TalkTalk Pro - Yay or nay?

gazoakley

So, I'm finally fed up with Virgin Media ADSL. I experience awful speeds in the evening (around 0.6Mbps down from 6.5Mbps during night/morning) despite only using the connection for web browsing and the odd bit of YouTube/iPlayer. BT's DLM system altered my target SNR and enabled interleaving recently after one of my microfilters died - despite pointing this out to Virgin they refuse to do a line retrain (which would get me running again at full 8mb). And they can only offer up to 8mb in my area - there's no sign of BT rolling out 21CN at my exchange in the near future.

TalkTalk have been offering LLU at my exchange for a while now, and the offer of TalkTalk Pro seems tempting. Given the line stats it looks like I should be able to get 16-18Mbps and it'll still only cost £14.99 a month - same as Virgin plus throw in included anytime calls. Looks like a quick posting on their forums is all thats needed to get SNR/interleaving changed too. :j

But plenty of people seem to be complaining about TalkTalk. My gran is with them and she doesn't seem to have any problems, but the past negativity towards TT from reviews on the web seems worrying. Are TT really as bad as people make it out to be? Is anyone here on TalkTalk Pro - do you find you can download at the maximum speed your router permits?

deanos

Im with TT for about 6 months now its been great.

Why are you considering the pro package ?

You can get up to 24meg on the standard package now for free if you didnt realise

The forum is fantastic support they have tweaked my profile to the fastest SNR and i seem to max out the vast majority of times , ive heard the phone support if pants tho but not had any experience with that

gazoakley

deanos wrote: »

Why are you considering the pro package ?

We're after the all inclusive calls deal which would bump the essentials price £4. After that its not far off the normal price for Pro anyway (another £4) - and then wouldn't have to worry about going over usage which might happen in the coming months when my dad retires.

Glad to hear you're finding it works well! :j

deanos

.

robt_2

Talk Talk is one of the largest ISPs so it will have a high number of complaints - it doesn't necessarily mean that there is a higher percentage of unhappy customers than any other ISP though.

macman

What are your other LLU options?

gazoakley

The only other LLU option at my exchange is Orange. Its £1.49 a month cheaper, though I don't think it includes 0870/0845 calls. That, and I've had my own bad experiences with the ISP formerly known as Freeserve :rotfl:

vikingvampireparrot

One problem with Talktalk (that I've just come across as trying to leave - will be making a thread!) is that it's very difficult to leave - other providers won't take you straight from them

deanos

Same with any LLU provider tho from what i gather

inmypocketnottheirs

Talk Talk are dire. If you can live with loss of service, poor customer support from third world countries and general malaise regarding sorting your problems, then great go with TT.

Pete=]_2-2

inmypocketnottheirs wrote: »

Talk Talk are dire. If you can live with loss of service, poor customer support from third world countries and general malaise regarding sorting your problems, then great go with TT.

So many hear bad press about TT and jump to conclusions, most of the bad press is outdated. I will reitterate what I said to someone a couple of weeks ago:
TalkTalk has been a great service for us. Currently out of contract now, almost 2 years with them and don't plan on switching. Great price, fast speeds, 40Gb is a hell of a lot (only ever got close one month with 35Gb). I live 1.5miles away from our exchange and currently getting the FULL promised 8Mb speeds. More so, TalkTalk are now offering us up to 24Mb for FREE! - so just waiting for it to be activated now (due by end of week )
Though people complain about customer service, I have had no problems whatsoever. Furthermore, they have a great member's forum which their admins sort out problems very quickly: just Google "TalkTalk Members" (can't post links :S)
For those TalkTalk members that have slow speeds, they should check out and ask for a line profile change for faster connection Tbh, were other providers fail with their online support, TalkTalk thrive! Sometimes you don't want to ring a call centre which makes the forum method is so much better.
TalkTalk customer feedback is getting out of date. Most of them talktalk hell stories are 3-4 years when there was a surge of people changing to this new service testing the customer services that were having teething problems.

Finally, food for thought: people moan about their broadband speed and do nothing! Just go on their forums and ask for a profile line tweak, if you are unsure the TT community offer their advice - not hard and can make a hell of a difference for your connection!