In reply to a post by ian72:

To me it is a vexatious complaint - the OP themselves has said the service is good. There is no complaint about the contract/service to make. I am all for complaining when there is something to complain about but when the OP has entered into a contract and the company have entered with good faith then it seems unfair to raise a complaint for a good service. The complaint is they can't buy a different service which is completely unrelated to their current contract.

Quite. Fttp internet is a different product to fttc internet ...... And the OPs fttc service is working fine.

The OP wants to change to a better service with the same supplier, who could probably lock him in for longer. As I see it, TT are being obstructive although within the letter of their rights. Vexatious or not, you are still completely missing the point of making the complaint and how it could work to produce the right outcome.

How are they being obstructive? They presumably don't have links in his area so cannot provide the service. It is a commercial decision as to whether they provide to an area.

Edited by ian72 (Fri 01-Aug-25 08:31:23)

I’m not sure it would work , but the ‘put in a complaint’ as a strategy is not because it’s a bona fide case , it’s because often a complaint to the official body costs the company money even if a vexatious claim was dismissed, the threat to go down this route may get the company to consider that the penalty free release will be cheaper than a successful but expensive trip to the dispute resolution company….different industry, but my wife works in insurance, often unwarranted payments, refunds etc are granted as a formal dispute made to the official body is £400-£600 to ‘fight’ , its cost effective to ‘give’ the customer what they want , as even if ultimately the decision from the arbiter is in your favour , it still costs you (the company) money to defend , probably a lot more than the amount the customer wants .

Personally, I think it’s something of an indictment of the financial health of TT if they are unable to offer services in situations like this , presumably simply because they don’t have the budget or will to interconnect with Openreach

Edited by Iniltous (Fri 01-Aug-25 11:06:34)

They may have an investment freeze due to potential takeover. If that is the case then I really can't see a complaint doing anything.

On the flipside though if word got around that you could push a complaint to the ombudsman and get released from a TalkTalk contract if FTTP was in the area but they weren't selling on it, it would cost them more money than fighting the complaint.

There is no legitimate complaint here, and the ADR provider should dismiss it.

Someone being in contract for a service that is being delivered according to the terms of that contract and feeling they should be released from that contract because something better is now available that their ISP doesn't offer shows a borderline obscene level of entitlement, and I don't see why other TalkTalk customers should have to subsidise those preferences.

In reply to a post by ian72:

How are they being obstructive? They presumably don't have links in his area so cannot provide the service. It is a commercial decision as to whether they provide to an area.

That is not what TT are telling OP. OR is in the area, which prompted OP to ask for the upgrade.

Assuming the upgrade is available, if TT won't give it - ie won't rather than can't, I would class that as obstructive.

Certainly, if an ISP did that to me, I would be away at the end of contract and not deal with them again. So, what you seem adamant is a vexatious complaint, I regard as giving TT a chance to get their act together and keep me as a customer.

In reply to a post by jpm:

On the flipside though if word got around that you could push a complaint to the ombudsman and get released from a TalkTalk contract if FTTP was in the area but they weren't selling on it, it would cost them more money than fighting the complaint.

There is no legitimate complaint here, and the ADR provider should dismiss it.

Someone being in contract for a service that is being delivered according to the terms of that contract and feeling they should be released from that contract because something better is now available that their ISP doesn't offer shows a borderline obscene level of entitlement, and I don't see why other TalkTalk customers should have to subsidise those preferences.

We are not talking about a release from contract.. Release from contract would be OP leaving TT and going to another ISP for FTTP. What this would be is a variation to contract.

As I understand it, this is not a case of a service that the isp can't offer, it is one that they have chosen to not to offer to OP. As such, it is appears hysterical to call this an obscene level of entitlement.

Without more info my suspicion would be that TT either don't have links to the exchange or they are saturated. If it is either of those then TT can't offer unless they do infrastructure upgrades which they are not obliged to do.

In reply to a post by ian72:

Without more info my suspicion would be that TT either don't have links to the exchange or they are saturated. If it is either of those then TT can't offer unless they do infrastructure upgrades which they are not obliged to do.

But TT have not said that and don't seem to have offered any explanation. Besides which FTTP is not constrained by exchange capacity in the way that ADSL was. Don't they use BTW? Who surely could shift traffic from any customer to TT?