What are TalkTalk like?
mogzyboy
Posts: 6,426 Forum Member
✭
Hi,
Sky's dropping of the option to pay line rental a year upfront has irritated me quite a bit, so I'm very tempted to move come June. I will, however, give them the chance to offer me something to stay, and will make sure I go to them armed with deals from other companies to try and strengthen my position.
I currently have Sky Fibre, so that will, as of July 10th, be going up to around £35/month (that includes the line rental and full price for fibre). I've been looking around, and TalkTalk's offering seems pretty decent. £13.50/month for fibre, plus the ability to pay the line rental upfront for £126, which works out at around £10.50/month. Therefore, it'll work out at £24/month, which is considerably cheaper than Sky and BT.
However, some views on TT aren't very favourable. I don't have any friends or family that use them, so thought this was a good place to canvas some opinion.
So...what are they like? Positive and negative views welcome. Is their fibre service good? What's the router like? etc. etc.
Thanks in advance guys.
Sky's dropping of the option to pay line rental a year upfront has irritated me quite a bit, so I'm very tempted to move come June. I will, however, give them the chance to offer me something to stay, and will make sure I go to them armed with deals from other companies to try and strengthen my position.
I currently have Sky Fibre, so that will, as of July 10th, be going up to around £35/month (that includes the line rental and full price for fibre). I've been looking around, and TalkTalk's offering seems pretty decent. £13.50/month for fibre, plus the ability to pay the line rental upfront for £126, which works out at around £10.50/month. Therefore, it'll work out at £24/month, which is considerably cheaper than Sky and BT.
However, some views on TT aren't very favourable. I don't have any friends or family that use them, so thought this was a good place to canvas some opinion.
So...what are they like? Positive and negative views welcome. Is their fibre service good? What's the router like? etc. etc.
Thanks in advance guys.
0
Comments
As for speed and stability its been perfect, I get a constant 60mb/s down and 19mb/s up on the high package (Which is not bad for being quite a distance from the fibre box. About 400-600m from the box). So far not had any major outages.
As for the router given with the package, is not the greatest router out there but still can provide OK wifi (http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/3449911489)
Having said all that talktalk's fibre package is basically the same as all other fibre providers as it uses the BT openreach network and BT control most of the setting to the network.
So the only probably with speed you could have is if your nearest fibre box has quite a people on it, as this slow down all the people on box to make sure they some sort of internet access. (Can't be as bad virgin media's problem, google "oversubscribe cab virgin media")
Kind of , but not in the same way. I've yet to come across an Openreach cabinet that is congested. Each one has a 10Gbit link so it seems unlikely. They do suffer from crosstalk though but that is taken into account when they give you the original speed estimate.
Hopefully crosstalk will be a thing of the past when vectoring launches in the next 18 months or so anyway.
Anyway, so far so good, a decent 50ish Mb/s and it seems to be running at that speed.
The only problem she is having is with a site she visits and talk Talk filters thinks it is a copyrighted site, but it is not, everything is public domain. TT said they will look into it. the strange thing is, one day it will work, the next day it won't.
She used to have the same service as me, but gone into temp rented accommodation and I don't think the owners would be happy with a box on their roof, so Talk Talk seemed to offer the quickest install.
Be prepared to have your browsing checked by a Chinese company, if that worries you, then Talk Talk is not for you.
And BT still say "we can get you 5 meg through your exchange"
That will be the exchange Talk Talk use then, BT gotta love em...
Oh hang on
As with most ADSL ISP's they have to use BT Openreach whom are a law unto themselves so issues with OR are very difficult to resolve as they won't talk to you direct and you have to go through your ISP.
One up and running the service is fine.
Just awaiting my fibre upgrade install with them.
but if you have a problem with the service, then be prepared for one big headache.
i had to spend HOURS on the phone to a call centre in africa somewhere and got NOWHERE.
i ended up calling the CEO office in LONDON, only to be put back through to the Africa call centre again, TWICE, to begin the talk talk merry go round all over again.
i then called the CEO office in london and DEMANDED to speak to someone in the country, i then got put through to a lady in scotland, which was close enough i guess
got the problem resolved in the end, so all is OK with them...for now...
Has she got 'safe surf' or whatever its called turned on? The only site I've not being able to access was the pirate bay, but I looked online and found a solution to that in under a minute.
See your still banging on about China monitoring us
No she would have turned that off right away as TT now sticks it on as default and you have to opt out. this site is not pirate bay or anything like that.
She lost her internet full stop now, we just had a heck of a storm, so maybe that caused it, another friend just phoned me and they lost their sky broadband.
I must admit, I expected mine to go down as well with the way the power been flickering.
She done a pretty good deal, normally it would be a 18 month contract, but she got it down to 12 months somehow or other. but then she have always been good with that sort of thing. she only wants it for 12 months, if that as she will only be staying in this flat for max 12 months.
you can say what you want, but your browsing still goes to Huawei routers, in china, even if you turn the safe surf or what ever it is called off.
Edit, just had a text come through as I clicked on the submit reply, her TT broadband is now back up and running.
For you perhaps but not for several million other users who are happy. Its like someone using any other ISP and coming on DS moaning because they have problems.....its not a true reflection. I was getting about 15mb/s on standard broadband with them. The thing is if you problems with TT and Open Reach have not sorted it out there is a good chance the problem will migrate with you.
This is from the email I received today.
We're committed to keeping up with your ever-increasing needs, and as we improve things, we need to raise our prices. From 18th May 2014 your Simply Broadband package will cost £3.50 a month. That's still Britain's lowest price totally unlimited broadband package, saving you £232 vs BT*. To discover more about your new benefits and to understand your rights, please read this email in full.
You do also get a 15% discount if you pay your bill early.
Also have had Sky at the house for years, also very good, never a problem; except 5kms from exchange on old aluminium wire, so very lucky to get 8 meg as some houses a few doors down only get 2.
Beware of them luring you with their special offer prices and then putting the price up. I cancelled my TV service because of this (with no penalty because they broke the contract) but I had to return the YouView box as a result. The HDR-2000T I bought instead is far superior, although sticking to my principles has probably cost me money.
I don't regret it though because the free trial of Sky channels made me realise there is nothing on them I would ever want to watch. I'm not interested in paying to watch films either.
Right, I'm in bed and going to watch this weeks episode of Vikings, blooming good series and hope the Chinese enjoy it as much as I do;-)
it is the price rises I have a problem with, not just with Talk Talk, sure prices to rise, but they rise the price and then they stick some other service in place that you may not want, so in effect you are partly paying for a new service.
I always thought that caller display was free these days anyway, i know it was on my first Telecom service when I had a landline.
My friend who went with TT, said she will pay her bill early to get the discount, may as well.
i knew they would not be able to keep the price of their simply broadband down that low, they must have been pretty close on the margin of making money from it. I presume they hope that once they got someone they can try and get them to pay for other services, like you View and bolt ons or what ever they are called, maybe it did not work as planned.
I know my friend went for simply broadband and fibre, nothing else, I just hope she don't get TT sending her a load of garbage trying to get her to use their other services. All she wants is a broadband service, she don't really need a phone as she uses Vonage. She don't know what she is doing at the moment, house wise, Just sold her house, which is why she is in rented accommodation. if she stays in Hereford and buy another house here, she said she will probably go back to allpay, she doubts she will stay with Talk Talk, if she goes back to Cornwall, she will see what is on offer there, but again she will not stay with Talk Talk.
If TT works then you be fine, it is if there is a problem that things will go belly up.
My other friend the one who had a problem with Sky yesterday, phoned me back late last night, a bit late to be honest, I was not impressed. she phoned sky,, they phoned her straight back on her mobile. They found a small problem , got her to do a few things, like unplug phone line, I have no idea why, reboot router, he done a few tests and must have done something their end, when she plugged it all back in, everything worked.
They even helped her with a connection problem from the xbox, i knew that sky customer service was ok, but it seems they have improved it even further and according to friend, he was English, so easy to understand. That is the difference between Talk talk customer service and Sky.
If i service works and i see it is working and does what it is suppose to do then I will be positive about them, no matter what my thoughts of the company. I still would not use Talk Talk myself mind you. Saying that I am still shocked my friend went with them, but as i said, they offered the best deal for what she wanted.
She did tell them that if they mucked up, she would be on them like a ton of bricks and believe me she would be. she runs her own business, so broadband is important for her.
They've introduced this new system where you're invited to speak your question to an automated answering system: I defy anybody to stay calm enough not to be screaming down the phone within twenty seconds
I got no sense from BT either which is why I moved on to TT
flipping thing keeps resetting, so she put her old one on that she used for allpay and now got a decent connection. Thankfully Talk Talk don't seem to be doing self installs, so she had the modem, otherwise she would be stumped.
She is happy again now, the problem is she may get used to the speed and stay with them when she moves.
Me, i still would not touch them, on principle, i am surprised she did.
Ha!
God you have just given me flashbacks to two weeks ago when I was literally screaming down the phone at that answering 'system' >:(:D