# Trying to find a decent telephone provider.



## perky (Mar 8, 2009)

Could any please tell me which is the most reliable and competent telephone service provider here.
I am currently with Telkom who i find pretty incompetent, cutting me off for alleged unpaid accounts ( have receipts for all payments ) and just don't seem to be able to get their act together.
As i do all my banking online i must have a totally reliable service, if there is such a one!!

Thanks.


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## Johanna (Apr 13, 2009)

perky said:


> Could any please tell me which is the most reliable and competent telephone service provider here.
> I am currently with Telkom who i find pretty incompetent, cutting me off for alleged unpaid accounts ( have receipts for all payments ) and just don't seem to be able to get their act together.
> As i do all my banking online i must have a totally reliable service, if there is such a one!!
> 
> Thanks.


Do not know whether Neotel still exists, as far as I know Telkom has a monopoly on landlines.

I must be very fortunate, have not had any problems, receive my account via e-mail, pay by direct debit and account has never been too high ( I keep quite a check on it )

Telkom is also my ADSL provider, started with a 3Gig option, has been increased, without any extra cost, to 10 Gig.

Have you thought of using mobile internet services, MTN, Vodacom or CellC?


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## perky (Mar 8, 2009)

Johanna said:


> Do not know whether Neotel still exists, as far as I know Telkom has a monopoly on landlines.
> 
> I must be very fortunate, have not had any problems, receive my account via e-mail, pay by direct debit and account has never been too high ( I keep quite a check on it )
> 
> ...


Many thanks, will give them a check out.


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## DonoZA (Jan 10, 2012)

If you're looking for a competent telephone provider in SA, you should probably just move to another country because there isn't one.


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## Johanna (Apr 13, 2009)

DonoZA said:


> If you're looking for a competent telephone provider in SA, you should probably just move to another country because there isn't one.


I am one of the very lucky people, have only had good service from Telkom, have not had the need to call them more than twice since we returned two years ago.


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## perky (Mar 8, 2009)

Johanna said:


> I am one of the very lucky people, have only had good service from Telkom, have not had the need to call them more than twice since we returned two years ago.
> 
> 
> Thinking of giving MTN a try. They are offering a package at R289pm which is better than Telkom who charge R530pm line rental.
> ...


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## Johanna (Apr 13, 2009)

perky said:


> Johanna said:
> 
> 
> > I am one of the very lucky people, have only had good service from Telkom, have not had the need to call them more than twice since we returned two years ago.
> ...


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## perky (Mar 8, 2009)

Johanna said:


> perky said:
> 
> 
> > Wow, we don't pay Telkom that much, our total account, including telephone calls and a 10 Gig ADSL is just over R500 pm.
> ...


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## Johanna (Apr 13, 2009)

perky said:


> Johanna said:
> 
> 
> > Cheers, will let you know how i get on and what they are like.
> ...


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## murraybiscuit (Nov 15, 2011)

perky. if you're wanting tech-related advice in south africa, i suggest you look join mybroadband forums. it's a specific interest group with expertise in this area. hopefully mods here don't get too flustered with that advice.

neotel's consumer offering is uncompetitive, mainly because their service, technology and billing has been historically poor. some people are happy with it, but the risk of disappointment is high. mobile broadband is patchy and is generally expensive. mtn is a mobile data provider, so their costs will be higher than (a)dsl costs. mobile data providers generally give cheap bundled data contracts and then catch you with exorbitant out of bundle costs. 

what generally happens is that people have a range of telco accounts to cater to each facet of their needs. if you put all your eggs in one basket, you end up getting ripped off somewhere along the line. also, as much as possible, try to not buy a bandwidth contract with bundled hardware. get your dsl router / 3g modem separately. that way when another provider slashes prices, you can move. this is easier to do with fixed line hardware.

if you're going fixed line for data, rather get the connection directly through telkom (it has to go through them anyway) and sign up with a separate isp for the bandwidth component, who offers you a better deal. some popular dsl isp's are afrihost / axxess (cheap capped accounts) and openweb/mweb (reasonable uncapped accounts). 

another issue is with network redundancy. because south africa is so far away from anywhere, the cables undersea sometimes break. in the past, people have ended up without a connection for up to a week. in this event, you can set up a temporary account with a provider which uses a separate cable till the problem is fixed.


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## perky (Mar 8, 2009)

Hi Murraybiscuit,

Thanks for all that info. Am still hunting around so will keep that all in mind.
Still got so much more to understand about SA but will get there in the end.


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