Talk Talk. Should I join?

dinglebert

Many years ago I was one of the first people to use talk talk for broadband. It was in the days of 1/2 kbit speeds. Had dreadful problems with drop-offs etc and was happy there was a time to get out of the contract. Have also used them for telephone many years ago. No problem with the line etc but a better deal came along and I left.

Now I'm with BT Anytime for phone, currently paying around £23 a month of which £5 is for calls to mobiles etc.
Also with Plusnet for broadband at £19.99 a month for 80 gb download peak, unlimited off-peak.
My broadband speeds have plummeted recently and over past 2 weeks have had connection speeds of 400-500 instead of my usual 5500. Plusnet have while pleasant been useless at solving this, constantly asking for more and more information before finally handing it over to BT 4 days ago. BT of course have done nothing yet.

My exchange is now LLU enabled and so far only TalkTalk have enabled this. I could move to TalkTalk for phones and broadband at an offer price of around £19.50 monthly for a year moving up to £28 a month after that on a 12 month contract. My indicated speed is 14-15000 with "unlimited" use. I know they throttle but I do not use p to p but do use some newsgroup stuff. Main use is for games by the kids and I do stream MLB games for myself.

Question is am I being foolish rejoining TalkTalk. There are a lot of complaints on the interweb about them. What are their LLU services like compared to their normal internet?

macman

If there is a line fault on the local loop, then switching to a TT LLU service will make absolutely no difference. And if you think Plusnet are inefficient at liaising with OR to solve the problem, then you're likely to find TT a whole lot worse.
Very few people would be using TT on a non-LLU basis-their cheap rate bundles revolve around their extensive LLU coverage, so their non-LLU pricing is prohibitive.
If you want a cheaper service then move to TT-but there's no other reason to. Otherwise give OR time to solve the line problem (if that's what it is).
This pre-supposes that you have already carried out all the normal tests yourself?

dinglebert

macman wrote: »

If there is a line fault on the local loop, then switching to a TT LLU service will make absolutely no difference. And if you think Plusnet are inefficient at liaising with OR to solve the problem, then you're likely to find TT a whole lot worse.
Very few people would be using TT on a non-LLU basis-their cheap rate bundles revolve around their extensive LLU coverage, so their non-LLU pricing is prohibitive.
If you want a cheaper service then move to TT-but there's no other reason to. Otherwise give OR time to solve the line problem (if that's what it is).
This pre-supposes that you have already carried out all the normal tests yourself?

Oh yes I have had to do every test going before Plusnet would even think about helping. what is annoying is that they set a series of test parameters which I carry out then they add some new ones. It stops them having to deal with the problem and hope it gets better itself.

macman

The reason for that is that 9 time out of 10 the fault is not with the line or the ISP: it's with the customer's extension wiring or boxes, their wireless set up, or equipment (bad or missing filters etc). None of which is the responsibility of the ISP or line rental provider.

dinglebert

macman wrote: »

The reason for that is that 9 time out of 10 the fault is not with the line or the ISP: it's with the customer's extension wiring or boxes, their wireless set up, or equipment (bad or missing filters etc). None of which is the responsibility of the ISP or line rental provider.

I understand the reason for the test its the time frame under which I have to do them that irks me. Do a series of tests and report back, then two days later its more tests, followed by different ones a couple of days later. If they gave me an email detailing what tests they required in the first place I wouldn't now be sitting over two weeks later unable to use the internet connection for the purposes for which I pay for it.

macman

So tell us what tests you have done and post your router stats, then someone can maybe help.
http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/frogstats.php#34

dinglebert

Talk Talk finally reported there was nothing they could do and passed it to BT to check on something at the exchange. Things to be done at my end have been exhausted.

However if it helps.

I have run bt speedtester at least a dozen times over the past two weeks. have had to run the router via a netbook hard wired rather than wireless both into the socket but also removing all the outer parts of the socket and tested directly into main socket. Changed by filters (twice). Tried another router. Changed from WAP to WEP. They have done stuff at their end which appeared to sort the problem for a day but it was soon back. My readings are

Uptime:2 days, 22:28:09 DSL Type:G.992.1 annex A Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]:448 / 8,128 Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [kB/kB]:0.00 / 0.00 Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]:12.0 / 19.5 Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]:11.0 / 21.0 SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]:23.0 / 9.0 Vendor ID (Local/Remote):TMMB / TSTC Loss of Framing (Local/Remote):0 / 0 Loss of Signal (Local/Remote):0 / 0 Loss of Power (Local/Remote):0 / 0 Loss of Link (Remote):0 Error Seconds (Local/Remote):0 / 0 FEC Errors (Up/Down):2 / 206,648 CRC Errors (Up/Down):2 / 0 HEC Errors (Up/Down):0 / 0
It shows my connection up for two days but I have frequent dropouts at my end.

vicx

I am with TalkTalk (LLU enabled) and have had no problems. I do get the odd drop out but not something to complain about. I was a bit dubious about joining TalkTalk 18 month ago after I read all the bad reviews online but I am really happy with the service they provide.

Previously I was with AOL, Tiscali and O2 access broadband, all services were terribly slow. I was getting speeds of less than 1mb and unbelievably high pings! TalkTalk have most definitely been the best so far. I now get speeds between 8 and 12mb.

I pay around £19.50 per month which is for broadband and phone line with inclusive local day time calls, as well as free evening & weekend calls.

shortchanged_2

Talk Talk. Should I join?

I would say no if you value good customer service.

asbokid

dinglebert wrote: »

Talk Talk finally reported there was nothing they could do and passed it to BT to check on something at the exchange. Things to be done at my end have been exhausted.

Hang on... I'm lost! You initially said that you are getting broadband from PlusNet but are thinking of joining TalkTalk...

I have run bt speedtester at least a dozen times over the past two weeks. have had to run the router via a netbook hard wired rather than wireless both into the socket but also removing all the outer parts of the socket and tested directly into main socket. Changed by filters (twice). Tried another router. Changed from WAP to WEP. They have done stuff at their end which appeared to sort the problem for a day but it was soon back. My readings are

Uptime:2 days, 22:28:09
DSL Type:G.992.1 annex A
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]:448 / 8,128
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [kB/kB]:0.00 / 0.00
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]:12.0 / 19.5
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]:11.0 / 21.0
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]:23.0 / 9.0
Vendor ID (Local/Remote): T
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote):0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote):0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote):0 / 0
Loss of Link (Remote):0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote):0 / 0
FEC Errors (Up/Down):2 / 206,648
CRC Errors (Up/Down):2 / 0
HEC Errors (Up/Down):0 / 0

It shows my connection up for two days but I have frequent dropouts at my end.

Your line sync speed of 8128Kbps/448Kbps is very good (assuming you are on an ADSL MAX service).

The number of downstream FEC errors looks suspiciously high for only 3 days uptime.

Since the router statistics show that you've had nearly 3 days uptime, the "dropouts" are not caused by the failure of the connection from your ADSL modem to BT's DSLAM in the exchange.

Can you explain how a "dropout" manifests itself? From the browser, you appear to lose connectivity, but what is netstat showing you? Is there evidence of a problem with the PlusNet nameserver and DNS resolution? When you are suffering a "dropout", can you ping a remote machine by its IP address, for example?

asbokid

shortchanged wrote: »

Talk Talk. Should I join?

I would say no if you value good customer service.

I would say yes yes yes to TalkTalk if you want faster connections!

The DSLAMs that TalkTalk has co-located in BT exchanges under the LLU agreement are generally superior to BT's own DSLAMs..

What that boils down to is a faster connection for the TalkTalk broadband subscriber.

TalkTalk DSLAMs support ADSL2+ (up to 24Mbps) whereas the standard DSLAMs used by BT which are getting quite old now, and which are used to provide IPStream wholesale services to most ISPs, can only support up to 8Mbps.

In practice, if your line is achieving an 8Mbps line synchronisation with BT, you are likely to get double that sync speed with TalkTalk.