Is Talk Talk better than Sky for phone calls and broadband?

[RubyBlueberry]

We are moving next Thurs, there is no BT line there according to BT. The house's current owner has TalkTak for his broadband and phone calls.

I am supposed to have at least one BT line there for my work but at £122 to put a line in it is bloody expensive so I am thinking of getting Sky for broadband and also for phone calls? Think they'll charge?

Would Sky be better than TT as I have heard not very good things about TT?

Talk talk were awful with us for two weeks we were connected to the wrong number so we were getting calls for another customer we rang the number we were supposed to have and the other customer answered .
They are also very rude and LIE a lot my dp had to tell the engineer who eventually came out the problem as talk talk had told him something totally different.

They used to always have technical problems too.

Ah.... so sticking with TT would not be good!!!

You might want to check the forum section of ThinkBroadband.com but do remember there will be more comments of a "negative" nature than positive - after all, people have a stronger incentive to comment when things annoy - look at the number of 'groans' on AIBU...

(Not a dig at comewhinewithme {though the name kind of implies something} but because you will always see more words of complaint than in praise of services. ThinkBroadband is pretty widely used, and they do ask for feedback about ISPs when people do speed test checks, and therefore get quite a lot of 'votes' for/against different ISPs. There's a pretty good comparison of different services

On the BT line front - who 'insists' it's from BT? Just curious why there's anything wrong with a line from some other firm (given that BT engineers from BT Openreach are the ones maintaining and installing all but Virgin Media cable services).

Anyway, you can get a BT line installed for free until the end of September (can we split the cost, 60 quid would be very handy for me to buy some food, etc)

Seriously though, there's a piece on Money Saving Expert about this, because there's a section of the BT Price List with details of special offers.

Anyway, you should be able to get the line installed for free, but the 'downside' is that you would be tied into a contract with BT for the line rental, so must not switch to some other firm that does the billing for the line (as well as calls and broadband).

There are plenty of broadband deals and routing calls but if you switch your line rental, BT will charge the monthly fee for the remainder of the contract, and 18 months x 12 quid or whatever it is mounts up.

You could go with UKOnline (which is owned by Sky), and install a phone line for about 80 quid plus a setup fee for them to add broadband. They have a calls package which seems quite good.

I've been looking at my options as I don't have a landline at present. Another option is to use opal.co.uk (they aim at small business users, and charge 13/month line rent, 10/month for broadband but 5 quid a month for first year, and 99 quid to install, but all plus VAT, and contract is for 2 years).

Free line install is here:

www.moneysavingexpert.com/deals/free-BT-line-installation

There's a separate article on MSE about getting broadband cheaply - though it might not apply on a new line, as it's a uSwitch deal to get 3 months free (on an 18 month contract) with PlusNet.

TT are shite, getting technical help is a nightmare. We're with Sky at the moment and so far so good.

Forgot to add - Sky has 3 packages, on exchanges in some areas. If you go to SamKnows and search for your exchange, it has a section at the bottom right of the page that says which companies offer "LLU" service.

LLU means "local loop unbundling" and means that it is possible to have the broadband using non-BT kit at the BT exchange. In rural areas it's often the case that none of the firms (AOL, Orange, Be/O2, TalkTalk, Tiscali, Sky) is available.

If Sky isn't listed, they would use the BT kit and that adds about a tenner a month onto the broadband cost, taking it up to ~17 quid/month.

Where I am, we have no service from Sky. but 10 miles away in Chester they do, so they can use the Sky service for a fiver a month.

Did some more digging, and found opal.co.uk is owned by TalkTalk/Carphone Warehouse.

However, before dismissing it entirely, I got positive comments about it from someone who works for an ISP (in a private message on the ThinkBroadband site) and he has it at home, so he has a non-BT connection (in case his local BT exchange is giving problems).

It estimated the speed for a friend of mine near the town centre at 12 Mbps and the website says it gives higher priority to traffic for business connections. It is also being resold by a number of other firms like Heart Internet (but at more money per month).

I'm certainly giving it firm thought because of the low cost and because they don't fix a traffic limit each month.

Just hoping RubyBlueberry spots free BT line install offer!

Lordy lordy lordy - thanks Webdude!!!! I was thinking I'd have to give up work cos I can't afford a new line installed at new house..... think they will install a new one and transfer the number from here?

Ah - now that looks very good, but the prob is that my work demands me to be signed to a call package (our calls are recorded and we pay £6 a month for the recording and inclusive minutes) so I don't think this BT fabulous offer will work as I would have to make 10 calls a month on the BT line for 18 months.

Not hard I know but I'd have to overrride the package (1280 prefix) that I have and also I know there are problems with this overrride malarky and it may affect things...... I dunno what to do now.... but thanks so much for pointing that out!

Number transfers are only possible if you're in the same area. If you are on the same exchange then it may well be possible.

Will the area code be the same?

Which company handles the carrier pre-select (that you'd need to override with 1280) ?

If it saves you 120 quid, I'd have thought you could have a rule that you ring a relative / friend every day for 10 minutes for the first 10 days of the month to know you've hit the minimum required... and just make time for those (short/ long) calls each month.

I've seen comments about 1280 being blocked on some call packages, but also seen other comments from some companies saying they have no plans to bar 1280.

When you say 'recorded' do you just mean itemised bills? Or actual recordings that have both speakers and can be played back like a voicemail message?

Area code will be the same, number transfer should be fine too.
"Thus communications" do the carrier pre-select.
"Recorded" is actual recordings that can be played back (I'm a travel agent working from home!)

So presumably you are employed by a firm which distributes the calls to staff working from home? Would seem a shame that on top of moving costs etc you cannot get a BT line cheaply, and continue working. Presumably the person who lived there will have cancelled the TalkTalk service.

If that has been done, then if you get dial tone (for 999 calls) - and even with no dialtone it should be possible to get free installation from BT (because it's not as if the line has been unused for months); you will be locked into a BT rental contract, but can then use Thus for the calls/recording.

Perhaps best to ring BT, ask about getting the phone line into service. If they start talking about 122.50 then say "Oh, thought that you did free reconnections. If you are charging that much, maybe I will just look around - TalkTalk are doing new lines for 59.99, and have a broadband and calls account called 'Essentials'. I just want a phone line for now, and may consider BT Broadband later."

Just make sure you don't sign up for BT Broadband or any calls package!! In fact, tell them that you want details of the free line connection in writing, because for now, you have no wish to tie yourself into anything other than a phone line as you have plenty on your mind right now with moving home.

(Rental contracts with BT used to only be 3 months with penalties, but they're clearly losing out to Sky, TalkTalk, Post Office, and other firms, doing line rent + calls + broadband deals, so lock in new lines for ages to limit the damage, just increasing the annoyance of customers.)

If they have not cancelled TalkTalk, get them to - any calls you make will be billed and itemised on their bill.

I've just had an online bill from TalkTalk for a line I don't own, in a house I left in June 2007. I'm just about to get onto them for what they're trying to charge me 3 pounds odd for (and 5 pounds odd on top as the direct debit failed!!)

or maybe I should just bounce their future e-mails!

Thanks for the advice! No, the calls aren't distributed, people who are happy with my service pass my details onto their pals/colleagues. My number is on mine and company website and it's charged to customers as a local 0845 number, as well as being recorded.

BT are moving my home number for free to the old TT line (that was probably BT anyhow) and I'm keeping my own number.

It's all mega confusing, but you have been sooooo helpful, thank you so much!

I'm with sky and have had no probs - in fact they have been very good in sending me out a new router when out of warranty etc. I'm sure you would have to have a BT line in place before ordering Sky though

I have no idea but I was in the office today and my colleague was on the phone to Talk Talk as she has had problems with her line recently and needed some help and a refund and the call centre hung up on her twice

RubyBlueberry - even though it was TalkTalk offering the service, the engineering and exchange work gets done (and billed) by BT Openreach, essentially the engineering section split off (like the BT directory enquiries database) from BT retail, or 'behind a Chinese wall', so that whether its a request from TalkTalk, Sky, BT, or Thus, for a new line, or a repair, or whatever, the same people do it --in- theory without any favouritism for a request from BT over the other companies (to be fair, the others would kick up a stink if Which? ran a comparison and found the other firms were being let down by BT Openreach).

With the BT Directory Enquiries database, there's a section which again runs 'separate' from the rest of BT, just collecting/managing the data, and through licencing deals, making it available to other directory enquiry services, like 118118 etc (I had some data protection issues when some web firm had one of my numbers online, when it should have been ex-directory like the others... oh, and there are several levels of ex-directory, too, but that's for another day!)

(Oh, and when Sky etc bill for the line rental, a big chunk of that goes to BT, and BT gets cash for anyone with broadband from Sky etc... the savings on TalkTalk, Sky, etc, come from the fact that from the BT Exchange to the ISP's HQ, they don't pay massive amounts to BT for the amount of data that goes through the network, as they have their own link separate from the BT data network.)