Unhappy with unacceptable speed

[Ben_O]

Hi there,

I have Faster Fibre, with an expected guaranteed speed of 20Mbps.
That's simple, I never got to that speed, like ever.
I've been a customer for 5 years, and as far as I remember it was peaking at 8Mbps from the start, but lately I'm getting a constant all time low of 3 Mbps. I've been very patient thanks to the low Internet needs I had.
But now 3Mbps is just abysmal, and I can't let it slide. As you can understand, these are unacceptable speeds for what I've been paying monthly so far.

I'm expecting a form of compensation or refund eventually of course, proportionally to the lack of service I had to endure.

The service is lacking at almost every step, except when it's about getting the money out of my bank account.
Live Chat could be helpful, but it's just not working 9 times out of 10, it won't launch. The whole website is hardly working anyway, I'm getting loads of errors on the site when I'm trying to track errors on my line and network, so that's quite ironic.

An Openreach engineer came by lately, and fixed some stuff in a box outside my house, cool, but that did absolutely nothing to my connection. Only thing is he was telling me he was now getting 40Mbps from that box outside, which he seemed to consider that would be the issue sorted. Except it was not, I shouldn't have trusted him and should have asked for a connection test out of my router. That's more time wasted.

I have no time or will for tests myself, so I don't want to be sent another router or whatever, I don't want to unplug stuff for tens of minutes so we can rule out anything, etc. I'd just want my problem fixed, and fixed quickly.
So I 'd like an other engineer sent to my place please, free of charge, wherever the real issue is identified. I guess that's the least that can be done.
Please contact me so we can proceed with the booking of another and hopefully final appointment.

Many thanks,
Ben.

[KeithFrench]

Hi Ben,

These can be sessions (typically TCP) that are under the control of your devices that for some reason or other have not cleared. They remain active, because they are still under the control of one of your devices until forcebly cleared by the 30 minute power off.

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Hi Ben,

Glad to hear that the speed has recovered. We can remotely force a reboot of the router but we have no way of switching it off for 30 minutes then back on again. It would be much better if a simple reboot of the router would quit the old session but unfortunately it doesn't.

If you do experience any further problems please let us know

Chris

[Ben_O]

Sorry, last night was hectic, couldn't get back to you earlier.

So thank you both for your time and help. It's up and running as it should be now, way above the guaranteed speed, which is all I ask.

Thanks Keith, I know switching on the router again remotely is not an option, but I still find odd than an 'old session' can linger for ages like this and completely temper with the performance of connections like that. What is a 'session' in this case in the first place anyway?

Shouldn't it be something that can be cleared automatically after a while, like a cache or something, without having to switch the power off?...I'm no tech savvy, and I mean, that's the good old and now comical "have you tried turning it off and on again?" trope used to mock hotlines for ages...I guess there's a reason why it's funny... While it definitely works, the little twist of having to do it for a whole half an hour here is pretty unique too... As I did turned it off and on again before, to no avail.

Anyway, Chris/TT, please fix every easy (easier) way of getting support on your site, Live Chat to begin with, which is ideal to me. I'm not a native speaker, and speaking over the phone really makes me uncomfortable, then forums like this are useful, you folks are the living proof of that, but that really requires customers to get out of their way while a quick written live exchange feels more user-friendly and less hassle when desperate help is needed... If the tool is not working, just remove the option to try and use it too, that would avoid extra unnecessary hair pulling...As when the frustration of poor internet speed or stability in our now almost all-connected world kicks in, that's really not fun to try and reach out with no success. You can see it in many posts in here anyway, that drives people crazy.

I know that individually, you all most likely do your best, but as a whole, it does seem companies are only here to grab easy money from us gullible customers...

Anyway, enough nonsense ranting, I'm drifting from the subject, that's me sorted now.

Thank you again, best to you guy

s.

Cheers,

Ben.

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Thanks Keith. How are you getting on Ben?

Chris

[KeithFrench]

Hi @Ben_O 

I think you need to appreciate why @Chris-TalkTalk has asked you to turn your router off for a minimum of 30 minutes. This needs to be done to ensure any old redundant sessions are cleared out. This cannot be done remotely, there is no way that it can be switched off by TalkTalk. Even if they could, the router needs to be up & connected before any remote diagnostics are possible, so once turned off, no way could they turn it back on again. A basic reboot will not clear these sessions that can slow things down.

When you have done this please can you follow my previous post, so as I can help you further.

[Chris-TalkTalk]

 OK Ben, I'm sorry for any inconvenience but I'm pretty sure that you'll see a speed increase after switching the  router off for 30 minutes. If not then I can see that Keith has kindly offered to help

Chris

[Ben_O]

Oh hi Keith, 

I hadn't seen you answer, sorry. I'm at work right now, but I'll give it a proper read once at home. Thanks for taking the time to look into this!

Hopefully just turning the router off and on after 30 minutes would do the trick.

Cheers,

Ben.

[Ben_O]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for your answer.
That's a super annoying thing to do on my end really...You folks should have ways to reset devices, lines, connections or whatever, remotely nowadays.
But well, I guess it's the reasonable thing to try before anything else...so let's be reasonable.
I'll do this when I get a chance.

Cheers,
Ben.

[KeithFrench]

To enable you to get this problem resolved will require you to do some checking for me, I have no access to your router, so cannot do this for you (I am just another customer after all). From what OpenReach have said, it might be that the speed to your router is OK, but the speed to your devices may be slow, some of this might be your responsibility, not TalkTalks's. If that is the case, then I will try & help you every step of the way.

However, I don't like to make guesses, I prefer to prove where the problem is & if at all possible get it fixed, or if I can't do it myself (via your input), then I will get TalkTalk to resolve it.

Please can you log into your router (which make/model is it)? Then check, possibly in the initial dashboard area, what download & upload speeds the router is detecting. When I know that I can take it further.

I am sure that you are wondering who am I, as you don't know me, so I hope this helps. The information below is provided by TalkTalk, for confirmation please contact @Debbie-TalkTalk or@Michelle-TalkTalk.

KeithFrench is one of our valued Community Stars and can help with a range of issues related to wireless and networking. At times he may ask you to send him test results via a Private Message to help analyse/diagnose an issue. Although Keith does not work for TalkTalk, he very kindly shares his time and knowledge to help with others.

If you need further help or, if we need to take any details such as personal information about your account like phone numbers, account numbers etc. one of the TalkTalk team will jump in and help out.

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Hi Ben,

Line test is passing and your router is in sync at 40Mbps. Can you switch your router off and leave it off for at least 30 minutes, then switch back on and retest. Please let us know how you get on

Chris