www.ultimatehandyman.co.uk

So, working from home today trying to order some stuff online for next week...

About 8 am internet goes down, red light on router. Do the normal, switch off router wait a few minutes, switch back on. Red light where it should be green.

Check all connections, reboot router again. Still got a red light.

Right better phone TalkTalk, find a customer service number in the file from when we first signed up with them (2010) call it on my landline which is working perfectly..

Automated call centre which after going through several options asks for my mobile number, given then told "we will contact you shortly"

By now it's about 9AM

TalkTalk send a text message to my mobile saying "how can we help"

I reply "No internet but phone line working" 15 minutes later text received "can you confirm your landline number and full name" Replied immediately ...

about 15 minutes later receive a text " we'll do some tests on your line and contact you once the tests have been completed"

half an hour later... "we have completed out tests and no fault found"

In the meantime I had completely disconnected the router and replaced with a known working router, just in case, Still no internet.

2 or 3 texts back and forth and by now its 11AM, I send a text saying "can't you just phone me ?*

Receive text back... No we can't we can only text message as we don't have any telephones please call xxxxx xxxxxxx if you wish to talk to one of our advisors

The xxxx xxxxxx number was different to the number I had originally called.

Called the new number and managed to speak to "Sally"... strange name for an indian woman. after about half an hour on the phone to her she informed me that there was a general internet outage in the area and that Openreach were working on it.

At about 5PM today Internet came back on, checked e-mail and talk talk had e-mailed me at 9.15 to say to call them on the newer number despite knowing I didn't have any internet access...

I reckon I'd be feeling a change of provider coming on.

Dave54 wrote: ↑Fri Nov 08, 2019 6:20 pm I reckon I'd be feeling a change of provider coming on.

To be fair, I've not had many issues with TT, until things go wrong, (which is rare) and this outage wasn't down to them.

Communication with them is the only issue, prices are good connection 99.9% reliable.

I was looking to change myself at one time. I didn't in the end. I'm with Plusnet.
There's problems with all of them though TBH.
Main thing is you're back on!

Zen Internet. In Rochdale (for both your phone line and Intenet - no change of phone number needed).

I haven't checked, but I bet they're more expensive than plusnet or talktalk, but on the other hand, if something breaks, you get to phone them up and talk to someone (in Rochdale, not an outsourced Bangalore call centre) who's capable of understanding what the problem is and getting it resolved without "escalating" through forty seven layers of bureaucracy.

Been with them for a few years now. For the most part - "It just works".

EDIT: Just for the record, this is one of those times when I seriously thought twice about posting about them. Because I'm selfishly worried if they become too popular, the service (to me) may suffer.

I support the comments made by Chrrris. I have been with Zen Internet since day 1 that I got broadband. They are not the cheapest but they are competent (both in sales and tech. support). I had to call them twice recently, both times it was a quick decision there was a problem on the line (which meant the problem could still be on my side of the line), problem escalated to Openreach who fixed it (one or two days later). No automated call centres taking you round and round.

Plusnet is also good (for the time being as it has been taken over by BT). My friend moved from BT to Plusnet about a year ago, and they resolved the problems BT could not solve (round and round she went with a useless technical support).

The only other thing to add is, get email on your phone or get a phone that can handle email

I changed my ISP back in about 2007, it was a toss up at the time between Zen and IDNet: I chose IDnet and am still with them, they have been every bit as good as I'd hoped. If there's a problem and you phone them, a real person answers the phone, (usually Simon or Miriam) and then deals with the problem themself right there and then. Quite early in our affiliation I had a problem with an Email programme, Miriam opened up the exact same version and went through the whole thing with me for a good ten minutes to solve the problem, (there was a full stop in the wrong place in a server address).

https://www.idnet.net/

I am thinking of changing but to who? as all but virgin you have to deal with open reach, since they own all the lines, (cables) and you can't call open reach direct (I can now as I am still with BT)

We had our local cable company many moons ago (now owned by virgin) I dont know what it is, but I just dont like virgin so it looms like we are stuck with BT.

Thanks for all the recommendations. I'm sticking with TalkTalk for now,