Talk Talk

I am thinking of changing over from Virgin Media to Talk Talk as I would be saving

Check out the Talk Talk forum on here, and if you sign up after reading in there you're a braver man than me

Regards,
Steve

depends how much you value your net access and an easy life. If you get into problems with talk talk the support calls, time and stress could cost you way more than the tenner a month you're hoping to save. On the other hand it could work fine - are you on ADSL now ?

Thanks for the reply.
Regarding your question on ADSL I am not, I am on Virgin cable and phone.
jack

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I am on Virgin cable and phone

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Do they have a cheaper package or will they "make you an offer" if you're thinking of leaving ?

The package I am on is

Dare I say it?, will I jinx myself? should I be bold enought to say that "I am a happy customer that has saved pounds on phonecalls, call abroad free and have my internet free forever"
Instead of paying my monthly fee to BT, it goes to Talktalk, and my other outgoing is less than

Edited by deleted (Thu 25-Oct-07 20:55:34)

no need to shout.

Like I said, "On the other hand it could work fine".

If it doesn't, take the crucifixion option.

Bargepole springs to mind, but then I'm not a gambler.

As you don't have a BT line at present finding out what speed you will get from ADSL is hit and miss.

If you know a neigbhours phone number a rough guide of the possible speed can be obtained from http://www.btwholesale.com/getbroadband

A point to consider, even when an ISP sells an up to 8Mbps service, if you are a fair distance from the exchange then there is nothing they can do to make things run faster, i.e. you might only get a 1Mbps speed from ADSL, you might go faster of course. Location in relation to the telephone exchange building is the key.

Getting BT to reconnect the phone line if it is disconnected used to be free as long as the wire was still there. It seems as though they have started charging a full connection fee (

Yes I checked with BT and was informed that there would not be a charge.
I already had a BT line in as I was with them previously (about 2 year ago.)
jack

I took RobertoS's advice and called Virgin to cancel and they offered me a deal, this is it:

pay less and get more calls, could be acceptable if the 2M is OK - only you know that. 2M would seem good enough for most things.

Will that deal tie you into a new 12 month contract? If it does you'll be kicking yourself if the 2Mb broadband isn't adequate for your needs.

Regards,
Steve

Yes it would be a 12month contract.
I am starting to look around now and Talk Talk has too much adverse internet publicity for my liking so I am off that one.
Tiscali 8mb broadband with phone and free calls including international for

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Anyone on Tiscali?

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Suggest that you read through posts here and then have a rethink about Tiscali.

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Anyone on Tiscali?

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Below TT.

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I took RobertoS's advice and called Virgin to cancel and they offered me a deal

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I think that was yarwell .

I was just the pessimist that thought BT might charge to connect the line.

I suggest you remove the letter T from your ISP selection tool.

What do you actually do on the net? In particular what sort of bandwidth usage, up and down total?

My brother recently went from die-hard dialup on Orange to TalkTalk International 3, purely because the monthly cost is about the same as his BT phone bill was. His wife rings family in Australia frequently.

He thinks TT is wonderful and can't understand why he resisted broadband for so long. But he isn't a big downloader, obviously.

Hi Bob
I am retired and spend a lot of time online, my hobby is photography I use Adobe Photoshop and download quite a lot of related material.
I would say my download usage would average about 4gb a month and upload about 1 to 2gb.

Like your brother what attracted me to TT and Tiscali in the first place were the free international phone calls as I have 2 daughters one in Australia and the other in Canada and I ring them on a regular basis. For these calls I use one of the cheaper phone companies 1p a minute but you still have the Virgin connection charge and I am on quite a while so it soon mounts up.
jack

you could convert them to using a VoIP service like that from Tesco and many other places where you can talk to each other for free without a monthly fee.

Hi Phil
I had looked at Tesco a while ago a\nd all I could see was a full package for uk and international calls at about

you were looking at the phone line packages. Look at the internet phone packages instead.
http://www.tescointernetphone.com/

calls between internet phones are free. There are many internet telephony (VoIP) services that you could use for this, if you want to be free of the PC then there is a one-off hardware cost.

TalkTalk support looks to be pretty ropey from what we see here, but my brother hasn't needed to contact them. How good his speeds are I don't know - just after connection he was getting mid-5000s kbps, which was around what TT sales forecast. Whether it slumps dramatically is unknown, as it is for 90% of users.

He won't be doing the same amount of upload/download as you, but a total of 6-10GB a month is about in the middle of the "allowance packages" on offer from most ISPs. As the TT allowance I think is 40GB I can't see they would target you as a heavy user, so any degradation would be down to lack of capacity. I would imagine any shortages are being addressed - a lot of the problem was the dramatic take-up in the early days. They won't want to get a long-term bad reputation.

But it isn't me that is looking at an 18-month(?) contract if it isn't satisfactory.

I would certainly steer clear of Tiscali though - the whole setup seems dire.

Economically TalkTalk can't be beaten for the sort of use the OP is looking for. If you are not a whizz kid with computers then their support leaves much to be desired. However you may not need support and the TalkTalk forum on this site has lurking CS bods who seem to be happy to provide assistance. You do have to sign up for 18 months though otherwise they cannot balance their books. The trade off is CS versus cost.

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If you are not a whizz kid with computers then their support leaves much to be desired.

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If you don't have your own relationships with BT it leaves much to be desired as well.

I would avoid TalkTalk, they just aint worth the grief.

I've just moved house and thought it was bad enough clearing my Be* line at the old place for the new occupants.

Sadly, the house I have moved into had TalkTalk and the end result is I can't order a phoneline or broadband as TalkTalk are blocking the line. The previous owners can't order a line with their previous number as TalkTalk are squatting at my place with no sight of a cease order.

In short, you just can't shake them off and the best bet is to avoid them in the first place.

Thanks guys for all the replies, I am taking the cowardly way out and staying with Virgin.
I will take there offer of free calls with my 4mb broadband.
I have been with them 6year and had no problems, just the price seemed a bit steep compared with a few others.
jack

agreed.

Probably wise. If you don't have problems then that is worth a few quid for peace of mind!

But didn't you say the deal took you down to 2Mb instead of your existing 4Mb? Or have I missed an update? Or have they made a better offer.

Edited by RobertoS (Sun 28-Oct-07 12:25:39)

No they offered me 2 deals, one to keep my 4mb but they would also include free uk calls 24 hours a day with discounted international calls,
The other was the 2mb with the free calls

TalkTalk may be bad, but T*scali is UGLY -- at least some users think TalkTalk is good for their needs; I've never heard a single good thing about T*scali from anyone, ever!

Well, okay, when T*scali bought out Tiny Online, I found their dial-up service to be much better, not requiring a stupid program that started up multiple times every time I opened Outlook Express. But we're talking 2003 here

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Economically TalkTalk can't be beaten for the sort of use the OP is looking for.....

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If you enjoy waiting. My cousin ordered TalkTalk with free broadband on 26th September, and she's still waiting. When you speak to them, all they say is "your order is progressing nicely". If my business "progressed" as fast as that, I would be out of work