Yet Another Cycling Forum
General Category => The Knowledge => OT Knowledge => Topic started by: Mrs Pingu on 07 February, 2009, 06:38:45 pm
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Anyone used Talk Talk recently.?
I know they had a really crap reputation when they first started out due to being totally unprepared for the volume of customers they got, but has anyone got any recent experience of them?
It dawned on me that we prolly don't need to be paying BT £12 and Tiscali £13 when I could be paying one provider a lot less.
Talk Talk are doing calls + broadband FREE for 12 months (plus line rental) and then for £6.49 a month if you take out an 18 month contract.
I'd really prefer to stay with Tiscali being as we've had no problems with them for years but the new customers package of calls + broadband + line rental for £14.99 seems not to apply to us. In the upgrades section they're only offering us £20 for the first 3 months followed by £25 >:(.
I'm not tempted to move the lot to BT being as they seem to have a crap rep as well.
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I keep my broadband with BT and it has been fine, Talk Talk still keep trying to give me the free broadband but everyone I know who had it has gone back to BT.
It doesn't matter how free it is if it doesn't work ;)
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I was switched to Talk Talk without agreeing to it and that caused me a LOT of problems so I will never use them.
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We moved to TalkTalk (from Virgin BB, and BT phone line rental - TT calls) in Dec 2007, and got their Talk2 plan:
Broadband <8Mb (40GB/mth download limit - have never been close to exceeding this), and,
Telephone (can keep old number) including line rental, with free evening and w/e calls
...for around £16.50 (+ any calls that aren't free) per month.
We've not had any probs with the BB, or phone since signing up. TT have had some negative press in the past ('victims of own success'?), so I was watching them like a hawk for the trial period.
At one point, a few months ago, the wired modem started having to be rebooted at the beginning of each session, in order to connect. I mentioned this on their help forum, and received a new one very quickly in the post; was impressed.
Since Dec we've had one of their £30 D-link wireless routers, and it's great. We're about 1-2 mls from the exchange and most of the time seem to get 5-6Mb BB speeds. e.g. iplayer on HQ, streams very well all over the house.
We have about +4 mths left of the 18mth contract and plan to stay with them.
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I am with them and have had no problems with either phone, or broadband. I left BT to go over to Talktalk because of their free broadband deal, and I shall not be going back to them in the foreseeable future.
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My mother has been with them for a couple of years now. Their service has been very good. When she has had problems their helpdesk has been impressively good (their standard line isn't "have you rebooted your pc").
When she had a complete line failure towards the end of last year, I used their online fault reporting system on her behalf and it was sorted out very quickly.
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Ho hum. Did a little more digging which brought up a lot of mixed reports of TT.
After some more digging I found more positive reports of O2, Be, and Plusnet.
UnfortunatelyO2/Be are not available at our exchange :(
So I was looking up Plusnet which seemed ok until I started reading deeper into the usage limits.
Their phone & broadband package has a download limit of 1Gb. Having read up on their usage calculator, my internet browsing selections suggested that we'd need their 15Gb usage package, which'd be more expensive.
Now we don't tend to use P2P or do a lot of streaming, but tend to be on here, and using BBC website, and Google maps etc most evenings and weekends. (Well, in the winter anyway).
I tried looking up the Tiscali website to see what we're on now, which although it's a measly 1Mb speed, appears to be unlimited download capacity. (So there are no records of our usage rates).
So although it seemed a bit expensive at £12 a month broadband only, doesn't seem like it's that bad if it's unlimited....
Or am I barking up the wrong tree?
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We have PlusNet - and the usage limit depends on the package you buy, like most others. There's a basic package with a 1Gig limit, but several others with higher limits, as you noted.
I've got the 15Gb plus phone package, doesn't seem that expensive, as all landline calls are included as is line rental. You can of cousre have a monthly contract with PlusNet, and track your usage on their website - so initially you could take just the broadband and see what yr usage actually is.
I found them easy to deal with, and of course call centre is UK - Sheffield.
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Ho hum. Did a little more digging which brought up a lot of mixed reports of TT.
After some more digging I found more positive reports of O2, Be, and Plusnet.
UnfortunatelyO2/Be are not available at our exchange :(
So I was looking up Plusnet which seemed ok until I started reading deeper into the usage limits.
Their phone & broadband package has a download limit of 1Gb. Having read up on their usage calculator, my internet browsing selections suggested that we'd need their 15Gb usage package, which'd be more expensive.
Now we don't tend to use P2P or do a lot of streaming, but tend to be on here, and using BBC website, and Google maps etc most evenings and weekends. (Well, in the winter anyway).
I tried looking up the Tiscali website to see what we're on now, which although it's a measly 1Mb speed, appears to be unlimited download capacity. (So there are no records of our usage rates).
So although it seemed a bit expensive at £12 a month broadband only, doesn't seem like it's that bad if it's unlimited....
Or am I barking up the wrong tree?
I saw mixed reports too, but in the end decided to take a punt because at least they offered a trial period (check conditions)... 30-Day-Trial (http://www.talktalk.co.uk/legal/30-day-trial)
Money Saving Expert (http://www.moneysavingexpert.com) forum has some useful info as well. By the nature of these things I think the horror stories get reported, whereas any glowing reports tend to stay hidden.
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Hmmm, doesn't immediately look like Plusnet will save me any money over what I've currently got with BT and Tiscali.
I'm currently £12 (or probably more like £13 when the prices change) with BT plus £12odd with Tiscali. To get the same with Plusnet phone and 15Gb broadband I'd be £9.75 + £14.65 - not much difference.
(OTOH I see Quidco are doing £28 cashback for Plusnet).
Andy, yeah I originally got the TT info from the MSE website, I just decided to look a bit deeper using the Think Broadband site to see what the scored on a few different providers were.
Having looked at the Samknows website it looks as if our exchange may be unbundled for Be/O2 soon (supposed to be 31/01 but apparently that didn't happen) so maybe I should just wait for a bit and see if that happens, they both appear to be unlimited download usage....
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Hmm. Currently with Virgin and although I whinge fantastically if I ever have to phone tech support (i.e. 45 minutes on the phone to Bangladesh to be finally told that there were known engineering works that were responsible for my lack of broadband), we have not had that much bother with them.
Tiscali, on the other hand tried to rip me off AND set the lawyers on me when I cancelled the contract. When you move from them, get it in writing that they agree to cancel the contract...they told me to cancel the my direct debit post haste then whinged that their next payment was missed.
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And now I see £40 cashback for Bethere with Quidco.
Ho hum.
Waits.....
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o2 would be best I guess, but we can't get it here, so PlusNet was the best of the rest when I checked Which for service etc. Not the cheapest I know, but £27 a month for (effectively for me) unlimited broadband plus line rental and the majority of calls (including to my wifes childhood best friend in Canada) didn't seem bad.
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Hi Mrs P
I have just signed the inlaws up to plusnet. (I would not have done that if the service wasn't very good)
There is a special offer on at the moment, which gives a 10GB allowance on the option 1 package. Have to move quick though if you want it - it has been extended from the end Jan, to "mid" feb, but I don't know what exactly mid feb means.
Details (http://www.plus.net/residential/broadband/option1_10gb_gc.shtml)
Dont forget to add me as a referer if you take it up. ;)
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Ooo that's interesting, keeping that one quiet aren't they?
Mmmmmm <strokes chin thoughtfully>
A. If I were to take up this offer, how do I add you as a referrer?
B. Do I need a special router or is my current one likely to be ok? (Netgear DG834G)
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Sky and phone and leave the broadband alone? Their boradband gets a good write up but availability seems pretty localised. ie not in the frozen wilderness where we live.
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Sky? Over my dead body! TBH it's more the BB I'm looking at as we don't use the phone that much (although if Pingu's proposed secondment goes ahead then that will change....) Don't you need Sky TV for that anyway?
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Ooo that's interesting, keeping that one quiet aren't they?
Mmmmmm <strokes chin thoughtfully>
A. If I were to take up this offer, how do I add you as a referrer?
B. Do I need a special router or is my current one likely to be ok? (Netgear DG834G)
I'm sure I've posted this once....
You can use any router - plus you'll get £15 cashback if you don't take theirs.
To add me as a referrer, you put my username (collinet) into the appropriate box during sign-up. I'll get a whole 25p off my subscription.
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Cheers Tony. I'll see what sort of response I get from Tiscali when I ask them for the MAC tomorrow.....
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To add me as a referrer, you put my username (collinet) into the appropriate box during sign-up. I'll get a whole 25p off my subscription.
I think that may have gone up too :)
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Argh, Tiscali won't speak to me as I'm 'not the account holder'. Have to wait for Pingu the phonophobic to call them.....
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Put on a deep voice, and call them back
;D
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Or see if you can get a MAC address through their support web portal (you can with plusnet)
EDIT:
I now have an answer back from plusnet on how long the offers last (this is one of the best things on plusnet - staff answering questions in the forum)
They're running up until the close of the 16th.
So you need to get your MAC this week.
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Support portal - hahahaha
"Unlike most ISP's Tiscali offer all of our new fantastic broadband offers to existing customers as well as new customers. Login to My Account and check out the low prices. There are also great bundle deals!"
Er, I think you'll find that's BS Tiscali, and when I emailed to ask you completely ignored the question. Your 'low prices' are nearly twice as much as those on your front page.
No, they only route they offer is their cancellation line or to send them a snail mail.
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To add me as a referrer, you put my username (collinet) into the appropriate box during sign-up. I'll get a whole 25p off my subscription.
I think that may have gone up too :)
You are right. In order to fully declare my interest:
There is a special offer on referrals also at the moment. The referrer gets 8x normal value for 6 months. That means £2/month for six months, then back to 25p.
Mrs P - looks like I'll owe you a pint or 2 if you put me as referrer.
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We're looking at this at the moment. Mrs PB failed miserably to get beyond the automaton at BT so I called them and got the MAC code. We're looking at Post Office for the phone and O2 for the internet as I have a contract phone. £7.50 a month for 8gb and 'unlimited' downloads. AIUI BT supply the services for both of these suppliers anyway so we'll more than half our outgoings and have in essence the same service.
:thumbsup:
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I've been looking at The Post Office for phone and ISP bundled. Anyone else tried them?
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Or see if you can get a MAC address through their support web portal (you can with plusnet)
EDIT:
I now have an answer back from plusnet on how long the offers last (this is one of the best things on plusnet - staff answering questions in the forum)
They're running up until the close of the 16th.
So you need to get your MAC this week.
The highlighted text is one of the major reasons I went with PlusNet.
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PB have you checked on the O2 website they can supply you? Not all exchanges have been unbundled for the O2 package yet (like ours), but then we live in the heathen lands....
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We live in south Buckinghamshire and we haven't got 02 either.
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Yes, I have thanks Mrs P. 8)
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Well, I've gone and done it now!
Just gone for the broadband at the moment, if all goes well I'll think about moving the phone over at a later date.
Don't quite understand how I ended up with an annual contract, thought I clicked for monthly, but hopefully it will all turn out ok....
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I had that problem - it looks like that offer (if you went for plus net) is only available on annual contract. Not entirely surprised, to offer 10GB on a standard BT line will be costing them about what they are charging for it (possibly more)
PS - I should have mentioned - but will do so now - not too late for a cooling off cancellation.
The plusnet option 1 is not designed for P2P or binaries from usenet, and is throttled quite a lot on those protocols especially during peak times. See here:
Expected Speeds (http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/quality_broadband/speed.shtml?link_bbyw_view1=speeds#Option1speeds)
Shouldn't be a problem, as you said you don't use P2P in an earlier post.
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Oh well, can't have your cake and eat it I suppose. I won't be that bothered about being on an annual contract if Plusnet are as wonderful as I've heard ;)
Had 4 emails from them already!
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If you have any problems with them, let me know and I'll bounce on their collective heads until they sort it.
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Last minute indecision and we've got a Tiscali CD. Offers us £14.99 a month for phone line rental, free evening and weekend calls, 8mb unlimited broadband and a free modem. And, first 3 months for £9.99.
Anybody got any idea what Tscali offer as the 'free modem'?
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Just going by the reviews on one of the websites:
Argh, I can't find the one I was looking at now, but I had a site which had top ten and bottom ten ratings. Tiscali appeared to be in the bottom 10 for everything. O2 appeared to be very high.
We've never had any problems with them (apart from when all our emails didn't get forwarded to Googlemail and disappeared for a couple of days) except for them not letting us take advantage of their new deals, but they do seem to have a very bad reputation, and their helplines are in India which can cause comminication communication frustration.
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Hmm.... Doesn't sound too good then. I don't really want a piece of clutter modem either. We have an ADSL router already.
Shame because they are competitive on price.
Thanks. :)
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Ah, here we go:
Service Comparison Charts for UK Broadband Providers
(http://www.broadband-help.com/providers/charts/serviceChart.aspx)
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Oops. Glad I didn't go for Talk Talk after all.
BBC NEWS | Technology | TalkTalk customers' ongoing woes (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7884596.stm?lss)
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Oops. Glad I didn't go for Talk Talk after all.
BBC NEWS | Technology | TalkTalk customers' ongoing woes (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7884596.stm?lss)
All fine with TT here. :) After we finished with virgin and had to remember everyone and place I given our email address to, so I decided not to use ISP email addresses in future, and went with googlemail instead - which is great; especially since our home page is google anyway...