Shell vs TalkTalk for Broadband?

[CrouchingWayne]

I've reached the end of my contract with TalkTalk which has been absolutely fine for the past few years - however the renewal price for 67mbps is £26/mo compared to £22/mo from Shell with some cash back incentives.

The lazy person in me thinks TalkTalk is the easy option

The mercenary thinks go with the cheapest available, especially since TalkTalk offer new customers lower rates anyway...

Has anyone moved to Shell who can comment on their service? Like most broadband is pretty much essential here so happy to spend a few more quid if it secures a better service.

[colin79666]

If service matters more to you than price then neither. Zen or A&A.

[bimsb6]

CrouchingWayne said:

I've reached the end of my contract with TalkTalk which has been absolutely fine for the past few years - however the renewal price for 67mbps is £26/mo compared to £22/mo from Shell with some cash back incentives.

The lazy person in me thinks TalkTalk is the easy option

The mercenary thinks go with the cheapest available, especially since TalkTalk offer new customers lower rates anyway...

Has anyone moved to Shell who can comment on their service? Like most broadband is pretty much essential here so happy to spend a few more quid if it secures a better service.

I’m not sure who shell use to provide the service , I can’t remember ever doing a job for them (i work for openreach)


A quick google says talktalk .u.k based call centres but doesn’t say if open 24/7 .

Edited by bimsb6 on Saturday 30th October 15:36

[CrouchingWayne]

TalkTalk seem to be 9 - 6 or similar call centres from my interactions with them. No idea on Shell.

Looking on Quidco and similar price from Plusnet and Vodafone. I've had bad experiences with Vodafone mobile previously so will probably skip them. Plusnet seem to be a big name though?

Had a look at Zen - almost double the price seems a bit rich, do they bring anything to the table to warrant that or is it better support if / when needed? Not sure on A&A - never heard of them before but will have a look.

[colin79666]

PlusNet are BT by another name. Zen a bit expensive but decent support, their router is also decent and no price rises the second you get out of contract, you also get a static IP address.

Andrew’s and Arnold are the gold standard but you really pay for it.

[wrong_turn]

Shell uses TalkTalk, I think. If I'd known this when I moved in I would have chosen a different supplier but it's been fine.

I've been using them for about 18 months, installation was a breeze, no technician. I just plugged the router into the existing line. It's quite a nice router (although I already have an identical one and a couple of other ones from previous moves! Nobody mention e-waste...), it has a USB slot which you can use as an NAS or charger. No antennas but I connect via ethernet anyway, and the house isn't big enough for range to be an issue.

I'm paying £28.99 per month for "53-76mbps". I actually get a steady 7-8MB/s which is about 56-64mbps so bang on. I've not had any issues and they haven't mentioned my extremely heavy usage.

Speed is using fibre to the green cabinet, then copper to the house. My last place had fibre to the cupboard under the stairs but was slightly slower...

Edited by wrong_turn on Sunday 31st October 01:26

[CrouchingWayne]

wrong_turn said:

Shell uses TalkTalk, I think. If I'd known this when I moved in I would have chosen a different supplier but it's been fine.

I've been using them for about 18 months, installation was a breeze, no technician. I just plugged the router into the existing line. It's quite a nice router (although I already have an identical one and a couple of other ones from previous moves! Nobody mention e-waste...), it has a USB slot which you can use as an NAS or charger. No antennas but I connect via ethernet anyway, and the house isn't big enough for range to be an issue.

I'm paying £28.99 per month for "53-76mbps". I actually get a steady 7-8MB/s which is about 56-64mbps so bang on. I've not had any issues and they haven't mentioned my extremely heavy usage.

Speed is using fibre to the green cabinet, then copper to the house. My last place had fibre to the cupboard under the stairs but was slightly slower...

Edited by wrong_turn on Sunday 31st October 01:26

It’s ironic if they use TalkTalk when they can’t beat, match or get particularly close to Shell price wise for existing customers!

It’s probably my lack of understanding but how does your 7-8mbps tie to the 56-64mbs advertised?

I’ve had no issues with talktalk speed or data wise so if it’s the same service provided I’d be happy with that.

Thanks for the tips from everyone else - A&A is overkill for me I think. Zen is top end of what I’d look at I think but hard to justify when it’s available for half elsewhere.

If PlusNet are basically BT are they a better bet than TT/Shell? Prices similar. I’ve never been with BT but thought they had mixed reviews as well?

[Brainpox]

CrouchingWayne said:

It’s probably my lack of understanding but how does your 7-8mbps tie to the 56-64mbs advertised?

Broadband is advertised in Megabits (Mb) per second

Download speeds are often measured in Megabytes (MB) per second

There are 8 bits to a byte, 8MB/s = 64Mb/s

[e-honda]

A&A ISP subscribers are a special bunch, i feel sorry for anyone who works in thier first line support. They have customers who on a lucid day could detect an issue with the upstream network provider's config that is causing an outage and successfully implement a work around and notify everyone else of the fix via ham radio before the upstream isp has even detected its broken.
However on a normal day they will be asking questions like why won't the power plug for my firebrick fit in the wall socket today? Because Alan you future proofed your house in 1993 by converting to DC and you have once again forgotten you need an AC adaptor for everything you own.

[wrong_turn]

CrouchingWayne said:

It’s probably my lack of understanding but how does your 7-8mbps tie to the 56-64mbs advertised?

So, 7-8 megabytes per second are equal to 56-64 megabits per second. It's a marketing trick. To me, megabytes per second are what count especially as a lot of downloads are now weighing in at gigabytes.

Edit - the capitalisation is important in these speeds, the vendors like to use megabits because of the bigger numbers. Here's a source

I did get the capitalisation wrong admittedly.

Edited by wrong_turn on Sunday 31st October 16:39

[TonyRPH]

CrouchingWayne said:

It’s ironic if they use TalkTalk when they can’t beat, match or get particularly close to Shell price wise for existing customers!

<snip>

It's not really ironic at all, if you understand the technicalities behind it.

For example, one way of keeping costs down is to increase the contention ratio (the amount of customers on a given "line") - as a very simplistic example - Talk Talk may have 100 customers on a single access point in the exchange or data centre - but because Shell are paying less, their connections might be assigning 500+ customers to a single access point.

So whilst the connection speeds are claimed to be the same (and they will be during quiet periods), during busy periods the higher contention (more customers per access point) could result in a much slower connection.