Currently I am with Tiscali however was looking to upgrade my system to a higher speed as the current 2mbps package isn't really sufficient to my needs (is part of an old package)

So I looked on TalkTalk (parents want all in one package inc phone calls) to see what the availability was.

Received a cold call from them today as apparently it was an 'enquiry' to the service.

The guy calling was such a smarmy **** it really annoys me now.

I asked a few important questions as I am very aware of their practices.
Question: I asked what my current max download rate is,
Their Answer: I was told 9.4mbps from my exchange
CORRECT answer: 6.5mbps from the exchange, only operates ADSL max (http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/NEHZ)

Question: Do you use Phorm in any way, or traffic shaping?
Their Answer: No not at all
Correct answer: Yes, they use Phorm as an opt-in service, and use traffic shaping.

Question: Do they use download caps at all?
Their answer: No not at all
Correct answer: yes.

To be honest after the 9.4mbps I smelled bull excrement so called BT to check about that exchange (as the exchange is in their building) and was told 6.5mbps.... not quite the 9.4 I was told was available (but would be capped at 8mbps) and that anything over 8 as what could be supplied was simply a lie)

So I tried to contact their customer services.
Spoke to a woman online who again tried to sell me their product and told me they couldn't verify any of the conversaion, despite being told it would be recorded for training and quality purposes. I then requested the number of someone to call to discuss the issue. I get the number which went to a call centre in Asia. Spoke to one woman (who could hear me perfectly well asking to speak to a manager) then I was transferred.... I wish I kept speaking to her to be honest as the manager was a rude interrupting waste of my time. Apparently my line quality (THEIR line quality if you want to get picky) is very poor and I was repeatedly breaking up.

The most worrying thing.... as a current Tiscali customer I am switching to them unless I go to BT or someone else (No Virgin or I'd be with them in a shot)

Forgot to mention... if you open a new window when chatting to someone online at TalkTalk the page title is 'test', I tried to explain how unprofessional this looked and the assistant wouldnt believe me

Do they? I thought Phorm had shuffled off to Korea having failed to get any UK ISP on its books. Do you have evidence for this assertion?

As a TalkTalk customer, I'd be interested in finding out about this Phorm thingy... I wouldn't recommend them though, as they are a bit rubbish, and the routers they supply are just bad.

Don't get me started! My mum was sold mobile broadband recently when she changed her mobile provider. She said I didn't order it. They said you did and we enclosed a CD of the telephone conversation.

She listened to it and she states quite clearly a number of times I DO NOT OWN A COMPUTER!

After months of fluffing about they have finally returned the money they deducted for it. No apology or anything. Of course not

Try PlusNet.
I pay just over £20 a months for unlimited free UK calls (1hour limit on each call, but you can make as many as you want.) and 10gb of ADSL downloads.
I'm also lucky that the local exchange is outside my back garden so I get the full 8mb speed.

EDIT

CLICKY
£21.94 for three months then £21.94 or £27.94 per month depending where you live.
You can spend much less (£16.94) if you only want free evening/weekend calls rather than any calls.

I used to work for Carphone Warehouse selling TalkTalk when it first launched...

and I wouldn't recommend them to anyone. In fact I'd recommend that people stay away from them.

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/351751/phor ... itish-isps



Talk Talk don't use Phorm. They cancelled it.

They did previously use it however. it was also the traffic shaping that got me and saying 9.4mbps when 6.5 is the max

Thanks for suggesting plusnet, I'll ask my parents about it as if it's a little more I'll pay them the extra for it, especially if they don't use shaping and have good customer service

Will need to see as it'll involve getting a BT line apparently as Tiscali locked it to their service a while ago

It used to be the case that I only got fast bit torrent speeds on the weekend with Talk Talk, now it's been reduced to never.

AFAIK, TalkTalk and Tiscali/Pipex are all part of the same Carphone Warehouse umbrella.
We've been having phone calls a lot lately from TalkTalk asking us... something... I'm not quite sure but they keep talking after I politely tell them 'We are not interested in what you're selling, I'm going to hang up now, goodbye.'
Either way, I'm not very impressed with Pipex of late either. Might be time to shop around. Which is a shame, as on the whole they've been pretty good over the last few years. Rock solid connection, 24/7, until the last 2 weeks or so, when the line started dropping around 11.30pm.

Looks like I might just suck it up and go to plusnet or see what Tiscali can offer threatening to quit

Plusnet do shape traffic on all but the 'Pro' residential account.

clicky

Pretty much everybody shapes to some extent, even the ones who don't talk about it.

Eclipse, as good as they are, shape against what they consider to be torrent traffic. It caused huge problems when ET:QW was released as the gaming traffic was identified as torrent traffic among a lot of ISPs. I think that the developers managed to identify about 20 worldwide ISPs who were shaping their traffic unnecessarily. And pretty much all of them denied doing it

Plan to go unlimited anyway 10gb is too small for a dl limit, as it's 3 demos and a few XBLA games

I'm on BT. I get some slowdown at peak times (I expect that) but its generally really good e.g. I downloaded 135MB ARAMII patch in a few minutes last Friday around 7pm. They certainly kill torrent traffic at peak times but not in the night/early mornings. I used to set something downloading when getting up for work and it would be finished before I got out of the door ( something around 700MB for example )

I wouldnt be happy with what TalkTalk told you. Its not acceptable to lie to get a sale.