Renew contract at a higher price?

[Infernalw]

Hey all.

So my contract with TalkTalk ended a couple of months ago and I'm considering one of several choices.

Currently, off contract I'm paying £31.98 per month for Fiber 150.

The upgrades page says I can do one of the following:

1. Renew my Fiber 150 for £39.95 a month for 18 months

2. Upgrade (from Fiber 150) to Fiber 150 for £34 per month for 18 months.

3. Renew to Fiber 250 for £43 a month.

4. Recontract to Fiber 250 for £39 a month.

Or I could stay out of contract for £31.98 a month.

Yeah you can probably see where I'm having problems understanding.

I'd be perfectly happy to renew my contract, but why would I do it for a higher price?

I do have an actual question though. I've just paid this month's bill, so if I were to take option 4, because I like speed, would this be charged immediately or on my next bill? Because I have no intention of paying twice this month.

Any assistance, or enlightenment, or information on why these prices are so weird, would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[Gondola]

Spot on that Full Fibre (TalkTalk's Future Fibre) and FTTP or Fibre to the Premises are all terms for the same product that has an optical fibre from the street cabinet to your home instead of the current cabinet connection that is the traditional metallic telephone line.

Fibre 250 Gfast is given a nominal speed rating of 250 because TalkTalk are mandated by the Advertising Standards Authority to give the average speed for a sample of connected Gfast customers on the top Gfast package. Close to a green Openreach street cabinet with a Gfast extension, and assuming no interference, a customer may well get the maximum 330Mbps download speed. Predicted and minimum guaranteed speeds for your home are given by the sales people during the order process.

[Infernalw]

Excellent, thank you for your explanation. That clears up a lot.

As far as I'm aware (though correct me if I'm wrong), full fiber is FTTP, which I can't get at my address. Apparently I can get up to 330 on GFast (clean) or 261 (impacted), and I'm going to pretend I know what that means, because both maximums are above the 250 stated, though the minimum impacted is 193, so I'll have to consider it.

I'll give the loyalty team a ring on Monday I think, see what they can offer me.

Thank you again 🙂

[Gondola · Accepted solution]

You're currently on a Fibre 150 Gfast package including home landline and that is at a current new customer offer price of £34 for a fixed term 18 month contract. So that's your benchmark 18 month contract price in Option 2. But your current rolling contract price is better at £31.98.

Option 4 gives you the Fibre 250 Gfast package including home landline and that is at a current new customer offer price of £39 for a fixed term 18 month contract. 

Options 1 and 3 are the standard prices on Fibre 150 / 250. i.e. more expensive than new customer offers but it's an Ofcom requirement that TalkTalk tell you all the options and it's pretty obvious that you just discard those offers as you're entitled to the same deals as new customers or better. The TalkTalk Loyalty team may well have better offers for you as a loyal customer. When calling just say, when prompted, Loyalty team and you usually get straight through to loyalty renewals.

Your benchmark price that they'd need to beat for Fibre 150 is your current rolling contract price or a competitor's price. Before you decide that you might go for Fibre 250 Gfast bear in mind that you'd need to know what the predicted and guaranteed minimum speed is for that product at your home compared to the predicted and guaranteed minimum speed for Fibre 150 Gfast. And also check using the TalkTalk Availability checker that Full Fibre isn't also available as Fibre 150 Data Only (no digital voice) is £32.