DEAR Editor,-
In passing last week, a local ‘Southporter’ mentioned to me that on our Telkom area exchange of 681, we cannot get through to 10111. Really not actually believing this, I went home and called the number from my landline.
I phoned 10111 five times and every time I got the same response ‘this number does not exist’. I got through on my cellphone immediately, so I logged a fault with Telkom.
On Monday (6th), I called the Southport Police Station and the duty officer promptly informed me that the 681 exchange had not been ‘hooked up’ to 10111 yet and they were aware of the problem!
There are a lot of old people in Southport, some of whom don’t have cellphones, which means they cannot call 10111? Let’s face it – it is much easier to remember 10111 than trying to remember the local police station number.
I then asked quite a few locals to try from their landlines and all came back with the same response of ‘this number does not exist’. On Tuesday morning, some man from Telkom Cape Town called to ask if my ‘fault’ had been sorted out.
When I told him about not being able to get hold of 10111 from a landline, he said this was nonsense because it is a national number and everyone should be able to get through on both landlines and cells?
I cannot get through to anyone at Telkom who is able to shed light on this matter and was just wondering if anyone had any updates on the matter?
MARY PENTZ
Southport
