Cheapest Home Phones Article Discussion

sgrahamhyde

I have had TalkTalk home broardband package for about 1 year now and to be honest I am in a bit of a fix, the broadband has never worked properly, basically the issue is that after up to 1 hour of use the connection gets dropped and the only way to restablish it is to reboot the PC, I work from home and have another BT line which I use for work, although I was hoping to transfer my work the to TT line and cancel the BT one, due to the problems, I have not been able to do this, I have spent hours, and I mean hours on the phone talking to the TT techncial team, they sent me a new router, same make (Echolife G520s) they adjuested settings on the server, I paid £25 to talk to the Geek squad, I even brought a new wireless internet card for my computer, all to no avial...... when I eventually got to speak to the manager they suggested I buy myself a Netgear broardband router, which although I could do I am a little reluctant having already spent £75 on help and new hardware plus half my life on the phone for the last 6 months, and most annoying of all is when you call for technical help every time they insist on going through all the basic things again, I know all my router settings and IP configuration off by heart now, I can even sing it in the bath, ahhhhhhrrrrrhhh! So I figuered I will leave them, but now I hear they are buying Tiscali, thier nearest rival, and Virgin sound rubbish and BT are too expensive, so how is it we still only have 4 (soon to be 3) companies in this business all of which are to be honest rubbish. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Heinz

Welcome to the MSE forums sgrahamhyde.

Cheap (or free) is nice but, generally, I've found you get what you pay for.

Victor_Delta

sgrahamhyde wrote: »

I have had TalkTalk home broardband package for about 1 year now and to be honest I am in a bit of a fix... Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I assume your computer is reasonably new and works ok generally, and so couldn't be the cause of the problems? (If you are not sure, have you tried using another pc on your broadband setup?)

So, if it's only a case of finding another broadband supplier to go to, I've helped a number of friends move to broadband over the last few years and those who've used PlusNet have been very pleased with the service and value for money.

Indeed, they now offer a 10GB per month service for £5.99pm - if you live on one of their enabled exchanges (if not, it goes to £11.99 or thereabouts after 3 months). They supply a Thomson router.

Hope this helps?

V

TalkTalk

Hi Sgrahamhyde,

I'm no broadband expert I'm afraid but it you could register at https://www.talktalkmembers.com/forums and pop up a post regarding your broadband problems then my colleagues will be able to take a look at whats going on for you.

Cheers
EmmaL x

lee12_2

Hi EmmaL,
sorry if this is off track but please could you give me your opinion on my thread Talk Talk!!!!!!!!!!! I'm getting nowhere and looks like I'll be writing to head office.
The thing that angers us most is we have never had any documents saying were not talk talk customers only things that say we are. Look forward to seeing what you think.

frank58

I've been using 18185 for a long time (on a BT line) but now see that if I move to their 12 month contract + £4.xx p month I get free 24/7 geographic and 0870 and 0845 calls - ie no 5p connection charge. This would leave 18185 better for just overseas and mobile calls.
The article does not mention this- any comment?

koru

frank58 wrote: »

I've been using 18185 for a long time (on a BT line) but now see that if I move to their 12 month contract + £4.xx p month I get free 24/7 geographic and 0870 and 0845 calls - ie no 5p connection charge. This would leave 18185 better for just overseas and mobile calls.
The article does not mention this- any comment?

It depends how many calls you make and how many 0870/0845. If the call would otherwise be 5p on 18185, it would take 99 calls per month before you would save £4.95. If you make 0845/0870 calls (for which 18185 charges per minute), it would take fewer calls to save the £4.95. For me, I think BT is cheaper (and I did not like the way that 18185 often just dropped a call part way through the call).

Edit: With BT, you get free weekend calls anyway and you can get free weekend and evening calls if you commit to a 12 month contract. So, you only need to use 18185 for daytime calls. If you are out during the daytime, 18185 is likely to cost you less than £4.95 per month. (Martin's article mentions Euphony, which is £3.90 for free anytime calls, but does not include 0845/0870. I reckon I use more than £1 of 0845/0870 every month, so BT Anytime is better value for me.) However, watch out because 0844 and 0871 are not included in BT Anytime.

VirgoScorpio

Is using "euphony" better than sticking with the BT prices?

utilitybroker

VirgoScorpio wrote: »

Is using "euphony" better than sticking with the BT prices?

Depends on how many calls you make, and where and when you want make them to.

Taking BT Free Evening and Weekend Calls Offer,and using www.18185.co.uk for your peak geographical calls, peak 0845/0870, and all mobile and intl calls can be cheaper.

Heinz

VirgoScorpio wrote: »

Is using "euphony" better than sticking with the BT prices?

As utilitybroker says, it depends on your personal call pattern.

Some ideas are contained in the post under the HERE link in my signature below.