New! Companion forum for the Talk Talk Hell site.

Hey guys.

Want to do some testing for me?

http://talktalkhell.jconserv.net

Go to the new Talk Talk Hell forum!

I’m still planning on running the blog and I will definitely administer the board. I thought you guys might like something a little more interactive. Like our friends at Orange Problems.

Go, register, discuss!

Technorati Tags: Talk Talk, Carphone Warehouse, forum, ADSL, DSL, Talk Talk Hell

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Broadband works, too bad nothing else does.

We’d be upset with Richard for being so damned smug, except the Carphone Warehouse got him the end.

What evil lurks in the heart of ISPs? Richard knows. More hell from LLU.

I moved to TalkTalk in November last year, signed up for the broadband package and went live on the day indicated – how smug am I??

Umm, not very – they sent me a letter (that’ll be from our friend Steve Rescorta, allegedly) notifying me they would be “upgrading” my service on 4 October and I’ve had NO landline service since (completely dead line).

Their 0870 numbers have digested my PAYG credit and I can’t call their “free from talktalk line” numbers for obvious reasons, so I’ve made numerous visits to their shops so far, and had their sales folk call customer services for me.

Alas, getting nowhere – I’ve called, I’ve written (email & snail) and I’ve visited….

They kindly arranged to forward incoming landline calls to my mobile – “it’ll take 10 hours to be activated” according to Zak at their Richmond shop – that was on 11 October, so I chased them re this and today they did forward my incoming calls, but in true TalkTalk fashion, they forwarded the calls to someone elses number, I joke not.

Apologies to the lady concerned, but they did take my number from their system – yes, they did call me back on it once to tell me my line wasn’t working(!?!)

If you can spare a moment, and have the inclination, drop in to a high street shop and take the matter up with their sales staff – save’s money, helps the shop staff realise they work for a bunch on muppets they work for, reduces sales and other customers can benefit from your experiences. Ensure the “escalate” your query when they log it on their system – most sales staff I’ve encountered don’t type too fast, so ensure you get them to take down ALL the details.

What are the benefits of moving to TalkTalk you might ask, well, “the call cost savings, sir” according to Pete in their “Faults Department”, yes, quiet, especially when you have no service on your line.

Kappy isn’t very happy….

Well, I can just say “all of the above!”. I have never experienced such useless customer service and technical support. CSR 1st line just read from a script and have no idea how to fix anything. They don’t even know what telephone number to give for 2nd line and the one I got was no longer in use. I bought a brand new IMAC along with a wireless router and since 24th October (yesm you guessed it, my upgrade date) I have had nothing but problems with connectivity. I am having to reset the router 4 to 5 times per day, no matter what time a day it is. MTU has to be below 1450 to work, have to change from dynamic to static DNS ip addresses. When I finally got through to 2nd line…an entire week later!…they said they cannot do anything as they do not have diagnostic tools. They had to excalate to the OPAL? group who would do a diagnostic on my line and exchange. If the customer service team were not so incompetent I would almost say “teething probles” but because of their incompetence I am seriously considering paying more for an ISP who can do something right! I am giveing them the week to check the line and exchange and come up with a good excuse why, in this day an age, they cannot provide decent service.

The inevitable return to BT for Ray . (Maybe that’s how BT wants it…?)

TT Customer service an absolute joke. As with most people broadband and Netgear 834 was fine until the upgrade via LLU. Lost phone line for 10 days and Netgear just won’t work anymore but TT Speedtouch works OK. Sent letter to TT High level complaints 2 weeks ago demanding explanation and compensation for complete loss of service but no reply so far. I wouldn’t even bother with”customer service”. I’m going back to BT and TT can stick their cancellation fee where the sun don’t shine!

It is indeed, the dark time of ADSL.

Technorati Tags: Talk Talk, CArphone Warehouse, free broadband, broadband, ADSL, DSL, LLU

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KANA “enhances” customer service

You guys have been busy! I’ve been going through my GMail account in an attempt to get some order to it all by sorting things into labels. One of those is ‘customer service.’ When one of you writes in with the all too common tale of being met with vast incompetence and disinterest, then it gets put there. Makes answering questions and putting posts up easier, you see. Other e-mails with different labels are also put into those categories.

Like this one, a Google Alert for the Carphone Warehouse:

KANA Software, Inc., a provider of multi-channel customer service announced Tuesday that The Carphone Warehouse, the global independent retailer of mobile phones and services has selected KANA IQ to provide a consistent, high-quality customer experience across channels.

The retailer will leverage the KANA solution to create a single source of accurate, relevant and timely information. The solution is expected to increase both customer and employee retention while reducing service delivery costs.

The Carphone Warehouse was searching for a solution to transform its approach to customer service by developing a central knowledge repository accessible to employees and customers across multiple support channels, including email, telephone and the Web.

What fundamentally terrifies me about this press release is the idea that they currently do not have a central knowledge repository (hey corporate, unblock us. We can do that for you!)

But wait, that’s not where the spine tingling terror ends!

The solution will also lower training times and improve employee satisfaction by providing them with the information required to do their jobs well.

So, the employees don’t have the information they need to do their jobs well?

That’s hardly surprising.

Have a read through Dave B’s comment.

I have numerous problems with TalkTalk.

I signed up with TalkTalk for my business. They did not make me aware that they were not providing a business service. However, they were happy to take the money from my Business account and to sign me up in my Business Name.

I was told I would go live in September 2006. They cut off my existing broadband (with BT) in June 2006 with no notification to me. I spent several days trying to talk to someone to get my business up and running. This eventually happened and they sent me their equipment and devices. Since then my broadband has failed at least 6/7 times a day, I have had to reboot my machine 3/4 times a day and have spent most of my working day getting broaband to work or being on the phone trying to contact them.

This month (October 2006) I again had problems connecting and was without service for 10 days, several days of which I had no phone service either.

For the last 2 days I have had brief access to my broadband and again have no ppone service either. TalkTalk’s attitude to customer service is appalling. Their standard response is we will get around to it within 30 days as per our terms and conditions.

I am now having to look at a switch of providers that will offer a good service. Yes it will cost me more, but, quality of service will be better.

I am having very little joy in getting TalkTalk to “Talk” to me.

I shouldn’t have to reboot my machine 3/4 times a day, the line should not drop 7/8 times a day.

Their Customer Service should be Customer focussed not TalkTalk focussed.

Thanks Dave B (He also has a website)
Read the rest of the bluster at TMCNet

Technorati Tags: Carphone Warehouse, ADSL, DSL, customer service, bad customer service, KANA

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Skulduggery, rumors… CPW getting what’s coming to them?

A mysterious stranger e-mailed me with the following info. It sounds interesting and sadly, not at all out of the question:

There is serious talk (no pun intended) of a number of industry players in
the UK taking CPW and/or their subsidiaries to the High Court for serious
breaches of contract, culminating in non-payment of very large revenue
streams. Questions are being asked as to the nature of CPW’s relationship
with certain mobile network operators (MNOs) to have been able to blantantly
ride rough-shod over these smaller distribution companies, leaving them high
and dry, with little or no hope of recouping such great losses. To many
outsiders this may appear liitle more than an industry spat, but the sad
truth is that many good, honest and innocent people have lost their
livelihoods and others are threatened with far worse, due to CPW’s apparent
disregard for their legal and financial obligations.

Ofcom shows little interest, as they claim they are only interested in
issues that effect end-users and not other participants within the industry.
Great, no help there, then! The issue arises out of the provision of
low-cost calls from offices to mobiles and the MNOs determination to stamp
out this practise, even though the Competition Appeals Court have recently
found favour in those providing such services. The mobile networks have been
extremely nervous about this action and are now faced with huge claims being
made against them.

How does this effect CPW? CPW alledgedly operated such services themselves
under the auspices of the MNOs, but prevented their own distributors from
doing so, which is what some may describe as anti-competitive practise and
very serious if proven in European court. If guilty of such practises, fines
in the millions could be levied against CPW and their shareholders should
perhaps be very nervous of the apparent hidden strategies being utilised by
the senior management within the CPW group. There is serious discontent
being expressed by inside CPW contacts who know what’s going on and want no
further part of it.

Watch this space.

Thank you, KE. I heard, as well, that a certain CEO was dropped from the OBE list this year. Things aren’t entirely rosey for the Carphone Warehouse then….

I also heard that a few ISPs actually outbid Carphone Warehouse initially for AOL UK. Apparently they went all the way up to 500 million, when the sale price was only 380.

For J and the CPW legal team’s sake, these are allegations, mere whispers, and it’s possible they’re not true.

Technorati Tags: Carphone Warehouse, ADSL, DSL, Talk Talk, Charles Dunstone

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Pensioner Protests CPW

Oh man. I’ve had fantasies about doing this.

A FURIOUS pensioner staged a lie-down demonstration to protest about poor phone service.

Brian Crews signed up with Talk Talk through the Carphone Warehouse in July because of the free broadband offer but has had numerous problems since then.

He tried to install the software to run the internet on both his computers but it only worked on one.

Mr Crews called in a computer consultant to fix the problem and made the company pay by issuing a county court summons against it.

We’re behind you Brian!

Pensioner calls on phone firm.

Technorati Tags: Carphone Warehouse, ADSL, DSL, Talk Talk

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Tool for checking mail servers

I haven’t been able to test this successfully. See, I’m part of the web mail generation. I believe in the power of portability. As a result, I rarely use my ISPs old fashioned mail servers.

However, a lot of you guys do. And I’m a accomodating kind of a girl.

I have the same problem as steve and can recieve emails but not send them. I have checked my setting and everything appears to be correct.

Question: Is there anyway of checking that the talktalk email servers are working correctly?

Try Pingability for the times when Talk Talk’s servers are down. Mind you, this could be an innacurate statement due to their rarely being up

There are other ways using Telnet and such. But you want instant results.

Talk to Kev!

Or see the other posts marked as mail.

Technorati Tags: e-mail, SMTP, Talk Talk, Carphone Warehouse, ADSL, DSL

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Hey guys!

Some good news to report.

1. The Guardian linked to us again. Hooray!

2. The site owner for Orange Problems dropped me a line. Check out his site if you’re changing to or from Orange broadband. There’s also a forum for mobile phone issues.

The usual band of updates later. Start the day with the good stuff eh?

Technorati Tags: Talk Talk, Carphone Warehouse, Orange, Guardian, blogging

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Tip for wireless users

Andrew, if you’re still running around out there with all of your broadband, let us know what kind of router you have. There may be some virtual cheese in it for you.

After calling technical support, Andrew did something more useful. He ran around and tried things that the support minions couldn’t think of.

I use Talktalk – when upgraded to 8m to found the following helps – 1. move wireless router to primary socket in your house – speed went form 3mb to 6mb and is fairly constant,

The main problem I have is the connection stops responding but I still show logged in username/passwd and dsl live – Seems Talk Talk are just crap – I will also go to BT the moment I can get out of their contract – forget ’support’ department those guys couldn’t find their arse form their elbows.

He’d better watch out, lest the spawn of the union between LLU and NetGear raise their tiny deformed heads and sabotage his good speeds.

Thanks Andrew!

Technorati Tags: Talk Talk, ADSL, DSL, Carphone Warehouse, LLU, support, tips

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AOL no longer investing in infrastructure

Ok, so, you sell to Carphone Warehouse and then ramble on in the media about how you’re planning on buying businesses that might compete with them. Sound a bit silly? Well, it happened.

That’s over now? Does someone want to tell CPW’s Charles Dunstone that the guy he just paid £370m to openly thinks he bought a dog? I’d love to be a fly on the wall on Monday morning in that particular office.

I’m kind of glad really. Reminder: AOL users should run for the hills!

TechCrunch

Technorati Tags: AOL, Talk Talk, Carphone Warehouse, Charles Dunstone

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More NetGear round up

For the NetGear users, try the below:

1. Adjust MTU. There’s a link on that post that will guide you.

2. Check CHAP and settings against the first NetGear round up post. You may need a firmware update.

3. Try the new settings in this post!

4. Try the beta firmware (Thanks chrs!) Mind you, I’m totally not liable if it hurts your router. Ok?

However, none of this may matter if you are part of the LLU group.

Issues from Michael:

Please can someone help me as I have no idea about routers and networking. It all started when a friend recommended the Netgear DG834GT wirleless router. I purchased one and plugged it in instead of the speedtouch that TT supplied. I clicked on the setup wizard and hey presto the thing worked. In fact I remember saying to my wife that it was easier to setup than the supplied modem (how I now regret saying that!). Everything was fine and I managed to get past the router dropping out every five minutes by switching my screen saver off and setting the monitor to switch off instead. That was until about 10 days ago. While connected at 576Kbps, the internet light went off which I thought was a problem with the ADSL line/exchange. I waited 24hours and still nothing. Before spending an obscene amount of money on the TT support line I tried the supplied modem. To my suprise this worked fine and still is. I therefore thought the 834 was faulty. I took this to a friends house and plugged it in to his BT line running Wanadoo as the ISP. Withing 30 seconds the nternet light illuminated and stayed on and connected perfectly. Therefore encouraged that the DG was working properly I swiftly took it home and plugged it in. You have guessed it nothing, nadda to this day the internet light will not come on yet the speedtouch works? I have changed filters, phone sockets, cables but still nothing. As I said I have never used a router before now especially a wireless one and have no ides but this just seems really really strange! How come a cheap inferior USB modem works but the expensive well reviewed one struggles. Has anyone got any suggestions as I am baffled?

LLU/NetGear combo example from Darren

Having the same problem with my DG834GT. Dropping the internet connection all the time and running very slow when running. Problem only started when upgraded to 8Mb. Have talk to Netgear Tech support they mess around with the setup tried MTU 1458 now changed to 1400 still no better. TalkTalk would not help as said they do not support any other router except Belkin. Has any one found a fix?

Firmware update didn’t work for Nehal:

well..guys, it didn’t work inspite of NETGEAR replacing the DG834G unit twice with a firmware thats has not been out officially!

I have finally managed to get a FREE brand new upgrade to DG834G-V3 router. Since it could be either a Firmware or an ISP issue, I have also sent a direct email to B. Richardson @ TalkTalk for further investigation just in case there any problem @ their end.

I am now waiting for the last one month to go online. I hate TalkTalk or should I say less Walk Walk !!! (

Some detail from chrs

Same here…

Sun, 2002-09-08 12:00:27 – Initialize LCP.

Sun, 2002-09-08 12:00:27 – LCP is allowed to come up.

Sun, 2002-09-08 12:00:31 – CHAP authentication failed

Sun, 2002-09-08 12:00:31 – LCP down.

I had been a talktalk 1MBit customer for a while, and these problems only started when I was switched over to the ‘free broadband’ 8MBit service. I understand that’s a technically completely different service, and that my DG834Gv2 might not be compatible any more. (the old USB modem still works)

Would love to try beta firmware for the router – where do I get that? it’s not on the regular Netgear support page.

thanks.

Norman can’t get anything to work:

i’ve tried 3com, belkin and netgear routers with all poss settings, NOTHING works, stills dropping connection. The problem is with talktalk but they say that they can’t help us folks with routers. Their advertising claims that routers can be used!!

A case for the lawyers I guess

Joe’s back! And his NetGear doesn’t work with the upgrade:

Netgear DG834Gv2 – Has anyone got this router to work with talktalk new 8mb service (firmware 4.01.02.00, v3.01.25)

I was upgraded to 8mb 23/20/06 and router keeps dropping, tried all the good stuff suggested on this site. Can anyone recommend a wireless router and version number that works with 8mb .

talktalk speedtouch modem works, phone line doesn’t work (no dial tone) but the phone is the least of my worries.

He also comes with a tip!

quick question – is anyone running Netgear DG834Gv2 with v3.01.31.

I have seen lots of posts on an Australian forum which says it fixed constant drop problems on ADSL2 lines.

Something that worked for Cjdinc

I have a Netgear DG384G wireless router with the following settings that works with TalkTalk

Encapsulation – PPP over ATM

DNS -Get automatically from ISP

MUltiplexing Method – VC-Based

VPI 0

VCI 38

Let me know how it’s going!

Technorati Tags: ADSL, DSL, Talk Talk, NetGear, Carphone Warehouse

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