Anyway of wriggling out of TalkTalk contract?

FreeworldImpossible

I signed up to Talktalk phone and internet in January after leaving Sky in December. I initially went to o2 phone and broadband and paid £45 to have a new line installed. When o2 went live the speed was only 1mb. Having previously been on 3.5mb with Sky I found this unacceptable and nowhere near o2's quoted "average" I should have gotten of 3.2mb. They claimed there was nothing they could do to increase speed so I left during the 30 day happiness guarantee and went to Talktalk. :mad:

When talktalk went live I got 0.5mb, I immediately rang them and I told them that IMO there was a problem on the brand new line I'd had fitted by BT Openreach, and as I only had ten days cooling off with TT I needed to move fast. The guy on the phone assured me that it would reach their quoted "average" for my property of 2.8mb, the letter stated I'd be between 1.8mb and 4.2mb with 2.8 being the average, but this would take 14 days, clearly locking me into a 12 month contract. So I waited and waited, and here I am, 4 months later I'm still only on 1.3mb. I've called their technical help many many times, I've had their "bright spark" engineers out, who admit there's a problem but are pretty much just youview box installers so don't do anything else, I've had line tests carried out which come back ok, I've been sent new routers which make no difference and they even "booked" a BT visit, which never happened. There's also the problem of their wireless signal constantly switching off, which is a real pain. So in my view they're not sticking to their side of the deal, so I'm wondering if there's any way I can wriggle out of their clutches without paying the remainder of my contract?? My argument to them is that there's clearly something wrong with this new line, but no one can help me.

Thanks

macman

No you can't. 1.3MBps is still 'officially' broadband, and they don't guarantee the speed.
If the wireless is dropping out then the first thing to to so change the wireless channel-that's your responsibility, and nothing to do with TT. They should have suggested that the first time you called them
If there is a line problem on the local loop, then changing your ISP will make no difference to the speed.
Have you tested using internet from the BT test socket (behind the master socket split faceplate)? That will rule out wireless issues or any problems on your extension wiring or sockets.

Gordon_Hose

Did you chase up the booked BT visit? If not, why not? It may flag up an issue that the (not so) Brightsparks technician (no way will I call them "Engineers") couldn't identify.

StuC75

Recommend Inssidder on the pc to scan what other Wifi signals are nearby - may be something that conflicts with your settings.

FreeworldImpossible

macman wrote: »

No you can't. 1.3MBps is still 'officially' broadband, and they don't guarantee the speed.
If the wireless is dropping out then the first thing to to so change the wireless channel-that's your responsibility, and nothing to do with TT. They should have suggested that the first time you called them
If there is a line problem on the local loop, then changing your ISP will make no difference to the speed.
Have you tested using internet from the BT test socket (behind the master socket split faceplate)? That will rule out wireless issues or any problems on your extension wiring or sockets.

Yes, channels have been changed to no avail, routers exchanged too. It just randomly switches off the wireless. Not a fan of their Hauwei router tbh.

The router has been in the test socket for over a month now with only the house phone the other thing connected. No joy. What frustrates me is we've always received around 3Mb (which alone isn't very fast) since LLU became available in the area. Switching to a brand new line I thought, we might see some kind of speed increase. My brother 4 doors away is getting 4Mb with Sky. I was with o2 years ago, when they first came to the market, and was getting 3.5mb with them. Dropping to 1.3mb has rendered it virtually useless for streaming via Sky On Demand.

As for the BT visit. The bright spark arranged that whilst he was here. Their call centre told me to pick three dates, I gave them then heard nothing more. Calls to the CS lead round in circles. I have been getting more help from their help forums to be fair. It's they who sent the new routers. They also escalated my case to their network team and I did receive a series of texts saying they were running tests, then saying they were complete and they'd report back, but that was last week. TBH, I may just bite the bullet and pay the cancellation fee to leave, even if that means I see no difference in service. I've not had a pleasant experience with them at all. :mad:

macman

What speed does the BT line checker say that your line will support? If that is around 1.3MBps, then that's all you'll get on ADSL, regardless of provider.
The usual TT problem is contention, so does the speed get worse in peak hours and improve off peak?
I'm afraid you've discovered why TT is so cheap, their tech support is next to useless.

Buzby

What are you getting purely on a wired connection? wiFi speeds are irrelevant to promised and expected connection promises.

amorphix

There is legal provision to get out of a telephone/broadband contract if the service fails to meet reasonable standards. But I think it would have to be pretty dismal for this to apply. Most people automatically assume that any problem with broadband has to be a bad company or poor service, but often the problems are much closer to home.

Remember that unless you have cable, all telecom providers that offer line rental are merely BT resellers and it's BT who are actually responsible for the line to your property (and the quality of that line and phone service), which obviously affects your broadband speed and performance.

If your think your phone line is not right, your first port of call should be to your telephone or broadband provider who will in turn make contact with BT, as they have a contract with BT, not you (unless you're a BT customer).

I found myself in this very situation not so long ago and it turned out the original 1980's BT socket in my property was defective with very ancient components in it causing noise and frequent disconnections to my broadband service.

BT, or your telephone line provider, can advise you how to check your line over the phone. There's some BT 4 digit numbers you can dial which carry out diagnostic checks on the line to check for faults and noise to begin with. Ideally you should carry out these tests on the master socket, and then work backwards if you have extension sockets, to eliminate any problem in your wiring and sockets at each stage. Or you can do it the other way, back to front.. i.e. starting the tests and checks on your extension(s) and working back to the master socket.

There's also a test socket hidden behind the master socket face which you can use to test the line properly with a wired phone. That will eliminate any problem with the master socket wiring itself and also that's the standard test BT use themselves to check a property line.

Removing the master socket face plate will also enable you to carry out a visual check of the circuit to ensure it's not showing any signs of wear or old components (as was the case of mine). If the master socket does not have a test socket behind it, it's almost certain BT would have to come out and upgrade the master socket to a modern one and that may solve your problem if it's a line noise problem. Another problem I had, was with the wiring junction box in our street which again, was in need of upgrading and had also been damaged by vandalism. BT solved that once I reported frequent disconnections continuing after they upgraded my master socket, they worked backwards from my properly and located a problem at that junction box.

Another common broadband problem worth checking is the microfilters. In my experience, these don't work too well and often need replacing after a while. Broadband providers should replace these readily, along with the router if it's old.

I think only after you've taken all reasonable measures and carried out all these tests and checks, to eliminate all possible causes from wiring, sockets, filters and router, can you say it's definitely a broadband service issue and start talking about early exiting of a contract.

If you get to that stage, it's best to keep a detailed daily log of your disconnections and service problems, copies of your router log etc showing downtime.. also copies of e-mails/letters, recordings of reports to BT and checks etc, so you prove that all reasonable steps have been taken to eliminate any line problems.

macman

amorphix wrote: »

There is legal provision to get out of a telephone/broadband contract if the service fails to meet reasonable standards. But I think it would have to be pretty dismal for this to apply. Most people automatically assume that any problem with broadband has to be a bad company or poor service, but often the problems are much closer to home.

Remember that unless you have cable, all telecom providers that offer line rental are merely BT resellers and it's BT who are actually responsible for the line to your property (and the quality of that line and phone service), which obviously affects your broadband speed and performance.

If your think your phone line is not right, your first port of call should be to your telephone or broadband provider who will in turn make contact with BT, as they have a contract with BT, not you (unless you're a BT customer).

I found myself in this very situation not so long ago and it turned out the original 1980's BT socket in my property was defective with very ancient components in it causing noise and frequent disconnections to my broadband service.

BT, or your telephone line provider, can advise you how to check your line over the phone. There's some BT 4 digit numbers you can dial which carry out diagnostic checks on the line to check for faults and noise to begin with. Ideally you should carry out these tests on the master socket, and then work backwards if you have extension sockets, to eliminate any problem in your wiring and sockets at each stage. Or you can do it the other way, back to front.. i.e. starting the tests and checks on your extension(s) and working back to the master socket.

There's also a test socket hidden behind the master socket face which you can use to test the line properly with a wired phone. That will eliminate any problem with the master socket wiring itself and also that's the standard test BT use themselves to check a property line.

Removing the master socket face plate will also enable you to carry out a visual check of the circuit to ensure it's not showing any signs of wear or old components (as was the case of mine). If the master socket does not have a test socket behind it, it's almost certain BT would have to come out and upgrade the master socket to a modern one and that may solve your problem if it's a line noise problem. Another problem I had, was with the wiring junction box in our street which again, was in need of upgrading and had also been damaged by vandalism. BT solved that once I reported frequent disconnections continuing after they upgraded my master socket, they worked backwards from my properly and located a problem at that junction box.

Another common broadband problem worth checking is the microfilters. In my experience, these don't work too well and often need replacing after a while. Broadband providers should replace these readily, along with the router if it's old.

I think only after you've taken all reasonable measures and carried out all these tests and checks, to eliminate all possible causes from wiring, sockets, filters and router, can you say it's definitely a broadband service issue and start talking about early exiting of a contract.

If you get to that stage, it's best to keep a detailed daily log of your disconnections and service problems, copies of your router log etc showing downtime.. also copies of e-mails/letters, recordings of reports to BT and checks etc, so you prove that all reasonable steps have been taken to eliminate any line problems.

Except for the many LLU providers, who are not BT resellers.

TalkTalk

Hi FreeworldImpossible,

If you register on the TalkTalk Members Forum we can provide technical support in relation to your issue. With regards to speed there are a number of checks we can codnuct and potentially change the line profile to improve the connection quality. It would also be worth running line tests to check the line is free of any faults.

If you join the TalkTalk Members Forum we can provide full technical support for your query.

Regards

Mark
Online Community Department

FreeworldImpossible

Hi, just an update.

I cancelled TalkTalk and paid up my termination fee as not only could I not get any joy in resolving the slow speed issue, it came to a point where the router was switching off the wifi every 5 minutes.

We returned to Sky, who predicted between 2mb and 5mb, now we were with Sky until Christmas and were getting 3.5mb, but that was on the old, now obsolete phone line. On the new line, with Sky, I'm getting 0.8mb :mad: Pretty much the same as O2 and TalkTalk started off at. How can you go from a twenty year old phone line giving you 3.5mb to a brand new one and only get 0.8mb??? What have they done?? My brother who lives in a brand spanking new house at the top of the street is also on Sky, he's getting just under 4mb. I so wish I'd never had a new line fitted now!