TT Connection problems

Talk Talk Broadband problems

Have been on Talk Talk broadband for 6 months now, and has been okay. But 2 days ago it all went wrong. Since I'm not having much luck with TT technical support I thought I would try here.

It would appear that I have a connection from my ADSL modem to the exchange okay. The "ADSL LINK" light on my Huawei Smartax MT882 modem is solid Orange, which indicates the ADSL link is okay.

The symptoms of the problem are my internet connection is very very intermittent. What I mean by that is if I try and load a web page, it may start loading and a bit of the page will appear, but then it all stops. Nothing happens. If I wait sometimes several minutes, it may spring back into life again for a few seconds and load a bit more, then stops again. Same when collecting emails. More often than not Internet explorer or my email client just time out waiting.

I don't believe it is a problem with the computer or computer settings, as we have two computers, my old one running Windows 98, and the new one running Windows Vista. Both stopped working with exactly the same symptoms at exactly the same time. So it must be a problem with the modem or a service problem.

I have gone back to basics and removed the wireless router so it's just the Talk Talk supplied modem hard wired to one PC, and that made no difference.

I spent a fruitless half an hour on the phone to TT technical support. In spite of me knowing the problem is not with my PC's I still had to do all their tests. They then gave me a number for second line technical support. So another 30 minutes on the phone to them. Where we are at now is they want me to do 3 speed tests at different times of day and phone them back. But I just cannot get onto any of the speed test sites, it justs starts loading the web page then several minutes later it times out.

They haven't even asked me to log onto the modem and check any of it's settings. I certainly haven't changed anything since it was working, but you would have thought they would want to check that.

They keep asking me what "error message" do I get, but when I say there is no error message, it just stops, they don't seem to know how to respond to that.

What do I have to do to convince them there is a fault, and is there anything that I can do myself to further diatgnose the problem?

My best description is that it's as though the modem is connected to the exchange, but the link from the exchange to the network is slow and intermittent.

By the way, the only way I can get on to post this is using my old pay per minute dial up ISP

The orange light indicates that you are authenticated and logged in.

Try setting your MTU to 1400 in the MT 882 and also on each computer.

If that doesn't work try using www.OpenDNS.com

If it still doesn't work properly try the TT Members Forum

Edited by deleted (Sat 08-Mar-08 14:06:16)

Goto www.speedtest.net and post your results , I think you may have the problem that I first had with TT. (your upload speed is very low)

Hi

I've not been back on this forum because my connection was virtually unusable. Most of the time I have been having to resort to my old pay per minute dial up ISP.

It took 2 WEEKS to get my problem sorted, and then in the end I think it was sorted by a fluke. I did post on the TalkTalkMembers forum but that didn't help a lot.

To cut a long story short, they give you the run around on the phone. I spent hours changing and checking PC settings. That didn't fix it. I knew it wouldn't as I had 2 different PC's and both stopped working at the same time. Eventually they started to believe me that there was a fault, so sent an OpenReach engineer. All he did was confirmed the line was okay (as I suspected). But that didn't fix it. After much more perstering they sent a BT Wholesale engineer to the exchange, but he "found nothing wrong".

The last contact I had with TT was last Thursday when they said it must be my modem, so they said they would send another one.

That still hasn't arrived, but out of the blue, my broadband started working again this morning. PROVING it was nothing wrong with my equipment or settings. I suspect someone doing routine work at the exchange by chance stumbled upon the problem.

Talk Talk service sucks.

Now next question. For various reasons (like being miss sold "free" broadband) I am thinking of leaving TT. But before I comit to that, I want to know the implications if I decide to do that.

I switched both my phone and BB over to TT. IF I choose to leave them, how easy will it be to go back to BT for my phone and either BT or another provider for my BB?

If I switch back it is imperative that I keep my existing telephone number, and the phone service has minimum interuption. I can tolerate some downtime on the BB.

Will there be any cost implications? I read horror stories on here that BT will treat you as a new customer and charge you a fee for supplying a new line.

My exchange is not yet LLU'd by the way (that's why I don't get the "free" broadband that they sold me)

Another update, and a request for a new ISP reccomendation please:

I spoke too soon in my last post. After working for 1 day, the fault came back.

A new modem did arrive today, but that didn't fix the problem, confirming that the problem is not in my house.

I had a long and helpfull conversation with a senior TT staff member over the weekend. The result of that is for various reasons, they will release me from my current BB contract, waive the disconnection fee and give me a MAC code for a new BB supplier.

So my question is who should I choose?

My exchange is NOT LLU'd, and will not be for the forseeable future. So any new ISP must be either BT, or one reselling a product based on a BT Wholesale product.

I am currently with TT for my telephone line rental. For various reasons I want to keep my telephone and call service with TT and just switch to another provider for my broadband. (TT tell me this is possible)

I want the cheapest service I can get. I don't upload or download much, just general browsing.

So who is best or cheapest?

Since you can't get Be* (worse luck), your best bet would be an Entanet reseller, IDNet, NewNet (if you're a low user) or PlusNet (if you're a gamer), all of which operate over BT's IPstream, and all of which have reasonably good reports (well, better than BT's ISP at any rate)