Is TalkTalk my only internet option?

nikotime

Hi, trying to cut the costs of my parents outgoings so looking at switching their broadband (and phone line provider, I'd imagine). A quick search on samknows states that TalkTalk are the only LLU provider. They are currently with an entanet provider (I set it up a few years ago) and paying around £20 a month for 20GB capped broadband. My Dad has heard bad things about TalkTalk and isn't keen - is there any non LLU provider which would save money? We are currently with Sky for TV but they don't provide fibre in our area, and neither do virgin.

Cheers!

diamonds

Do they have a mobile with o2 or Orange to bring down the broadband cost ?

Sky Connect (non LLU) is £29.95 with line rental.

What is there landline usage like ?

nikotime

Got mobile with Orage so that could work I guess, but no worth changing if only small difference, especially as currently on a month by month contract. Is TalkTalk really that bad? Landline usage wise lots of evening and weekend calls but not for daytime. Also a fair few calls to abroad (calls to Holland most days) so if any line rental is good for that that would be interesting.

baby_frogmella

STAY AWAY FROM SKY CONNECT!!! (sky's non llu offering). It's arguably the slowest (ie most congested) bt based service. Absolutely nothing wrong with talktalk llu if you stick with forum support. I've been with them for nearly 2 years now...line speeds 24/7, great pings and any issues have been resolved satisfactorily by their OCEs.

jb66

If your lucky enough to have llu I'd go With that

nikotime

Would LLU be any faster than my current Entanet? And how easy would it be to cancel TalkTalk straight away if find it to be poor - is there a 'bedding in' period?

EDIT: Thanks for all the help thus far!

baby_frogmella

nikotime wrote: »

Would LLU be any faster than my current Entanet? And how easy would it be to cancel TalkTalk straight away if find it to be poor - is there a 'bedding in' period?

EDIT: Thanks for all the help thus far!

If you're not on a long line then almost certainly you will get higher speeds on TalkTalk's LLU (up to 24 meg). Post your current router stats for a better idea. Before joining TalkTalk, i was with an isp called Goscomb (an Entanet L2TP reseller) and modem synced at 8 meg. Now on Talktlak my modem syncs at nearly 18 meg and speedtest results are >16 meg 24/7.

TalkTalk give you a 30 days satisfaction guarantee once you go live...you can leave them without any penalty. If you sign up to their member forums and use that for any issues then there'll be no problems (Its their phone support which is horrendous)

borkid

nikotime wrote: »

Is TalkTalk really that bad? line rental is

From my experience YES. Got landed with them when f2s was bought out by Tiscali who were then bought out by Talktalk. We finally escaped when we moved house but it was a long haul. The connection speeds were slow compared to neighbours and the connection kept dropping, so unreliable that I arranged internet connection via mobile for the 1 hour a week I had to be online.

nikotime

ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 4992 kbps 448 kbps
Line Attenuation 41 db 13 db
Noise Margin 6 db 27 db

For the router stats, although not sure what the latter two really mean...
They live in a village so I'd imagine the line would be pretty long.

One more question, what do you all think of their Plus service with the YouView box? Would mean they would get rid of sky multiroom which would save a tenner a month, although I guess if it's £10 more than the Essentials then that makes it pretty null and void...

macman

You have the choice of dozens of non-LLU providers, but none will be as cheap as TT LLU. You get what you pay for.

baby_frogmella

borkid wrote: »

The connection speeds were slow compared to neighbours and the connection kept dropping, so unreliable that I arranged internet connection via mobile for the 1 hour a week I had to be online.

In that case there would have been a line fault between your exchange and your property...Openreach are responsible for getting that fixed NOT TalkTalk. If you plug your router into Talktalk's MSAN at your exchange , your router will sync at the full 24 meg with actual speeds >20 meg. That's guaranteed