M-Web should rule ADSL
Two or three weeks ago I told Telkom Internet that they could kindly take their service and…. well, take it somewhere else. This after one of the most incredulous customer service experiences I’ve ever had.
It all started a few months ago when Telkom hard-capped me because I used 16gb of data in a month. Hard-capping refers to them basically suspending your account. Investigating this uncovered at least one piece of interesting info.. while the call-centre rep didn’t say it is as directly, he did hint that Telkom may be having some problems with usernames and passwords being leaked out, and that someone could easily be stealing my share of the 3gb I purchase each month. I monitored it, and it stopped as mysteriously as it started.
But then last month while away in Durban for a weekend (away from my DSL connection) my account clocked up over 11gb in 4 days. Telkom call-centre suggest I send an e-mail to abuse@telkom.co.za. I did this and the results were as suspected… someone else was logging into my account from a different location. But here’s the kicker… on the day I sent the mail, Telkom Internet once again hard-capped me. when I phoned they told me I had to buy more bandwidth, and when I pointed out an investigation was happening by Telkom through e-mail (the only channel available) and therefore would not be able to resolve it, the call-centre rep offered to e-mail abuse@telkom.co.za for me. This after I’d just waited the normal 30 minutes on the phone for her to answer. I politely told them, ‘no thanks’, and went to NewsCafe to get access to get the results of the missing data.
The reply from abuse@telkom.co.za suggested that if I’d like to take it further, that I should go to my local police station and log a compaint against Telkom, and they’d then be able to pick it up. You understand then why I told them to take their Internet service and … well you know what.
I then phoned M-Web who had me up and running in 20 minutes (only took them 20 seconds to answer my call, and every call I’ve made since then) I got 5 hours free hotspot access with my account and an ability to up my cap instantly should I need to, online or over the phone. Have you ever tried upping your cap with Telkom Internet. Let’s not go there. M-Web also has a free sms service to let you know when your data hits a certain % of your monthly cap, so you can stay on top of things. I’ll stop there, but their offering is just far superior.
Which leaves me wondering why M-Web isn’t the king of ADSL supply in this country? I know my experience with Telkom isn’t unique. There are enough stories out there to fill a book. Perhaps it’s that most Telkom ADSL users have become accustomed to Telkom’s particular brand of service, and dont know there’s something better. Hey there is! Personally I think the folks over at M-Web just haven’t found a clever marketing strategy to let people know just how bad things are with Telkom Internet and ADSL. Because if they had, they’d be the kings. Fer Sure.
Nuf Sed.
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Good call dude. I’m also a happy M-Web ADSL customer, never had any problems. You see, the problem is, regardless of how good or bad M-Web is at marketing their ADSL service, they can at best still only be an ISP, subject to Telkom’s line rental. Telkom still switches the line on and off (at will it seems).
Basically, we all pay Telkom ADSL line rental fees (on top of our normal line rental fees – explain that one to me considering the installation process does not include laying any cable). On top of the Telkom fees we pay ISP fees. If Telkom is your ISP, you pay 3 sets of fees.
Or at least that’s how i understand it.
It may be that I’ve read too many books and seen too many movies. But, it occurred to me that maybe there were employees at Telkom who were robbing you and, most probably, others as well.
And just in case you think I was exagerating the usage, here’s a mail from Telkom this morning telling me what my discontinued account was doing… (keep in mind from 9 May onwards this account was closed, so all in 9 days – 3gb per day)
————————-
Dear subscriber
A friendly notification that according to our records your usage as at [2006-5-22 00:00:01] reflected the following:
Username: Telkomdsl27140@dsl512telkomsa.net
Uploaded: 3.79GB
Downloaded: 25.61GB
Combined Total: 29.40GB
Service threshold: 3.00GB
I did a bit of Googling, and found another discussion which was pretty interesting. Seems one guy was having a hard time finding a cop who knew what he was talking about and so forth. I sometimes wonder how much I use. When my wife and I got our service, there was no mention of a cap.