TalkTalk Crackling line - "Network Problems"

marksmith99

I have line rental and calls through Talktalk and for the last week the line has been very crackly so that on our phone you can hear the other person fine, but the other person only gets the occasional word.

I have phoned Talktalk faults twice now (which is comical as because of the problem they cannot understand what I am saying) and been told it is a network issue that is affecting lots of 0208 numbers, but they are working on it.

Frankly I don't believe them. I asked about compensation as I am paying for a service that I cannot use and was told they do not give compensation for "network" issues - how can that be - surely any fault with a phone line is a network fault as it is the telephone network?

I tried to get transferred to the complaints department, but was told an internal problem meant this couldn't be done - very convenient!

Anyone else experienced this or have any suggestions what to do?

BexTech

marksmith99 wrote: »

I have line rental and calls through Talktalk and for the last week the line has been very crackly so that on our phone you can hear the other person fine, but the other person only gets the occasional word.

I have phoned Talktalk faults twice now (which is comical as because of the problem they cannot understand what I am saying) and been told it is a network issue that is affecting lots of 020 numbers, but they are working on it.

Frankly I don't believe them. I asked about compensation as I am paying for a service that I cannot use and was told they do not give compensation for "network" issues - how can that be - surely any fault with a phone line is a network fault as it is the telephone network?

I tried to get transferred to the complaints department, but was told an internal problem meant this couldn't be done - very convenient!

Anyone else experienced this or have any suggestions what to do?

Just keep pressuring them, TalkTalk are known for poor service and poor customer service, which is why many advise to avoid them.

The reason why they don't want to do anything is they don't want to pay OpenReach (BT) to investigate your problem.

TalkTalkBoy

There is a current issue that has been ongoing for the previous 26 days. Talktalk engineers are looking into the issue and working to resolve.

The issue may cause:

Dropped Calls
Speech Clipping
Intermittent Dial Tones
Slow Broadband Speed

Ypaymore

TalkTalkBoy wrote: »

There is a current issue that has been ongoing for the previous 26 days.

:eek: Perhaps they could get their finger out.:D

marksmith99

TalkTalkBoy wrote: »

There is a current issue that has been ongoing for the previous 26 days. Talktalk engineers are looking into the issue and working to resolve.

The issue may cause:

Dropped Calls
Speech Clipping
Intermittent Dial Tones
Slow Broadband Speed

Yes I've seen that information on the website, but I find it hard to understand how it can take so long to fix an issue - do you have any additional information that might actually make me believe some work was being done on the problem? You must surely find it laughable that an issue can go on for so long with no sign of a resolution?

Latest update for me is that the crackling has gone, but am now getting dropped calls after a few minutes and intermittent dial tone.

Also, I note the unbilled balance in My account is increasing daily, despite making no chargeable calls. I presume this is because I am being charged for the diverted calls to my mobile, even though I was told it would be free!

The sad thing is I was pretty sure this would happen!

I have had enough and am going to switch provider. Is there anyway I can switch the line back to BT and the broadband to someone other than BT without losing broadband for a while?

xxdeebeexx

I am having exactly this issue too. The children have 1 months subscription to Runescape each and haven't been able to use it. The internet seems ok until just after 5pm and then it goes off untill 10.30 ish. by this time they are in bed. I have a whole list of things I want to put on Ebay but can't since I like my auctions to finish about 9pm.
I am really fed up.....to be honest it not far short of stealing since I am paying for something that is unusable. I too have asked for a rebate and compensation but was told that I can't put in a claim until the problem is solved. The last couple of times I phoned talktalk I was kept on hold for 40 minutes. Maybe I will be sending an email to watchdog (If I can get on the internet!!)

Dx

BexTech

I had TalkTalk broadband a couple of months after they hit the market, this was a few years back and way before they offered their 'free' broadband. It was useless then and they didn't have the infrastructure to cope, I'd get 20+ disconnections an hour, downloads would crawl at 0.5k/s, email was ropey (though for my main eMail, I've always had a domain name, so that wasn't an issue), their newsgroup server was always falling over, in fact it's been down for over a year, could be longer and they don't plan on fixing that, still there are free news-severs out there, or the excellent individual.net (text only).

It was always flaky, CS were useless.

Previously I was with Pipex and only had one lost connection (due to major fault) and excellent speeds, I went back to Pipex and again no issues.

They couldn't get it right when I was paying £20+ per month just for the broadband, it can't get better when they are now giving line rental, phone calls and broadband for more or less the same price.


They had too many users on limited infrastructure when people paid separately, they need to get loads more people on the limited infrastructure for them to make this pay.

OK, I'm now on cable broadband (for the last 2 and a bit years), as I knew when BT changed the way ISPs had to pay for using the system, that there would be loads of traffic shaping and throttling and others measures in place.


Though TalkTalk did increase my webspace to 150MB and refund the charges for broadband during the 2.5 months I was with them, and they let me leave them for broadband without the £70 or so penalty, however for several months they chased me for payment for my broadband service I wasn't receiving any more, with threats of debt collectors, and I had to write to the two credit agencies to explain I hadn't missed any payments and to correct my record, as TalkTalk had marked my credit file as missing payments.

I did have a calls package with them (they didn't do line rental back then) but because of their incompetence over the broadband, poor broadband itself and poor Customer Service, I moved my calls away from them too. I then switched to using VoIP for phone calls over my cable broadband for just over 2 years, and now only have a cable phone line because I'm getting it free and evening and weekend calls and caller display (OK on a loyalty package so the phone service is 100% discounted and other services discounted).


I'd never go back to TalkTalk even if they paid me.

steve_r123

First things first, have you got broadband filter on the phone? If so, swap it round with another filter on a different phone, see if that helps.

I see this problem (crackling/static noise on the line) at customers houses quite often and very often it is either no broadband filters on the phones, or the filters have packed up.

xxdeebeexx

TalkTalkBoy wrote: »

xxdeebeexx,
This issue wouldnt cause the problems your having. Try checking your MTU value on the router is set to 1432, your issue sounds possibly like this isnt correctly set.

Yes I've just checked they are at the right settings. I was pretty fed up last night....sorry about the rant

The phone and internet seem to be ok ish during the day (Week day up to about 5 o' clock). When the boys come back from school and need to start their homework the internet slows and we have intermittent connection to the phone and internet....they just seem to fade away and cut out. It stays like that until about 10.30 when I get a good line and internet service again. I decided that it was probably a problem with too many people using the service at one time and maybe there wasn't enough signal to go around !

( As you can probably tell I am not technically minded )
Every time it rains my service goes off.......
Pretty fed up

Dx

BexTech

xxdeebeexx wrote: »

Yes I've just checked they are at the right settings. I was pretty fed up last night....sorry about the rant

The phone and internet seem to be ok ish during the day (Week day up to about 5 o' clock). When the boys come back from school and need to start their homework the internet slows and we have intermittent connection to the phone and internet....they just seem to fade away and cut out. It stays like that until about 10.30 when I get a good line and internet service again. I decided that it was probably a problem with too many people using the service at one time and maybe there wasn't enough signal to go around !

( As you can probably tell I am not technically minded )
Every time it rains my service goes off.......
Pretty fed up

Dx

People come home from school and then home from work, so more people are on the internet, your service will slow down, ADSL is a contended service usually 50:1, meaning you are fighting with 49 other people for your given speed. However TalkTalk use tricks to get that to 100:1 and this trick leads to disconnections as does the over-utilised infrastructure they use themselves, even when they started up as a charged for service within a month their infrastructure wasn't up to the number of people they had on the service.

TalkTalk make little money from each customer by bundling so many services into a low price, they hope to make money by having loads of people and by cramming as many people onto the over-subscribed infrastructure they can.


The number of people who have ropey connections with TalkTalk, yet had no problem with their previous ISP and then no problem later when they switched away to another ISP is pretty high.

BexTech

TalkTalk, one of the market leaders in broadband services, is struggling to cope with demand in parts of the country.


The service, which is owned by The Carphone Warehouse and offers bundled telephone and ADSL lines, has reached "capacity" in the outer London 0208 dial-code area, according to a member of the complaints team.


The system has been grinding to a halt at peak times, and there have been around 2,000 complaints over non-connectivity issues.


More at: http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article3193954.ece