Best way to move broadband from TalkTalk to Orange?

TehJumpingJawa

After several warning letters that I had exceeded the 40GB/month limit, TalkTalk have just forcefully added their +£5/month addon to up the limit to 80GB.
We have long since passed the min contract length, so there is nothing preventing us switching, and the extra £5/month means TalkTalk is no longer competitive.

Orange seems to be by far the best deal at the moment;
18month contract, £150 quidco cashback, £20 HMV vouchers, 3 months free (broadband), no download cap, £0.40/month cheaper (Orange: BB £7.50+LR £11.50 vs TalkTalk BB £6.50+LR £12.90).

However, upon investigating precisely how we would go about switching - we've discovered the anti-competitive farce that is LLU.

It seems to me that TalkTalk have basically set themselves up as a 'new BT', and made it as difficult & expensive as possible for existing customers to leave them.

So... to the question.

What's the cheapest, quickest & least inconvenient way to switch from LLU TalkTalk broadband over to Orange broadband?

(incidentally, the advice offered by all the switching sites is plain WRONG - you cannot simply request a MAC code from TalkTalk, nor can you request a special 'LLU MAC code' )







On a more idealistic slant, this issue has existed for years - why have Ofcom done nothing to prevent/remedy it?

• It's overly complicated; as the customer needs technical implementation details of the broadband network to understand !!!!!! is going on.

• It's bureaucratic; as you have to deal with multiple companies.

• It's inconvenient to the customer; as the transition will include downtime.

• It's anticompetitive; as switching provider incurs a 'BT line' reconnection fee

Oh, and as Martin lists TalkTalk as one of the cheapest broadband deals around I think he should also explain how inconvenient and costly leaving them in the future will be.

Mark_In_Hampshire

With a full LLU (called MPF) service, the other end of your phone line is plugged into Talk Talk's telephony and broadband services.

However Talk Talk don't manage that. BT Openreach do. Specifically, it's their job to nip along to the exchange, unplug the wires from the two pieces of kit and plug them into another provider's kit.

They charge for that and the ISP passes on the charge to you.

It does not require a new line. It does not require payment of a new line fee. It requires a conversion.

You can't switch to Orange because Orange do not offer that service.

Orange could request takeover of the line via BT Openreach and handle that for you, but they would much rather leave you to sort out the moving of the line rental back to a BT Wholesale provider, and then just do the broadband. Easier for them. More running around for you.

If that doesn't appeal, then pick a provider who can and will organise the above for you.

The difference between the above and say changing your electricity supplier is that in the latter case, no physical work is done. All it does is change who sends you the bills.

OFCOM do regulate how much Openreach can charge for moving the two wires. However it does indeed discourage people from leaving an MPF service, or indeed taking one in the first place.

But since Openreach is a privatised monopoly answerable to their shareholders, and Talk Talk haven't run their own last mile network to bypass them completely - the only mainstream provider who has is Virgin media cable - then they can charge for this service.

The ideal would be to have an open access network where the infrastructure provision is an entirely separate thing to the service provision. Had we not privatised BT all those years ago we'd have had such a thing. But we don't.

macman

You can't switch LLU to LLU.
You need to take your line rental back to BT on a return to donor, which is free but requires a 12m line rental contract. Once you are back on the BT network, you can order your broadband with the ISP of your choice (which, if it were my choice, would not be Orange-one of the lowest rated providers around).

TehJumpingJawa

Presumably the maximum attainable bandwidth on a given line is determined by the quality of 'the last mile', so when switching from one provider to another I shouldn't see a significant change?

Or will an LLU TalkTalk connection be significantly better than a BT line provided from the same exchange? (FYI this is my exchange)

As I'm currently getting ~14Mbps via TalkTalk's LLU, I would be very disappointed if returning to a BT line compromised this speed - even if it did liberate me from their pathetic 40GB/month bandwidth cap.

Is there any way to know before committing to a change?

If I had the option I'd leave ADSL altogether, however Virgin have yet to cable this particular area.

macman

You have both O2 and Sky available LLU on that exchange, both much better options than Orange.

TehJumpingJawa

macman wrote: »

You have both O2 and Sky available LLU on that exchange, both much better options than Orange.

Both of which cost more than twice as much as Orange for their equivalent packages.

O2 broadband unlimited (upto 20Mb up + 1.3Mb down)

+£17.50/month broadband (non-O2 customer), 3 months free.
+£7.50/month line rental (incl. free evening+weekend landline calls)

+£25.53 connection fee (non-O2 customer)
-£30 cashback

Over 12 month contract = £20.25/month

Sky broadband unlimited (upto 20Mb down)

+£5/month broadband for 6 months, £10/month normally.
+£12.25/month line rental (incl. free evening+weekend landline calls)

+£25 activation fee
-£50 cashback

Over 12 month contract = £17.92/month

Orange broadband unlimited (upto 20Mb down)

+£7.50/month broadband (Orange customer), 3 months free
+11.50/month line rental (incl. free evening+weekend landline calls)

-£150 cashback
-£20 HMV vouchers

Over 18 month contract = £8.31/month

I appreciate the O2/Orange comparison is slightly unfair.
However O2 requires atleast £10 topup every 3 months to remain eligible for the £5/month discount.
As far as I can tell Orange only requires that you have a recently topped up pay as you go sim at the time of applying for the broadband.

Orange customer service maybe inferior, however having no personal experience of it I cannot comment.
I try to evaluate deals on quantifiable metrics such as price & advertised performance, rather than on hearsay & meaningless customer satisfaction surveys.


Anyhow, this is all rather off-topic.
Thanks for the confirmation of what I already suspected:
- Switching from an LLU provider to one relying upon a BT line is quite simply a broken process that involves additional expense, faff & inconvenience.
- Ofcom are failing at one of their primary reasons for existance.

macman

Here's a meaningless survey for you then:
http://www.dslzoneuk.net/isp_ratings.php
You'll also find Orange comes last or near the bottom in surveys by Computer Shopper and Which, to name but two.
The O2 mobile discount does not require you to own the phone-you can use a number belonging to a friend, family, work colleague-anyone will do.
Since you can't go to Orange for your line rental and calls for 12 months (unless you want to pay for a new line) the question is somewhat academic though.

TehJumpingJawa

macman wrote: »

Here's a meaningless survey for you then:
http://www.dslzoneuk.net/isp_ratings.php
You'll also find Orange comes last or near the bottom in surveys by Computer Shopper and Which, to name but two.

Most of which are woefully out of date.

I'm not defending Orange, I simply place no value in customer surveys - especially ones that generalise an ISPs performance to something as simplistic as an 'out of 10' score.

Let's face it, when it comes to (any form of) technology the vast majority of customers are ignorant and/or incompetent and blame their retailer/provider for their own mistakes.

Which? for example would have me believe TalkTalk to be one of the worst ISPs of 2011, yet the performance and customer service they have delivered to me have been outstanding, and the price has been above average too!
Ergo surveys are useless.

macman

Many recent surveys do recognise that TT are much improved-but then they did start from a long way down, so plenty of scope for improvement.
Your single experience does not outweigh that of 100's of people surveyed-and the customer base for TT/Orange/BT means that the results should be based on a reasonable sample.
If TT are so great, then are they not worth the extra £5 per month?

TehJumpingJawa

macman wrote: »

If TT are so great, then are they not worth the extra £5 per month?

I resent that they are now squeezing their customers for more cash.
I've been with TalkTalk for atleast 24 months, and have consistently exceeded the bandwidth cap throughout this period without any punishment.
It appears to be a recent change in policy that they are now enforcing bandwidth caps. (3 warnings, then a forced increase in cost).

I see 40GB to be a completely unreasonable cap for a 14Mb/s connection, as given a little effort I can exhaust my monthly allowance in less than 6.5 hours! That's a permitted utilisation of less than 1%.
Would you be content if your road tax permitted you to only drive for 6.5 hours every month?

Though the real motivation for switching is one of cost.

80GB allowance on TalkTalk works out at (£6.50+£12.90+£5) £24.40/month, which is not competitive when compared to cashback enhanced deals from other suppliers.
Ditch & switch is King.

Mark_In_Hampshire

The main issue with Orange is that there is no Orange LLU any more. It has been/is being subsumed into BT's network. So it's a BT Wholesale connection, it is not LLU.

Orange's LLU used to be fairly well rated but it doesn't exist any more.

If your exchange were not 21WBC enabled then yes, you'd see a significant speed drop with Orange - but, it is. So in theory the speed should be similar.

Talk Talk's actual network is well rated by users, and people have seen better performance with that than with BT Wholesale: but the customer service is generally dreadful. As long as it works, it's fine. If it breaks, a nightmare may ensue.

Your main problem is that to move to Orange - you can't move line & broadband in one go. They aren't prepared to do it.

However O2 and Sky to name but two, can do it. So you'd be looking at a migration fee of circa £45; if you insist on Orange you'll need to see how much BT or the Post Office want to sort you out with a BT Wholesale phone line connection + rental and you'll then have two separate contracts.

For support reasons, if the broadband is very important to you, having separate line + broadband providers isn't a good idea because if certain types of fault develop you can look forward to the two of them fobbing you off because neither want responsibility.

One option would be to move the line rental to the Post office on a one month contract - circa £130 - then you can move the line rental to Orange. BT might do that for free, but on an 18 month contract.

In any event you need to factor the above into your pricing. You cannot have your Orange option with line rental, as you've quoted in your comparison, because they won't do the migration.