is anyone here on Talk Talk Broadband? I'm currently with o2 but as o2 in their infinite wisdom decided to be muppet's and to throttle all their BT access package users p2p to 5kbs peak and 95kbs off peak it means that unless I stay up until 2am I'm unable to use skype, vent or steam that's with out mentioning utorrent. So I've just spoken to Talk Talk who in my area are LLU enabled at the exchange. The lass at the other end of the phone has stated that 1. they have no traffic management (i.e. no throttling) 2. that they have no download limits 3. that the speed that they would be able to provide would be 11.9MB (that's an estimate, hers not mine.) 4. are offering this for a total of 28.99 with free uk landline calls 9 as a phone line is included in the package). considering that o2 1. have horrendous traffic management 2. have no download limits because no one can access anything to download. 3. offer a maximum of 8mb in the area and are not LLU enabled at the exchange. 4. I have to have a separate BT phone line which when put with the cost of o2 comes to a total of approximately 30.00 a month PLUS phone calls. now the Talk Talk seems like a good deal but I want to see if anyone has used them or had any problems before I join them. so comments please.
look at Be, they are owned by O2 but everyone i've spoken to has said they are awesome. Check the TalkTalk fair usage policy for bandwidth limits.
What the hell. Talktalk do have download limits. I'm on 40GB a month, and to double it adds an extra £5 a month. They do have traffic shaping, I can hardly ever download using bitTorrent due to very very slow speeds. has changed since the last time I looked as now apparently every ISP limits bitTorrent traffic. I wouldn't reccomend TalkTalk if your wanting to use BitTorrent, not from my experiences with them anyway, oh and their customer service is next to useless, probably because they are 1 and the same as AOL now.
Rubbish. The are one of the worse ISPs in the UK for throttling and traffic shaping. They actively restrict Steam traffic and bittorrent. Stay away from them.
go to http://www.samknows.com/broadband/checker2.php and type in your phone number and post code, this will tell you who has LLU on your exchange and also your rough ADSLmax speed also get your router stats and check out (Downstream Attenuation required) http://www.dslzoneuk.net/maxspeed2.php for a estimate of your speed on ADSL2+ providers also what sort of download limit do you need, this will be important as it will instantly knock some ISP's out of the running however please try to be realistic, NO ISP can provide a truely unlimited service on a BT wholesale line for £20 it is just not financially viable due to the cost per gb BT charge an ISP to use there equipment (last time i knew it was about 43 pence per GB making anything more than a 40gb pack was being sold at a loss)
What is this LLU that everyone keeps mentioning? Does it mean you don't have to pay for a phone line aswell?
LLU = Local Loop Unbundling. IIRC, it means BT allowing other providers access to the high-speed ADSL lines in the local PSTN exchanges, so that other providers can offer their own service without having to rent the lines from BT. But no, you still have to have a standard PSTN telephone line for ADSL. The only broadband services that don't need a landline are cable (i.e. Virgin Media) or mobile broadband - I'm aware that satellite internet connections exist, but they're extremely impractical and still need a telephone line for upstream data. OT, everything I've ever heard or read regarding Talk Talk leads me to one conclusion: stay the hell away. A friend of mine had a flat around 500 yards from his local exchange, yet Talk Talk still constantly dropped the signal, wouldn't connect at even half the advertised speeds (despite being so close to the exchange) and then had a nightmare cancelling them. I've also seen quite a few news reports giving less than positive feedback on Talk Talk (too many to quote/locate/link to). One of the best resources I've found is http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ (formerly ADSLGuide) - I always used to use that site when looking for ADSL providers (I'm on cable now, thank god). EDIT: It appears that I was nearly 100% correct regarding LLU... Quoted from http://www.ofcom.org.uk/static/archive/oftel/publications/broadband/dsl_facts/LLUbackground.htm
Flibble is spot on. The girl on the phone lied to you. Talk Talk is one of the worst ISps in the UK. Lots of traffic shaping, lots of bandiwdth management, and their network is horribly congested having taken on far too many customers for them to deal with following that "free broadband forever" garbage. Avoid, avoid, avoid. If you leave O2 to join Talk Talk I will laugh at you.
We're on talktalk, it's it runs at about 4mbit when we're supposed t have 8, and it dies quite regularly. But then I do live in the middle of butt**** and you got a perdy mouth, so I imagine that has a lot to do with the poor performance.
is there even such thing as a decent adsl provider in the uk without fair useage policys and all that other crap? Its ridiculous!
I'm moving away from PlusNet after a good few years, not had any problems really apart from fairly low speeds but our line is ancient. Going to O2 as we fancy a change and hopefully something a bit faster - O2 are LLU-d in our area but PlusNet aren't.
well there are a few providers who are very good however as i stated in my previous post if they use BT wholesale (normal ADSL or ADSLmax line) they have to pay BT wholesale a set amount per GB that passes through the equipment and at last time i found out how much it was you was looking at about 43 pence per GB which means if you take into account the ISP will need to cover their costs on top of paying BT the most you can get will be 40gb for £20 giving the ISP 7 pence per GB to cover their own costs and profit which is not much it all boils down to how much people want to pay. someone like NewNet are a great ISP as they do not offer silly usage for what you pay, however they have not got any form of traffic management in place the one thing they do is charge you for the usage you use a bit like a mobile phone contract where you pay for a set amount of inclusive mins and texts and if you use more you have to pay for the extra this is why LLU provider are usually able to offer better deals since they do not use the BT equipment so do not have to pay BT the set charge and so can absorb any costs of the equipment in a more controlled manner anyways if you cant get any LLU providers the current best ISP's as i know are these NewNet Zen internet IDnet AAISP they all seem to get rave reviews with no form of traffic management
In my mothers infinite wisdom, she decided to change provider from orange (who we've been with since the freeserve days) to talktalk. Given that she obviously knows far more about computers than I do, it was a pretty good move :S The woman on the phone lied, there is MASSIVE throttling with talktalk until about 1am; at least with torrents. Steam works fine with me, downloaded portal in less than an hour last night. Speed is usually, decent; the 8mbit isnt as quick as the old orange 8mbit BUT its not cripplingly slow either. Though the connection has been dropping quite recently, not sure what thats all about. Not sure about skype, I dont use it so I cant comment. Bottom line: If you torrent often, dont bother!
