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I think the award for the most crap broadband service goes to Talk Talk this month. Someone just forwarded me the following, which I've heard confirmed from a number of other sources too.

1. They block P2P traffic, even with Azureus' encryption you cannot get more than 5kbps from BitTorrent. You can only use it between midnight and 8am. They don't block any ports though, it's protocol filtering they're using.

2. They have a 40Gb bandwidth limit per month, so you can't download more than 5Gb in a month, not that you could manage that at 5Kbps anyway! Why they offer 8Mbps I don't know, if they only allow Email and web.

3. Their DNS is crap. I have to use the open 4.2.2.6 server as the TT ones don't work most of the time.

4. They don't support routers, so if you phone up they will refuse to help you if aren't using their awful USB frog.

5. Their tech support line is a premium rate 0870 number (not to Bangalore though!)

9. Instead of getting a 404 error for an incorrect URL, you'll get redirected to a website which they claim is what you meant to type - usually www.kelkoo.co.uk, who I assume pay them. This would indicate to me that the use a transparent proxy too."

Al said...
I would rather gouge my eyes out with a rusty spork before ever signing up with talktalk again!
we recently had our line upgraded to 8mb and were actually achieveing 700+ kb/s speeds... until a week ago; at which point TT made some changes :| After spending an hour on the phone to them today theyve told me they dont support p2p and there's nothing they can do to change that. 30kb/s is now the best i can manage... do they honestly imagine they can offer such a poor service and still get peoples repeat business?! I think theyre in a for a bit of a shock when it comes down to their first years renewalls!

james said...
unable to accsess talk talk or msn e mail systems for 10 days now. What is being done about this disgraceful situation ?? I have seen the problems other usersers have and it is "High Time " something was done. Let us ALL cancel our contracts with Talk Talk and JOIN a decent team so we can once more be in contact with friends & family.I for one am going to phone Trade Discription officers to check "breach of conract" rules. Why don,t YOU ALL DO THE SAME ? Good Luck. JAMES

Ste said...
I'm a Carphone employee and I agree with most of the points raised there. However I should point out that one or two of your bullet points raised there are incorrect. There is a 40Gb DOWNLOAD limit per month not bandwidth which compared to the likes of orange and others that give a poxy 2gb download limit per month is pretty substantial. Talk talk also DO support routers and I would recommend Belkin products over their own talk talk router which is made by phillips but I have to agree are awful. Finally their customer services number IS an 0870 number but the cost of the call to any talk talk customer services number that begins with 0870 is taken up by talk talk themselves so is ENTIRELY free to the customer making the call.

Sunday, 20th August 2006

Talk! Talk, they're having a laugh!