Talk Talk - Please tell me good and bad stuff

wolvers

wolvers

wolvers

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Hi,

I just discovered that I can get Talk Talk LLU from my exchange which should be nearly 3 times faster than my current 5-6meg (16meg quoted on 24meg service).

Looking at the Plus package it appears to be very good value, especially compared to what we're paying now. I'm reading bad stuff about their customer service so I know that's a gamble but what else do I need to know?

I've also found this in a review;

A fair use policy applies which will restrict the speeds of high bandwidth users at peak times. TalkTalk are cagey on the details but it should only affect very heavy downloaders (so online game fanatics and P2P fans beware).
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But also this is on their website;

Under our fair usage policy, Plus customers have no restrictions on surfing' streamed content like BBC iPlayer or online gaming applications.
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Any thoughts?

Thanks
 
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Plus does have traffic shaping, its clever (or not) marketing as they dont consider shaping a restriction as you can still use it (with lower speed).

I think being on the forums, that plus nowdays is only really anygood for the telephone side of things.

Also, post your line stats currently, if you cannot get 8mbit now, you wont get much benefit from adsl2+
 
The most I've ever had with other ISPs, (and I've been with a lot of them) is 2meg. Now have a reliable 6meg with TT. As long as you resolve any problems through thier forums and not on the phone they are OK. LLU is far superior to ADSL.
 
I'm about 200 metres from the exchange and get ~6Mb on an 8Mb ADSL service. Talk Talk have quoted 16Mb on the LLU service.

Doing a bit of research, there appears to be some independent ISPs that can offer the CPW LLU service. I'm going to look into those as the one that I currently use is #1 on ISPreview site and I'm quite happy with them. I think I'd rather pay a little more and get good service.
 
not great but usable. Had 2 months of near dial up speed at one point. Im on ADSL max. If your a light user you probably wont notice anything. If your a heavy user you may want to find someone better suited.

We are moving house to a LLU area so will be moving to sky.
 
Only heard bad stories with my mates on Talk Talk. Horrendous traffic shaping, regular disconnections (one person has a disconnect at 10pm every night, no access until 10.10pm TT refuse to accept there is a problem) and awful upload speeds. They don't complain about the prices however...
 
Certainly seems that Talk Talk are to be avoided.

I got a reply from the independent ISP Xilo to say that they can offer a similar service on the CPW LLU, so I'll look into going with them I think. Unfortunately my current ISP, GoFast, don't have an LLU service in my exchange.
 
Their pretty terrible. We're technically a Pipex customer but have gone from Pipex > Tiscali > TalkTalk from the buy outs. There's no LLU services here either.

Speed wise I can't complain. We're in a Village about 2-3 miles from the exchange and get around 2Mbps. The biggest problem is latency and random disconnects. Online gaming use to be impossible during the day but has improved a bit since then. The main problem is the connection lose during gaming and oddly happens at specific moments in some causes (like when a round starts in TF2).

So with that in mind I wouldn't bother. They're only good for people who will browse the Internet a bit and watch the odd Youtube video.
 
Rozzy85 said:
So with that in mind I wouldn't bother. They're only good for people who will browse the Internet a bit and watch the odd Youtube video.
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I'm guessing when you say "There are no LLU services here" that your on TalkTalks BT Wholesale service (which I think they only use for people who migrated from other providers), what you failed to mention is that pretty much every other ADSL providers non-LLU service is absolute crap too (bar the specialist ADSLMax providers like AAISP). The OP will be on their LLU network which is much better, although not on par with the likes of BE. You can't tell someone to avoid them when you have no experience of the service they will be on, if you had slated their telephone technical support I'd have agreed, but as your slating the speeds, I'm here to defend them.

When I first joined TalkTalk I had numerous problems (sync speed, line noise) and I quickly learned that their telephone support was crap. I got told to use the TalkTalkMembers forums and all of my issues got ironed out really quickly, the OCE's take ~24hrs to reply to your requests but if your patient it gets your problems fixed. They also let you request line profile changes so you can squeeze the best performance out of your line, they also don't mind how many times you request changes either. As an example I started on a 15dB Interleaving profile with DLM (Dynamic Line Management) turned on, I've now moved down to a 6dB Fastpath profile with DLM turned off and couldn't be happier after nearly a whole year of faultless service.

The people who whine about the traffic shaping are over exaggerating or download a hefty amount from BitTorrent and don't like their illegal activities interrupted. I have never found the traffic shaping to get in the way of what I want to do, although I don't use BitTorrent to do illegal downloads. I do however play far too many online games and watch a lot of streamed video & audio - never once have I had a ping above 50ms to a UK game server (generally ~25ms-40ms).

I'm not trumpet blowing but I like to think I have a good idea of networking technologies (working in network ops and all) and bar the technical support and lack of rDNS (another issue entirely, don't worry about it) I'm totally satisfied for the £23 including line rental I pay to TalkTalk for my service.

Your other choices are a BT Wholesale reseller who will charge you through the nose for a decent amount of on-peak bandwidth or Xilo who don't provide a voice service on the CPW LLU so you need a 2nd line for your telephone calls!

Hope that gives you food for thought :)
 
Started with Lineone then Tiscali so now in with Talk Talk and it's been pretty bad speed wise with Talk Talk

Tiscali gave me speeds just under 7MB day and night every day of the week but now i'm lucky to get about 3.5MB with TalkTalk with the same line and hardware and trying to phone them is a complete nightmare
 
Kona* said:
or Xilo who don't provide a voice service on the CPW LLU so you need a 2nd line for your telephone calls!
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The CPW LLU service with Xilo does include phone line. They don't include a call bundle as such but the call costs look reasonable. We don't use the landline much so to have the line rental included for £25/month means we will save quite a bit and have faster BB too.

I'm going to speak to them tomorrow and check up on a few details, like the cease charges that apply to LLU services etc.

There's also no trafic shaping at all on Xilo, so that's a bonus too.
 
Swapped to TalkTalk a few years ago, was with them for 3 months, highly intermittent service, no one seemed bothered about helping, bounced through 3 differnt call centres, even when told to ask ofr specific people.

Would never entertain them ever again.

regards,

Matt
 
As an example of talktalk service, according to my bandwidth monitor ive been "capped" to 0.2 kb/s for the last 20 hours. Half of the page requests for this forum time out. I have to copy everything i write because most of the time the post thread or reply doesnt go through.

I get this about 3x a month.
 
If you can get Sky/Easynet LLU, I'd recommend UKOnline.

Check samknows.com if your eligible.
 
wolvers69 said:
The CPW LLU service with Xilo does include phone line. They don't include a call bundle as such but the call costs look reasonable. We don't use the landline much so to have the line rental included for £25/month means we will save quite a bit and have faster BB too.

I'm going to speak to them tomorrow and check up on a few details, like the cease charges that apply to LLU services etc.

There's also no trafic shaping at all on Xilo, so that's a bonus too.
Click to expand...

I said it didn't include a voice service, they have to include a phone line for you to get the ADSL signal down :p If you can do without a landline then it's not a problem, we use the landline for an hour or two every evening so it's a necessity! As I said in my post, I don't notice the traffic shaping at all, even on Newsgroups (which I don't think they traffic shape).

To all of those complaining about the telephone support, I wholeheartedly agree - you must use the TalkTalkMembers forum if you want to get your issue resolved, it's bad that this is the case but at least you can get cases resolved eventually, unlike certain ISPs.

As TT are the only LLU provider at my exchange I had to make a decision and (IMHO) it was the right one having been with BT Wholesale resellers before - if you you really need the reassurance of the better technical support you get from Xilo then go for it, if they ever provide a voice service with their CPW LLU broadband I'd be tempted to give it a try myself! Until then I'll stick with TalkTalk or if they really cockup, migrate to AAISP as they appear to know what they are talking about.
 
Kona* said:
I said it didn't include a voice service
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Sorry, but they do. I've been checking the call prices to make sure they're not too high.

Each package is for broadband and phone, which includes line rental. This would mean that you'd no longer pay rental to BT.

Talk Surf 5GB - Up to 24Mb down, 1Mb up - £20.99
Talk Surf 50GB - Up to 24Mb down, 1Mb up - £23.49
Talk Pro 5GB - Up to 24Mb down, 1Mb up - £21.99
Talk Pro 50GB - Up to 24Mb down, 1Mb up - £25.99

Additional usage is billed at 65p per GB.
Migration from another ISP has no cost £0.00
Ceaseation fee is billed at £47.00 within 12 months of activation, or £29.38 after 12 months. However, contract is still only on a monthly basis with 30 days notice.

All prices include VAT at 17.5%

All calls would be billed on your monthly statement and normal select services will be available on the service.
Click to expand...

The only negative I can see with Xilo so far is that there is a cease fee and there would be the cost of reconnecting to BT wholesale, should I wish to.
 
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