Fone Forum

For anyone just interested in a landline package, TalkTalk has a promotional offer on its UK Anytime package at the moment. The deal is a 12 month contract for £4.49 a month, plus £11.25 a month line rental, ie. £15.74 in total. Thereafter the package cost goes up a pound to £5.49 a month plus line rental. The package includes:

Unlimited calls to UK 01, 02 and 03 numbers (* for calls up to 60 minutes in duration)
Unlimited calls to 0845 and 0870 numbers (* as above)
Unlimited calls to 36 landline destinations including all EU countries, the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand (* as above)
Free voicemail

See link for details: www.talktalk.co.uk/products/phone-line/Talk-UK-Anytime

£1 off per month doesn't seem very much to me at all.  You haven't even said how long the contract is, or what setup fee they charge.  Looking at the link you gave TT seem to be hiding that very well!    ???

Also, there is plenty of information on the net about how diabolical their customer service is.
Don't you think you should warn members about that?

I have read of them repeatedly charging for calls not actually made on their telephone service, and then blocking the account if a customer complains and doesn't pay up straight away.    ::)

I should say don't touch, not even with a long barge pole!

You are perfectly entitled to your views, Mike. TalkTalk do indeed have a pretty negative reputation for their customer services, though having been a customer of theirs for more than 4 years, my personal experience has actually been very satisfactory..I speak as I find. I have certainly never been charged for any calls that I did not make.

As I understand it, you can end the contract on this offer after 12 months, (check the 'legal stuff' link) and I believe an initial one off set-up fee applies to broadband and phone packages only. If you are referring to call set-up connection charges to indirect access numbers, mobiles, etc, I believe that they charge the same as BT, namely 9.05p per call.

My reason for posting this is purely to ensure that anyone who may be looking at taking out a new landline package is aware of what's currently available, and that this package offers value for money compared with anything else on the market. Do you know of any other telecom provider offering the same for less? If so, I think we should be told.

I believe that PlusNet (http://www.plus.net/) claim to be the cheapest, with free setup, including both broadband activation and a free modem / router.
This may be £5-99 a month for their value package, but TalkTalk quoted me £29-99 for a setup fee when I last enquired, which makes all the difference to the relative economics (though PlusNet do have a lower download limit of 10MB.)

Moreover, I see that the TalkTalk package is £7.49 without TalkTalk line rental (which I didn't know was still available), and I certainly wouldn't want to move to TalkTalk for my landline calls!

This post is about a landline package, only, though you are quite right to refer to Plusnet for good value all round packages. :)

However, just having had a quick look at Plusnet's T&Cs, there are a few things to watch out for in their packages that include international calls, namely: just 20 international destinations, call length restricted to 30 minutes, and to 300 minutes a month.

I think the atrocious customer service record comes into it - whether you are considering broadband or calls !        :o

There are threads such as this one (http://groups.google.com/group/uk.telecom/browse_thread/thread/5698268c08949422?hl=en-GB) for those interested to read.        ;)

Hmm..it seems it's not just TalkTalk with such appalling customer service.

www.weeklygripe.co.uk/a737.asp

www.weeklygripe.co.uk/a297.asp