Blow to business as phone lines stay down

Pretoria - Some businesses around the city have taken a knock as their Telkom telephone lines have been down for five days – and no conclusive answers have been forthcoming from the state-owned company.

Telephone lines in some buildings have been down since Sunday.

Telkom media relations officer Pynee Chetty said Telkom was still looking into the matter and was currently unable to determine the extent of the problem cross the city.

“We do not measure our lines in terms of areas so we can’t say for certain which have been affected as yet and what is the real reason behind this is,” he said.

“Sometimes you’ll find that because phones are bulked, a lot of customers will be affected. But we will be able to say for certain by tomorrow (today) what seems to be the problem,” said Chetty.

Jean Nortjé, manager at Stationery Mecca store in the CBD, said his only saving grace was that a lot of their younger clientele used social media applications. That way he could still keep in contact.

“We waited on the (Telkom) line and were told due to congestion we would only be attended to after 20 minutes so we couldn’t lodge our problem. Thankfully with younger customers we use WhatsApp and other sites to communicate, but this really is not ideal,” he said.

“We try to keep business and personal numbers separate but we have to hand out our personal cellphone numbers just to keep going. Three days is a long time to wait without clear answers,” said Nortjé.

Wimpy on Madiba Street was also affected and had been using manager Harriet Matlhafure’s cellphone. She said they were unable to receive calls, which impacted negatively on the eatery as it usually got plenty of orders by phone.

“It has only been a few days but we have now resorted to diverting all the calls to my personal cell to get by,” she said. “We tried to call them (Telkom) about the problem but they were unclear about what exactly the issue was and how long we would be dealing with this.”

The Pretoria News phone lines have also been affected. We therefore request that all information be communicated through our email: pta.newsdesk@inl.co.za.

Pretoria News