Telkom apologises for network interruptions

Residents of Weltevreden Park have been without a Telkom landline for the past six weeks.

An estimated 90 per cent of the landline phones in St Michael’s Village, as well as residents of Amarant Street and Peperboom Avenue, have been affected and left without phone lines or Internet services. For the elderly at St Michael’s Village, their Telkom line is their only way of communicating.

A resident of the village, Cynthia Schnelle, said she is desperate for a solution.

She has tried multiple avenues to be able to log her complaint and find a way around the situation. Schnelle bought a modem from her local Telkom store, which she has since not been able to use, as she is not familiar with the technology. Many other Weltevreden Park residents are fed-up and want answers. For someone who has supported Telkom for 40 years, Schnelle believes the inefficiency is unacceptable.

Gugulethu Maqetuka, Telkom’s executive for external communication said, “Telkom is aware of the current network interruptions in the Weltervreden Park area and takes this opportunity to apologise to our customers who are affected by this.

“This problem is as a result of cable failure caused by the construction work being undertaken by a third party in the area, a development that is outside of our control.

The breakage affected major network elements including 8th Street Distribution Cabinets (SDCs) and three major network cables.

The damage is of such a nature that it is impossible to use the existing pipe infrastructure to restore services and we need to deploy new pipe infrastructure to re-route the services.

“About 500 customers (700 services) have been impacted by this. Telkom teams are on the ground to restore services to the affected customers. We do project that services will be fully restored in the next two weeks,” Maqetuka added.

Shirley du Plessis of Peperboom Avenue confirmed her landline has been up and running again since 4 April, however, her daughter, who lives on the same property with a different number, is still not connected.

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