Talk Talk Broadband Review
with updates and solutions to problems
Reviewed by Jas.C.Brooke.

This review includes valuable hints and tips for potential and existing Talk Talk broadband users.

Best price - best service?

Previously, Talk Talk's "free broadband" package was only available with their Talk 3 plan so you got all your daytime calls free.
Now broadband is offered at an extremely low price with the Talk 2 package. Daytime calls are 5.25p for 70mins so if you make an average of 3 daytime calls per day, the Talk 3 plan may be a better option (£20.49 per month)

Is all this too good to be true? What's the catch? That's what I wanted to find out and the following review shows my findings.

I searched the internet and found lots of people complaining about delays in delivering the service and poor response by 'technical support'. In 2006 Talk Talk said that initial take-up was double what they'd estimated and that they'd make it their top priority to solve the problems. Have they?

The review: My experience of Talk Talk Broadband

Product: Talk Talk Broadband System: PC running Windows XP Location: Manchester, UK Installation Date: Autumn 2006 Sign up Registration online was straight forward but I had to submit one page two or three times before it was accepted: perhaps their servers were finding it hard to keep up with demand? Modem Talk Talk strongly encouraged you to purchase their "optional" ADSL2 modem at £29.99 - they explained that buying the modem means you'll get full support as they are responsible for and understand the whole system. I felt a bit pushed into it so I checked the price and type of modem against other offerings on the internet: It seemed to be a fair price for a decent modem! Since then, Talk Talk have started offering the modem for free (wireless is an optional extra - but many find it less reliable). Catch? - Instead of paying £29.99 for a modem these days, there's £29.99 "set up" charge - same thing! Switch over day Talk Talk explained that switching the phone line takes about 3 weeks. It actually took 14 days and there were no problems. It was a great feeling finally waving goodbye to BT! 'Go live' day Talk Talk gave me a later date at which Broadband would 'go live'. The initial prediction was 5 weeks after sign up but the modem arrived and a letter giving a 'go live' date that was much earlier, in fact 2 days after the phone switch! I couldn't ask for faster delivery of service, which suggested Talk Talk had certainly got their act together after initial problems. However, the provision of broadband is easier in some areas of the country than others. If you live near a major city I suspect you're more likely to get broadband more quickly. The 'go live' date arrived and setup was quite easy. Even so, I ran into a number of problems: While setting up the MicroFilter I recalled that you need one for every piece of equipment that uses the phone line else they will interfere with the broadband while they're in use. Perhaps there should have been a box in the order process inviting me to order extra MicroFilters? All phone-based broadband requires MicroFilters - the requirement is not unique to Talk Talk broadband. Talk Talk sell MicroFilters (click here) at a reasonable £3.99 with free P&P. The supplied ADSL cable was only about 1.5m long but I had a wire from a phone extension (from Argos) that was much longer and worked fine until March 2007: Talk Talk warned that there would be interuption to the service for part of the day: They're fitting their own equipment into BT exchanges and it was time to change over to the new equipment. The interruption occured. Unfortunately, I found that the minor interuption persisted beyond a single day: The telephones worked fine but I could no longer get online! I phoned their customer services expecting I'd be one of thousands who would now be in a customer service queue - but no: I got though straight away! Talk Talk asked if the modem was connected to the main socket in the house. I explained that it wasn't t but it had been working fine until their interuption! Despite my protest, they advised me to connect to the main socket to test it. I did, expecting it to still not work - but... it worked! I then tried removing the phone extension from the other phone socket and... it worked! Although the problem was solved, I was rather mythed that everything had been fine until Talk Talk's interruption. Anyway, I came up with a solution that may be of use to others: Broadband cable solution One of the following actions would resolve the 'My modem's near a phone socket but miles from my PC' problem I spent £10 on a 10m long LAN (local area network) cable to connect the modem to the PC. Network cables can be really long! The important thing is to get the modem near the phone socket - it doesn't matter that there's a long cable between the modem and the PC! If you're using USB then obviously you'd need a long USB cable instead of a network cable Another alternative is to go wireless but that costs more and is more likely to contribute to "internet problems" than a cable! The Email setup presumed I used Outlook or Outlook Express. Most people do but not me! I configured the email manually for use in Thunderbird. It worked fine first time (which is quite unusual for email!) The supplied Connect & Go software directed me to the Talk Talk site where I could register for online billing. It warned that if I didn't, they'd charge an extra £1 for a paper bill. I entered a few details and was then invited to add the new Account Number. I repeatedly attempted to input the number on my order, resulting in the unhelpful message: [[ Missing Article for Asset: ERR_INACTIVE_ACC ]] Any other number gave a different error so I presumed my account was not properly active?! I emailed Talk Talk for support (see later). The Connect & Go CD installs Assist & Go problem diagnostic software which presumed I was running Internet Explorer (which again, most people are) but it wouldn't run with Explorer version 7. This problem has since been resolved. The final problem was the worst: Although the broadband was working, as soon as the PC was switched off and back on, it stopped working altogether. The only way to get it working again was to reinstall the modem using the Connect & Go CD! The Talk Talk FAQ pages didn't help. A search of the internet helped me reach the following solution: Broadband problem solved Taking the following steps resolved the 'It only works until you switch off your PC' problem Click on 'Start' to bring up the Windows Start menu Under 'Connect To' Click on 'Show all connections' Ignore the 'Talk Talk Broadband' connection listed under 'Dial-up' and look under LAN or High-Speed Internet. Right-Click on the connection that is your Talk Talk modem (If you've chosen Ethernet/LAN as I did then look for the Local Area Connection that's 'connected' and Right-Click on that) then Click on 'Properties' in the pop-up menu Hilight the 'Internet Protocol (TCP-IP)' item (not the tick box) and Click on the 'Properties' box below Click on 'Use the following DNS server addresses' Click in the top box at the left hand side and type the follwing numbers and dots 62.24.128.17 Click in the lower box at the left hand side and type the follwing numbers and dots 62.24.128.18 Click OK and OK in the other window to complete It seems that something has been fixed since I had these problems as I no longer need to have these DNS addresses set: Untick the 'Use the following DNS server addresses' box! Talk Talk / AOL start page Talk Talk provide a start page (home page) in association with AOL. AOL provide the content. This is a real negative for me! I don't use it but I took a look at it. A series of News articles cycle on your screen - headlines were accompanied by photos and the photos were generally of young women. One of the news articles was about the need to "love yourself". As a Christian I was interested what it had to say - I wasn't expecting much - perhaps a psychiatrist encouraging you to pamper yourself and feel good about yourself. I was shocked to find that "love yourself" led directly to a "sex" page encouraging females to masturbate - and this was among the day's news articles?! My advice: ditch their "start page" and use a better one! start.praying.it (Click here) is a configurable, easy access homepage you can set up with your own choice of sites. Talk Talk Email A handful of Email Addresses are provided with TalkTalk. All too often people use the Email Address that's provided by their Internet Service Provider (ISP - TalkTalk in this case) and don't realise the consequences or the opportunities they're missing out on. If you've always wanted to be yourname_with_numbers@talktalk.net then your dream will come true! Testing the connection speed over for TalkTalk Email over the months has suggested that Incoming Email can be problematic - painfully slow and occasionally unavailable. Outgoing Email doesn't seem to suffer the same. All in all: Ditch it! - and use a different Email Account and a better Email Address. You can get both for free at Golden Surfer (Click here) even if you don't use the Golden Surfer service!

Once installed...
The speed of the broadband is most noticable when you're downloading data: 100k per second seems to be the minimum but sometimes I've had average speeds over 200k per second - that's 40 x dial-up speeds!
With this speed, my emails seem to fly off instantly: I don't hang around waiting for large emails to finally land in my in-box. I don't need to worry about whether or not the system is 'still online' and I don't need to wait for it to 'dial up' (except for the delay in Broadband access when I switch on my PC).
(September 2007) Months have gone by and I've experienced hardly any problems with loss of speed or loss of connection. For a couple of months after TalkTalk changed over to their own equipment at the BT exchange, I found getting online was occasionally problematic but the service initially and recently has been very reliable!

Support...
I waited 29 hours for 'support' to respond to my email about the 'Inactive Account' issue. The response came with an apology for the delay and I was satisfied that some attempt had clearly been made to rectify the problem: 'Support' seemed to be reasonably fast in their initial response.

However, I was concerned that they asked me to disclose username and password information over non-encrypted email: not a good idea! Here's how I got round it:

• In MyAccount, change user password to one that can be reconstructed from the personal information they know about you (e.g. your phone number followed, without a space, by your account number)
• Once things are sorted, change the password back again.

Just then, a letter arrived: It was the first bill from Talk Talk. The account number was shown on the bill and was different to the "unique customer number" I'd been trying to input. Both numbers started with a letter followed by 6 digits so perhaps it wasn't obvious to "support" that I was using the wrong number: The system and written communication could have prevented my problem.

Documentation like this would have helped:

Please wait for your first bill to arrive through the post. It will include your account number. Your account number is not the same as your unique reference number If you wish to receive further bills by post they will cost £1 per bill Otherwise, please follow this procedure to activate online billing: ...

Conclusion

Although I found a number of problems with installation and support, the result has been well worth the money! I can experience the convenience of a fast Broadband connection 24/7 and that's what you want when you buy broadband! I still have concerns about 'support' but you're less likely to need that once you're up and running. I wouldn't pay an extra £lots a month to buy an alternative package.

If you're after low cost, high performance broadband then Talk Talk Broadband is still a fantastic offer! Armed with my experience, you will not have the same installation problems I had but you would hopefully have the same results - fast broadband at a fraction of the normal price!