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I read The Witness and The Times each weekday. I also subscribe to TechCentral's news feed and read most of what is posted there. Lately Telkom has featured quite prominently for several reasons on the TechCentral news feed. Often it is about Telkom's control of much of South Africa's networking infrastructure, and what many consider to be, it's poor management thereof. At one point it irritated me to the extent that I responded to one such posting and said much the same as I have said in the following paragraph.
I have used Telkom as an Internet Service Provider at home for a long time, and the service has been excellent on almost all fronts. The service has been extraordinarily reliable when compared with the electricity supply in Pietermaritzburg and many of the other services the local authority is responsible for. The only real problem I have had, has been with the Web-based TopUp facility when it was first introduced. That has improved and is no longer an issue for me.
I have also used Nashua Mobile and Vodacom for some time (10 years). I have always been happy with Vodacom's cell phone service, and in particularly with respect to their coverage of South Africa. More recently I have become somewhat irritated by the the range of the packages they offer on a take it or leave it basis. Why not introduce another option that allow me choose a phone, list my requirements and be given a quote.
More recently I have not been that happy with Nashua Mobile, particularly when they stopped honouring my efforts to pay my bill with my credit card, as I had done for years. Not only did they not inform me about it, they also suspended my service when I unknowingly did not paying for two months in a row.
But it was not that that lead me to write this blog. That occurred when I finally got around to using the Nashua Mobile web service that should allow me to view my bill, update my details, and so on. The reality is that the site will not allow me to update my details, if I do not supply a work telephone number. Nashua Mobile already have my cell phone number, so why do they absolutely have to have my work phone number? More to the point, did it not occur to them that I might not have a work telephone number, which in fact is the case right now as I am retired.
After the frustration of not being able to update my details without supplying a bogus work telephone number, I did then use the site to voice my disappointment and frustration, not once, but several times. The responses I have had thus far have been even more disappointing.
As I said at the outset, why pick on Telkom when you can pick on Nashua Mobile instead. For what I am getting for my money, it certainly makes more sense.
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