TALKTALK

[Plum]

Has anyone any warnings, comments about Talktalk? Anxious to leave Virgin whose cost is double Talktalk. Ta for any response.

[Roland Perry]

In message <55d2744c-e000-4a58...@googlegroups.com>, at
08:22:05 on Thu, 22 Jul 2021, Plum <lart...@gmail.com> remarked:

>Has anyone any warnings, comments about Talktalk? Anxious to leave
>Virgin whose cost is double Talktalk. Ta for any response.

Cheap and cheerful, if that's what you want. Took them about a fortnight
to fix my daughter's broadband in central Cambridge a couple of years
ago. Mainly by failing to progress the fault report through to
Openreach, whose fault it was.

But if the ISP can't/won't do that, it matters little to the user whose
fat fingers made it fail in the first place.

(It was a textbook fault - installation worked fine for a year, then
went completely dead. The engineer who eventually turned up traced the
wiring from the house back to the street cabinet, and found their pair
of wires floating in the breeze, because an earlier engineer had
disconnected them by mistake).
--
Roland Perry

[Alan Jones]

I have been a customer of VirginMedia since they were Cambridge Cable,
and have had to threaten to cancel every 18 months since, in order to
keep the price down to £20 or so per month.

In November 2019, they were about to charge £50/mnth for phone plus
100Mbit (no telly), and I got them back down to £20.44/mnth including VAT.

The quickest way for me is to ask to cancel the phone immediately (I use
a different line anyway), and that I will cancel the broadband as soon
as another provider is up and running (over the BT line).

Then the indian? call centre puts you through to retentions in the UK
and they offer you the lower price to keep you.

It helps if you can quote someone's offer (VM themselves, Plusnet,
TalkTalk, whatever), and if they say "but that's only 67Mbit" you say
"that's all I need", or "but their upload is 20Mbit/s".

Virgin do not have a slower service than the 100Mbit anyway.

I really will quit one day because having to haggle is such a faff, and
I don't know of any other provider where you have to do this to save
over £300 per annum.

Hope that helps.

Alan.

[Roland Perry]

In message <a88f315d-16eb-b1e6...@exospan.com>, at
17:57:02 on Thu, 22 Jul 2021, Alan Jones <ajn...@exospan.com> remarked:

At my last house they used to send me junk mail roughly every month, for
years, claiming they could save me more than I was already paying.
Somehow I don't think they were offering to pay me to take their
service!
--
Roland Perry

[tony sayer]

In article <a88f315d-16eb-b1e6...@exospan.com>, Alan
Jones <ajn...@exospan.com> scribeth thus

We used Virgin until last year then due to the ever increasing cost
finally gave them their marching orders. It was a shame in a way as they
were effective competition to the monolithic BT!

Their customer "services" are a shambles and what they have on their TV
service isn't worth bothering with. You also have to be on their network
and in other locations we used Zen Internet they are a service provider
that does use the openreach network but they are very good at kicking
BT/ Openreach's corporate botty as and when required!

True they do have a fast download service and upload but nowadays we use
Zen here and its fine at 38 down and around 9 up.

One big difference is that their based in the old occupied territories
of Lancashire or Oldham as its known. No offshoring to India or any
other banana boat in the pacific region!!

And i just wouldn't use Talk Squawk or sky!!

Their tech service is also very good you get to speak to someone who
understands IP and the net, no reading off a crib sheet just a man or
sometimes a knowledgeable woman who can sort problems.

30 quid a month gets you a phone line and broadband service thats the
lower up to 38 meg service and really its just fine! And no price
rises!!


Ask them..


https://www.zen.co.uk/


--
Tony Sayer


Man is least himself when he talks in his own person.

Give him a keyboard, and he will reveal himself.

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 22/07/2021 16:22, Plum wrote:
> Has anyone any warnings, comments about Talktalk?

They have no technical support worth the name
Their networks is often congested due to cost cutting

> Anxious to leave Virgin whose cost is double Talktalk. Ta for any response.

You get what you pay for.


--
"A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight
and understanding".

Marshall McLuhan

[Roland Perry]

In message <sde27q$mpe$3...@dont-email.me>, at 10:30:34 on Fri, 23 Jul
2021, The Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid> remarked:

>On 22/07/2021 16:22, Plum wrote:
>> Has anyone any warnings, comments about Talktalk?
>
>They have no technical support worth the name
>Their networks is often congested due to cost cutting
>
>> Anxious to leave Virgin whose cost is double Talktalk. Ta for any response.
>
>You get what you pay for.

Up to a point. Then diminishing returns set in. Maybe the sweet spot is
halfway between those two.
--
Roland Perry

[Cherry HeywoodJones]

Thanks everyone. Very helpful. Others have warned me about the difficulties changing charges with Virgin.

[Mark Carroll]

On 23 Jul 2021, tony sayer wrote:

> In article <a88f315d-16eb-b1e6...@exospan.com>, Alan
> Jones <ajn...@exospan.com> scribeth thus

(snip)

>>I really will quit one day because having to haggle is such a faff

Absolutely.

> True they do have a fast download service and upload but nowadays we use
> Zen here and its fine at 38 down and around 9 up.

And definitely agreed on your portrait of Zen,
also no price rise at all for many years.

> One big difference is that their based in the old occupied territories
> of Lancashire

Mmmm, I was born in a then-recently occupied territory.

-- Mark

[Vir Campestris]

On 22/07/2021 16:45, Roland Perry wrote:

> Cheap and cheerful, if that's what you want. Took them about a fortnight
> to fix my daughter's broadband in central Cambridge a couple of years
> ago. Mainly by failing to progress the fault report through to
> Openreach, whose fault it was.

Not so sure about the cheerful.

<https://www.ispreview.co.uk/review/isp/talktalk/?category=17>

Compare

<https://www.ispreview.co.uk/review/isp/aaisp/?category=17>

Andy

[Paul Bird]

On 22/07/2021 16:45, Roland Perry wrote:

> Mainly by failing to progress the fault report through to Openreach,
> whose fault it was.

#TalkTalk via Shall

Similar situation here in Cromer where I was obliged to agree to give
Openreach my firstborn child in the event that had to send an engineer
out to the premises. As it was the fault was fixed within hours once
I'd agreed to these onerous terms since as I suspected somebody had made
a mistake at a street box or in the exchange and cut off all services.

PB

[Roland Perry]

In message <sdf9q5$714$5...@dont-email.me>, at 21:45:57 on Fri, 23 Jul
2021, Vir Campestris <vir.cam...@invalid.invalid> remarked:

AA are very good, but historically have also been pricey. And late into
the "unlimited" bandwidth market.

A back of the envelope calculation suggests their 300GB/month is good
for 4hrs a day of streaming video, and although not being telly-addicts
I think the two us probably use that much[1]. With a couple of kids in
the house too - no chance!

[1] It's driven by using iPlayer for rewind/catch-up of today's material
rather than a PVR, as much as Netflix etc
--
Roland Perry

[Paul Bird]

On 22/07/2021 16:22, Plum wrote:

> Has anyone any warnings, comments about Talktalk? Anxious to leave Virgin whose cost is double Talktalk. Ta for any response.
>

On this whole subject in general I have found that when trying to get
something done about an ISP's failings, Twitter is your friend. The
companies concerned do not like being publicly shamed and if contacted
via Twitter will often respond more quickly than they would have done by
other means.

It is worth opening a Twitter account simply for this purpose.

PB

[Tim Ward]

On 24/07/2021 15:30, Paul Bird wrote:
> On 22/07/2021 16:22, Plum wrote:
>> Has anyone any warnings, comments about Talktalk?  Anxious to leave
>> Virgin whose cost is double Talktalk.  Ta for any response.
>>
>
> On this whole subject in general I have found that when trying to get
> something done about an ISP's failings, Twitter is your friend.  The
> companies concerned do not like being publicly shamed and if contacted
> via Twitter will often respond more quickly than they would have done by
> other means.

Don't I remember that Once Upon A Time there was a Cambridge Cable guy
hanging around here?

--
Tim Ward - 07801 703 600
www.brettward.co.uk

[Theo]

Tim Ward <t...@brettward.co.uk> wrote:
> Don't I remember that Once Upon A Time there was a Cambridge Cable guy
> hanging around here?

Oh, yes - Derrick I think it was. Although it was NTL by the time I joined.

Bob Pullen who works for Plusnet can sometimes be found on
uk.telecom.broadband

Theo

[tony sayer]

In article <Ofv*sY...@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk>, Theo <theom+news@chi
ark.greenend.org.uk> scribeth thus

>Tim Ward <t...@brettward.co.uk> wrote:
>> Don't I remember that Once Upon A Time there was a Cambridge Cable guy
>> hanging around here?
>
>Oh, yes - Derrick I think it was. Although it was NTL by the time I joined.
>

He's still with the firm 'tho doesn't post to cam.misc...

[Espen Koht]

Didn't "a mistake in a street box" use to mean "engineer found cabinet
at capacity but better to please new customer and head office than to
worry about disconnecting an existing one"?

[Paul Bird]

That was my first thought. Being Talk Talk (via Shell) I thought their
business practices are so bad they would actually do that to bring in
new business while placating me for a couple of hours while they worked
out a way round the problem.

As it is I think somebody made a mistake at the exchange. There was no
house visit required. The annoying part was having to commit to paying
Openreach something like £100 in the event they had to come here, before
TT would book them, when the fault was clearly beyond our boundary.

PB

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 18/08/2021 07:59, Paul Bird wrote:
> The annoying part was having to commit to paying Openreach something
> like £100 in the event they had to come here, before TT would book them,
> when the fault was clearly beyond our boundary.

That stops twonks for using them as free support for Customer Premises
Equipment.

Customers lie, you know.

I've made that commitment half a dozen times and never paid a penny in
reality.

And even technical customers make mistakes.

A friend casually mentioned his ADSL wasn't very good, and thats 'how it
was'.

I asked him to go into his router and look at signal level, It was very
high, but so was the S/N ratio.

I said 'that does not compute' - he though and said 'I wonder...'
...came back to me a few days later - having disconnected a ton of
disused extension wiring from the master socket - with 5 times the speed.

--
Climate is what you expect but weather is what you get.
Mark Twain

[Roland Perry]

In message <sfib46$du0$1...@dont-email.me>, at 07:59:17 on Wed, 18 Aug
2021, Paul Bird <pa...@nospamcamtutor.co.uk> remarked:

Was the line completely dead (ie no dial tone)?
--
Roland Perry

[Paul Bird]

Yes

[Roland Perry]

In message <sfiuc4$8r0$1...@dont-email.me>, at 13:27:48 on Wed, 18 Aug

Exactly the same as when others I know in Cambridge lost their TalkTalk
broadband.

Very little is likely to go wrong between the "BT socket" and the hole
in the wall to the outside world.

The Openreach engineer who eventually came to fix it (took about ten
days to persuade TT there was actually a need to) confided that the
first thing he'd normally do was to try phoning the landline number from
outside the house, and listen through the letterbox for a phone ringing
inside. Although with more Millennials not having an actual instrument
plugged in this was a less useful test.

Turned out (neither to his surprise or mine) that inside the street
cabinet 100yds away, the copper pair from the house was blowing in the
wind. Not something that happens by accident.

He knew that having reconnected it - and gone to the exchange to connect
up the other end - the broadband would be restored, without ever having
to go inside the house.
--
Roland Perry

[The Natural Philosopher]

"Oh shit. I've pulled a pair out by accident. I donbt know which
exchange line it should be connected to. Oh well the customer will
complain and that will identify whose it is"

--
Climate Change: Socialism wearing a lab coat.

[Stewart Brodie]

The Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:

> On 18/08/2021 07:59, Paul Bird wrote:
> > The annoying part was having to commit to paying Openreach something
> > like £100 in the event they had to come here, before TT would book them,

> > when the fault was clearly beyond our boundary.
>
> That stops twonks for using them as free support for Customer Premises
> Equipment.
>
> Customers lie, you know.
>
> I've made that commitment half a dozen times and never paid a penny in
> reality.

Meanwhile, non-technical customers who can't afford to risk the £100 are
left stuck with suppliers that are ripping them off by not providing the
service that they are charging for?


--
Stewart Brodie

[The Natural Philosopher]

£100 is cheap to get your internal wiring sorted.
If you cant afford £100 what are you doing with a broadband connection?

--
"What do you think about Gay Marriage?"
"I don't."
"Don't what?"
"Think about Gay Marriage."

[Roland Perry]

In message <sfl2g8$7jo$4...@dont-email.me>, at 08:50:31 on Thu, 19 Aug

2021, The Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid> remarked:

>On 18/08/2021 20:21, Stewart Brodie wrote:
>> The Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> On 18/08/2021 07:59, Paul Bird wrote:
>>>> The annoying part was having to commit to paying Openreach something
>>>> like £100 in the event they had to come here, before TT would book them,
>>
>>>> when the fault was clearly beyond our boundary.
>>>
>>> That stops twonks for using them as free support for Customer Premises
>>> Equipment.
>>>
>>> Customers lie, you know.
>>>
>>> I've made that commitment half a dozen times and never paid a penny in
>>> reality.

>> Meanwhile, non-technical customers who can't afford to risk the
>>£100 are left stuck with suppliers that are ripping them off by not
>>providing the service that they are charging for?
>>
>£100 is cheap to get your internal wiring sorted.
>If you cant afford £100 what are you doing with a broadband connection?

You are missing the point- it's the *threat* of a £100 fine that puts
people off, and few are confident enough that the fault is outside their
premises. Although we girls know that a complete outage of the service
is almost certainly going to be outside.

In other news, apparently Virgin are doing some serious work in
Cambridge tomorrow and are warning that there will probably be many
'planned maintenance' outages.

Confusingly, they talk about one of the affected services being "WiFi",
which they are using as a shorthand for Broadband. Several punters are
now expecting their suboptimal indoor wifi to be sorted as a result :(
--
Roland Perry

[Alan]

On Thu, 19 Aug 2021 09:12:28 +0100, Roland Perry <rol...@perry.co.uk>
wrote:

>
> In other news, apparently Virgin are doing some serious work in
> Cambridge tomorrow and are warning that there will probably be many
> 'planned maintenance' outages.
>

They did Ely yesterday (pre warned). Broadband went for around twenty
minutes late morning.

Improvements and expansion at the head end all around the county according
to the engineer I coincidentally had in replacing my set top box.

Incidentally, actually a pleasant service from VM. A very english
sounding gentlemen (highly unlikey to have been India) answered 150 within
a minute, diagnosed an engineer was needed, and the guy turned up on time
and replaced the box.

--
Alan

Using Opera's mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/

[Tim Ward]

On 19/08/2021 09:12, Roland Perry wrote:
>
> In other news, apparently Virgin are doing some serious work in
> Cambridge tomorrow

It was yesterday round our way. Around a ten minute outage, didn't get
very much time off work at all :-(