BensGrandad
New member
Son is even less computer and IT literate than me and as he is going to be staying with us when he comes out of hospital for a time, like any parent I would like to offer advice if he asks.
I'd be very surprised if his Talk Talk router didn't have it already built in. Does he really plug his PC directly into the router ?
Can you tell me please what work is actually involved when providers speak of ' installing a new line'
The reason i ask is i have a perfectly good working line with sky and when i looked into changing providers to talktalk they told me i need a new line installed.
I spoke to them and asked what was wrong with the one i have and can you explain what you would do to install a new line, she just gave me a load of waffle that made no sense.
So if i let them install this new line that they speak of do i expect to see someone up a telegraph pole running a new line to my property or do they just pull out one plug for another at the exchange or cabinet and make an excessive charge for it.
The wiring in your house and copper pair to the exchange will be the same no matter who supplies your telephony/broadband (supplied and maintained by Openreach . In the exchange it will go to the provider's equipment. The connection is made on "distribution frames" using jumper wires so they don't have to run individual cables through the exchange (it's already there and called Permanent Wiring).
To move from one provider to another needs an Openreach technician to swing the jumper over (or renew it if too short/damaged) from the TT block to the Sky block. As for the cost, Openreach have to provide "Equivalence of access" so they have to charge the same to everyone but I've not heard of other companies passing the charge on to customers (that's not to say they dont because everyone I know who has changed have moved FROM TalkTalk)
I've been a BT technician for 30+ years.
I moved from BT to TalkTalk about a year ago. Simple, no charge, free router it's better than when I had BT. ( And a lot cheaper.)
We registered with Freedom2surf back in 2002 who were brilliant. Unfortunately they were acquired by TalkTalk a couple of years ago and the service hit the floor, speeds dropped considerably, reliability was nonexistent. Their support is truly shocking, finally did something about it and switched to Openreach, so far so good.
I would say exactly the same except I went the other way Talktalk to BT