59:21 AM
Have you guys actually read the whole thing? After the pigeon arrived at their offices AND the data was uploaded on their system, the upload was only 4% complete. That calculates to about 50 hours for the upload!! A bit of background for those that didn't follow this whole thing. The ADSL upload was started 26min before the pigeon started flying. It flew to it home and was transported by car to the office and then the data was uploaded.
Wisdom 9/10/2009 9:59:22 AM
Blame apartheid then!
Nate 9/10/2009 9:59:43 AM
Hmmm, lets setup a contest between Winston and Vodacom and MTN. These providers are even more pathetic than Telkom
bob 9/10/2009 10:00:26 AM
Dear TECHNOLOGY STUDENT, in the global world of bandwidth provision everyone should have good throughput rate on uploading and downloading especially on a copper line service. You obviously need to pay better attention in class.....How much does a fiber line cost to the curb? and how much does a technology as diginet cot to for a 521Mb line let alone a 1Meg......First of all diginet is 25 years old and SA is one of the only country's till using this antiquated technology, USA stopped using this technology in 1987-91 total cut off. So I blame Telkom for there crap service speeds and technology that is over 15 years old..
Deon 9/10/2009 10:01:26 AM
I heard the Telkom is hiring sharpshooters to take out pigeons.
24Inc @ Technology Student 9/10/2009 10:03:00 AM
Good idea from the textbooks regarding fibre optic lines. But at what cost? It'll be more cost effective to keep a army of pigeons than to install such a line. And most likely more reliable as well :-)
Stryder 9/10/2009 10:03:18 AM
I don't know what this oke is on about. Over two hours to download 4% of 4 gigs. BS!!! I have downloaded over a gig's worth of updates less than an hour.
@paul 9/10/2009 10:03:30 AM
Paul is correct, Neotel is just a front for TATA. It is run directly for India.
Hmm 9/10/2009 10:03:38 AM
Ok I also wish that Neotel would get their act together this is sick, actually this is taking citizens money for a sub standard product. And @Basil local calls in most countries are free. Maybe you need to travel to find this out or maybe just do some research on the net. People do not mind paying for quality.
nOddy 9/10/2009 10:03:52 AM
Actually it is Apartheid's fault. Quick. give the CEO another underperformance bonus.
h-man 9/10/2009 10:05:30 AM
where can I buy a pidgeon like that? I would like to cancel my telkom and go pidgeon.
Herman 9/10/2009 10:05:35 AM
Trained pigeons easily fly at 70km per hour and up to 120km/h with the wind behind them. What headwind does Telkom have to battle against all the time?
Marc 9/10/2009 10:06:07 AM
Actually, it's a pretty accurate test. Given the data in the article the pigeon is getting 4.3 Mbps. So in theory it should just beat a telkom 4Mbps ADSL line. But if the 4% completion is accurate they were only getting 172Kbps from the line. This is about right because remember they were uploading the data from their offices, not just downloading from the internet and telkom throttle upload rates on their ADSL lines. Also if they used multiple connections it would have been quicker because telkom throttle individual connections too, local or international.
@Terence 9/10/2009 10:06:32 AM
The Unlimited must be a real shoe-string company.
Andrew 9/10/2009 10:07:18 AM
I live in Hillcrest KZN and my ADSL goes down numerous times each day. Frequwntly,when I downloading from the internet the connection breaks and I have to start all over again -- and it is SO frustrating!!!
@John 9/10/2009 10:07:32 AM
And Dick King's horse is dead!
nic 9/10/2009 10:07:46 AM
OH PLEASE TELKOM! The days of SA customers being happy with 3rd world service is coming to an end. Guess what, we actually KNOW what service is like in the rest of the world. Enough with the lame excuses already...
Lin 9/10/2009 10:11:04 AM
The Unlimited IT head Kevin Rolfe said Telkom phoned him a few days ago to say that if he experienced any problems with its lines, he should log a complaint with the Telkom call centre.

"When there is a [major] problem we do it, but the problems are so ongoing that you will end up continuously logging faults," said Rolfe.

I agree 100% with Rolfe! Our company has been having so many problems with telkom! And when you log a complaint, the just say the will get back to you and the problem don't get fixed. In today's world a business can't function probably if the technology is not working! Telkom needs to start sorting out there problems and get better client services!
Relax 9/10/2009 10:16:14 AM
The ASDL line is only the "pipe" that transporting the data. If you attached a "slow" PC to the pipe you will get this type of result. How many Ram this PC have? Whats the processor speed? A PC upgrade is possible long overdue.
christo de bruyn 9/10/2009 10:16:29 AM
Telkom is never to blame.
gazmic 9/10/2009 10:16:33 AM
Go ahead everybody - use your pigeons for broadband. Then don't complain about latency (ping time). Pigeons are fine for doing 70km. Let's see this race from JHB to CT or even JHB to London. By the way, "The Unlimited" is the company that will call you on your cellphone trying to sell you SOS Assist services ie: They are telemarketers. Still love them?
Aziz 9/10/2009 10:19:30 AM
Well done to the Durban Company, I'm definitly getting myself a pigeon now.
Ben 9/10/2009 10:21:33 AM
So Telkom is not to blame, I suppose they are not to blame for the horrific pricing on the data either
Nadene 9/10/2009 10:23:24 AM
"the birds do it, the bees do it"....but Telkom cant do it!
Mamello 9/10/2009 10:23:45 AM
Telkom always has excuses.This is embarrassing but does minister of communication understand the latest technology? Just asking, he looks like an old man who has no clue just worried about the car he drives
Claire 9/10/2009 10:24:39 AM
if telkom is not to blame for their lines... who is?... lets blame Santa Clause
Vrye Denker 9/10/2009 10:25:23 AM
Some technical info: traditional copper wire can only support a theoretical throughput of 1MBit/s. And that is if you use ALL the available twisted pair data cables in the line. This is why the old ISDN was twice as fast as regular dial-up: they used two lines instead of one.

This basically shows that no matter how fast your ADSL is rated at, if somewhere between you and the endpoint, there is a copper carrier, you will be throttled to theoretical copper speeds of between 56k and 1024k. Even if you have a T3 line (insanely fast and expensive) installed, you can't get around the physical limitations of copper. If Telkom want to up their offering, they need to roll out even more fiber-optics, which has a much higher theoretical transfer rate. Maybe they can get a sponsor to lay sat-5 type cables between large cities?
Helkom 9/10/2009 10:25:28 AM
U are all counter-revo.... reva... revil.... eish!!! er, cownter-revelushunuri. ya!!
blacksunshine 9/10/2009 10:28:08 AM
Alright techies, you dont have to nitpick at the technicalities of using ADSL for business purposes. What matters is that it brings Telkom's incompetence to the forefront. And btw Telkom, who exactly resells bandwidth to ISP's that you're so quick to shift the blame to? Who owns majority stake in the undersea cable carring this data? In both cases, Telkom.
Point Blank 9/10/2009 10:30:26 AM
I'm sure 100% of business would like to scrap telkom as their data carrier but at the end of the day you eventually penetrate that dreaded Telkom cloud.
Nic 9/10/2009 10:32:58 AM
@adsl 9/10/2009 9:31:17 AM

No it doesnt, it stands for Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line - stop trying to sound clever.
KOBUS 9/10/2009 10:34:36 AM
Can I blame Telkom for not refunding my monthly fees if the service is down for half of the month?
KOBUS 9/10/2009 10:35:46 AM
LOL @ "@Basil". Do you work for Telkom?
Peter 9/10/2009 10:36:21 AM
A similar story a few years ago where it was cheaper and quicker to fly overseas to download a fairly large file than it was to use Telkom in SA.
Gerald1 9/10/2009 10:38:01 AM
Hey FTelkom no need for finger! They "flipped the bird" to Telkom and won! The only problem is that as soon as the "Shoppers" find out that the birds are carrying memory sticks they'll shoot all the birds and well have to go back to Telkom! LOL
Crypt 9/10/2009 10:44:27 AM
"log a complaint with the Telkom call centre.."
Sure, and get a responds 6 months later?


I guess that's largely in part to the reason for the existence of company divisions such as Didata Insite..., where they log Telkom line faults on behalf of the client experiencing line outage or serious degradations caused by so called Telkom "mistakes" made when they "accidentally" pull the plug on the wrong circuit number, or cut the wrong line for whatever reason.. which they'll never admit in anycase..., not to mention the vast number incompetend Telkom staff trying to work on an ever increasingly failing Telkom infrastructure and the high lack of skills and experience that lurks within their domain...

Not to mention the fact that ordinary companies outside the "protection" cloud of giants such as Didata with divisions such as Insite, have to fend for themselves only to find themselves at the bottom of the priority list eventhough they're paying for a service which Telkom delivers and not living up to expectations by any standard. Logging calls on Telkom fault lines might become a full time job in companies outside this protection cloud, and makes one wonder why things have to go to that extend when Telkom say's they have great service delivery...

Besides all this.. Telkom just can't admit a pigeon transfers data faster than them!
Kenneth 9/10/2009 10:44:59 AM
The fact that Telom is not the ISP of that company is irrelevant as they still suply the line speed. The ISP only supplies the data bundle.

Another thing is that they are very fast to suggest upgrades on your line, but they neglect to thnk about the additional cost of such a upgrade.

I say down with Telkom & Viva Neotel!!!
ethne 9/10/2009 10:45:24 AM
wow. seems i was wrong. birdbrains can be quick and efficient after all - the pigeon just proved it. i always thought humans were smarter but look at this. pigeon with no technology won the race. fun test with funnier results. having problem sending this due to an error and being told to try later. my fault, telkom fault????
@Sue 9/10/2009 10:46:11 AM
Sue, I will be carefully with the idiot thing. Please see TechnologyStudent (9:01:28 AM) for the correct explanation. May there is a few idiots around here.
Kenneth 9/10/2009 10:48:42 AM
The fact that Telkom is not the ISP of that company is irrelevant as they still supyly the line speed. The ISP only supplies the data bundle.

Another thing is that they are very fast to suggest upgrades on your line, but they neglect to thnk about the additional cost of such a upgrade.

I say down with Telkom & Viva Neotel!!!
William 9/10/2009 10:49:21 AM
Hopefully we will see new internet communications drivers using the new supafast protocol (specifically designed for SA): TCPHP - Transmission Control Protocol / Homing Pigeon.
MichaelG 9/10/2009 10:50:23 AM
Please call 0861 PIDGEON for all your broadband needs. ROFLMAO!
Pete 9/10/2009 10:56:43 AM
Good ol' Telkom. Luckily when I applied for a Telkom line in Oct 2005, they only showed up to install it in Feb 2007, so I told them in no uncertain term to get off by yard. By that time I had set everything up by 3G etc. Do they think a business can wait for a year and a half without any internet/e mail access. This should be a boost for the pigeon breeding industry in SA.
challenger 9/10/2009 11:04:32 AM
To all you bird lovers - I challenge you to provide an ISP that can beat this bird in transmitting 4Gigs,note NOT 4 Megs of data.None will succeed.Compare apples with apples,in this case,birds with birds....hahaha
Anisa 9/10/2009 11:10:49 AM
TELKOM!!!everyones worst nightmare!!!!this page took 15 minutes to load! :)...called tech support one day...i was on hold with suicidal music for about 45 minutes...what now???
LOL 9/10/2009 11:11:14 AM
I dare anybody to show me proof that MTN, Vodacom, Cell C and Neotel will be any better, To single Telkom out is unfair, The pigeon will beat all the above. I have vodacom broadband and my neighbour has ADSL 384, we tested the download speed and the ADSL won hands down.
Jack 9/10/2009 11:12:52 AM
@technologyStudent ... you are wrong, a 2Mbit line will do a theoretical max of 920MB/hour ... that would take 4 hours to send the data. Please do your homework before shoveling Bull-S#!t to everyone.
Russ 9/10/2009 11:18:15 AM
Who do you all thinks works for Neotel, Vodacom and MTN ?
Almost all technicall posts are filled with ex telkom techs so don't think they will be any better. Just more of the same under a new name.
Another great service 9/10/2009 11:19:55 AM
Maby they should repeat the race using a tortise? with the 23 minute head start:)
IT Manager 9/10/2009 11:21:54 AM
Vodacom and MTN use to rely on telkom metwork for their antennas, now they are running their own fibre optic cables. To run a fibre optic cable from your company to a vodacom or MTN antenna does cost a bit mor but you get a lot more bang for your buck. And no more down time
Jon 9/10/2009 11:29:37 AM
Lets give Telkom a chance to prove themselves and give old Winston another challenge. If he wins, they donate cash to charity or something. Come on Telkom, money where your mouth its
Who Me?? 9/10/2009 11:34:28 AM
Naaa it wasn't ME??????
Who Me?? 9/10/2009 11:36:08 AM
Sooo our broadband is for the birds then?
G 9/10/2009 11:50:21 AM
Do the maths you silly people. Even if both sending and receiving were at 4MB speed (which they're not), it'd still take well over 2 hours to send/receive it:

4096kb/s / 8
= 512 kB/s
* 60
= 30 720 kB/min
* 60
= 1 843 200 kB/hr
/1024
= 1800 MB/hr

(PS. I don't like Telkom either, but this was a stupid test, designed to fail)
Fox 9/10/2009 11:53:42 AM
LOL dont believe Telkom ppl. This is just BS from their side to try and cover their name. I work for one of the bigest IT companies in SA and one thing all our clients (1 is most likely the biggest internet coustomer telkom has) have incomon is problems with froughput on their adsl lines, Telkom has also nether phoned us or any of our clients and recomended anything to them. Infact you get a sence of carefree attatude from Telkom when you phone them because of througput problems
Niel 9/10/2009 11:57:27 AM
To beat the pigeon's speed you would need atleast a 4.3Mb line downloading at full capacity (+-500Kb/s). So, any pigeon service prices? I guess you pay a once off fee to start with (flash disk(s)) and then the line rental (bird) cant be that expensive...
luvPIGEONdotCOM 9/10/2009 11:57:53 AM
you all better watch out, as Telkom has just bought 200 eagles, 300 hawks and 1000 egg eating snakes to take care of the pigeons......... sources are directly linked to Telkoms CEO
Brutus 9/10/2009 11:58:13 AM
I reckon we should appoint the pigeon as the next CEO of Telkom, maybe he'll get things done more quickly.
Jo 9/10/2009 11:58:50 AM
I applied to Telkom for an ADSL line - in February! Despite reassurances of "escalating" this to their Technical Department. There was also the assurance that they would communicate with me, well, needless to say...nothing!
Fox 9/10/2009 11:59:26 AM
All lies Anglo sits with the same problems and they have nether ever recommended anything to us or in any way improved throughput even with our IT departments constant complaining.
Jay 9/10/2009 11:59:39 AM
Telkom really needs to get their pricing down too, we need more bandwidth for the money we pay. even if you are with mweb or others, they all have to work through....Telkom! I seriously need an answer on when SEACOM will start benefitting ALL South Africans, not just colleges and other study institutions. Its time to pay less!! Same goes for Cell phones. This story really made my day though, i must say!
PeterR 9/10/2009 12:02:08 PM
I don't know why Telkom is apologetic on this one. The 4% uploaded in 127 minutes equates to around 256kbps, which is not bad on the 512kbps maximum upload speed on a 4Mbps ADSL link - it is about 50% efficiency - it is near impossible to reach 100% efficiency. Anyway, even at 100% efficiency it should have taken 21 hours to upload this file. You get what you pay for.
Petros 9/10/2009 12:06:06 PM
I foresee a movie trilogy deal here:

Pigeon Wars
Telkom Strikes Back
Return of the Carrier Pigeon
Mr Drew 9/10/2009 12:16:59 PM
@ G, the upload was only 4% complete after 2 hours. Who are you calling silly? You must be one of those dimwitted, defensive Telkom employees.
pierre 9/10/2009 12:26:35 PM
ADSL is made to download faster not upload faster - ADSL stands for Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line - the asymmetric part comes in because the technology has different upload and download speeds which generally suits users since they sit at home and want fast downloads for multi media. I would venture to say that there is NO line even in the US market that would beat that pigeon. Like Telkom said they need to change their lines - Diginet is 5x more expensive but better suited to the task. SADLY for once Telkom is right (damn i hate saying that)
To beat the pigeon you would need the following:
Memory stick: 4GB = 4x1024x1024 (KB)
4x1024x1024/2x60x60 = 582KB/s (kilo bytes per second)
thus you would need a line of 4.6Mbit/sec ...
Qwest which is the UBER ADSL line in the US only gets 0.8Mbsec..
g 9/10/2009 12:31:41 PM
Telkom treats their customers like rubbish as can be seen in Troy Hector's response......However the test itself was absolute BS. A one legged person could cross the road to deliver 4gig faster.... but try the same test between JHB and Durban or Cape Town

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