Telkom DSL in less than 2 weeks with free modem, free install for under R350/month, all in.

The following was passed on to me by Sarah Rice.  Lawrence Cawood has graciously  agreed to allow me to publish it here.  If you're looking for a way to get a basic DSL service at a reasonable price with very low (i.e. none whatsoever) setup costs, read on...

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Lawrence’s Guide to Ordering Home DSL

Step 1: Acquiring a Phone Line

If you already have a phone line, skip to step 2.
In order to make use of the DSL service, you need a permanent telephone line (not prepaid).

Loophole #1: The monthly line rental for a standard telephone line is R99 per month. You could go this route, however there exists a better option... it’s called Telkom Closer, which I’m sure you’ve heard of in the ads.   With Telkom Closer option 1, you pay R120 p/m, and get calls charged at a R1.40 flat rate for an hour at a time when calling local or long distance during callmore.

How does this help with my DSL you may ask? Well, on top of offering great savings for telephone calls (about one-sixth of the standard cost of a call during callmore), Telkom gives you FREE LINE INSTALLATION with this option, which would normally cost you three hundred and something rand. That’s loophole number one (also confirmed by the Telkom consultant I dealt with).   Even paying the extra R20 per month for a year doesn’t add up to the amount that you would usually have to pay once-off for your line installation.   And get this, the monthly line rental for a standard line is going up to R111 tomorrow (the Closer option 1 package is staying the same), so this is obviously the best choice as it includes your line rental, plus you get free phone line installation.   PS: There are other packages, such as Closer option 2 that gives you absolutely free local and long distance calls any time during the day for up to an hour at a time, however this is not necessary if you’re only planning to use DSL.

The process for signing up for a telephone line is as follows:
·        Phone 10219 and speak to a consultant
·        Tell them you want to get a residential phone line installed
·        Tell them you want ‘Closer option 1’
·        Give them your details etc.
·        They give you a date that the technician will come to your premises to install the line. They will tell you 1-2 weeks, but mine took 3 days.
·        Telkom phone you the day before they come to install. You can postpone it if you need to (I did 3 times).
·        Technician phones you in the morning, and then arrives sometime between 9am and 2pm. Installation takes about 30min.
·        You have a phone line

Step 2: Ordering DSL

Loophole #2: It is at this point that you can cancel your ‘Closer’ option. Yip, when you phone to order DSL you can ask the consultant to cancel your Closer option if you wish, which means that you saved the installation cost of your phone line (it already went through as zero on the account) AND you don’t have to pay more for the Closer option. Confirmed as loophole number 2. Stupid Telkom.   However, I would not advise cancelling your Closer option as it’s only R9 p/m more than the standard line rental, and the charge per call stops at the R1.40 flat rate.  

Ok, the first thing you need to decide is, do you want to go big or go home. Going big means having a big budget, and being able to splash out on that 4MB line for 413 bucks per month. Going home means going cheap, so if you’re like me and don’t download movies but instead get them from your friends, you don’t need a 4MB line and can part with R152 bucks p/m for a decent 384kbps connection.

Here are the DSL packages:
1.      384kbps = R152.00 p/m
2.      512kbps = R326.00 p/m
3.      4096kbps = R413.00 p/m

The first option is the most cost effective, as it offers decent gaming speeds, acceptable RDC connections to work over the VPN, and is perfect for browsing. I’d go with that one if you just want entry level DSL (this option was rated SA’s best value for money when it comes to broadband offerings).

Loophole #3: Ah yes, loophole number 3. The most important of all. This little beauty lets you get a FREE DSL modem which would normally cost you R1000, plus free DSL installation. Here’s how...   When ordering DSL, tell the consultant you want the self-install option. This means you will get a free 4-port wireless DSL router, AND you don’t have to pay the R437 DSL installation fee!   But wait, there’s more! Choosing the self-install option also reduces your wait from 4-6 weeks, to less than 2 weeks.   I also thought there was a catch, but there’s no catch... J I think it’s just easier and cheaper for them to offer an incentive to the customers to install DSL themselves.  

The process for signing up for Home DSL is as follows:
·        Phone 10219 and press 3 to speak to a consultant for ADSL
·        Tell them you want Home DSL
·        Tell them you already have an ISP (we’ll get to that later)
·        Tell them you DO want the “self install” option
·        Tell them you DON’T want a contract
·        Give them your details etc.
·        DON’T let them sell you any other crap, cause they always try to confuse you and sell you something extra. Refuse any other options they mention (i.e. TelkomInternet).
·        They say it will take around 23 days (their ‘max’ estimation), but it will probably be around 7 or 8 days. Amazing!
·        Your DSL will be enabled in a week or so (they don’t have to send someone to your house – with self install, this stuff happens on their side)
·        Install the DSL modem yourself (very easy, follow a tutorial – takes half an hour)
·        Done.

Step 3: Finding an ISP
There are many ISP’s offering similar services, so any of them should do. My ISP is WebAfrica (www.webafrica.co.za) who have a great service. If you take a 1GB account, you pay R70 per month. My 3GB cap is R198 p/m. You can buy extra prepaid cap as you need it, for R70 per GB.

With WebAfrica you get a nice admin system to check how much cap you’ve used etc.

Pricing
So, if you’ve taken the optimal route above, your monthly payments will be something like this:
  ADSL subscription (Telkom, DSL 384)   R 152 p/m   
  Line rental (Telkom)   R 120 p/m   
  ISP subscription (WebAfrica, 1GB cap)   R 70 p/m   
Total: R 342 p/m

Summary
So, what have we learned? Well for one, I learned that while Telkom still sucks, they are getting way better at customer service. The last 3 consultants I spoke to were brilliant. Shocking stuff I know.

Second, we learned that you can get DSL at home in under 2 weeks, with a free modem, free installation, for R 342 p/m.
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As always, your milage may vary as the yanks say - you need to keep your wits about you and assume that at some stage Telkom may wise up and plug some of the loopholes.  In the meantime, feel free to make the most of Lawrence's condensed wisdon here!

Comments

[Lawrence]

New phone line and DSL installed in 12 days :)

[DaveG]

Hi Ashley,
If you take a gander at:
http://www.telkom.co.za/athome/products/dsl/home_reduced.html
you'll see that the offer of the free modem is valid to the end of August 2007, and yes you would have to go through to Telkom to pick it up. A bargain, even if it is 50km away! ;)

[Ashley Ross]

Just a question regarding step 2, loophole 3 - at which point do you get the free DSL modem? If Telkom never visit the premises, do you go collect it from a Telkom branch, or how does that work?