Forums Forums Enthusiast Forums A - Z Gadgets & Tech Fibre Broadband

The continuing saga of my shi*e internet connection/speeds. Talk Talk are now proving to be as crap as Virgin Media were. Internet down the phone line has always been variable with occasional longer periods of 4 or 5mb then dipping back down to under 1 as it has been for last month or more. Usual phone calls to people you cant understand in foreign lands.. Latest one at least got me a refund and a new router which has not helped. The old router did get up to 8mb for 2 days then back down to under 1mb..
Now to make matters worse the phone cable coming down my wall has been damaged by guys installing new windows (i dont blame them as the cable was buried in render by previous owner. Internet still works slowly but the phone doesnt so i presume they have only partially damaged the cable. Have found a nick in it and bare wire. .

Maybe facing a bill for a new phone cable or had considered getting fibre installed but then found out its not fibre into your home so still comes down my now damaged cable.

Checked with talk Talk and it seems my house cant get fibre but my neighbour whose house is attached to ours can get it as can other houses in the street..am confused why we cant.

I'm experiencing the same sort of problems Fish. I'm with Talk talk and my broadband had been off and on so have spent last week , hour long phonecalls onto these people as you say sometimes I can't understand and they reading from a script anyway. I'm in the process of waiting for new router which should have been ordered on Wednesday but another call this morning wasn't, grrrr so now have to wait again.libr has been checked by openreach and that is ok so got to be router, I hope!!! I just want it sorted and I will try be claiming compensation. It's driving me insane at the moment won't come on at all on my tablet . Just tried it on my phone and can get internet , never expected I could. Soppose I must be on a different network. I don't know but at least it's something ...

Fish, I had BT telephone and Virgin broadband and then it was automatically changed to Talk Talk quite a while back, probably when yours was changed. Talk Talk were absolute garbage, constantly lost connections etc.

Anyway, got totally brassed off and looked and John Lewis. Nothing was easier. They did it all and it's paid monthly by DD. It is in fact provided through PlusNet. but I have not had one problem since going with them about 2 yrs ago.

Have a look. They've got offers on atm . Phone and Broadband ,Unlimited £20 per month , 12 month contract.

I was paying £18 month to BT of line rental only.

Nah, I forgot to pay it!

Cheers Granny. Was looking at a few different ones. BT had a black friday offer on.. Gets complicated trying to work out the costs for what you want . will take a look at that one

Hi Cools.. its so annoying trying to just watch some football or rugby highlights or you tube and it stops and buffers every 5 seconds. My eldest subscribes to netflix and he has not been able to watch it. Got a voice message off a talk talk chap and i cant understand a word of it just made out the phone number. Called Talk Talk again last night and have to go through the same spiel again only after about 5 minutes the guy came back and said he wasnt allowed to help because the problem was being dealt with those higher up than he was..Are tere any ISPs who only use white caucasian Brits!

Noticed some ISPs just say average speed up to ?. BT and maybe others say Guaranteed minimum.

That sound good Granny , I will be looking into them when I finally get sorted with talk talk , don't know how long I'm tied into them with the contract thing As Fish says I would like a UK call centre as they have Plusnet that is. Thanks Granny..

I wouldn't go back to BT. My daughter is with them, and she is constantly having problems. No phone, no internet, so she can't even contact them to inform them. They've made every excuse possible, but they are crap. Only got to look at the no phone book to see how few customers they have . It's like a diary.

Also, 1571 is no longer free, evening calls after 7pm are not free ( both of those free with plusnet) call charges are higher .

PlusNet is a bit cheaper direct than through John Lewis , difference JL is 12 month contract, PlusNet is 18 months contract.

Negotiate with these suppliers (talktalk, BT, Plusnet etc) especially on renewal, they are all after market share.

Done the deed.. Switched with a black friday deal to plusnet (john lewis looked ok but had a few extra charges with call costs etc). So now allegedly going to get a minimum guaranteed speed of 23mb plus free evening and weekend calls to landlines and mobiles for about £15 cheaper than the alledged 8mb i was supposed to get with Talk Talk. Was happy with the 18 month rather than 12 month contract with John Lewis... Its so confusing trying to compare as you have to go digging to find call charges and other hidden things like what the charges will be after your initial contract.

Sadly they're all as bad as each other when it comes to fixing problems.

Probably right but at least i might be able to understand them with a UK based help and technical line. Phillipinos are all very nice and polite but try and go off script with them.. agh!

Totally agree with you Fish mine is off most if time brief minutes at a time internet comes on!!Think I'll be following you , absolutely fed up with this!! Still waiting for this rueter!!!

Another dissatisfied TalkTalk-er here...*sigh* You never know with all these deals if you'll be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire! It's all so confusing. However, I will give Plusnet and John Lewis a look; thanks.

I'm having similar problems with Talktalk, I'm on fast? broadband?, I'm getting 6.1 mps on a good day, when I complained they asked me how fast did I want?, I replied "more than that", I think conversing with a non native english speaker doesn't help, is fibre available in Upton? and is it worth a try, bearing in mind it's only at the exchange which is nowhere near my computer.

I've just done a speed check (5.30pm) and got 4.3Mbps download and 0.8Mbps upload. Meh...
The checker site (which has some useful info) says this is slower than 87.4% of tests in NW England. Not impressed.

https://labs.thinkbroadband.com/local/postcode-search

I've just used the same tester as yourself, (8.00 pm) results were 6.1 download 0.7 upload slower than 82.9% of tests in NW England, although it's slightly better than yours it's still crap.

Fibre goes all the way to the street box and effectively eliminates most of the slow long length from the exchange that broadband uses.

Many areas around Upton are renowned for slow broadband speed.

(I currently have 72.66 download 23.54 upload on talktalk faster fibre)

First Impressions of Plusnet......couldnt organise a p up in a brewery. At least speaking to an english speaking person helped. According to 2 texts New phone number and line activated ok broadband activated. Unfortunately they forgot the little matter of sending me a router. So my talk talk internet is disconnected and now got to wait 3 or 4 days for them to send a router... Thankfully my son has tethered his mobile so i can get on the net.

Oh fish poor you it's so frustrating isn't it? Well I finally received my router and touch wood it seems to be working ok. So it seems it was an ancient router causing it. I did push for compensation as I spent more time off line in the past few weeks than on. They counted so many days then gave me £5 Goodwill gesture so not a great sum but something so fir the time being I'll stick with Talk talk see how I get on..

Cools i at least managed to get a months worth of compensation from talk talk but it didnt cover the neflix subscription which the kids couldnt use.. Plusnet router arrived and back online but so far no where near the 23mb minimum they promise. Best so far 10mb which has dropped to 8mb. and i notice they have put my bill up from the black friday deal i took. Going to play around with router position in a few days to see if can improve it. Good luck with talk talk.

@fish Your broadband is going down exactly the same long wires with Plusnet as it was with Talktalk, furthermore those wires are still maintained by openreach, basically nothing has changed, it will settle down to roughly the same speed as it was before.

If you want to get a decent speed your best option is with fibre, plusnet have a half decent offer on at the moment - though not as cheap as talktalk.

as Dig has said if you only have teh one product avaialble in your location - you would have similar perfomance whoever the service provider is.
You can check what network products are available on teh Openreach network here -
https://www.homeandbusiness.openreach.co.uk/fibre-broadband/when-can-i-get-fibre

Virgin has a similar checker here
https://www.virginmedia.com/postcode-checker/

If Openreach offer higher bandwdth capability, you just have to make sure your provider of choice supports it.