Very poor support processes

On the 5th of December 2017, my fibre connection stopped working. I logged the issue with MWEB with the the innocent expectation of having it fixed within a week or two (Mweb indicated 3-10 working days)

I was very suprised to receive a call from Telkom the very next day informing me that my issue had been received and that a technician would be assigned forthwith.

Said technician finally arrived at my gate around the 15th of January. After checking he told me that my setup was fine, but the fault was 69 meters away. He investigated and found a kink in the line between the two telephone poles. He was however concerned with the height of the box on the pole closest to me and said he would contact the division/section responsible for the cabling and have them replace the faulty cable and move the box.

About a week later, the cable guys arrived, moved the box and pulled in a new cable. However still no Internet.

I reported the matter to MWEB again. Was assured that the problem would be escalated to Telkom and that they would take action. After some time, another technician arrived at my gate with no previous notification. I had ot been home the previous time he had pitched up, but he had not made an appointment then either.

After I had to explain to him what the previous technicians had done/said, he investigated and found that although the cable guys had pulled in the cable, they had not terminated it. He went ahead and terminated the cable at my end, but could apparently not gain access at the other end. He did however assure me that he would contact the relevant people and return shortly to connect up the cable.

Time passed, nothing happened. Contacted MWEB again. Explained the situation. Call was escalated. Talked to Telkom, spoke to technicians who wanted to arrive without prior notice and eventually managed to be at home at the same time as a technician.

As before he had no knowledge of what had gone before. I explained that the connection on my side was fine and that the issue was on the upstream side. He managed to gain access to the next post and reported back that the termination box was apparently too small and that the cable from my house could not be terminated. He once again promised to report the matter and get the cable guys to sort it out.

Time passed. Contacted MWEB again. Call escalated to Telkom. Telkom called me back. I explained the situation with the cable. Was called by a technician. Explained the situation to him and he said he could not fix the situation, but that he would follow up and get back to me.

Once again, no follow up followed.

And so on and so forth.

I have had no Fibre/Internet for more than 3 months now, have been charged regularly for each of those months by MWEB and have spent a small fortune on 3G to be able to get any connectivity. My cellphone, Ipad and computer are all screaming at me for system updates.

All of the technicians and helpdesk folk have been very nice and have tried their best but my experience of the support is as follows:

- there is no follow up unless I do it myself - there no sense of urgency - there is no handover between technicians - It is not possible to contact either Telkom or Open-first directly which means that any information is passed on third hand - There is no or very little coordination between the various entities tasked with the issue. There is a distinct lack of professional courtesy such as making an appointment or at least a reasonable attempt to ensure that visits are planned when there is actually someone to receive the technicians - Etc.

Surely it would have made more sense after the first visit to make an appointment and send out both the technician and cable people at the same time and save at least four actual visits and several other attempted visits?

The worst part of this is that I can't even cancel my account in a fit of peevishness as the next service provider will also be using Telkom and Openfirst to supply the actual fibre.