Escape from TalkTalk - where next?

unsure

After months of battling over technical difficulties with Talk Talk they have agreed I can cancel my account without charge. So I am looking for a decent broadband and home phone (inc line rental) provider fairly pronto! The question is which one?

While cost is always a factor, my poor experience with TT leads me to consider that a decent broadband service with good trechnical back up and customer service is my main concern.

I'm not too fussed about digital tv but the excellent customer service I've always had from Virgin re mobile phones is tempting me their way.

I have had problems with BT in the past and would only go back to them as a very last resort.

Can any kind MSE'rs recommend a good, reliable supplier? Thanks in advance for your help and advice.

penrhyn

If you are having technical difficulties with your present ISP and are on ADSL, changing to another supplier will not fix them.
If you can identify your problems we may be able to help.
The exception is if you are in a cable area, are you?

To see what alternatives are available to you do an exchange search on samknows are see which LLU operators are available.

JJ_Egan

TT leads me to consider that a decent broadband service with good trechnical back up and customer service is my main concern.

= ZEN

jje

Inactive

Excellent ISP with a great phone deal = IDNet.

penrhyn

Indeed, but what is wrong with OP's current set up?

Inactive

unsure wrote: »

Can any kind MSE'rs recommend a good, reliable supplier? Thanks in advance for your help and advice.

The OP asked this.

penrhyn

True enough, just that a lot of folks complain about their ISP when they could resolve their problems themselves.

unsure

Hi Penrhyn,
My service has beeen getting worse for a few months(more intermittent, slower, dropping out to the point where the router needed resetting dozens of times a day!) this conincided with the period in which TT were telling me the service was being "improved" ( apparently upgrading to ADSL2) . I suspect there is a link between the two and that settings/ hardware have been changed at the far end which are no longer as compatible with things at my end. I'm not a techie as you can see.

They've never been able to say what the problem is and simply keep passing me on to another department who are supposed to call back in 48 hours but don't. Finally, when again offered the chance of paying £99.99 for an engineer's visit I suggested they send me one of their routers first to try that.

It arrived yesterday and connected by cable to one pc and wirelessly to another, but my laptop could not connect. I called for support and was told that my laptop network card must be corrupt and I needed to send my laptop back to the vendor. Several times over the months there have been conversations of the "problem must be at your end" nature even though they've been making all the changes and we haven't! I pointed out the laptop had been working on the old network 30 mins previously and if it was indeed corrupted then it was their equipment which had done so and I would like their help to get back to the situation I was origially in of having a simple broadband connection and home network functioing most of the time --the service for which I was subscribing and which I frankly have not been reciving for several months.

I suspect that the answer is probably pretty simple to someone with the right techie knowledge --unfortunately getting help or support from TT Cust Services is not at all a simple matter!

When i declined the kind offer of another phantom call back, I was finally passed to a man in their cancellations dept who told me that they have a policy that if problems are not solved within one month customers may cancel their contract free of charge. After all the frustration and unhlpfulness I've had and with no likelihood of an end in sight, I took that option. He also told me that the biggest single cause of cancelled contracts with TT is poor tech support...so I'm not alone!

I'm just very fed up and frustrated and no longer have any trust in TT. That's why I'm looking for recommendations for acompany that is more user-friendly and supportive to its customers. I'm hearing quite good things about plusnet which I am now investigating.

unsure

We are in a cable area but our house is ten metres back from the road with a brick weave drive which would need to be dug up for cable... so not keen on that option at this stage. We have in the past had a decent and reliable broadband signal and it has only deteriorated since TT started making "improvements".

penrhyn

I agree its very frustrating for you, is your wired connection to the PC reliable? Do you know the make and model of the router they sent you?
I assume you can detect the wireless channel from the router, have you entered the passcode, observing capitalisation?

unsure

Sorry been away for a few hours. Yes I've done those things.
The router is a Huawei Echolife HG521.
The wired connection has been stable so far.