Shambles that is Talk Talk.
Author
Discussion

rjg48

Original Poster:

2,671 posts

91 months

Wednesday 23rd September 2020
quotequote all
So for months now I have no dialtone
on my homephone, and funky new Talk Talk router isn't working either. No dialtone or Broadband basically.

Been driven nuts by Customer Service who keep telling they have tested the line and that is fine. Who cares?

They can never answer the question if line OK then why no Phone or WiFi.

Any ideas what the problem may be?

Any recommendions on who to go with instead? I don't any "you'd be stupid not to "Packages".

Just cheapish reliable internet.

mph999

2,778 posts

250 months

Wednesday 23rd September 2020
quotequote all
Stupid question, have you removed the faceplate on the master socket and plugged the phone/ router into the test socket. (As a faulty faceplate, or anything connected to it (extensions, alarm ) could cause an issue.). The test socket is the responsibility of the provider.

To answer your question, PlusNet have been excellent for me, with the bonus of uk based call centres.

Scrump

23,947 posts

188 months

Wednesday 23rd September 2020
quotequote all
I have been with talk talk for a few years now and find the customer service acceptable (only acceptable, not great).

Last year my internet kept cutting out. After spending ages on the phone with their customer service people going through silly basic checks they said they would send out an openreach engineer. Engineer arrived a couple of days later and replaced the cable runnng down the outside of my house.

A few months ago I upgraded to Gfast (which actually reduced my monthly bill confused ). Again it was installed within a few days and talktalk kept sending me emails showing the checks on the line and how it was functioning. It has been really good.

No help to you I know but thought I would add an alternative view.

rjg48

Original Poster:

2,671 posts

91 months

Wednesday 23rd September 2020
quotequote all
Thank you ftor the reply. The box everything plugs into is an old BT one. Is this what you are talking about?

We just got a new Router from Talk Talk and everything had been working fine for some.time.

Thanks for Plus Net tip too.

rjg48

Original Poster:

2,671 posts

91 months

Wednesday 23rd September 2020
quotequote all
Thanks Scrump.

The Customer Service isn't all that.

We have gone from line working great, then problem with BT. They seem to have forgotten that one now.

Oilchange

9,724 posts

290 months

Wednesday 23rd September 2020
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Ive just left them, crikey they didn’t like that!
Got a couple of calls, last one the hard sell from their loyalty department... no thanks.

mph999

2,778 posts

250 months

Wednesday 23rd September 2020
quotequote all
rjg48 said:
Thank you ftor the reply. The box everything plugs into is an old BT one. Is this what you are talking about?

We just got a new Router from Talk Talk and everything had been working fine for some.time.

Thanks for Plus Net tip too.
Yes, depending how old it is the faceplate comes off and has what looks like the socket on the phone lead, which plugs into what I called the test socket, which runs directly out of your house. Any extensions run off the removable faceplate , hence by removing this you can test the line with nothing else plugged in. If it works then, the issue is either the faceplate or something connected to it, if it still doesn’t work, it’s the line to the house.

Andy-SP2

271 posts

106 months

Wednesday 23rd September 2020
quotequote all
One possibility to consider..

If someone were working on the network, it's possible to get 2 lines crossed. Whilst your line would appear dead, when Talktalk test it, they are testing towards another property and all seems well

rjg48

Original Poster:

2,671 posts

91 months

Thursday 24th September 2020
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Thanks for all the useful replies.


tivver500

376 posts

300 months

Thursday 24th September 2020
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I have been with TalkTalk for about 15 years but recently I've had significant issues which are making me look elsewhere...
I'm on my third router (as my phone line is ok - I'm only 400mtrs from the exchange). Internet drops off frequently but phone quality is constant.
It's a reasonable bet that the TT server in the local exchange is the main culprit but TT would never admit that and it's also maintained, under contract, by a third party.
As an electronics engineer (for over 40 years) I do get rather pi55ed off being asked, for the 4th time, if my router is plugged in and switched on!!
Final straw was their TV box (it's only the second one I've had) locked up and had to do a factory reset consequently losing everything I'd recorded.
Their price is good and generally performance meets the specification but customer service is pretty appalling (even though the individual staff try to be helpful).
BT is going to be about £10pm more but will give me double broadband speed....

Zoon

7,305 posts

151 months

Thursday 24th September 2020
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We've had issues with Talk Talk broadband dropping out, some days up to ten times a day.
It has improved recently however.

Benni

3,721 posts

241 months

Thursday 24th September 2020
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Nothing new, the guy with the sunglasses always looked suspicious and his voice was grating.

Who me ?

7,455 posts

242 months

Thursday 24th September 2020
quotequote all
rjg48 said:
Thanks for all the useful replies.
Somewhere in your house you will have a BT master socket. It's about 90mm square, with a split front plate held on with two screws. Unscrew the screws and access the socket beneath. That is the test point for the line. If there's no dial tone at that point then line is down and it's an Openreach fault. The best thing to do ( prevents any arguments) is to check for no dial tone at this point and then take same phone to a friend and then check that you get dial tone. Even better is to report line fault from friends house using you're own phone. This means that when OR operator asks why you think line is dead that you can say that the phone you are using gets no dial tone in your socket. It's not unknown for the last bit of your line to be "stolen" by an OR contractor.

anonymous-user

84 months

Friday 25th September 2020
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Best get back into Talk Talk
Could be their kit in the exchange more likely Openreach fault if no dial tone to the demarcation point.
They will most likely pass it to Openreach to get it fixed (hopefully). With the usual threat of charges if the fault is on your wiring.
Most other providers will use the same wires, so your stuffed until fixed whoever you go to, if a line fault
Any ‘fibre’ providers your way?
My Openreach line was rubbish so I went to Virgin Fibre.

rjg48

Original Poster:

2,671 posts

91 months

Saturday 26th September 2020
quotequote all
There is an ancient looking box in the porch that runs a couple of wires to the BT thing.

I.must check the connectivity

rjg48

Original Poster:

2,671 posts

91 months

Saturday 3rd October 2020
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fk it!

Signed up to Plusnet.

I should be up and running in a week or so.

£23 a Monthish for High Speed Fibre plus a working Land Line.



eccles

14,401 posts

252 months

Sunday 4th October 2020
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Andy-SP2 said:
One possibility to consider..

If someone were working on the network, it's possible to get 2 lines crossed. Whilst your line would appear dead, when Talktalk test it, they are testing towards another property and all seems well
I've had this happen to me, luckily the Openreach chap (sent by ZEN) persevered and found it. My wires were connected to a different socket so the line test was OK but I had nothing.
The same thing happened to my sister in law (in Bristol). She's with Talk Talk and they messed her around for 6 weeks before they finally got a bloke out to check everything, and even then it took three visits (or 5 if you include the 2 where the bloke just didn't turn up!) to sort the problem.

skip_1

3,514 posts

220 months

Saturday 10th October 2020
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Our issues with Talk talk (signal slowing to a crawl constantly) was solved when they tried us on the 'Sagem' version of the router. It looks identical to the other brand which I can't recall the manufacturer of.

rjfp1962

9,375 posts

103 months

Saturday 10th October 2020
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[quote=Scrump]I have been with talk talk for a few years now and find the customer service acceptable (only acceptable, not great).
Last year my internet kept cutting out. After spending ages on the phone with their customer service people going through silly basic checks they said they would send out an openreach engineer. Engineer arrived a couple of days later and replaced the cable runnng down the outside of my house.

This is my experience of Talk-Talk too. Acceptable customer service (Just!), but too many automated emails/texts saying either no fault with line or service should now be back to normal when clearly it wasn't. Firstly they sent me a new router - no change with problem - back to going through the procedure of basic checks, emails and texts.. Eventually got an OpenReach engineer who replaced the cable running outside of the house. Problem sorted!
Internet speed isn't great ether, but now Virgin Fibre broadband has reached this area - might go down that route...

Snubs

1,430 posts

169 months

Monday 30th November 2020
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To resurrect this thread, having been with Plusnet for years I recently switched to Talk Talk and got a new router from them last week. The internet connection occasionally drops, which it did with Plusnet too so nothing new there. However...

With my old Plusnet router when the connection dropped, the light on the front changed from blue to flashing orange to show it had dropped, then when the connection came back after a minute or two it sorted itself out and got back up and running with no input from me. With the TalkTalk router, when the connection drops the light on the front stays white as if nothing had happened, but the real problem is it doesn't reconnect to the internet. The only way to get the internet back again is to turn the router off and on again, which is just pathetic and can a PITA.

Anyone else experienced this by chance? Is it a case of 'they all do that sir' and I should save myself a lot of time and faff by just buying my own router to replace it?