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Question: Is Talk3 + International + Free Broadband really worth it?

Yes    
  5 (16.7%)
No    
  25 (83.3%)




Total votes: 30
« Created by: Smasher on: Apr 11th, 2006 at 9:36pm »

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TalkTalk Broadband + Rental + Calls + More... (Read 57,650 times)
Smasher
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TalkTalk Broadband + Rental + Calls + More...
Apr 11th, 2006 at 9:36pm
 
Hello everyone,  Wink

We've escaped broadband for a long time now but noticed TalkTalk's new plan, which I'm sure you will have heard about.

The disadvantages/problems:

  • Inability to use BT by dialling 1280
  • No access to other providers by dialling four/five digit access codes
  • No access to free caller display
  • 18 month minimum contract
  • Premium Rate Tech Support
  • Expensive Non-Geo numbers - no way to override or bypass through access codes
  • Blocked P2P downloads (probably)
  • Possiblity that other VoIP providers may be blocked so we are forced to use TalkTalk's own service Undecided

I'm updating this original post as people point out various disadvantages... Smiley  

Advantages of their new plan which costs £20.99 per month:

  • Inclusive Line Rental
  • Inclusive peak time UK Landline calls (70 mins duration)
  • Inclusive anytime calls to EU countries, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand
  • Up to 8 Megabit broadband (if available in your area) - 40GB monthly limit
  • Just one bill (yeah, how convenient, huh? Grin)


I know I'm not the only one interested - TalkTalk's website went down earlier, apparently due to the sheer number of people accessing the broadband checker service.  Hopefully, we can point out the advantages but also the disadvantages - I know of many people who have willingly switched their line rental to TalkTalk only to discover to their horror that they can't use other providers.    Roll Eyes  

Click to access
Terms and Conditions
and
Call Tarriff Document


Cheers everyone Cool

Smasher Cheesy
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« Last Edit: Apr 12th, 2006 at 10:36am by Smasher »  
 
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JoePublic
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Re: TalkTalk Broadband + Rental + Calls + More...
Reply #1 - Apr 11th, 2006 at 10:11pm
 
Line Rental now £11. (Two increases in a couple of months.)

18 month contract with expensive get out clause.

Expensive Peak 0845 calls.

Expensive Premium Rate Technical Support.

0870 Customer Service Line.

They block  P2P.

Also note that Free Weekend Calls for Life On Talk 1 now abolished. Shocked

This Forum is worth a read:http://bbs.adslguide.org.uk/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=talktalk.



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« Last Edit: Apr 11th, 2006 at 10:21pm by N/A »  
 
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a very nice man
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Re: TalkTalk Broadband + Rental + Calls + More...
Reply #2 - Apr 11th, 2006 at 11:08pm
 
Lots of complaints on various sites of Talk Talk blocking P2P such as Kazaa and bittorrent software

From their site...

Peer-to-Peer (P2P) ports are used by file sharing system such as KaZaA, Morpheus, Grokster, Gnutella, LimeWire, WinMX, or eDonkey2000 to download large amounts of data.
A small number of heavy P2P users can utilise a significant proportion of available bandwidth. This can result in a significantly degraded quality of service for other users.

9.1 Does TalkTalk allow P2P downloading?

TalkTalk allows the use of P2P software, however, it does not condone its use where subsequent file sharing breaches applicable local laws and regulations. This includes, but is not limited to, those principles of law which protect against compromise of copyrights, trade secrets, proprietary information and other intellectual property rights, libel or defamation of character, invasion of privacy, tortuous interference.

9.2 Does TalkTalk block P2P ports?

No, TalkTalk broadband does not block ports used by P2P file sharing systems.

9.3 Does TalkTalk broadband prioritise traffic generated by P2P software?

TalkTalk broadband may use network controls to prioritise traffic generated by web browsing, email and music downloads over that generated by with P2P file sharing systems where it is found that it affects the bandwidth of other broadband users.

9.4 Why does TalkTalk put network controls in place with P2P networks?

TalkTalk owes a duty to all our Broadband users to both preserve network integrity and avoid network degradation. If, in our reasonable opinion, we believe P2P usage has, or may adversely affect, such network integrity or may cause network degradation for the majority of users we may control the transmission speed of selected ports.

9.5 Does TalkTalk use network controls to affect gaming or other legitimate download services?

The techniques used to control the network should not affect legitimate download, chat, instant messaging or gaming services.


So, IF you're lucky, and your exchange has been opened, and not that many have, you MIGHT be lucky to get 8meg (funny, that almost looks like Smeg - how appropriate for the service) in the future, but most probably 2mb at the moment, and they'll cap that.  But they won't really allow you to use the services that you bought broadband for in the first place!

I use the telewest 10meg service for £35 per month. NO capping or restrictions at all. I downloaded over 60Gb one month at full speed.
I use voipstunt for all land and foreign land calls.
WHAT CAN THE ADVANTAGE BE OF TALK TALK?
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Wooden balance bikes for only £35 + postage. www.easycyclers.co.uk
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NonGeographicalMan
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Re: TalkTalk Broadband + Rental + Calls + More...
Reply #3 - Apr 12th, 2006 at 8:29am
 
TalkTalk will be hard sold out of Carphone Warehouse Shops and to all existing TalkTalk customers and anyone else at all on the CPW marketing mailing lists.  As usual with CPW it will be a triumph of marketing bamboozle and spin over fairness, truth or especially plain honest decent service that even Gerald Ratner would be proud of.

The apparent advantage of CPW is if you are in a home with a husband and wife and 2 or 3 kids is that you now get All Calls (apart of course from all the calls to 084 and 087 which CPW's disgraceful submission to Ofcom NTS Way Forward is working so hard to make sure don't get any less in number even though it has historically sold Talk3 deceitfully as being to "all uk landlines") and "free broadband" for what appears only £9.99 a month on top of a standard extortionate £11 phone line rental that the incompetent fools at Ofcom are doing absolutely nothing at all to encoourage to come down.

Mr and Mrs Average will be all naive and believeing in the way they are with the Timeshare and Life Assurance salesman and foolishly sign on the dotted line for 18 months only to discover later the horror of not all broadband being the same and this service being slower than a dog at peak times and even more fraught with problems and not working than Tiscali broadband already is notorious for.  Of course many of Mr Dunstone's ideal customers still use dial up and so when they move to his slow as a dog broadband (only ever delivering high speeds at 3am) they will not realise they are gettting a shoddy cheap lousy service as they only be used to dial up and TalkTalk broadband will be just slightly faster than dial up used to be.  Even then their techncially savvy 16 year old will compare with his mates and tell mum and dad they are being ripped off.

As I am on an exchange reasonably unlikely to be be unbundled any time in the next couple of years (country exchange with 1900 lines that is probably in the last 25% of uk homes although not the last 5 to 10% like neighbouring exchanges with only 200, 300 and 600 lines clearly are) I will not even face this dilemma and the only thing that will no doubt come out of the new Ratner flavoured CPW deal is hopefully lower prices from other conventional broadband providers and a big pressure on BT Wholesale to lower its prices to other ISPs on non unbundled exchanges where current broadband prices are going to start to look rather high.

Well there you are as I'm based at home 7 days a week now and have just moved to ADSLMax with Freedom2Surf where I seem to be getting around 6Mbps most of the time downstream and 0.4Mbps upstream most of the time about half a mile from the exchange my broadband is too important to me to consider the Ryanair or ValueJet of broadband.  Annd who knows what kind of broadband service I would actually get from Crapners if they ever see fit to  try to market or make available their overblown marking hype of a shoddy service to us straw chewing country folk! Roll Eyes

Of course another snag with moving to Crapners broadband would I am sure be that as they also control your brodaband service that they would soon start blocking your Voip ports to any form of Voip phone provider other than their own.
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« Last Edit: Apr 12th, 2006 at 8:31am by N/A »  
 
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JoePublic
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Re: TalkTalk Broadband + Rental + Calls + More...
Reply #4 - Apr 12th, 2006 at 8:59am
 
Craphone  couldnt even tell the difference between gigabits and gigabytes.

See :http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/04/12/carphone_gigabit/

They have also removed their 0800 sales. contact number from their site.
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« Last Edit: Apr 12th, 2006 at 9:03am by N/A »  
 
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Smasher
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Re: TalkTalk Broadband + Rental + Calls + More...
Reply #5 - Apr 12th, 2006 at 9:54pm
 
All excellent points.  Thank you Wink Cool I've been on a long long assignment (I could tell you about it but then I'd have to kill you) hence my not being around and not being on the ball with all things to do with OfCON and telecoms in general.  I will make a return soon though!! 

I'm definitely giving this broadband offer a miss - there are so many hidden conditions which I fear many have already fallen prey to, judging by the speed of their website at the moment.  They have 16 pages of T&Cs which obscures the important information.  Also there is a £30 connection fee which seems to have been omitted from the key promotional information, like the advert I've just seen on TV which proclaims "free broadband".    Roll Eyes  It probably wouldnt' be so bad if not for the 18month minimum contract which also ties all calls to them. Angry 

As it happens my local exchange has been "unbundled" but what I couldn't understand was how TalkTalk were going to offer 8MB when BT locally only offers 2MB? Huh  I phoned to ask what speed I'd get and was told that "it would be 8MB".  That was after they took my postcode and phone number.   Undecided  We are still with them for Talk1 + World  Cool  and we're milking them dry with the amount of calls we make to USA after 6pm.  I am the root of all evil... Grin
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NonGeographicalMan
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Re: TalkTalk Broadband + Rental + Calls + More...
Reply #6 - Apr 12th, 2006 at 10:22pm
 
Smasher wrote on Apr 12th, 2006 at 9:54pm:
As it happens my local exchange has been "unbundled" but what I couldn't understand was how TalkTalk were going to offer 8MB when BT locally only offers 2MB? Huh


BT launched their 8MB ADSL Max service on practically all of their exchanges apart from a tiny handful on March 31st.  In practice there was a week's delay to have it supplied from the order with Freedom2Surf my ISP and it was switched on for my line yesterday.  I now Sync with the exchange at 7.5Mbps instead of the former 2.2Mps although tests show that the actual data rate is around 6MBps compared to around 1.9Mbps previously.  You only Sync at 8MBps if you are within about 400 yards of the exchange (on a straight wiring run) and even then the data rate is only going to be around 7MBps.

Having said all that in the long run over the next few months TalkTalk plans to install its own unbundled equipment at around 1100 major exchanges but for now their 8Mbps is being supplied using ADSLMax from BT Wholesale and will then switch to the TalkTalk equipment as and when it is installed.  Inevitably they will  be installing as little equipment as possible and hitting it with as many customers as possible at this price so the service is sure to be crap, especially as TalkTalk is a crap telephone company who persistenly billed me for calls dialled but not connected and even for calls not connected at all. Shocked
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andy9
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Re: TalkTalk Broadband + Rental + Calls + More...
Reply #7 - Apr 13th, 2006 at 1:26am
 
Well I hadn't got round to reading any of their promotional stuff, but you've all convinced me that free is not free.

It beats me why they got so much free advertising on the BBC
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JoePublic
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Re: TalkTalk Broadband + Rental + Calls + More...
Reply #8 - Apr 13th, 2006 at 1:30am
 
The 18 month contract starts when the Phone Line and Call Package are connected, not when you get the broadband connected. So if you havent got existing BB to fall back on you cant necessary rely on it being available as quickly as you would like.


Interesting article in the register on the problems CPW face.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/04/12/carphone_llu_deadline/
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« Last Edit: Apr 13th, 2006 at 1:38am by N/A »  
 
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NonGeographicalMan
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Re: TalkTalk Broadband + Rental + Calls + More...
Reply #9 - Apr 13th, 2006 at 9:01am
 
andy9 wrote on Apr 13th, 2006 at 1:26am:
It beats me why they got so much free advertising on the BBC


For once andy9 I cannot agree with you more.  When I heard the coverage on the BBC radio news on Tuesday evening I was absolutely furious that the BBC should just fall uncritically for such a misleading press release (as they did with the misleading Ofcom press announcement claiming that overcharging for 0870 calls was going to be brought to an end) instead of also getting the opinions of other broadband providers, who would I am sure have been happy to say what is wrong with TalkTalk's new offer.

As with pairs of shoes or suits or ice cream not all broadband is of the same quality and you very much get what you pay for.  And once again due to the quite spinelessly weak uk telecoms regulator people are allowed to sell as 8MB broadband a product that does not even Sync at that speed to most homes from the exchange and then may only run at at few hundred k data rate speed with someone like TalkTalk due to excess contention ratio and a totally inadequate backbone network.

It is more and more becoming obvious to me that half the journalists in this country only simply reprint press releases and that high quality investigative journalism of the Face The Facts or Panorama kind is very much the exception rather than the rule.  Oh for a Panorama program on Ofcom investigating  a "regulator hijacked by the telecoms industry". Angry
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Re: TalkTalk Broadband + Rental + Calls + More...
Reply #10 - Apr 13th, 2006 at 2:20pm
 
0870 Customer Service Line is free if you have landline with them, I have got free caller display for six months because i pointed out BT offered me it Wink
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JoePublic
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Re: TalkTalk Broadband + Rental + Calls + More...
Reply #11 - Apr 13th, 2006 at 5:32pm
 
The free 0870 customer number only works from your landline.Not much good if your phone is faulty. Wink
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Smasher
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Re: TalkTalk Broadband + Rental + Calls + More...
Reply #12 - Apr 13th, 2006 at 9:51pm
 
Quote:
andy9 wrote on Apr 13th, 2006 at 1:26am:
It beats me why they got so much free advertising on the BBC


For once andy9 I cannot agree with you more.  When I heard the coverage on the BBC radio news on Tuesday evening I was absolutely furious that the BBC should just fall uncritically for such a misleading press release (as they did with the misleading Ofcom press announcement claiming that overcharging for 0870 calls was going to be brought to an end) instead of also getting the opinions of other broadband providers, who would I am sure have been happy to say what is wrong with TalkTalk's new offer.

As with pairs of shoes or suits or ice cream not all broadband is of the same quality and you very much get what you pay for.  And once again due to the quite spinelessly weak uk telecoms regulator people are allowed to sell as 8MB broadband a product that does not even Sync at that speed to most homes from the exchange and then may only run at at few hundred k data rate speed with someone like TalkTalk due to excess contention ratio and a totally inadequate backbone network.

It is more and more becoming obvious to me that half the journalists in this country only simply reprint press releases and that high quality investigative journalism of the Face The Facts or Panorama kind is very much the exception rather than the rule.  Oh for a Panorama program on Ofcom investigating  a "regulator hijacked by the telecoms industry". Angry


How about each of us emails/writes in to Points of View and get Terry Wogan on the case?  It is the BBC being sloppy isn't it? Wink Grin  

Either that or maybe starting a thread on the PoV message board... www.bbc.co.uk/pov
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« Last Edit: Apr 13th, 2006 at 9:55pm by Smasher »  
 
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NonGeographicalMan
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Re: TalkTalk Broadband + Rental + Calls + More...
Reply #13 - Apr 13th, 2006 at 10:27pm
 
Smasher wrote on Apr 13th, 2006 at 9:51pm:
How about each of us emails/writes in to Points of View and get Terry Wogan on the case?  It is the BBC being sloppy isn't it? Wink Grin  

Either that or maybe starting a thread on the PoV message board... www.bbc.co.uk/pov


Don't forget to also write to the BBC Radio equivalent program called Feedback re their radio news coverage on the TalkTalk scam describing it as free broadband.  The radio viewer response program is considerably more intelligent and upmarket than the television one and a past effort to write to them on the 0870 issue nearly got an item on the program (although it seems to have been spiked by the Producer  Angry)

See www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/feedback or email feedback@bbc.co.uk
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« Last Edit: Apr 13th, 2006 at 10:28pm by N/A »  
 
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Smasher
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Re: TalkTalk Broadband + Rental + Calls + More...
Reply #14 - Apr 14th, 2006 at 11:13am
 
Quote:
Smasher wrote on Apr 13th, 2006 at 9:51pm:
How about each of us emails/writes in to Points of View and get Terry Wogan on the case?  It is the BBC being sloppy isn't it? Wink Grin  

Either that or maybe starting a thread on the PoV message board... www.bbc.co.uk/pov


Don't forget to also write to the BBC Radio equivalent program called Feedback re their radio news coverage on the TalkTalk scam describing it as free broadband.  The radio viewer response program is considerably more intelligent and upmarket than the television one and a past effort to write to them on the 0870 issue nearly got an item on the program (although it seems to have been spiked by the Producer  Angry)

See www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/feedback or email feedback@bbc.co.uk


Right well let's all get typing then!!   Cheesy

Please post here to say when you've emailed and perhaps include the email you sent in?  Wink
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