Kitz Forum
Broadband Related => ISPs => Topic started by: Bayardo on January 11, 2012, 12:57:58 PM
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James Coney of This Is Money has given TalkTalk a fair old bashing
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-2084849/JAMES-CONEY-TalkTalk-deaf-complaints.html
Well worth a read, especially the last paragraph:
"Ask me whether you should sign up to TalkTalk today, and there can only be one answer: ‘Absolutely not.’ This company’s promises are worthless. Talk is cheap, but becoming a TalkTalk customer can prove a very costly mistake indeed."
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I've been there,done that,still having counselling ;D
Never again :no:
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TT have recently become the first (and only) ISP to LLU our local rural exchange. For a short while I was thinking of possibly migrating to them (for faster upload speeds mainly) but a little research quickly persuaded me against doing so. I've read in several places that they are the most complained-about UK ISP by far.
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Not for me, but I have several customers who use them and are quite happy.
Provided nothing goes really badly wrong they seem to be fine. :angel:
I've seen horror stories everywhere and there are only a very small number of ISP's who seem to be able to "get to grips" with them.
No names, no pack drill, but while I depend on broadband I'll stick within that group. :-X
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I do have to say that, during my 18 months with TalkTalk I never really had a much in the way of problems, apart from losing telephone service over a weekend. I reported it via their forum & it was sorted fairly quickly by BT. I did, a couple of times, call their "customer disservice" call centre and quickly decided never to do so again,
During the last few weeks with TT my internet speed was up & down like a trapeze artist, varying between 1247 & 15529 kb/s. So far, I've been getting fairly consistent speeds between 15000 & 15650 kb/s with ICUK.
The main reason I dumped TT was that I absolutely loathe their attitude towards and contempt for customers and their spying with Home whatever it is. Additonally I was not prepared to take the risk of them giving me the runaround, which is the only thing they do with any degree of efficiency
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Well I've been with them now for 3 years and have been quite happy. The only time I had a problem they got the BT OR engineer out and he fixed a problem in the cabinet down the road. Over the past year I have had rock solid 8meg on a line which should only give 6 meg and I have not renewed my contract just let it roll along so I could leave anytime I wanted. I dont call their customer (dis)service I use their forum for problems and the support from that has been fine. I dont use any of their kit and my router is locked up tight as the proverbial ducks whatsit so its pretty secure especially as I run Linux now.
I have been looking round to see how much I could get a fast link as we get FTTC this year here, not sure I'm going to pay £10 extra though for it with TT especially as they dont do an unlimited worldwide phone calls contract now.
Stuart
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Hi
quote from Roseway : TT have recently become the first (and only) ISP to LLU our local rural exchange. For a short while I was thinking of possibly migrating to them
ditto "a very short while " ;D
Regards Jeff
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James Coney of This Is Money has given TalkTalk a fair old bashing
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-2084849/JAMES-CONEY-TalkTalk-deaf-complaints.html
Well worth a read, especially the last paragraph:
"Ask me whether you should sign up to TalkTalk today, and there can only be one answer: ‘Absolutely not.’ This company’s promises are worthless. Talk is cheap, but becoming a TalkTalk customer can prove a very costly mistake indeed."
"следовать за деньгами" (follow the money) as my late aunt Olga from the upper Volga used to say.
The ThisIsMoney website is owned by the Daily Mail General Trust (DMGT) which is controlled and majority-owned by the 4th Viscount Rothermere and his family..
When the Daily Mail group runs negative articles against a company, the smear is often part of a promotional package for a rival advertiser, or else the smear is meted out as punishment for not taking out enough advertising.
It will be interesting to see which rival to TalkTalk is going to get a blitz of adverts splashed across the DMGT's outlets, to coincidentally run parallel to the smear on TalkTalk.
Not that the Rothermeres need any encouragement to run a smear campaign. It's in their blood. They are the human equivalent of the dung beetle. Never happier than when rolling in faeces.
Anyway, rant over. As for TalkTalk, I can honestly say that I haven't had a better ISP than TalkTalk!
cheers, a
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TBH I am surprised that theyve only brought this up now.
Surely, this is old news and it was last year (http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/jul/21/talktalk-worst-landline-broadband-ofcom) that they retained the OFCOM wooden spoon award.
About 5 years ago, they were without doubt the worst ISP out there and I wouldnt have touched them with a barge pole.
When they first went into the ISP + telecom industry, there were way tooo many problems and many users were without phones for weeks and broadband for even longer.
They also became infamous for slamming users broadband without MAC key or permission and using door to door salespeople who didnt have a clue about adsl and who would say anything to get a sale leaving the customer to pick up the pieces later.
To be fair though, they DO seem to have tightened up their act a bit, and whilst there may indeed be many better ISPs out there, IMHO these days they arent anywhere near as bad as they were 5 years ago.
Although I havent been there for a while so cant comment as of late, but they did have some very dedicated support staff on their own forums who were approachable if you ran into problems and do their best to help.. rather than having to face their telephone support, which IS where Ive had some of the most ridiculous and worst support that Ive ever had when contacting ISPs on behalf of other users.
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Does TT still have Thuderclap Newmans 'Something in the air' as music while you are waiting in the queue to be connected to a c/s representative ;D
It use to send Sue up the wall :shoot: ;D
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TT have recently become the first (and only) ISP to LLU our local rural exchange. For a short while I was thinking of possibly migrating to them (for faster upload speeds mainly) but a little research quickly persuaded me against doing so. I've read in several places that they are the most complained-about UK ISP by far.
They did mine ages ago, I managed to resist then Sky came along :)
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I have been with TalkTalk for just over four and a half years.
As forum regulars are quite familiar with this cat's knowledge and technical ability, I will let them draw their own conclusions of my opinion of the CP. ;) :thumbs:
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im wondering why i went back to talktalk i mean both sky o2 and talktalk are limited to what thay can see and do with there fibre optic if i knew that i would have gone back to bt
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TT have recently become the first (and only) ISP to LLU our local rural exchange. For a short while I was thinking of possibly migrating to them (for faster upload speeds mainly) but a little research quickly persuaded me against doing so. I've read in several places that they are the most complained-about UK ISP by far.
Just use a talktalk reseller!
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TT have recently become the first (and only) ISP to LLU our local rural exchange. For a short while I was thinking of possibly migrating to them (for faster upload speeds mainly) but a little research quickly persuaded me against doing so. I've read in several places that they are the most complained-about UK ISP by far.
Just use a talktalk reseller!
Uno something, that is a really good plan ;) :lol:
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A much better plan in my case was to wait until the exchange was upgraded to 21CN-WBC and then upgrade my Zen connection to ADSL2+. I get the improved speeds and retain the excellent customer service.
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The bit I notice for those locally on LLU is not issues with the broadband, but when the voice phone side has problems or the line simply goes dead.
I'm on BT for the phones and I ring 'em up and it gets fixed the next day and all calls were diverted to my mobile in the meantime - on the two occassions in the last x years it's failed.
For those on LLU it seems to take ages - anything up to a week. Locally I get to hear that you can't contact x as their phones have "problems" and without even thinking I know it will be a non BT line.
My suspicion is that the other operators have to contact BT to get them to work on the local network between the exchange and the house and BT openreach prioritise their "own" work ahead of that for the LLU lot.
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Only really ever had one issue with TT and that was when I initially moved over to them. My line just wouldn't hold sync for more than 10 minutes at a time. Not being a fan of call centres, I had found the members forum by lunchtime & joined it (there were only about 500 members then !). Posted my problem, got a reply back within half an hour stating that my card was running an old test profile that was very aggressive and shouldn't have been in use. Profile was promptly changed and card reset and everything has been good for the last four-five years.
Did get some congestion issues until my exchange got gigabit backhaul, frustrating at the time, but TT got the upgrade in place within a month.
I'm probably wrong, but I don't know of another ISP that sends out kit for ordinary users to trial before it makes a decision on whether to issue it 'on masse' or not.
As an ISP I'm perfectly happy with them, but then I don't ever intend to use telephone support, which I think is the area they really fall down in. I also agree with Kitz in that I've had people turn up on my doorstep telling me that TT can deliver 15+meg to me on ADSL2+. Asking them my line length or what my attenuation would need to be usually made them go away :D
If they are good enough for b*cat and asbokid then they are certainly good enough for me.
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If they are good enough for b*cat . . . then they are certainly good enough for me.
:blush: Why, thank you! ;D
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Just to chip in my tuppence-worth, I've been with tiscali/TT for years, even brought my service up here when we moved 4.5 yrs ago. Since we got onto LLU a year after we moved in here, it's been a great service. Got an intermittent line fault fixed via the forum teams, have no DLM on the line, and can run happily at 2.5-3dB snrm....what more can I ask for ???
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The bit I notice for those locally on LLU is not issues with the broadband, but when the voice phone side has problems or the line simply goes dead.
I'm on BT for the phones and I ring 'em up and it gets fixed the next day and all calls were diverted to my mobile in the meantime - on the two occassions in the last x years it's failed.
For those on LLU it seems to take ages - anything up to a week. Locally I get to hear that you can't contact x as their phones have "problems" and without even thinking I know it will be a non BT line.
My suspicion is that the other operators have to contact BT to get them to work on the local network between the exchange and the house and BT openreach prioritise their "own" work ahead of that for the LLU lot.
Hi c6em ......... regarding your 'suspicions'. There's no conspiracy here bud, it's exactly what has to happen for every Service Provider. Whetehr it's TT, Sky, AOL, Kitz Telecom ....... or BT Retail ..... they all have to raise a job with BT Openreach if they wish us to work on a circuit.
What is definitely a conspiracy is that BT Retail, or BT Wholesale prioritise the work so BT Openreach pick up their requests first. For those regulars on here, they will know that Ofcom are a major thorn in BT's side, rightly or wrongly. When 'Unbundling' of lines was first offered up approx 7yrs ago, there were months and months of negotiation laying down working practices and as you can imagine 'Equivalence' was mostly top of the agenda. That is why Openreach was formed as a seperate L.O.B. from BTr and BTw. All SP/ISP's have access to 'us' via an electronic sytem called 'NEO', it is here that tasks are progressed. Believe me when I say that there is no prioritisation of work on a SP/ISP basis. The only times tasks are given a higher bias is mainly for safety.
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I can confirm that is indeed the case. Something (http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/BT.htm) I wrote a long time ago and although some of the dept names may have changed slightly.. its still the same.
All ISPs regardless do have to go through the same channels, its just that some are more efficient than others when it comes to dealing with BTo or BTw.. whilst some will fob off before getting BTw involved due to any charges that may be incurred.
I have on many occasions heard of BTr (ISP staff) implying that they have more weight with BTw/BTo when it comes to trying to make a 'sale' to a new customer, but this is baloney.. and OFCOM would come down on BT like a ton of bricks if ever such a case existed where BTr was given preference over any other LLU operator. However the telesale type BT staff who have implied this in the past has put doubts in peoples minds.
I'll call BT when theyve done wrong, but this is one instance where BT actually have it harder than some other SP's and the rules seem to be much harser on BT for certain things... and are stopped from doing some things that other SP's may be able to get away with.
Maybe BS can confirm whether this is still the case, but when I spent time with a BTo guy during one of my exchange visits, the engineer had no idea who their ISP was.. it wasnt even mentioned any where on the job that came in.
They even had WOOSH facility withdrawn for a while since it was considered an unfair advantage.. even though it was basically an essential diagnostic :-\
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@ Kitz,
On the other hand I have well founded reports of positive hostility towards vendors (plural) who have attempted to install their own FTTCs.
E.g. http://www.vtesse.com/consumer-broadband/
You might also recall a quite disgraceful episode in Surrey which even now is still very far from a satisfactory conclusion.
Kind regards,
Walter
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I can confirm that is indeed the case. Something (http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/BT.htm) I wrote a long time ago and although some of the dept names may have changed slightly.. its still the same.
All ISPs regardless do have to go through the same channels, its just that some are more efficient than others when it comes to dealing with BTo or BTw.. whilst some will fob off before getting BTw involved due to any charges that may be incurred.
I have on many occasions heard of BTr (ISP staff) implying that they have more weight with BTw/BTo when it comes to trying to make a 'sale' to a new customer, but this is baloney.. and OFCOM would come down on BT like a ton of bricks if ever such a case existed where BTr was given preference over any other LLU operator. However the telesale type BT staff who have implied this in the past has put doubts in peoples minds.
I'll call BT when theyve done wrong, but this is one instance where BT actually have it harder than some other SP's and the rules seem to be much harser on BT for certain things... and are stopped from doing some things that other SP's may be able to get away with.
Maybe BS can confirm whether this is still the case, but when I spent time with a BTo guy during one of my exchange visits, the engineer had no idea who their ISP was.. it wasnt even mentioned any where on the job that came in.
They even had WOOSH facility withdrawn for a while since it was considered an unfair advantage.. even though it was basically an essential diagnostic :-\
Hi Kitz, apologies as I've only just read this.
Firstly, thank you for confirming my mutterings regarding 'Equivalence'. Your own post is bang-on the money about Ofcom, there really is no way anybody in our LOB would risk the slightest chance that they could get involved. It would be professional suicide, and in the first few years of being formed, we were constantly being made aware that breaking the 'Equivalence' COP, could result in losing our operators licence. It really is serious stuff.
Again, your observations are correct. In the early days we weren't made aware of who the SP/ISP was, as in reality, 'Equivalence' meant we didn't need to know ......... we just treat everbody on an equal footing. These days though, we are having to co-op more with ISP's when faulting circuits and therefore the name and cono of the company has to be made available to us. I say that with a wry grin as often, the ISP will request a co-op call, and then omit to enter any details of who they are and how to contact them. ::) ;D
Now then, WHOOSH. I've got a raft of e-mails saved on my works laptop all concerning access to WHOOSH and addressed to higher management. You are 100% correct Kitz, we did have access in the early days, then they revoked it as it was a BTw tool. We now have full access back and it is a god-send when working on high-volume repeat vists, or REIN-related tasks.
Cheers for the assistance in clearing up another potential myth. ;D