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Talk Talk really sucks – big time last mile cock-up

This was an article which I published earlier and then removed due to protest from my LinkedIn buddy…I have now removed the name of the Talk Talk Executive, so as not to jeopardise my LinkedIn buddy’s relationship with Talk Talk Executive………………………………………………….

I switched our home phone line from BT in an attempt to consolidate our telephone and Internet bills in May 05. Well that was the general idea, and reality and experience were quite the opposite. The phone line was transferred as promised without much delay. However, nothing happened to the broadband connection, which was supposed to provide down load speeds up to 8 Mbps.

On 10th October, the telephone line was taken over by Talk Talk as part of the local loop unbundling process. This should have been transparent, i.e. no impact on user other than improved quality of service….Did I say quality? The reality was complete loss of service…

Now unless you try to call, you probably will not be aware that your telephone line is dead. We noticed this during the weekend. So, I tried to contact Talk Talk. I could not get through. Correction. The system at Talk Talk end picks up the call and put you on a queue at which point you start paying. Its a 0870 number which means 10 p plus VAT. From a mobile, this is obviously much more expensive. It took me well over a week to report the failure.

Response was "engineers will look into it…and in the meantime we will transfer your calls to your mobile sir…and will update progress through text messages" Nothing happened other than receiving the same text message day after day.

Whilst exploring contacts in LinkedIn, I came across an Executive of Talk Talk, whose name is shown on the diagram. So, my network buddy, forwarded my request to the Executive. Guess what, I received a phone call from Talk Talk confirming everything will be taken care of to resolve the matter on priority basis. That was last week. We still do not have phones back in service. So, this sounds like a real cock-up by Talk Talk. I wonder how many other consumers and businesses have been affected this way? And what is the compensation policy of Talk Talk. I bet they do not have one… unlike BT. A point to be raised with the Regulator no doubt. The lady who called me kindly volunteered to remove the charge for this months calls..hang on there has not been many calls as phone line was dead..But I just received my bank statement which clearly showed a payment to Talk Talk. Perhaps no one knows what they are talking about…..I will pick on this later with them.

Now in the midst of all this, I notified them that I did not receive the modem for broadband. Now I do have a modem, but no active line to connect it. Luckily I stayed with NTL broadband and otherwise I would not be able to post this article.

If it was BT, I would have got through to them first time and they would have sent an engineer very quickly to resolve the problem (past experience).

So in my humble opinion, Talk Talk really sucks..and our telephone bills have gone up instead of going down as Talk Talk promised..Will do an analysis if I get a minute… 

This Executive also reminds me of my father. He used to be the General Manager (equivalent to CEO) of CEB (equivalent to UK Electricity Board before privatisation). He used to get calls from all sorts of people, mainly high ranking politicians every time the power lines tripped (which was quite often those days). As a public sector company, he had to respond to those calls. Which meant perhaps tripping a none politicians line so that politician can have power..

Well I am no politician and this is not Sri Lanka. It is unbelievable to accept that one can be without a telephone line for three weeks without a clearer explanation. If this Executive cannot fix it, do I need to contact his boss, Charles Dunstone? Does anyone know him? Unfortunately, I signed a 18 months contract. Perhaps its time I grabbed the attention of the regulator…

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