Friday 23 September 2011

Talk Talk the latest, it's official - they ARE crap.

Talk Talk voted wankiest internet provider and most complained about bunch of internet scam artists and tossers in entire history of the on-line world;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15018161

No news really.

I've moaned about this before. Here's the local proof;


As you can see the magnificent Talk Talk, with their pardners in cowboy hats and jangly spurs Openreach, manage to deliver an APPALLING  one thirtieth, rising to one twentieth, of the expected and paid for service speed.

Lets review:
  • Their fault reporting system is debilitating and wearing. Deliberately so, I am sure.
  • Their complaints process is exhausting and impenetrable - and relies on web access to use it HA HA HA HA. Oh my aching sides!!!
  • The transfer and switching process to a new ISP frankly does not bear thinking about.
  • OPENreach, who's fault some or all of this abomination still 'technically' COULD be, (who knows), are UN'reach'able except through one's ISP (see above).
Frankly, dear reader, I am so sick of this shit, and much else to be honest, that I might just cancel the accounts, rip out the plugs and return to 1989. Opting out of the information super-ditchway really appeals to me now.

What do you think? Drop me a postcard and let me know.

Oh and if you are reading this, TalkTalk, do please sort your shit out once and for all. It's your problem, not mine. We're not 'all in this together'. I am not your friend, nor your 'colleague', just a soon-to-be-ex-customer.

Thank you for tuning in to Pest Media Updates.

9 comments:

fourstar71 said...

Unfortunately, like most things in life, you get what you pay for. Talk Talk is the equivalent of those guys on Oxford Street selling cheap perfume and doing a runner when the police come round the corner.

Try Be Broadband - customer service is excellent, download speeds healthy, never had any downtime (except when i messed up my router settings, and even then they happily talked me through sorting that out) and the price even went DOWN recently.

Yes, it's £17 a month. Yes, it works. No, I don't work for them :)

office pest said...

Thank you Fourstar, I will look into it.

My nagging concern is that the archaic spliced up BT wire network up and down the roads here might be (partially) to blame. There seems to be no sane way of getting this tested (only by trial, error or failure).

But thanks for the tip about Be.

Louis Barfe said...

If you can get Be, you can get O2. Same company, but, I think, slightly cheaper for an equivalent service. Go to www.samknows.com, enter your postcode and see which services are on at your exchange.

fourstar71 said...

Same parent company, yes, but not same customer service network or (I think) exchange-located equipment. I've never had anyone recommend O2, other than on price (and look where that gets you with Talk Talk).

Annoyingly, BT have just rolled out their fibre network 'Infinity' round our area with massively increased down/up-load speeds. I'd normally avoid BT itself like the plague, but sorely tempted to give this a go!

office pest said...

Thanks chaps. Sam Knows this:

ADSL available at ~2Mbps
BT Total broadband
TalkTalk non-LLU
Sky Connect (non-LLU)
AOL broadband (non-LLU)
Pipex broadband
Plusnet broadband
Tiscali broadband
And many more...
Cable services not available
FTTC services not available
BT 21CN services not available
Wireless services not available

Re the price, Talk Talk in not in fact a cheap option (in £ notes terms). They charge what Tiscali did, over £20 a month. So if I can get a more reliable service for that or less I'd be happier..
Someone has to support these old steampunk exchanges you know. Ours is powered by Town Gas and is one of the 'League of Unextraordinary Exchanges', designed by Sir Alan Moore, who lives locally.

Louis Barfe said...

OK. Whoever you go with, they're reselling BT Wholesale. O2 tend to be the best BT resellers, in terms of service and customer care. I'd go with them.

The Cat said...

Talk Talk came to our door, ignoring the No Sales sign, and told lie after lie to get a foot in the door to get a signature. The tried to tell us that BT were selling off their exchanges!

Complaining about their sales staff proved useless.

office pest said...

I think that must have been Tory Tory, not Talk Talk, Mr Cat.

Lee Slator said...

I'm in a similar boat to you in that any broadband service I get is basically BT Wholesale. I've become a Talk Talk customer by default due to them buying up Tiscali which owned the company before. I wasn't all that impressed with their handling of a recent fault I had and it took 10 days to get someone out. However, as no-one else is as cheap as them, it doesn't make sense to change. My speed seems to be acceptable though.