Talk Talk Offered me a Deal but...

Martynb_

I'm with Virgin at the mo' - fibre optic - and paying £30 a month. Broadband only. I don't bother with the phone at all. It's just broadband. They are a great service, it's just that they slap £10 on the bill if you miss the payment deadline. I've been with Virgin for over a year.

But Talk Talk just called and offered me a £20 a month broadband and phone package. Don't know anything about them or their service. I will be saving £10 or £20 per month though.

Will I be sacrificing on broadband speed and service if I go with TT? They said I would have to pay £50 one off fee to join up. They've done a credit check and they're going to send out an engineer to install a free line in December.

I just don't know. Could be financial complications along the way somewhere with this.

TheLandlady

I switched to a company called utility warehouse I'd never heard of them either. They had a stand at the business show but I tried them out privately with my residential broadband before changing all my business over as well. I'm glad I switched, I'm saving a lot overall- they do us cheap electric as well. I got free new line but don't know if they still do that offer. I won't post details but I suggest google chap I used called Lee Downs in Coventry even though I don't live anywhere near there it doesn't matter its all via web.

Martynb_

TheLandlady wrote: »

I switched to a company called utility warehouse I'd never heard of them either. They had a stand at the business show but I tried them out privately with my residential broadband before changing all my business over as well. I'm glad I switched, I'm saving a lot overall- they do us cheap electric as well. I got free new line but don't know if they still do that offer. I won't post details but I suggest google chap I used called Lee Downs in Coventry even though I don't live anywhere near there it doesn't matter its all via web.

Not sure that's going to help me.

Martynb_

Does anyone know whether it is possible for Talk Talk to take money from my account when they do the credit check? I'm worried that they might take my money for a service I never used. I've allowed them to put a penny in my account to check that I'm a real person. I don't understand why they need to do that. That's really odd.

bod1467

Not unusual at all - it's quite a standard credit check mechanism. It validates that the payment account is real.

spike7451

bod1467 wrote: »

Not unusual at all - it's quite a standard credit check mechanism. It validates that the payment account is real.

Some companies (o2 for example) also debit £1.1 from your account & then re-credit the money back to your account,that's why a lot of people fail the credit check,they've no money in the account.

flashg67

I gues you'll sacrifice speed over fibre optic - have TT given you an estimated speed? This may not matter to you depending on what you use the internet for. My TT 'standard' ADSL2 broadband at 6Mbps is fine for the family to all use the net at the same time and use iplayer etc.

There are plenty of horror stories on MSE and the net about TT service. I have found that the telephone support is awful, but their forums are better. Having said that, in 4 years, I've only had 2 contact them twice.

I imagine TT and most providers will penalise you for a late payment, although paying by direct debit will stop that?

Mark_In_Hampshire

You can get an estimate of ADSL speed to help you determine whether you'll lose speed and by how much.

If your cable service runs at 20Mbps+ you'll lose speed with ADSL2+ unless you're in the (guess) 0.5% of the population with a phone line short enough to deliver 20Mbps on the Up to 20Mbps service.

If you go to www.samknows.com and then availability checker, and use your postcode (even if you have a number for the landline, use the postcode in this case) and check the results tabs for the sort of speeds you might see.

tommycatz

I have had broadband with Tiscali and now TT for nearly 6 years. To be fair, I've only had 1 major downtime 4 years when BT engineers messing with my line in the exchange that caused a 2 week outage. However, the TT help line in India was bad, same script being repeated by different reps.

But recently, I have noticed the speeds are slower. I think its to make customers switch to fibre optic service.

Herongull

£30 a month for broadband is very expensive. For this you probably do get fast speeds, but are you doing lots of big downloads or playing games or watching video online or something that you need this?

If you are mainly doing browsing and email, then you can go for something much cheaper and you won't notice too much difference.

I only pay £6.50 for plusnet broadband and its just fine

steve1980

Martynb_ wrote: »

I'm with Virgin at the mo' - fibre optic - and paying £30 a month. Broadband only. I don't bother with the phone at all. It's just broadband. They are a great service, it's just that they slap £10 on the bill if you miss the payment deadline. I've been with Virgin for over a year.

But Talk Talk just called and offered me a £20 a month broadband and phone package. Don't know anything about them or their service. I will be saving £10 or £20 per month though.

Will I be sacrificing on broadband speed and service if I go with TT? They said I would have to pay £50 one off fee to join up. They've done a credit check and they're going to send out an engineer to install a free line in December.

I just don't know. Could be financial complications along the way somewhere with this.

Why didn't you pay them? Or have a direct debit set up to pay it?

Talk Talk are an awful company. Wouldn't touch them with a bargepoll.

As for the speed, then yes, you will sacrifice it. TT will be slower than VM.

£50 set up? That's a lot of money to part with, what is the charge for exactly? Sounds like it's a charge to subsidise the line install.