TalkTalk Broadband

[AlanHo]

One of my future wife'slady friends asked for my advice about which laptop she should buy and which ISP to subscribe to for her very first venture with a computer. She has been going to computer classes for a couple of months and has picked up the basics but lacked the experience and confidence to choose equipment or the best internet connection.

She had popped into a branch of Computer World and the assistant had recommended a very expensive laptop which was far more powerful than she requires but fortunately she baulked at spending more than £1000 and came to me for advice.

I will admit to not enjoying the responsibility of providing such advice - but she was stuck - and I found it hard to refuse. She is a pensioner and on a limited budget so I had to do some research and recommended an ASUS laptop that cost less than £400 which is adequate for her needs. A couple of my friends have recently moved onto TalkTalk and are delighted with it - especially the cost - so I recommended TalkTalk to her.

She ordered TalkTalk a couple of weeks ago over the phone and they told her that they would carry out all the admin to transfer her from BT and ensure she kept the same phone number. Their salesperson was very helpful and guided her through the package options. In theory she is getting unlimited UK land line phone calls, free international calls to 30 countries and broadband for just £9 per month more than she was paying BT.

She was notified yesterday that they had transferred her and today I went to her apartment to help get the broadband installed and fully set up. I was very impressed with the documentation they sent and the set-up software on the provided CD which was a doddle to use. I confess to being nervous when I saw that it is now branded TalkTalk AOL - because I had bad experience with AOL a few years ago.

When it came to setting up her Email - it was a very easy process. The TalkTalk software recognised Windows Mail (Vista) and set up the account automatically. It really was childs play.

Howevr (you just knew a "however" was coming didn't you) the computer refused to connect to the TalkTalk server and kept asking for the user name and password repeatedly. I tried just about everything to get it connected but in the end had to phone the TalkTalk helpline. I got through within 20 seconds or so and found myself talking to a very nice chap who I think was called Ismail - but we had awful difficulties understanding one another. He was clearly not experienced in Brummy and I find Bombay speak hard to follow. I felt quite sorry for him - he must spend his whole day repeating himself and spelling words out to hard of hearing Brits like me. He got me to cancel the mail account and recreate it - I had already done it - but yet again it did not work. He then did a few things at his end - but no success. He said he would investigate and call me back.

Whilst awaiting his call I decided to set up a webmail connection - rather than pop3 - which immediately worked OK using the same user name and password that had failed on the pop3 account. This produced a message which was an apology that the TalkTalk mail system was out of order and was being worked on by their technical staff. It was a pity they didn't tell their helpline people.

My overall impression of TalkTalk is very positive - it is a shame that they fell at the last fence due to their pop3 servers being down which caused me to think I had a problem with the set-up and it was not identified by their helpline staff.

There is such a large cost difference between what I currently pay Virgin cable and the equivalent TalkTalk service that I am tempted to change. My only doubt is whether they have regular breaks in service.

[andsome]

A friend left them in disgust at the ropey service, and constant outages. I also had the greatest difficulty in getting her on line. A stream of so called technicians talked me through installing and uninstalling the modem, and at the end of each installation I had to open IE and type in a series of number ending in 02. Each time we failed to connect. Eventually I asked to speak to a supervisor. After a wait of several minutes A man with a completely different accent came on the phone. I asked where he was speaking from and it turned out to be South Africa. At the end of yet another installation he told me to open IE and type in the same number but ending in 01. This connected first time. It turned out that the paperwork and all the other so called technicians were giving me the final instruction for an Ethernet connection, and she was using USB. The had been told this at the beginning. She never achieved more than 800 kbps connection on a so called up to 8 MB service. She is now with Sky, and regularly achieves more than twice that on a 2MB service. Talk Talk, NO THANKS.

[Irene]

Interesting post, Alan.

When you said that you set up a webmail connection, what do you mean and how do you do it?

[AlanHo]

For TalkTalk you enter in the address bar...

www.webmail.talktalk.net

This opens a login page where you type your user name and password

This then opens your Email account where you can see all the messages on the server.

If you normally use Outlook, Outlook Express etc you need to set your account to "Leave messages on the server". otherwise as soon as you download them they are deleted from the server.

I use Outlook on my home computer with Virgin media Email - but use the Virgin webmail service when away from home on any available computer.

[AlanHo]

A friend left them in disgust at the ropey service, and constant outages. I also had the greatest difficulty in getting her on line. A stream of so called technicians talked me through installing and uninstalling the modem, and at the end of each installation I had to open IE and type in a series of number ending in 02. Each time we failed to connect. Eventually I asked to speak to a supervisor. After a wait of several minutes A man with a completely different accent came on the phone. I asked where he was speaking from and it turned out to be South Africa. At the end of yet another installation he told me to open IE and type in the same number but ending in 01. This connected first time. It turned out that the paperwork and all the other so called technicians were giving me the final instruction for an Ethernet connection, and she was using USB. The had been told this at the beginning. She never achieved more than 800 kbps connection on a so called up to 8 MB service. She is now with Sky, and regularly achieves more than twice that on a 2MB service. Talk Talk, NO THANKS.

A tale of woe and perhaps bad luck. Both my friends have had TalkTalk for a few months and are delighted with the service - though are not big users and have perhaps not noticed any outages that have occurred. I did say in my post that the costs are excellent but having hit an outage during set-up I did wonder how big a problem it is. T'would be useful to hear from other TalTalk users about their experience - doug chronicled his history some time ago but how is it now?

[andsome]

Interesting post, Alan.

When you said that you set up a webmail connection, what do you mean and how do you do it?

Just go to the home page of whoever your ISP is and look for webmail or e mail. :D

[doug]

The TalkTalk telephone service is terrible, but the advice and help available on their website is superb. This includes advice and help provided by TT staff but also, like on here, very expert help from ordinary members. I strongly suggest checking into their site and sign up - TalkTalk

This means that if you have any problems the staff can "see" your connection, diagnose any problems and tweak you onto the optimum profile. Mine is now running at ~5MB throughput up from ~1 MB on plusnet. I'm very satisfied especially the cost.

[catgate]

I was with Onetel for a long time. Then it was taken over by Talktalk. Talktalk took over AOL. Then Talktalk was overtaken by Out Sourcing, which was then taken over by Sanjeev and his sisters, who in turn were overwhelmed by having to work from an inadequate script in a foreign tongue (apart from the bit."and thank you for using Talktalk" which had been tatooed into their brains). Talktalks idea of customer service seemed to extend no further than sending out a monthly bill, and "outages" were all part of the fun (albeit some were BT generated).

I switched to Tiscali, and found it seemed to be a case of "only the name has been changed to protect the inoccent".

After a couple of years I switched to BT expecting great things.......I am still waiting.

It seems to me that if you expect little you are seldom disappointed when it comes to ISP dealing. The sooner the "up to" culture is stamped on and ideals behind the Trade Descriptions Act are enforced, the better.

Foolishly I had recommended Onetel to one of my sisters several years ago, when it was good, but a couple of years ago I found that she had gone on to Talktalk and she is very happy with it. But then she is a very placid lass.

[r4may]

I switched to TalkTalk several months ago, after using pipex for years without any trouble.

I find that TalkTalk is good value as the broadband is free and the telephone calls cheap in fact I have cut my total communications bill by more than half.

The service is a bit flaky and suffers from more problems than pipex did but I find that, in cases like that, running the TalkTalk "Assist and Go" software seems to get things sorted in no time.

I am a high usage user and get hardly any problems.

[andsome]

Obviously a very mixed bag. The ball is well and truly in your court. :D