And I’ve had enough of it. As previously mentioned on this site, TelkomADSL put their entry level prices up by 67%. Despite of my impotent fury over the matter - and perhaps because I must be certifiably insane - we forked out the extra shillings and this month paid KSh9188 for same service we used to have.
The service has been shockingly bad. Despite the fact that a large number of users in Kisumu, including probably the most popular internet café in town, stopped using the service due to instability and the price hike, the service has actually managed to get worse.
Today, the service dropped entirely for at least 4 hours. It re-started around 11am and has faded in and out since then. It hasn’t actually fallen over, but access speeds are right down. Two weeks ago, the service went down completely for three days. There was a serious problem - it affected VOIP for the whole of Western Kenya, or so I was told - but if you tried to talk to any one at Telkom about it, all anyone ever said was “be patient”.
To cap things off, I only found out by accident that the service had resumed - although I did get a phone call two days after service resumed asking me if it had - and I received no kind of apology at all. Moreover, when I asked how I would be refunded for the downtime, I was greeted with blank looks. I gradually dragged it out of someone that if I wrote a letter, a manager would “consider” compensating me for my lost service. So here’s the letter I wrote (to the Kiumu office, I don’t know if this rant can be directed at the Nairobi or any other office, since I have never had to deal with them):
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am writing to inform you that I am very unsatisfied with the level of your services. This dissatisfaction runs to practically every level of your operation, but it is your frankly laughable attitude to TelkomADSL customers that causes me greatest concern.
Last month, you finally got around to hiking your entry level ADSL price by 67%. Not a week later, your ADSL service underwent a total failure for 3 days. During this failure, there was no attempt on your part to inform your customer base that there was a problem and no attempt was made to give assurances as to when it might return.
Instead, customers had to be pro-active to a ludicrous degree. I, along with many other ADSL users, repeatedly attempted to call your 0800 221 2375 “customer services” number, however, it is was constantly engaged throughout working hours. There was no call waiting or message, just an engaged tone. I frequently assumed I had somehow dialled the wrong number until other ADSL users assured me they were having the same problems.
As a result of this line being for all intents and purposes out of action, I switched to calling your Kisumu office. There too, the exchange was constantly engaged, so I reverted to your 997 line. This enabled me to speak to Kisumu’s “tele care” representatives. All that garnered were repeated calls to “be patient” and assurances that “the service will come”. No one asked me who I was, no one offered to take my number and call me back, no one would transfer me to the ADSL team, in fact, no one would tell me anything on the phone. Instead, I had to resort to coming in person to your Kisumu office. This was the only way to get anyone at Telkom to talk to me about the problem.
After three days, your ADSL service spluttered back in to life. Again, there were no calls to your customers to let them know this had happened - until two days after the fact.
Two weeks have passed since the outage and there has been no offer of a refund to anyone. Not only that, but outages have increased in frequency since then. Approximately 2-3 times an hour, your DNS server falls over, or your link goes down, sometimes for five minutes, sometimes for over an hour. Today, 21st September, it went down for 4 hours in the morning and has been at a snails pace ever since.
This is unacceptable. I tolerated this when I was paying KSh5602 a month, but I will not tolerate this when I am spending KSh9188 a month for the same service. I know for a fact that you have lost a good chunk of your ADSL users over this affair. Perhaps you should be a little more proactive with your ADSL customers, after all they are, per capita, among the highest paying customers you have.
You, Telkom Kenya, are a large telecoms company, yet you appear incapable of basic telephone customer care. Moreover, why on earth am I required to write a letter to you, an ISP to have someone “consider” compensating me for a problem that was not my fault, but resulted in me getting no service? Why can I not speak to someone on the telephone who can actually do something about this? Why can I not sort this out through email? Why do you not have a function on your website where system outages can be reported (after the fact, of course)?
Telkom, what are you doing? Trying to lose customers? Shouldn’t you be trying to retain them? Competition is coming and you seem completely unaware that customer retention will no longer be a given – your monopoly status is no longer something you can bank on. As soon as Popote or Flashcom come to Kisumu, you will almost certainly lose the majority of your ADSL customers unless you start to appreciate your customers as opposed to taking them for granted.
Your ADSL service started so well. The entry level price you introduced in February was extremely competitive and many people like me signed up on the spot. 6 months later and your ADSL customers can only assume that you do not want them to use it. The price has gone up, the stability has worsened and your customer care remains a joke. Was the low price just a scam to get people “locked in” to your service?
So, as requested, here is what I’d like you to “consider” with regards to a refund/service extension due to the downtime. Please refund me the following:
- 3 full days’ access for the lack of service between September 3rd and September 6th
- 1 full day’s access to compensate for cumulative other DNS failure/link outages.
- 1 full additional day as a compensation for my inconvenience
This is a total of 5 days. Please add these days to my pre-paid account so as to run commensurate with the current month.
Furthermore, please call me on 057 20##### to confirm receipt of this letter. I would also request that you respond in writing to:
David Scannell
PO Box ~~~~ KSM
40100
Kisumu
KenyaA copy of this letter has been posted to my website, www.umoja.co.uk and re-blogged on www.kenyaunlimited.com. If you would like to post a response, you are welcome to do so on my website.
Kind regards,
David Scannell.
I figured there’s pretty much zero chance any one will do anything about this, I thought I’d say it how it is.
Anyone else having Telkom woes? I’m tempted to start a website where Kenyan’s can rail against the total lack of customer care most companies have here.
Anyone interested?
Hi David
I was investigating switching from my current internet service (Swift Global) to Telkom’s ADSL service. I checked the website and since I could not find the actual tariffs charged I decided to google it. Then saw your blog and boy am I glad I did… Sounds like switching over could actually mean switching off !
Swift although more expensive to set up has been totally reliable for the last 9 months – only a couple of hours during that time has my connection failed.
Good luck to you as you try to stay connected.
Peter
Hi, just like Peter am thinking of switching my ISP, to Telkoms ADSL, I thought with sahannet which charges me a monthly fee of 28,420 for 32 KBPS and is either down or slow for most times, i had a raw deal, but now i’ve come across your blog and now am a bit hesitant about switching over.
Please if you or anyone else can give me ideas for another cheaper and more efficient ISP i’d be deeply grateful
Thanks
If I lived in Nairobi, I’d be giving Popote a call. I haven’t heard from any users yet, but they are an ADSL provider using CDMA technology. Unfortunately, it will be a while before this technology gets out of Nairobi. Telkom Kisumu say are launching their wireles service in Kisumu in January - for that, read November 2007. Popote said they’d keep me updated (and then didn’t).
As far as reliable service goes, I’ve heard very few complaints about Swift Global. The major problem with them is the set up cost (well, the whole cost actually). You need to buy varuous bits of kit that adds up to about a $400(!) initial outlay. The monthly cost of a 128kbps is about Ksh12,000 (from memory), but if you can find three other local users you can split your access 3/4 ways and reduce the cost accordingly.
Let me know what you go for!
You may also want to try out GPRS via Safaricom & Celtel with a GPRS enabled phone. It’s not as fast as DSL, but works and you only pay for the downloaded data. So whenever it doesn’t work, there’s no charge which is a fair deal, i think.
Popote & Flashcom are ok (for Nairobians) but take a look at their gadgets and you’ll understand it’s not really what we are looking for (except for the “Black Box” which connects to the phone & fax and has a proprietary data outlet and costs 17k).
I think “wireless” and “prepaid” are the driving forces behind any future development in the telcom sector as cabooools & connection quality are just too vulnerable on Kenyan lines. And this prepaid thing gives them an incentive to deliver (except of course for Telekom Kenya which are just mismanaged).
Also, dial-up via modem with Telekom Kenya = 7 bob/minute. These guys are thugs!
So, any luck with getting some sort of response from Telkom on this?
Steve
No. Come to think about it, I’d forgotten - real life caught up with me for a bit recently! Not being able to bear another confrontation in the office and thinking it would be best to stick with head office, I mailed it to Nairobi and heard nothing…
I’m going to print off a another copy (tone it down a little perhaps) and take it to telecare Kisumu. At the moment, the ADSL service has slowed right down - even on weekend evenings.
I get an exceptionally slow service at the moment and every now and again, although chat gaim/trillian/chat clients and email work, firefox just returns “cannot connect to server”. This is weird because even on these occasions, I can ping their dns servers and get pretty quick response times…
Anyway, It’ll be a two for one when I go there this week. Thanks for jogging my memory guys.
Downtime is just the tip of the damn nightmare that telcom ADSL is. Nearly all their dynamc IPs have been blacklisted. You can’t send mail to anyone unless you are on a masquaraded server. Today is my last day on the lowsy service.
i was thinking of setting a cyber in nyahururu where the selling owner used ADSL i think this is what ‘killed’ the cyber update me on a better provider for better and cheaper services
am planning to set up a major wifi nation wide network but i need majoe patners and u wont have to worry abaout asdl always braking up whenever am surfing.takes i hour to download 10mb.a joke
please mail intrested person on wifi my adress so we discuss setting up real broadband 50mbs per second and we leave adsl
internet in Kenya is seriously overated - there is big talk about submarine cables and all but the last mile is were the issues are. Telkom’s ADSL sucks but i dont know how good the data service over their CDMA network is. Though the charges are pay per minute.
I have a wireless connection with Africaonline - their infinet service. the technolgy is pretty decent (iburst from kyocera) and gives you a local loop of 1Mbps! But alas the internet bandwidth is not the same - its more like 80 - 100kbps. its fairly reliable - have had no issues on downtimes and support chaps are pretty helpful and accessible. I recommended this to a friend in Mombasa after they rolled out and they have been singing praises all through. It could be better priced though. There is the 8000 VAT service for an unlimited 24hrs service however if you are a heavy downloads guy they automatically shape your bandwidth so it gets degraded as you continue heavu downloads. This was my beef wih them and they pointed to the damn small print of the fair use policy.
There is also a 4000 bob inclusive product that gives 7pm - 7am web access as well as all thru over w/ends. So far I have tested popote, flashcom, ADSL, Safcom’s EDGE and wifi butterfly and can say africa online’s service meets my needs (so far).
G!
Afrca online Iburst connection is a total failure. It becomes so slow after sometime that you have to wait for a whole 30 minutes in order to access Yahoo!!!. I would not recommend it to anyone.
Am very frustrated with Telkom ADSL joined 2 months ago and since 23rd June 2008 they have the worst kind of service. Wish I had installed Popote or Flashcom. Now I have lost half of my clients to my competition, since am always rushing to their Peponi Office or Teleposter Towers in town as they never pick up their customer care phones. Such a big company yet they are just fleecing customers.
Have no words for Telkom
CATHERINE
I Have a small cyber along Ngong Road, have been using Telkom ADSL where have to pay Kshs 9,188 per month. So far am very frustrated with their services, the whole of last month that is July 2008, the internet was always down and no compensation has been made. Does any one know any cheaper and reliable internet provider in Nairobi?
Hi Catherine
Wish you success. Let me ask most of the guys up here posted in 2006, has there been no changes since then? I’m looking up on the connection being provided by Celtel and Safcom respectively though I don’t know how that well would work with a cyber.
In addition I saw an article by KDN where they were to have 512kbps connection going for a monthly fee of 5000 by this here and a mobile leased line for 2500 per month.