Poor service and communication received from Afrihost

Our fibre line was damaged by a storm on Monday 29 January 2024. I reported the matter to Afrihost our service provider on Tuesday 30 January 2024. I was contacted on Wednesday 31 January 2024 by Impisi fibre and was told that the technician would be at my house 13:30 that day. By 13:55 no technician has arrived and I decided to contact the number that phoned me. I was told there is a fibre cable damage in my area. Which was totally a lie, because the school where I work, right next to where I live, had no problems with the fibre. After daily chats with Afrihost and receiving messages saying the ticket was with Evotel maintenance team by Friday 2 February 2024 I phoned Impisi fibre again. Eventually a received a message from Matlodi Mfupa saying that My neighbour (the school) also has a problem, again not true, because I was using wifi of the school at that very moment. I was then told that I would have to pay for the repair first before work could be scheduled. Why I wasn’t told this on Tuesday or Wednesday is beyond me. Surely I could’ve made payment and secured the problem would be sorted sooner. After I mentioned that the cable was damaged due to a storm we had and that Evotel Rtb did not trench our entire cable as it should’ve been done from the start, I was then told that there would be no fees payable by myself. After asking and waiting I finally received a message that said the technicians would be at my house today 3 February 2024 at 14:00. I arranged this time specifically with Matlodi, because we had an athletics meeting on at school today and I needed to arrange things so that I could be home when the technicians arrive. It is now 14:33 on Saturday 3 February 2024. I have received a message from Matlodi saying she is calling the technicians (whether they are from Evotel or Impisi, I don’t know). I will mostliky have to send a message again to ask when they will be here.

The entire experience I’ve this week leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. I find it hard to believe that Afrihost, Impisi fibre and Evotel has such poor systems in place to assist paying customers to sort out faults. Afrihost for example would just tell me to wait for Impisi or Evotel to contact me. If I ask them to follow up, place pressure on their contractor, I’m told that they only contact Impisi or Evotel via email. I would’ve been acceptable if one of the companies mentioned actually bothered to inform me of what the situation is. A message or phone call explaining the delay would really go a long way.

Why is that a paying customer has to struggle with service delivery from private companies. One can expect such behaviour from Municipalities across our country, but the work ethics of the general service providers in this country is astonishingly poor.