TalkTalk don't talk!

Angilion

Angilion

Angilion

Man of Honour
Joined
5 Dec 2003
Posts
21,063
Location
Just to the left of my PC
I'm still with TalkTalk partly through inertia and partly because it worked. Not always very well, but nearly all of the time. It would drop out at random intervals during the night and sometimes go down entirely for a few hours, but it wasn't annoying enough to overcome that inertia.

Ever since they started using dynamic line management my service has deteriorated in speed and reliability, but still not enough to overcome that inertia.

For the last 3 days, I've been getting ~5KBps downstream and even less upstream. That has a very slight nostalgia value since it's what I used to get on dialup many moons ago, but it's really not on.

TalkTalk customer service number...goes to a bot that parrots meaningless generalities and platitudes in an annoying voice. TalkTalk don't even admit that the service is defective anywhere - I had to use 3rd party sites to find that out, to confirm that the problem is not at my end.

What a blivet. Time for a change of ISP. Are there any that have customer service?
 
I still like Plusnet.

They've had have some issues with the time taken to answer calls, but once you're through they've always handled the issues well.
 
I spent ~90 minutes on live chat with TalkTalk and got nowhere. Not a network problem, apparently, although the line is unstable. Also, third party sites show multiple people with the same problem in Stoke on Trent. One oddity - I apparently have normal upload speed. I'm off sick with flu, so I wasn't going to be crawling around unscrewing phone panels for a test I'm sure is pointless. If it was my internal phone wiring, why would it be affecting other people? Also, how would I be getting normal upload speeds?

So I gave them until tomorrow to fix it or email me some useful information. If not, Plusnet it is. Their fibre package looks good at £25 a month. I'd appreciate the extra speed when I splurge at GOG and/or Steam.
 
There isn't an ISP aimed at the consumer market that would skip over troubleshooting steps because you don't feel like they're relevant.
 
Caged said:
There isn't an ISP aimed at the consumer market that would skip over troubleshooting steps because you don't feel like they're relevant.
Click to expand...

After 90 minutes of text chat with what might have been a series of people or a series of bots, with the same thing being done repeatedly, they were out of luck with me today. If I wasn't ill, I might have ground on pointlessly for longer in the hope that they'd eventually admit there was a problem. But not today. Not when I have other options.
 
Changing ISP will not solve the issues which you are experiencing. Talktalk have a very capable and fast network and changing off of it onto another one isnt going to help. Go through talktalks troubleshooting properly and let them escalate a line issue with openreach if you really are syncing at very low speed.
 
You don't have other options if you have a line fault though. Your option is to get that line fault fixed, and a provider is very unlikely to book it with Openreach if you haven't done things like seeing how things perform at your test socket.

Your OP says you have a DLM issue, but then later on you say that your issue is a widespread one in Stoke - these would be two separate problems. Which third-party site is telling you that there's a problem? If it's a crowd-sourced one then ignore it because it's just going to be a lot of people assuming they know the root cause of an issue and making a report.

People here can help you but you need to be open to the idea that your theory of there being a network fault that TalkTalk aren't willing to admit to might be wrong. If you move ISP you'll have the same problem if your speeds are caused by a low sync rate.
 
Changing ISP will also serve to test the cause of the problem. The people/bots at TalkTalk were polite, but 90 minutes of round and round and going nowhere was enough. I have no confidence in their ability to fix the problem, so why waste any more time?

Changing ISP will either fix the problem directly or be an effective way of testing the cause of the problem. Either way, it seems like a better option to me than more of the same.
 
By your own admission you weren’t interested in following their troubleshooting steps because you’ve convinced yourself that it wouldn’t have helped, so I’m not really sure you’re in a position to criticise the outcome of the support call.

I wish you luck with your new ISP.
 
You've not actually posted your line stats, is this actually a line/sync issue? I personally dont believe that 5kbps is a Talktalk network issue, their network is fast, and even suffering from local congestion, 5kbps seems extreme.
 
For the sake of the thread, list your home network setup and phone line layout etc.
Have you tried the test socket?
 
bledd said:
For the sake of the thread, list your home network setup and phone line layout etc.
Have you tried the test socket?
Click to expand...

I feel less crap today, so I got a little bit done. At least I know I'm getting replies from people here.

Standard setup:

Extension in master socket (it's embedded in inches of insulation and only just close enough to my PC, so an extension is convenient).
microfilter in extension.
router and phone in the microfilter.

Nothing else. No other sockets. Wi-fi not used (and disabled on the router).

System uptime 63:19:16
Modem uptime 21:47:00

ADSL mode: ANNEX_A ADSL2 PLUS
ADSL setting: VPI:0 VCI:38
ADSL line speed: Up 1147 Down 12204
Line attenuation: Up 10.7 Down 26.4
SN margin: Up 8.1 Down 8.5
Total errors seconds 4

Speed testing failed (ookla and TalkTalk's own). Ookla showed a 300ms ping and failed with an error messafe of "a socket error occured during the download
test".




Test setup number 1:

Microfilter in master socket.
Router in microfilter.

So same as standard but with the extension removed to test just the extension as a possible problem.

modem uptime ~4 minutes
ADSL line speed: Up 1147 Down 12249
Line attenuation: Up 10.0 Down 26.4
SN margin: Up 7.2 Down 10.3

Total errors seconds 0

Speed testing failed (ookla and TalkTalk's own). Ookla showed a 300ms ping and failed with an error messafe of "a socket error occured during the download test".

Found Ookla's desktop app, so tried downloading that as an impromptu speed test. It came down at ~65KBps. A huge improvement over yesterday's ~5KBps.

Ookla desktop app results: ping 387ms. download 0.65Mbps. Upload 1.49Mbps.

Test setup number 2:

Microfilter in test socket.
Router in microfilter.

modem uptime ~3 minutes
ADSL line speed up 1147 down 12204
Line attenuation up 10.0 down 26.4
SN margin up 7,7 down 10.5
total errors seconds 1

Ookla's desktop app results:

ping 343ms. Download 0.61Mbps. Upload 1.89Mbps

Test setup number 3:

Extension in test socket.
Microfilter in extension.
Router and phone in microfilter.

modem uptime ~2 minutes
line speed 1147/12204
line attenuation 11.4/27.1
sn margin 6.4/8.9
total errors seconds 0

Ookla desktop app results:
ping 377ms download 0.63Mbps upload 1.30Mbps

It's just dropped out and reconnected...

line speed 1147/12217
attenuation 11.3/27.1
sn margin 8.8/3.1

Unlike yesterday, I can use Youtube...although quality auto-sets to 240 or 360 because of the speed. Downloading a video as a test returns ~70KBps, which matches up well enough with Ookla's desktop app.

So changing to the test socket had no effect. The extension might be having some adverse affect or it might well just be expected variation in speed testing. It does seem to have an adverse affect on attentuation and SN margin, but they remain good enough for the 12MBps I should be getting.
 
It's highly likely changing ISPs won't make any difference, the line is broken, those stats don't look very good - none of which is really related to TT.

As others have said, the best thing is to simply let TT work through their scripts, eventually they'll put the fault out to Openreach (who will be able to fix it) if you don't let TT do that part properly - Openreach won't accept it as a fault, I also think Openreach charge TT if they get called to a fault that doesn't turn out to be a problem with the telephone line, so you need to let TT do their stuff, as mundane and annoying as it is.
 
bledd said:
If your pc downloading updates etc?
Click to expand...

I'm still running Windows 7, so I can control updating for Windows. Steam is in offline mode, so that's not in the way. GOG's client fails to connect. My AV updated definitions about 5 minutes ago, but those files are small so they wouldn't be eating bandwidth.

Your ping should be ~50ms to
ping 8.8.8.8
Click to expand...

C:\Windows\system32>ping 8.8.8.8

Pinging 8.8.8.8 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=559ms TTL=57
Request timed out.
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=406ms TTL=57
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=409ms TTL=57

Ping statistics for 8.8.8.8:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 3, Lost = 1 (25% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 406ms, Maximum = 559ms, Average = 458ms

C:\Windows\system32>ping 8.8.8.8

Pinging 8.8.8.8 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=404ms TTL=57
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=401ms TTL=57
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=405ms TTL=57
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=404ms TTL=57

Ping statistics for 8.8.8.8:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 401ms, Maximum = 405ms, Average = 403ms

Well that's not a good sign.

Screeeech said:
It's highly likely changing ISPs won't make any difference, the line is broken, those stats don't look very good - none of which is really related to TT.

As others have said, the best thing is to simply let TT work through their scripts, eventually they'll put the fault out to Openreach (who will be able to fix it) if you don't let TT do that part properly - Openreach won't accept it as a fault, I also think Openreach charge TT if they get called to a fault that doesn't turn out to be a problem with the telephone line, so you need to let TT do their stuff, as mundane and annoying as it is.
Click to expand...

I know. Maybe tomorrow I'll feel well enough to bang my head against the wall of scripts for another couple of hours and maybe that will be long enough.
 
Worst case just pretend to be following them if they are things you have already done, you need to get through the computer system their call centre are told to follow :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom