There is more to the story . . .
It was a Thursday, either late last month or very early this month, when I settled down at the computer, around mid-day, and checked the new e-mail messages in chronological order of arrival. There was one message from Yodel (timed around 0900 hours) telling me that "my order from TalkTalk would be delivered later that day". As I never trust Yodel and as I had no order from TalkTalk to be delivered, the message was ignored. Some more e-mail messages further on and the was another message from Yodel; they had tried to deliver my TalkTalk order at around 1115 hours but "I was not at home". Utter hog-wash, no one had approached my front door and I was at home. And I was not going to left-click on the links in either of those two dubious messages.
The next day, Friday, I discovered another pair of Yodel messages with similar timings as the above and stating the same nonsense. I gave them one of my best black-looks.
On Saturday, I received another e-mail message from Yodel asking me to left-click on the link "to rearrange the delivery of my TalkTalk order".
Obviously I did nothing.
On the following Monday morning, there was a knock on my door. Upon opening the door, I saw a package on the exterior mat and a Yodel person retreating to his vehicle. The packaging was TalkTalk branded and stated that it was my new "superdooperrouter" or some such nonsense. Rather than sticking the package in a bucket full of water and calling for the bomb-squad, I carefully opened it. The piece of paper, masquerading as a "letter" told me that I must be using the very old "router" they originally supplied as they "can't tell what it is that I have connected to the line". It continued to say that I won't be charged for it and all I need to do is connect it "and they will do the rest". They must think that
b*cat is some naive numpty. Under no circumstance will I use it. The box was put to one side.
Later in that week, I decided to physically examine the device. It is a D-Link DSL-3782 device . . . I will never use any D-Link device. It has TalkTalk firmware installed and is configured to use TR-069. No, no and no. Upon opening it up, I could see that it uses a pair of MediaTek ICs, a SoC and a wireless controller. No, no and no. Utter junk that cost TalkTalk all of £1-37 per unit when purchased in bulk!
A week later, I received an e-mail message from TalkTalk to say that they are "sending me their superdooperrouter, free of charge" and when it arrives, just plug it in and they will do the rest. Then a physical paper letter, in a paper envelope, arrived saying exactly the same thing.
A further week passed and I received yet another TalkTalk e-mail message saying that if I don't use the "superdooperrouter" that they have provided, at no cost to me, my Internet service may be disrupted. My response was to change the credentials for my existing ADSL2 service to send the string "No_TalkTalk_Back_Door" as both the login and the pass-phrase. It was about then that I wondered if they were going to upgrade me to a VDSL2 service . . .
A most helpful consultation with
broadstairs provided the relevant configuration for a TalkTalk VDSL2 service when using a ZyXEL device. And so I waited. Last Monday I received yet another TalkTalk e-mail message to say that the "superdooperrouter" still hadn't been connected and when the upgrade to my service occurs on Friday (i.e. yesterday), I will loose my Internet connection.
The rest you know . . .
