Ever wondered (not just jokingly) how efficient our State Owned Entities are? Wonder no more.......
Example 1:
Eskom changed all the electricity meters in our estate to "smart meters". Then, on 20 & 27 August they had an information day in the estate on two consecutive Saturdays to let all the residents know how the meter works - it has the "Customer Interface Unit (CIU) that you have in the house that can monitor usage etc. They handed these out & also explained that we could convert to prepaid & had all the documentation with them to convert it we chose to. I elected to stay on post paid as our account is in credit.
On 21 October (2 months after the "smart" meter is installed I receive an email from "Eskom Smart prepayment split metering programme" to say that my CIU is ready for collection & I can collect it (by appointment only if you don't mind) from their Rivonia offices.
Methinks their smart meters are a lot smarter than they are.
Example 2:
For the past 3 months there has been much activity in the suburbs around our estate as well as within the estate - fibre being laid. Burst water mains & pavement mess aside it's been eagerly anticipated. Queries to labourers/foreman/chap in charge over the last 3 months has led to zero information as to WHO the fibre belongs to. Until this is known we don't know who to sign up with......
The estate has been complete for 3 weeks. Fibre laid, joined, tested & ready to do the last "mile" into the individual properties.
On 15 October one of the local fibre providers was at the estate to sign up subscribers. Or so I thought.
Nope, they are only taking "expressions of interest" and if they get sufficient interest the will then.... wait for it..... lay their OWN fibre. Which means switch-on at the end of the first quarter of 2017.
WTAF?
The fibre that has just been laid belongs to Telkom. They want ridiculous rental from the local provider, so it's more cost effective to lay new fibre than lease it from Telkom.
So I figure why not phone Telkom & find out pricing.
Telkom 40Mbps line uncapped data is R2,399-00 a month excluding VAT, so R2,735-00 inclusive.
Local Provider 50Mbps line uncapped data is R1,214-00 a month excluding VAT, so R1,385-00 inclusive.
For R2,350-00 exclusive the local provider will give me a 200Mbps line with uncapped data.
The Eskom example shows inefficiencies and stuff all communication between departments.
The Telkom example shows just how financially inefficient they are. How many millions spent laying fibre that nobody will use because they are so insanely overpriced? So it's not just a loss of business due to being too expensive, it's also a waste of capex installing infrastructure that nobody will be using!
The mind boggles.
/rant over
Example 1:
Eskom changed all the electricity meters in our estate to "smart meters". Then, on 20 & 27 August they had an information day in the estate on two consecutive Saturdays to let all the residents know how the meter works - it has the "Customer Interface Unit (CIU) that you have in the house that can monitor usage etc. They handed these out & also explained that we could convert to prepaid & had all the documentation with them to convert it we chose to. I elected to stay on post paid as our account is in credit.
On 21 October (2 months after the "smart" meter is installed I receive an email from "Eskom Smart prepayment split metering programme" to say that my CIU is ready for collection & I can collect it (by appointment only if you don't mind) from their Rivonia offices.
Methinks their smart meters are a lot smarter than they are.
Example 2:
For the past 3 months there has been much activity in the suburbs around our estate as well as within the estate - fibre being laid. Burst water mains & pavement mess aside it's been eagerly anticipated. Queries to labourers/foreman/chap in charge over the last 3 months has led to zero information as to WHO the fibre belongs to. Until this is known we don't know who to sign up with......
The estate has been complete for 3 weeks. Fibre laid, joined, tested & ready to do the last "mile" into the individual properties.
On 15 October one of the local fibre providers was at the estate to sign up subscribers. Or so I thought.
Nope, they are only taking "expressions of interest" and if they get sufficient interest the will then.... wait for it..... lay their OWN fibre. Which means switch-on at the end of the first quarter of 2017.
WTAF?
The fibre that has just been laid belongs to Telkom. They want ridiculous rental from the local provider, so it's more cost effective to lay new fibre than lease it from Telkom.
So I figure why not phone Telkom & find out pricing.
Telkom 40Mbps line uncapped data is R2,399-00 a month excluding VAT, so R2,735-00 inclusive.
Local Provider 50Mbps line uncapped data is R1,214-00 a month excluding VAT, so R1,385-00 inclusive.
For R2,350-00 exclusive the local provider will give me a 200Mbps line with uncapped data.
The Eskom example shows inefficiencies and stuff all communication between departments.
The Telkom example shows just how financially inefficient they are. How many millions spent laying fibre that nobody will use because they are so insanely overpriced? So it's not just a loss of business due to being too expensive, it's also a waste of capex installing infrastructure that nobody will be using!
The mind boggles.
/rant over
