Interenet speed, I know , lets make it stupidly complicated.

[Feltwell]

Part of a past job of mine was preparing board reports and press releases for a major retail group, doing the analysis that went into those and the end of year financial reports. As such, you become very adept at interpreting data in order to suit the message you wish to convey - there are no lies, it can all be audited as being factually correct, but there are many ways to tell a story even with what seem to be hard numerical facts. It was quite an eye-opener doing that really - made me realise just how much politicians of all parties can add spin to facts & figures in order to suit their particular goal.

 

[robgil]

Right then, I'm back!

So talk talk sent us an unusually large phone bill the other day, we called them up and they told us they had made a mistake.
Today they cut us off, the only number we could get through to was them.
Apparently they cut us off because we had'nt paid our unusually large bill issued to us by mistake in the first place.

So , after we sorted out all their mistakes for them I decided to enquire why my internet connectiopn was so pants.
I went as instructed to their speed test page and the results apparently were way way below average.

''But we wont be able to do any thing about it'' The tech man said, ''because you are not using a Talk Talk router'' :shock:

So, I requested a mac code and got through to some lady who couldnt understand why I wanted to leave them and tried then to sell me a talk talk router, she wouldnt budge, I just want an effing mac code please! was my reply in the end. :shock:

I'm now looking for a new provider. :lol:

 

[Me!]

If you find one that gives you good service and decent broadband speed, then please do let me know who it is!
Unfortunately I, and I believe lots of us in rural Suffolk, do not have exchanges with LLU. Because of that, it seems we can change to any broadband provider we like, and the actual data going to and from the internet still needs to go through the same bit of BT kit. I had yet another call from BT in India today telling me that they were "monitoring my line to see if it was getting heated up". I must be honest, and say that most of the dozens of people I have spoken to at BT in India are extremely polite, speak very good English and are very apologetic that the problem has gone on for so long. However, they do seem to be absolutely powerless to actually do anyting to fix the problem!

 

[billybuntus]

I'd recommend BE broadband. They require a BT line but I've had mine for 4 years and its been spot on (sister in law is also with them after I migrated her from another provider).

I'm also very picky as I work in IT an expect a certain level of service

 

[Keithj]

The sad fact is that TalkTalk are poor in terms of product quality and hopeless in their ability to fix it when it goes wrong. Been there...

BT are a bit better but they are tied down by the fact that they don't actually provide telephone service - that's done by a different company called Openreach. You can't talk to Openreach, and it seemed to me when we had problems that nor can BT.

However, the upmarket ISPs such as BE and A&A seem to have better links to Openreach and can actually get problems fixed. You do, of course, pay extra for this. After a while, it seems worth it.

 

[Penners]

made me realise just how much politicians of all parties can add spin to facts & figures in order to suit their particular goal.

Oh no! Really?? :shock:

You've just ruined all of my lifelong implicit faith in the veracity of politicians.

 

[Feltwell]

Now now Penners, sarcasm on a Friday? It's supposed to be Fish on a Friday.

What I meant was the extent to which it can be done and still legitimately produce results that can be called correct and factual. Just how much you can bend numerical facts without actually being untruthful.

 

[Flyfisher]

Now now Penners, sarcasm on a Friday? It's supposed to be Fish on a Friday.

Come on Feltwell, you can do batter than that.

 

[Feltwell]

Sorry. I'll try and come up with some-fin better.

I guess I've been put in my plaice.

 

[Flyfisher]

I thought that would make you change your tuna.
Let minnow if you come up with anything better, but no pollocks otherwise I trout it will be whelkomed and you'll incur the wrasse of the admins.

 

[Penners]

I guess I've been put in my plaice.

You poor sole. But it's your fault, if you must skate on thin ice.

 

[Feltwell]

You poor sole.

I'm not angling for sympathy you know. Oh come on chaps, halibut some better jokes? Drop me a line if you can think of any, reely.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Oh for cod's sake, this thread has gone right overboard. I'm going to try to haul it back.

Back to stats... and betting on average numbers of legs... next time you are in a room with more than about 25 people, bet them a reasonable sum of money that at least 2 of them share a birthday. At 23 people it is a 50:50 bet - at 30 people the odds are about 66%.

It's a great way to make money at a party... 8)

 

[Penners]

Oh for cod's sake, this thread has gone right overboard.

Don't carp, FW. This could go on for dace.

 

[Feltwell]

Orca, Orca! Please clam up. I'm hoping I'll wake up in a minute and find that this has all been a bad bream........

 

[mr-squirrel]

I can recommend Plusnet - have been with them for over 10 years, as have many friends and family. I don't mind paying the extra for a business connection which gives me a dedicated support number and guaranteed service. Only had to call their (UK based) call centres a couple of times, always dealt with professionally and the people have the power to do things. Ironically, BT bought them a few years ago, but does not seem to have had an impact on service at all thank god.

I deal with BT on a daily basis and they are biblically useless even to large customers. There are some great engineers in BT but the management of the organisation (or dis-organisation, if i may) is absolutley shocking. This is in no small part due to the age and size of the company. The new guys have the benefit of learning from where BT have gone wrong, and have none of the historical culture to deal with.

Openreach look after the "local loop" and line plant - the stuff in the ground and overhead. BT reluctantly had to split this part from their business as ordered by the regulator to break their monopoly. BT in theory have no back door into Openreach and are treated as an external company like anyone else. This means any other communications provider can engage Openreach directly to access what was BT's infrastructure. I too find that dealing with a company that contracts Openreach is a completley different experience to BT dealing with Openreach. I wonder where the problem lies?

 

[AMc]

I had a long running and tedious problem with my internet connection last summer including BT and Virgin ADSL and the "you're not using our router so we won't help" argument.
In the end I got a MAC code, switched to Plusnet Value and spent £4.99 postage and packing on their Thomson router. It's not the greatest bit of kit but it does work OK and has decent range.
Their support are UK based and seemed knowledgeable and helpful. They rang back when they said they would, they stayed on the line while I fiddled with settings and confirmed that things were working properly after the switchover - a world away from the service I got from BT or Virgin ADSL.

I would recommend checking them out... indeed if you decide to sign up drop me a PM and I can get 50p off my monthly bill while you remain a customer. All you need to do is add my Plusnet username when you sign up Sadly there seems to be nothing in it for you though other than my thanks for saving me £6 a year

 

[Feltwell]

It's the aggravation of changing email address that puts me off changing supplier. We're with BT, service is generally OK - they were very responsive when we had a problem a few months ago. But, we have noticed that the connection slows to a crawl sometimes in the early evening, presumably as a result of the local demand being high.

 

[AMc]

It's the aggravation of changing email address that puts me off changing supplier.

I changed to a non ISP email address when I moved to a cable neighbourhood 10 years ago knowing if we moved supplier I'd lose their address.
I'm with Talk21.com they've since becone part of Yahoo!
I've never used my ISP accounts since and Plusnet are smart enough to not insist that you have one and happily contact me over the Talk21.com one.
My parents have had 3 different ISPs with 3 different emails over the last few years which has caused them some headaches.

I'd seriously consider looking at Yahoo, Hotmail or Googlemail - you could even register your own .co.uk domain and forward emails to another account for only a few quid a year if you want.

Yahoo storage is unlimited and they probably have more careful backup processes than I do

 

[MdB]

Second the idea of getting your own domain for email. You then aren't dependant on your ISP at all.

However...

I'd seriously consider looking at Yahoo, Hotmail

Nooooooooooo.........

or Googlemail

Oh yes...

gmail at least you can set it up to send and receive emails from your domain so nobody knows you have gmail as the back end.