Pooh

I didn’t think that subject needed any more elaboration. I’m not really sure about this, I installed the dialler for the Speedtouch and that was it as far as Talk Talk software. I’m enormously skeptical about what ISPs bundle after my experience with Blueyonder. (The horror, the horror.)

Sorry if this is covered somewhere in your site (it is a very big, and may I say excellent site), but has anybody found a way to disable the TalkTalk SPAM filter without taking up their F Secure software ?

Some of my (very much not SPAM mail) gets trapped by their filter, and I have to go to the TT webmail and “liberate it” every now and again – I use Outlook for mail normally.

Thank you very much Pooh! Flattery will get you everywhere.

Talk to Pooh if you have an answer

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

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Little update to AOL + CPW lovefest

Apparently they aren’t going to merge into one gigantic amorphous blob of scariness. Or at least that’s how I interpret this e-mail.

I can confirm that Carphone Warehouse is taking over AOL’s company. However it will still continue to operate as a separate company from Carphone Warehouse’s other Broadband suppliers, TalkTalk and OneTel, if you do have any queries please contact the AOL customer services and they will be able to help you further.

Have tried to cancel AOL because of disatisfaction and also because I think things will get worse with CPW but am told I still have 5 months left on my aOL contract.Funny though I didn’t make any contract with CPW.

AOL’s retention is a littl frightening. It might be worth investigating sneaking out of it. I do recomment keeping records of everything you do when you want to cancel. Everything.

Everything.

Talk to Banon!

Technorati Tags: AOL UK, Talk Talk, Carphone Warehouse, broadband, ADSL, DSL

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Geronimo goes the Ts and Cs!

Geronimo has done a brilliant write up of some of Talk Talk’s guidelines and how they don’t actually work.

It does seem like the LLU process is dramatically effects phone service. Almost all of you have reported up to 2 weeks of communication black out. In some random form of PR speak, it does confirm a lot of the issues you guys report. Just substitute the ‘kind of bad’ stuff for ‘this is going to kill your connection’ and you pretty much have it.

No 1. “Will my internet service be affected? No. If you use a dial-up internet service which connects via a free phone number (e.g. 0800 or 0808) calls to this number will continue to be free. If you have broadband, switching to TalkTalk won’t affect your service.”

Comment:- UNTRUE! if you’ve been unbundled. TRUE if you haven’t. So a lie nevertheless.

No 2. “Only £10 for broadband – still a great deal – We’ll still give you the fastest broadband technically possible (up to 8 Meg, depending on your exchange) for only £10 per month.”

Comment:- UNTRUE! This is TalkTalk’s broadband product for customers in an area where TalkTalk are not going to install their own equipment in the customer’s BT exchange. In reality this turns out to be a fixed rate 0.5, 1 or 2Meg BT Wholesale service and certainly not an ADSL Max service (up to 8 Meg).

TalkTalk are supposed to be “trialling” ADSL Max with the intention of rolling it out, but why didn’t they offer it in the first place? After all ADSL Max is now available at 5388 exchanges out of the 5591 UK wide. They are telling PORKIES again.

No 3. “At TalkTalk we recommend that all our customers use the TalkTalk ADSL 2+ modem. It costs £29.99 but it’s worth it because:

It uses the very latest technology – technology which has only become available in 2006 (so if you bought your modem before 2006, the chances are it’s not as good as the TalkTalk ADSL 2+ modem).
It means we can offer you full customer support – should you ever run into a problem with your broadband service, the TalkTalk ADSL 2+ modem will allow us to resolve your problem as quickly as possible.”

Comment:- UNTRUE until October 2006! TalkTalk have only been supplying the Huawei ADSL2+ modem since October 2006. The earlier supplied Sagem and Speedtouch modems are just ADSL1 capable not ADSL2+. i.e. TalkTalk have been lying again.

Thanks Geronimo!

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

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Some theories about BT and Talk Talk’s LLU issues

I’ve heard this before, by people who work for other ISPs. Nothing from BT (Darren, you still around?) that confirms it but then, would you? Have a read through and click the link. Well, unless you came from Money Saving Expert. Hi guys!

With all due respect to long suffering TalkTalk unbundled customers, they do have a point in blaming BT for generating faults. This is because the change in wiring at the telephone exchange when being unbundled from BT to TalkTalk is done by BT OpenReach engineers. Although OpenReach are supposed to be independent of BT they are in fact BT employees.

The latest figures released by Ofcom show that only 20% of transfers from BT to TalkTalk and similar LLU ISPs like Bulldog and Be go right first time, whereas transfers from BT to other broadband operators using BT Wholesale broadband services go right first time in 80% of cases. This is an amazing difference and cannot be explained by TalkTalk or Opal’s incompetance alone, as the figures are a measure of OpenReach performance.

So it would probably be right to suspect that BT are playing dirty tricks to make TalkTalk look worse than they really are, which isn’t too hard to do. To get faults caused by OpenReach fixed at the exchange TalkTalk have to again request Openreach to fix the fault. Opal and TalkTalk are only allowed to touch their own equipment and not any BT stuff.

Although my unbundled TalkTalk service is working reasonably well now, I had my fair share of faults and the customer service is appallingly bad. All I can say is that things seem to get sorted out in the end but as Eric Morcambe famously said “not necessarily in the right order” and well after they say it will. It is obvious that there are not enough Opal engineers working on TalkTalk’s network either.

The best tactic to use is bad publicity. Try and get the local press to get interested and if they do the potential bad publicity will get your fault fixed very fast. See http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=311122 All I can say is that when they get it working properly, it does work quite well and is very cheap.

The CPW do seem to respond to bad publicity. Go for it!

Talk to BooBoo (heh.)

Technorati Tags: Carphone Warehouse, ADSL, DSL, LLU, Openreach, BT

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New kit, new danger?

I think we can deduce the current infrastructure in use by the Carphone Warehouse needs some… help. I’m not sure if it’s good or bad news that they’ve adoped this product. It does seem to be remarkably popular with a lot of ISPs.

Redback’s SmartEdge multi-service edge routers give network operators a graceful migration path to triple-play services, advanced business services such as unified communications and mobility services such as WiFi, WiMAX and mobile broadband networks. Redback uses a single system to manage data, voice and video services over next generation broadband networks. The platform is attractive to carriers because Redback uses a modular operating system and programmable processors that were specifically designed to manage different kinds of broadband IP services simultaneously. This flexible platform for multi-service networks give carriers higher levels of service consolidation, system availability, service scalability, and network mobility.

The Carphone Warehouse Selects Redback to Help Deliver Free Broadband Services in the U.K.

The delivery would be novel.

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

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BT has cautious vision

BT is releasing a spiffy new service with all sorts of bells and whistles. Haven’t heard of it? That’s ok, they don’t really want you to…. yet.

The company is taking a cautious approach in the early stages of the roll-out, and is delaying an advertising push until next year. It is keen to avoid the kind of customer backlash suffered by rival telco Carphone Warehouse when it was swamped by demand for its free broadband service.

Lesson learned for some.

50,000 register for BT Vision

Technorati Tags: BT, Carphone Warehouse, Talk Talk,

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