Telkom unable to provide proper DSL service/support

<p>I had a stable 5Mb/s+ ADSL service for around 2 years, but on 29 November 2016 my area experienced a bad thuderstorm and my ADSL service went down. After that the service was extremely intermittend, going down every minute or two. At times when the service stayed up long enough to do a speed test I never saw anything above 1.7Mb/s.</p> <p> </p> <p>On 1 December 2016 I logged a call with Telkom Business.</p> <p> </p> <p>On 23 December 2016 a technician finally arrived, tested the DSL line, declared nothing was wrong and left. He barely left the premises before I got an SMS from Telkom stating my service was restored. The service was still very intermittend with speeds well below what I am paying for.</p> <p> </p> <p>On 28 December 2016 I contacted Telkom Business again to log a repeat fault. The support person taking my call tested the line from her side and confirmed there is carrier loss on my DSL line. She also recreated the ADSL ports, which made no difference.</p> <p> </p> <p>On 4 January 2017 I phoned Telkom Business again to escalate my call.</p> <p> </p> <p>On 17 January 2017 another technician arrived. After being told there is carrier loss on the DSL line he only stated he cannot do anything about that and left. He mentioned that at least one other person in my area has the exact same issue. Once again he barely left the premises before I got an SMS from Telkom stating my service was restored. Considering the technicial did not even open his toolbox it would have been amusing if I was not so very annoyed by then. I immediately re-open the call.</p> <p> </p> <p>On 21 January 2017 another TWO technicians arrived. At first they stated nothing was wrong with my DSL line, but after I mentioned my normal telephone line is very noisy, the one technician tested again and admitted he can hear some noise on the DSL line. The other technician kept on stating he did not hear anything and the line was clear. They eventually decided to switch me to another wire pair in the cable running from the telephone pole to my wall socket. While the technicians were there I performed another ADSL speed test and registered 4.7Mb/s. The one technician also recommended I replace my oldish ADSL router with a newer model. A few hours later my speed dropped to ****b/s and stayed there.</p> <p> </p> <p>On 25 January 2017 I installed a brand new ADSL router costing me R1,100. I immediately performed a few ADSL speed tests and registered speeds of over 5Mb/s. Unfortunately by the next morning speeds dropped to around 0.4Mb/s again.</p> <p> </p> <p>Since then I have only registered download speeds in the 0.4Mb/s to 0.6Mb/s range since then. My upload speed for some weird reason is actually faster at 0.8Mb/s. Every now and then I phone Telkom Business and request they recreate my ADSL ports. I will then register speeds of around 4.7Mb/s, but that only last for an hour or two before dropping back to around 0.5Mb/s.</p> <p> </p> <p>I am extremely frustrated with the poor support I receive from Telkom for a business line fault now lasting more than 2 months. At this stage my biggest wish is that we could hold Telkom accountable for loss of income and/or not delivering the service they are actually getting paid for.</p> <p> </p>