TalkTalk Broadband dropping out

[bob]

Any one had problems the last two days with their TalkTalk Broadband.

Bob S

[LadyDeliah]

Mine has been awful for the past few months but has got worse over the last 2 weeks.

I've just signed up with BT and if Talk Talk try to enforce the contract I signed with them I'll shout at them for breach of contract in not supplying me with the service I have paid for.

Totally effed off with Talk Talk now.

[bodsier]

talk talk has been rubbish from day one as far as i am concerned. constantly drops out, but it is cheap.....you get what you pay for i guess.

[the-e-dealer]

BT arent the fastest or the cheapest but THEY ARE THE MOST RELIABLE.

And this from Someone who hates them as they took a year to put in 10GB Resilient line at work!

[TheArtfulDogger]

same problem but with a Tiscali account (now talk talk)

Intesting that whilst talktalk provide the service, it still comes down BT lines and goes through the BT exchange.

hmmm conspiracy theory forming in my head

[Ameliesmum]

I've been having problems today and I'm with orange with a BT landline..

[bob]

Thanks for all the input I totally forgot all talktalk use BT land line's

???????

Bob S

[sunnyspells]

Yes. My talk talk keeps dropping in and out. Does anyone know why and if they use the BT landlines, then will changing to BT (which I have been considering for ages) help?

[Penguin68]

It may help to understand a bit about the way that line based broadband is offered.

Broadband (line based) has only two underlying local carriers, NTL/ Virgin (cable company) who have a monopoly provision of (mainly) coax connections and who are not obliged to share their lines with competitors and Openreach, the Wholesale arm of BT Group, who provide copper pair to most households. BT Group is obliged to let competitors use this copper network (on a wholesale basis). Most competitive broadband carriers using BT infrastructure now operate Local Loop Unbundling (LLU). Openreach provides and maintains the local network for its customers ? BT retail arms and those competing with BT retail arms, such as TalkTalk. Openreach is obliged to treat its various customers in an even-handed manner. Openreach also provides fibre network ?to the cabinet? (copper beyond) and is trialling fibre to the premises. These two form the backbone to e.g. the BT Infinity offer.

Openreach network terminates on exchange equipment which is provided by BT or by its competitors, which can put its racks into BT premises. It is from these racks that ?intelligent? services ? such as broadband via ADSL and its variants is delivered.

Problems with broadband which are local loop based will include signal attenuation (when the copper loop to the exchange equipment travels a long distance) and signal interruption ? when the pairs which may go through a number of flexibility points become interrupted (disconnected). Sometimes copper pairs may also be cross connected accidently. Attenuation will tend to be a permanent feature (setting a maximum speed possible), interruption may well mean an entire loss of signal.

Most problems with broadband transmission occur in the providers? equipment and network (i.e. beyond the Openreach remit) or in customers? equipment, particularly modems/ routers in customers? premises. Sometimes problems in intermittent speeds will be caused by contention, when a lot of customers are trying to use a limited amount of e.g. bandwidth on connecting cables. Contention can't happen within the (openreach provided) local network (everyone has their own twisted pair back to the exchange - there is an exception if pair-gain kit is being used, but that's very unusual in the London network as it should only be used where there's overhead distribution - most of ED is underground). You can get contention within cable company local provision.

This means that customers may well have very different broadband experiences based on their own equipment or their providers? ? with the Openreach network frequently quite neutral. Unfortunately with 3 players (retail providers of broadband, wholesale provider of network and your own equipment (which may include your own computers) identifying and tracing faults and improving quality can be quite complex (and each player would prefer to see the problem in another?s area).

[NB mobile carriers also offer broadband access wirelessly - in many cases their cell sites will be connected into their own controlling network via BT supplied cables - indeed BT may provide and run this network for them].

[TheArtfulDogger]

I see that Penguin68 elongs to the speaking plain English party ;-)

however thank you for the technical explination, amd it hasn't answered why talktalk is so poor in ED at the moment?

[Penguin68]

amd it hasn't answered why talktalk is so poor in ED at the moment?

I can't answer that, I have nothing (now) to do with any carriers, other than myself being a customer - however I had written what I did as a response to discussion about TalkTalk's use of BT (actually Openreach, as an arm's length subsidiary of BT) landlines. What I was trying to make clear was that the landlines are only one part of the complexity, and a shared landline supplier might well not lead to a shared broadband experience. If the problem is with talkTalk it might be either a technical problem on their local equipment in BT exchanges, or possibly problems of contention (too many customers for the kit they have installed). It is also possible that they have made software changes to their system but these have not been properly picked up by local modems/ routers. It may also be that you have made software changes to your system which have created incompatibilities. I recall a few years ago that when iTunes was updated in one release it created a software problem in some routers - that took a lot of time to identify and sort out.

[peterstorm1985]

Thanks Penguin68 for a very comprehensive explanation. I took it slow, and read every word, and think I got my head round it.

Simplistically, whilst a lot of broadband suppliers rely on BT for the fundamental supply, nevertheless, enough of the service is dependent on their own equipment (or the customers') such that, when things go wrong, it would be a mistake to assume that the fault can be traced back to BT. On occasion it may be BT's fault but don't let Talk Talk or anyone else use BT as an excuse for their own failings.

I use to be with Talk Talk. I didn't sign up with them; they bought out my previous supplier. From the moment they took over, the service went downhill. They clearly had staff issues as I had endless emails telling me who the 'new' local service manager was. I had a constant stream of phone calls trying to get me to 'upgrade'. This was a year ago.

Now I'm with BT. I'm very glad we changed. They do ring you to try and flog Infinity but otherwise leave you alone.

[Pippo Inzaghi]

Had the same problem with Tiscali/Talk Talk for months... broadband would be fine for an hour, then drop off for an hour, fine for a day, drop off for a day. Went on for too long.

I rang a couple of weeks back and said I was totally naffed off with the service. They said they'd get an engineer to check the line and get back to me.

Haven't heard a thing from anyone, but since then, the line's not dropped off once, and what was regularly a 250kb or less download speed is now regularly at about 6mb.

Bingo! I think they can boost the juice to the broadband if you complain enough.

[bob]

PI

Have you got the phone No you used please.

Bob S

[Masterblaster]

if you really want the best service switch to be broadband. Had some issues at first with corrupt profile on my computer. Technically competent staff member after one other person, who spent an hour fixing the computer. Never had better computer related service.