Shell offer or stick with TalkTalk - which to choose?

My £19.95/month 18-month Faster Fibre with TalkTalk ends on 14 September. Through a money saving site's offer, I signed up with Shell Energy Broadband 38Mbps at £24.95/month less £120 credit after three months on a 12-month contract, meaning £15 a month for a year. Naturally (although this was not offered when I rang TalkTalk before switching, just like 18 months ago), TalkTalk has written to me, offering £19.95/month again but for 24 months if I cancel the switch.

These are both attractive offers. Which should I choose? I need to decide in the next few days.

Edited by deleted (Wed 19-Aug-20 10:36:44)

You pays your money and you takes your choice.

If it ain’t broke...

My experience with Shell is somewhat bitter-sweet.

The basic service has been fine, but the pound or two saving a month I made by going with them has been negated by their false promises and total lack of customer care.

Just signed up for another twelve months with Plusnet. One of the cheapest deals ATM and although it was sometimes a struggle to get through to them in the past, they always seemed to have an element of customer service. I hope this remains the case.

Never had broadband direct from Talktalk, but I have heard mixed reactions to their offerings. If you have a service you are happy with, stick with it, if the saving is minimal.

Edited by hk11 (Wed 19-Aug-20 15:25:25)

Thanks for your thoughtful response. I live on benefits so choosing the right deal is important.

At the end of the day, it really depends on how important broadband is to you.

I have found most ISPs are the same when it comes to the actual connection and tbh there isn't a lot between them when it comes to customer service. When something goes wrong sorting it out can be just down to luck.

So in reality its talk Talk £19.95 per month vs Shell at £14.xx per month (inc discount). You just need to remember to change after 12mths when the price increases and add in any cost of the "Shell router" that you may have to buy.

There is not a lot in it. The BB technology will be the same, so speeds should be comparable.
If the saving for now of £5 is what you need then go for Shell. If not then stay with talk talk. I can not see the router cost on the Shell web site but assume its £60 then there is no cost difference (60/12=£5), so as others have said "better the service you know"

FYI I currently use TalkTalk and have the same decision in Jan 2021.

Isn't Shell "First Utility", which it bought, and doesn't the actual service vary?

Awful CS. There is a group on facebook with Shell worst customer service as it's title. They like to hold onto your money even when it is not theirs.

Yes it's First Utility, but in reality it's Talktalk.

Service here is pretty consistant on ADSL. It's just the customer service that is pretty much non-existant, but hopefully the OP doesn't have to use it.

In reply to a post by Highland76:

If it ain’t broke...

There's your answer. And that's before the Covid problems facing all ISPs.

In reply to a post by Banger:

Awful CS. There is a group on facebook with Shell worst customer service as it's title. They like to hold onto your money even when it is not theirs.

Is there any company that doesn't have a facebook group saying how bad it is?

If you have a good reliable connection why move? Your going to be using the internet anyway so why worry about a 24 month contract.

To the best of my knowledge that are breaking the law contacting you with an offer after you started a switch., other that a sorry to see you go message.

In reply to a post by professor973:

To the best of my knowledge that are breaking the law contacting you with an offer after you started a switch., other that a sorry to see you go message.

What "law" would that be? Its totally normal for broadband and other utility companies to give out a last ditch offer to someone after they have started a switch to move away from them - provided they get in touch within the 14 days cooling off window so that the customer can cancel the switch without penalty should they decide to take up the offer. Ditto for energy suppliers. Ditto for mobile operators.

24.18 Where the Losing Communications Provider communicates with the Customer in
order to comply with this General Condition, it must not make any marketing
statements or representations in the communication which may induce the Customer
to terminate their contract with the Gaining Communications Provider and/or remain
in a contract with the Losing Communications Provider.

I'm really interested to know which law might be contravened by this, as TalkTalk, my current supplier, acted in exactly the same way 18 months ago. My contract was near its end; I phoned them for a deal but they refused to match or undercut others I told them about; I began the switch to another supplier; they wrote a letter (not a email) offering me a better deal if I phoned them.

I'm about to repeat that, as I think two years at £20 with TalkTalk is better than a year with the complicated deal that Shell offers.

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

24.18 Where the Losing Communications Provider communicates with the Customer in
order to comply with this General Condition, it must not make any marketing
statements or representations in the communication which may induce the Customer
to terminate their contract with the Gaining Communications Provider and/or remain
in a contract with the Losing Communications Provider.

That is probably referring to general marketng content (ie not a customer specific offer) and/or getting in touch with the customer outside the 14 days cooling off period. Also TalkTalk aren't unique in doing this: i remember Post Office and yay.com both offering me very tempting deals to stay with them almost immediately after starting a phone service switch. I'm pretty sure OFCOM would have clamped down on this if it was deemed as nefarious or illegal.

In reply to a post by Airlane:

I'm really interested to know which law might be contravened by this, as TalkTalk, my current supplier, acted in exactly the same way 18 months ago. My contract was near its end; I phoned them for a deal but they refused to match or undercut others I told them about; I began the switch to another supplier; they wrote a letter (not a email) offering me a better deal if I phoned them.

I'm about to repeat that, as I think two years at £20 with TalkTalk is better than a year with the complicated deal that Shell offers.

Yep, better the devil you know and all that.

There was a change I recall that an offer was allowed at the time of the sorry you are leaving notification for broadband

In which case it’s definitely legal since the losing CP by law must tell the customer of the proposed switch.

Post deleted by RobertoS

In reply to a post by Airlane:

Through a money saving site's offer, I signed up with Shell Energy Broadband 38Mbps at £24.95/month less £120 credit after three months on a 12-month contract, meaning £15 a month for a year.

Just remember that there is no guarantee of that £120. While in most cases it does come through. Never bank on it.

That's good advice. I think I'll cancel my sign-up to Shell and revert to TalkTalk.

In reply to a post by JohnR:

Just remember that there is no guarantee of that £120. While in most cases it does come through. Never bank on it.

It should be okay, it's a bill credit of £120 from Shell Energy themselves, not third party cashback.

In reply to a post by Highland76:

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

24.18 Where the Losing Communications Provider communicates with the Customer in
order to comply with this General Condition, it must not make any marketing
statements or representations in the communication which may induce the Customer
to terminate their contract with the Gaining Communications Provider and/or remain
in a contract with the Losing Communications Provider.

That is probably referring to general marketng content (ie not a customer specific offer) and/or getting in touch with the customer outside the 14 days cooling off period. Also TalkTalk aren't unique in doing this: i remember Post Office and yay.com both offering me very tempting deals to stay with them almost immediately after starting a phone service switch. I'm pretty sure OFCOM would have clamped down on this if it was deemed as nefarious or illegal.

This came out a while back, to stop people getting phone calls from their old supplier, be it gas, electric or broadband. The government reason was to stop people being forced to stay with their old supplier.

i kind of understand why it was done, not sure if it was the best idea.

Brother is with shell, it is ok, he got it from carphone warehouse, one of their hard sales push. The router is not great, it is pretty large. When his 18 months is up if he wants to change I will stick him on plusnet,

but as people have said sometimes better the devil you know, this is why I stuck with plusnet, took ages to decide when my contract ran out.
If Talk Talk is doing the job for you, then stay with them.

Thanks for the advice. I've decided to stay with Talk Talk. One of the problems with our privatised market-based system of utilities is exemplified in the process we go through to get the supposedly best price, and I've done this twice now with TT:

- contract nears its end, provider contacts customer, offers higher-priced renewal
- customer obtains lower price from another provider, calls existing provider who refuses to reduce price
- customer calls other provider, signs up
- existing provider sees a customer about to leave, writes a letter - on paper! - to the customer, offers a lower price
- customer calls existing provider, accepts lower offer
- customer calls other provider, cancels sign-up

This absurd, time-wasting process is a prime example of how the market is less efficient and customer-friendly than socialism. The media mocked Jeremy Corbyn for offering a publicly-funded broadband system which would eliminate the need for us to go through the above rigmarole ever again. I voted Labour for the first and probably only time last December.

In reply to a post by Airlane:

Thanks for the advice. I've decided to stay with Talk Talk. One of the problems with our privatised market-based system of utilities is exemplified in the process we go through to get the supposedly best price, and I've done this twice now with TT:

- contract nears its end, provider contacts customer, offers higher-priced renewal
- customer obtains lower price from another provider, calls existing provider who refuses to reduce price
- customer calls other provider, signs up
- existing provider sees a customer about to leave, writes a letter - on paper! - to the customer, offers a lower price
- customer calls existing provider, accepts lower offer
- customer calls other provider, cancels sign-up

This absurd, time-wasting process is a prime example of how the market is less efficient and customer-friendly than socialism. The media mocked Jeremy Corbyn for offering a publicly-funded broadband system which would eliminate the need for us to go through the above rigmarole ever again. I voted Labour for the first and probably only time last December.

Why are you making this political? You talk about a rigarole, but that rigmarole as you put it has given you a cheaper price than you would have got, so it actually worked.

If you wanted a state run telecommunications company to be state run then you would be paying the first price +50%-100% more for the massive inefficency and drag brought in. I am sure some of the older people on here will be able to give you examples of how successfull the GPO where at being customer friendly and eficent. Months to install a phone, that you had to rent from them, you couldn't use your own.

In reply to a post by gary333:

I am sure some of the older people on here will be able to give you examples of how successfull the GPO where at being customer friendly and eficent. Months to install a phone, that you had to rent from them, you couldn't use your own.

Or you could live in America where there is only one choice in a town, the local cable company. There is no choice. (DSL services are much slower than the UK due to distance). The UK is quite good when you compare with other countries, because of the regulation of Openreach.

We are starting to end up like the US in areas where there is only one fibre provider, e.g. the Vodafone/Cityfibre partnership, as we have with VirginMedia cable, there is only one ISP to choose from the infrastructure.

Because everything we do is political. Yes, I obtained a lower price. Under the semi-socialist policies offered by Labour in 2019, we wouldn't need to do any of this and could spend our time doing more pleasurable things than waiting in a phone queue. Labour would have provided a simple, high-speed broadband service from a publicly-owned provider which - like the NHS -would be free at the point of delivery. Your claim that it would be somehow less efficient is merely your opinion. How do you know what a publicly-owned broadband provider in the UK would be like?

Perhaps the simpler solution is ban all introductory offers and promotions.

In reply to a post by Airlane:

Because everything we do is political. Yes, I obtained a lower price. Under the semi-socialist policies offered by Labour in 2019, we wouldn't need to do any of this and could spend our time doing more pleasurable things than waiting in a phone queue. Labour would have provided a simple, high-speed broadband service from a publicly-owned provider which - like the NHS -would be free at the point of delivery. Your claim that it would be somehow less efficient is merely your opinion. How do you know what a publicly-owned broadband provider in the UK would be like?

No, people like you chose to make things political and there is simply no need (certainly not on a forum like this).

If you think that a government can run a technology service efficenctly and in the best interests of the consumer then you are misguided. We have real world examples in this country thus you already have evidence, as I said look at the GPO.

You do realise that re-nationalistion would have to be paid for. You would have to buy up every ISP company not just BT/Openreach or at the very minimum offer them heavy compensation for the companieis that you would decimate. From here you as a consumer might get a "free" service (bear in mind it isn't free it's just paid for invisibly by taxes, so you could be paying 10 times more and you'd never know).

As a captive customer you will not get any form of customer service from this government entity, they will not invest, as it's a cost centre, and they will not keep up with technological advancements as it wouldn't be something any bureaucrat or govenment beancounter would understand, and ultimately would not provide anything other than basic service.

This has been shown to be the case across many countries for many decades and is thus the reason why an effectively regulated private industry is (for the heavy majority of business) always going to be more efficient, more re-active, and provide a better service than any government run entity.

Edited by gary333 (Sun 23-Aug-20 10:49:58)

Personally I would stick to TalkTalk, unless you weren't happy with the service or you found a significantly better ISP with a similar price.

The thing is with Shell Energy Broadband is that it is not tested, there aren't that many reviews and most of them are indeed negative. Sometimes small ISPs give special offers like these to try and capture as many customers as possible and by then you are trapped in a contract and if you are not happy you can't quit penalty free.

One thing I found out is that Shell supply the Thomson Technicolor TG588V V2 ADSL VDSL router which is a very cheap quality router with only 300Mbps LAN port capability vs Gigabit Ethernet ports for the TalkTalk Sagemcom F@ST 5364 and Huawei Router DG8041W-2.T5.

The router quality is one of the first things you should look at before switching ISP unless either you have your own router or are getting a significantly cheaper deal to sacrifice on quality.

I'm on a 24 month contract with TalkTalk FTTC so far 6 months in and aside from the frequent firmware updates, I have been generally happy with the service. Getting 80/20 Mbps and it is much better of a service than ADSL of-course.

If I quit TalkTalk at the end of my 24 month contract, I wouldn't switch to an ISP like Shell Energy, Direct Save Telecom, Origin or Onestream. From reading the reviews and routers that I've seen, these are some of the worst ISPs I've read on.

I would only risk the switch to a lesser known ISP if it was FTTP and if I get upgraded to FTTP. But for FTTC, while the Openreach infrastructure may be the same. Router quality of the ISPs can make a huge difference on performance.

For example I had once Thomson Technicolor router with Be Unlimited and it wasn't letting me port forward!! I had to buy a new router because Games for Windows Live at that time wasn't letting me join or host online games due to NAT strict. I also had Tiscali many years ago and the modem was overheating causing connection drops.

Your entire experience can be ruined by poor quality supplied router and then you have to spend money on a better quality router and ultimately you haven't saved any money with your new ISP switch despite paying a few pounds less a month...

There are too many misconceptions in your reply to answer here. I'll look only at one:

As a captive customer you will not get any form of customer service

So you think customer service is inherently better in the private sector? Nothing in my experience tells me that's true. I've no good reason to believe that a publicly-owned (not government-run) broadband provider would be worse for service than one run to make profit for a few owners. There are so many examples just in the sector of broadband providers of appalling service that your argument is invalidated. I suggest you and other sceptics read the free ebook about this: Rigged by Dean Baker.

Airlane says:

This absurd, time-wasting process is a prime example of how the market is less efficient and customer-friendly than socialism. The media mocked Jeremy Corbyn for offering a publicly-funded broadband system

Indeed we had such a system. It was called Post Office Telephones and was rooted in the GPO. One could wait three years to have a phone line installed unless you were considered an emergency. In 1965 when my dad became very ill with heart failure he had only seven months to wait for his emergency line), how's that for speedy State socialist service?
And don't start me reminiscing about British Railways ... or British Leyland ...

In reply to a post by Airlane:

There are too many misconceptions in your reply to answer here. I'll look only at one:

As a captive customer you will not get any form of customer service

So you think customer service is inherently better in the private sector? Nothing in my experience tells me that's true. I've no good reason to believe that a publicly-owned (not government-run) broadband provider would be worse for service than one run to make profit for a few owners. There are so many examples just in the sector of broadband providers of appalling service that your argument is invalidated. I suggest you and other sceptics read the free ebook about this: Rigged by Dean Baker.

Nah, there isn't, you are just happy to ignore that the market is full of widely varying ISP's when it comes to the quality of service. Seeing things as black and white is simply naive. In the regulated market we currently have you the customer has a free choice to pay more for great customer service like that of ISP's such as A&A. Like many who think their own experiences are defacto you have chosen the bottom of the bucket providers and then extrapalate your experience to equal the whole market and then say it's disfunctional.

Most people like yourself want the cheapest price, the cheapest price is going to equal the poorest customer services as the cost of customer service is a significant contributing cost to the overall provision of the technology. In the current market if you don't like something you can move to someone better. If enough people place a tangible value on customer services then the companies with poor service would be run out of the market.

When a government run a service you are at the behest of what they see as good enough. It is very clear, and proven by decades of data, that government are not very good at running 'businesses'. As it is no longer an open market you are now restricted by whatever the government of the day deem 'good enough'. You have also then made a situation where manipulation of the infrastructure could be even more prevelant and thus the unintented consequences are totally possible that would never have been envisaged.

Of course customer services is going better in the private sector where the customer choses to pay for it, as there is a reason for companies to provide the better service. As i mentioned above there isn't a free lunch. If you want that better exeprience you have to pay more for it than that of the bottom of the barrell providers. Where the government run a service it's quite simply never going to offer anything other than mediocre at best, as what would be the point, the end user (us) are stuck with their monopoly regardless. In your example we have also ramped up massive amount of debt for little benefit, so the service would almost certainly get even worse than it is now. Even one of the few governement departments that are a profit centre (the HMRC) you will see a service that is shameful, again this is an area of government that ulitmately benefits from the people yet they are treated with distain with a service so frustrating that many don't even know what to do, yet they can't complain as no-one is really accountable or enabled to do anything.

Edited by gary333 (Sun 23-Aug-20 12:59:04)

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

There was a change I recall that an offer was allowed at the time of the sorry you are leaving notification for broadband

I also recall that, and you are correct! In fact I found out when someone corrected me a while ago when I quoted GC22.

Using Ofcom's website it is clear that GC22 is now only directly accessible in the archive of previous conditions.

It was replaced on 1 October 2018 by Condition GC7, where the relevant clauses are C7.10-C7.12.

Annexes 1 and 2 are also relevant, again similar to the equivalents in GC22.

There is now no explicit ban on the losing provider trying to persuade the customer to cancel the migration. Though the notification should be in "neutral terms". To me that suggests a single retention offer or similar in the letter/email along with the main required information which looks to be the same as in the old GC22. What happens if the customer then contacts the losing provider to discuss the retention is of course out of the scope of the regulation.

How do you know what a publicly-owned broadband provider in the UK would be like?

Being I suspect somewhat older than yourself in a word "experience". The majority of state owned services became overblown and lazy knowing there was no competition or need for efficiency when they had a captive market.

Be as idealistic as floats your boat but temper it with reality and the experience and knowledge of others. A great example being the phone service. Nothing like waiting for six months to have a phone installed and then finding it shared a line with another subscriber. Where was this? Central London!

In reply to a post by Airlane:

Because everything we do is political. Yes, I obtained a lower price. Under the semi-socialist policies offered by Labour in 2019, we wouldn't need to do any of this and could spend our time doing more pleasurable things than waiting in a phone queue. Labour would have provided a simple, high-speed broadband service from a publicly-owned provider which - like the NHS -would be free at the point of delivery. Your claim that it would be somehow less efficient is merely your opinion. How do you know what a publicly-owned broadband provider in the UK would be like?

Well you only have to look at how the rest of the UK was set to free marketplace and how users in Hull were stuck with one company who were still in the dark ages. as they could not afford to upgrade.

Good point about the router: I binned mine as it didn't do NAT loopback. I just used one that had been supplied by a previous ISP, so it didn't cost me anymore though.

I would guess most people now have a cupboard full of old routers, but might be an issue if this is your first ISP or you need/want the latest router.

In reply to a post by hk11:

Good point about the router: I binned mine as it didn't do NAT loopback. I just used one that had been supplied by a previous ISP, so it didn't cost me anymore though.

I would guess most people now have a cupboard full of old routers, but might be an issue if this is your first ISP or you need/want the latest router.

Indeed, it seems like the Technicolor is basically the same Thomson but the name has been rebadged.

This was the router I had https://www.leenukes.co.uk/2008/08/12/thomson-tg585v... And it was a nightmare with Be Unlimited* ISP before O2 took over. I was using Port Forward tool to verify if the ports were open and they were blocked.

I was trying to play at that time Gears of War, Shadowrun, Halo 2 and Resident Evil 5 multiplayer using Games for Windows Live and there was NAT strict even with UPNP enabled. Ports were blocked.

I had no choice but to buy a new Netgear DGN2000 router at that time and immediately I managed to join the multiplayer servers and have the ports opened without any difficulty. Games like Shadowrun are multiplayer only, so it was impossible to see myself sacrifice a whole year with a bad router that doesn't allow port openings.

I am specially wary of the router supplied by an ISP. I do google searches on their supplied routers to see if there are problems. For example Now TV supply a Hub 2 router which has only 2 Ethernet LAN ports which is a disaster for me as I have 3 computers and a satellite receiver which you cannot conveniently use Wi-Fi. Yes, I know I can use an Ethernet switch, but that means spending another £20 on a new network switch, which frankly doesn't seem like a normal way of having more ports. It just over-complicates situations.

Even if the ISP package was cheap, I would not go with an ISP with 2 LAN ports instead of 4 or if it cannot do port forwarding or for example overheats and then reboots by itself, or has only 300Mbps LAN port speeds.

You are lucky that you were able to use your previously supplied router with your new provider. Most ISPs lock their routers to their ISP. If this issue with ISPs locking their routers did not exist, I would not be too concerned about joining any ISP that didn't supply a quality router. Otherwise you have to spend more money on your own router which we all would like to avoid whenever possible.

Is locking a router a recent thing? I've had loads of ISOs over the years and (I think) the only problem I have had with a locked router is Sky, but I think their routers would be pretty useless with any other ISP, even if they weren't locked.

In reply to a post by hk11:

Is locking a router a recent thing?

No, it has been common practice amongst ISPs for a long time. TalkTalk typically don't lock their routers, but the latest one will not connect with PPP on VDSL2 which limits its reuse potential.

In reply to a post by hk11:

Is locking a router a recent thing?

No, but remember that most ISP supplied routers are lowest cost possible. You have the large ISPs with a couple of million customers (e.g. Virgin Media, BT etc) but most of the others are quite small. Buying your own VDSL router that meets your needs, has good WiFi etc is a "no brainer" for anyone whom wants more. Some have 8 ethernet ports for example. You have more choice if you also buy a standalone VDSL modem, even a used HG612 from ebay.

I think most are happy enough with the ISP provided router. If you want more than buying your own makes sense if you are not lucky enough to have a cupboard full of routers.

In reply to a post by hk11:

I think most are happy enough with the ISP provided router. If you want more than buying your own makes sense if you are not lucky enough to have a cupboard full of routers.

A cupboard full is interesting, but mostly useless, as throughput goes up, the CPUs in the router can't keep up. Then you have WiFi security, unless you use separate access points, e.g. my Asus supports WPA 3, none of the older routers do.

My ISP (Virgin Media) provides a router, but in terms of features it is similar to the Plusnet Hub 1, basically nothing. I would replace it, but it has a modem mode.

I think Openreach missed a trick with FTTC, which is not an issue with FTTP, in that the "demarcation point" is an Ethernet port.

True. If you keep upgrading your connection then old routers are useless. Luckily I still use ADSL rather than fibre, but I wonder how long that will be provided?

Virgin Media eh? Happy days with VM cable: router was just a modem and I used a separate box for WiFi.

In reply to a post by hk11:

True. If you keep upgrading your connection then old routers are useless. Luckily I still use ADSL rather than fibre, but I wonder how long that will be provided?

It makes little sense. “Fibre” is really VDSL, and G.Fast is the top of that range over copper wires. Each of which needs a different modem part to the router. Either you have an ethernet router and swap the modem (ADSL, VDSL, G.Fast) or you have to keep replacing the router if you want faster speeds.

Virgin Media eh? Happy days with VM cable: router was just a modem and I used a separate box for WiFi.

Back in 1999 I had to buy the cable modem, the 3Com CMX, which cost me £150, but it could only cope with upto 2 Mbps, so eventually it had to go. The CMX was only a modem, and then cable world supplied a rented modem for a while. Eventually they moved to an all in one box (the UK generic term is ‘hub’) but thankfully they have a “modem mode”

With FTTP the “modem” equivalent is the ONT that is fixed to the wall, and converts an Ethernet RJ45 jack to the optical fibre. This is real fibre into the home, not the “fibre” used as a branding for higher speeds.