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Anyone had problems with TalkTalk (internet keeps dropping out)
maddiesdoor
Posts: 828 Forum Member
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Only two days ago my Broadband and phone service went live with TalkTalk (switched from BT to TalkTalk) and pretty much all that day the internet was slow and/or kept dropping out (pages taking a while to load then eventually "connection had timed out" message). Anyway I got in contact with them yesterday to see if this was normal within the first 24 hours of going live and they said they detected a fault.
Today engineers have been working on it (externally, I didn't actually know they would need to come to my property today) so when I came back home today (around 5pm) there was a hand-written message through the door saying "all lines are now up and working and all is fine, couldn't access telephone socket inside as no one in".
The internet I have right now is pretty fast and is good BUT every now and then it keeps dropping out....as if for no reason at all.
I'm just wondering is there a setting(s) that I might need to change to stop this from happening because it's clear that something has been fixed along the way as the speed is so much better (bar the dropping out). I say this because I remember a few years back I had an internet connection that was too high in optics (or something like that) to run on my system.
Today engineers have been working on it (externally, I didn't actually know they would need to come to my property today) so when I came back home today (around 5pm) there was a hand-written message through the door saying "all lines are now up and working and all is fine, couldn't access telephone socket inside as no one in".
The internet I have right now is pretty fast and is good BUT every now and then it keeps dropping out....as if for no reason at all.
I'm just wondering is there a setting(s) that I might need to change to stop this from happening because it's clear that something has been fixed along the way as the speed is so much better (bar the dropping out). I say this because I remember a few years back I had an internet connection that was too high in optics (or something like that) to run on my system.
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Happy days.
Yes,me too - rebooting several times a day. Seems to have got worse over the last couple of weeks, used to happen occasionally but now it's 4 or 5 times a day. I'm vaguely relieved to hear that others are having the same experience as I thought my router was on it's way out. My contract with TalkTalk runs out in June and if things don't improve they'll be minus a customer.
I'm with a different ISP. But whichever service we all use it's BT that control the network. When you change ISP then it's a BT engineer that does the work on the lines. Sometimes there are issues. My line speed was upgraded. I think that involved them making some changes at the local exchange to move my line connections over to a faster feed line. Since that happened I had connection issues too.
I did all at my end to make sure it wasn't an issue in the house. I changed the ADSL filter, the connection cables, and eventually the router. Nothing improved. So I called my ISP and got them to start a fault trace. That resulted in the BT engineer calling at the house to check from my socket back out via the home lines to the exchange. Whatever they did, it has cured the problem. I can see from my router diagnostic page. The connection stays up for days whereas before I'd be lucky to get a couple of hours continuous service.
So, it's pretty unlikely that any settings on your router are going to improve things. Especially seeing that it worked fine when you were on the BT service.
I too and for the same reasons...even after getting a visit from the BT engineers there was no problem with my equipment or with the exchange. I was losing broadband for maybe for about 5 to 30 minutes per day. At least now if my BB goes down with BT I can use the BTwifi hotspots....
My speeds from TT dropped from 14MB to about 5MB over a few months, after so many outages I decided to drop TT and terminate my second phone line (which had TT on) and started from scratch with BT on my main phone line. Since doing this my connection is about 15MB out of a 17MB max on my exchange.
OH YES AND BTW, if you ever call TT and they want to send an engineer it might cost you money. TT tried to do get me to have an engineer but as I pay BT for my line I told TT I would contact BT to send an engineer...TT got annoyed about that.
so don't change to them
It was like that for me, I was on Tiscali for years with no real problems but soon after Talk Talk took over Tiscali it all went downhill.
I've had BT a month and not one drop out and speeds of 7MB constantly. With Talk Talk I would be throttled at 0.5MB every evening and most weekends.
Now just had a letter from TT, no 'phone number or email contact on it, telling me they're altering my contract to charge for calls to USA. What does that say about a server,afraid of contact???.
If they do That'll be the last £40 they'll see from me.
This is an understatement.... Ignorant a***holes :mad::mad:
Apart from that they are not too bad. Have only had one problem with my router which was renewed.
I and most of my friendshave moved to Plusnet, they have thebest customer service of all the providers. when my friend had a problem he phoned up and spoke to a 'real person' about it the problem was sorted in about one hour.
I pay £6.99 a month for unlimited plus landline. I don't think any of the others can beat that. I live in an area where we havent got high speed or/and fibre optics and the internet connectiion rarely drops, a little slow at peak times but almost never drops out.
When they explained that there might be a cost of £50 if the fault was inside our home as opposed to the line, I asked what I could do to check whether we had any faults. They couldn't tell me, they just kept repeating that there might be a cost, but might not. Customer services were very polite, but I got the feeling that they were reading from a script and had very little grasp of the English language, so didn't really understand what I was asking. I couldn't always understand them either, which was quite frustating.
Will not be renewing with TT. The problem is better, but will give another company a try.
You'd do better asking this in the proper forum where you're more likely to get the technical advice rather than lots of whinging - you'll get that there as well but you're also more likely to get the geeks who can actually help.
I am also a little hasty of opening the door because the adviser said I will be charged £50 call out charge or £99 if there is a fault. So I'm sort of in a predicament really. I can't really afford to part with that sort of money at present. If i'm here, I might just not answer the door. It may sound a bit daft but I'll have to consider elsewhere options. I didn't have this with BT.
A tip for TalkTalk customers, register yourself over on the http://www.talktalkmembers.com/forums/ and if you encounter problems follow the steps on there for help. Its a lot easier than speaking to them direct and i've always found them very helpful.
please read again the reply I wroye for you. It answers most of your questions:
As for the charges: BT charge TT for a service call if the problem is customer-side of the BT socket. If you contract out to another telecoms provider then that's standard practise.
Also, whether you are a BT customer or not, BT will also charge you to find or fix faults on any extension lines inside your home that they didn't originally install. This also goes for any equipment such as broadband routers, telephones, answer machines, fax machines etc that you aren't renting from BT. If you bought it and had it installed yourself then it's your responsibility, not BT's. So if it goes wrong or causes a problem on the line then BT are not going to foot the bill to identify the issue.
People are quick to whinge about prices and happy to take a lower quote without fully understanding the responsibilities they are taking on in exchange for a lower price.
So, £50 for the BT engineer because you might of messed up something inside your home isn't TT profiteering. It's the real cost of providing a service. My ISP is PlusNet. They mentioned exactly the same cost when I had my line checked. My thoughts were just like yours. But I was confident that all was well with my gear. The difference with PlusNet is that they arranged a time for the BT engineer to call that was convenient for me so I could be here.
I will repeat what I said before....
Seeing as all your gear worked when you were with BT, then it's very unlikely that the problem is in your home. It's highly likely to be a line fault due to the changeover to TT.
It did mean tying myself in to another 18 month contract with them though for them to replace the router - they have the worst customer service I have ever encountered!