Tele communications giants BT as well as two other companies were quick to question the term which got the national press, poster and TV commercials banned, yet TalkTalk are seemingly delighted with the outcome. After trying to defend their case for using the term, arguing that it was based on them being the only home UK broadband provider that supplies network level security features, they were overruled by the ASA who feel the term refers to ‘the safest online experience’ rather than the highest network security.

To everyone’s surprise however the company has come out gleaming as they believe the ASA has done them a favor and confirmed ‘once and for all, that TalkTalk offers the UK’s safest broadband connection.’ They claim that all they have to do in future advertising is emphasize the network aspect to avoid them being in the wrong. This is why the company views the ruling as a victory.

Of course BT had nothing further to argue as they had actually won their case against TalkTalk and got the adverts banned, although the confirmation that the company does provide the safest broadband could not have been foreseen and may in fact have worked against them. Check out the Guardian for more details on the ban.

What do you think of this ruling? Is it a victory for BT or TalkTalk?

According to regulator Ofcom the company is still the most complained about internet provider in the UK, but the BBC is reporting that the number of complaints has come down over the last six months. TalkTalk have now been the top of the tree regarding complaints for the last four consecutive quarters.

During the same period it was found that mobile provider Three was the most complained about, which was mainly centered on disputed charges and customer service issues. Rival mobile provider Virgin Media also saw an increase in complaints during the last year.

The figures are based on complaints that are actually sent to Ofcom instead of those that find their way to the individual operator. It has been found that mobile services receive fewer complaints compared to fixed line or broadband.

During the first three months of 2011 complaints about TalkTalk peaked at an average of 0.81 per 1,000 customers, and fell to 0.55 by the third quarter of 2011. TalkTalk responded by saying it was “encouraging that complaints continue to come down”. They continued by saying that there had been a 40 percent reduction in customer service calls year on year, and would continue to work on improving.

For the fourth quarter in a row Virgin Media had the least amount of complaints at 0.19 per 1,000 customers. Its mobile division saw an increase though up from 0.3 to 0.7 complaints per 1,000 customers.

Three are way out in front though with complaints climbing from 0.09 to 0.14 per 1,000 by the third quarter of 2011. Meanwhile rival O2 were the least complained about mobile provider during 2011.

Have you had to complain about your service provider?

The company is set to launch a trial of YouView, which according to The Guardian is the delayed plan to bring video on demand to Freeview. TalkTalk have announced plans for the venture that also has the backing of the BBC, BT, ITV, and Channel 4 and 5.

This news came as the company was announcing its results for the past six months up to September 30th. It will begin the trial that it is calling “friends and family, in the first quarter of next year believed to be January. The company is planning to supply around 3,000 of its YouView set-top boxes that are made by the same manufacturer responsible for its routers, Huawei.

Staff will be receiving these boxes as part of the trial to “focus on the end to end customer experience“, with a public trial beginning by early April 2012 with 10,000 customers set to get access to the service. This will then be followed by a full launch to the eight million customers of Freeview.

TalkTalk are hoping the service will be enough to tempt consumers away from the likes of BSkyB and Virgin, as well as providing something extra for Freeview users. So far the scheme has cost the company £4m, and all the partners of YouView are committed to an equal share of the £115m cost of the scheme.

This comes alongside the news that the company has lost 43,000 customers during its second quarter that was higher than expected. It has often been the subject of numerous complaints by customers that have even led to fines from regulator Ofcom.

Are you a customer of TalkTalk?

We have been messing about with port forwarding, checking OnLive’s Twitter feed for reports of issues and running speed tests on our connections and our diagnosis is that certain ISPs are blocking UDP packets – which results in an error showing up (see below).

Now we don’t like to name and shame companies, but the only correlation we have spotted so far is that both me and my friend who are experiencing issues are on TalkTalk broadband, also this thread on the TalkTalkMember’s forums shows more reports of the same issue.

The first time we tested out OnLive it was great, however when we went back on to test it out more thoroughly we were hounded by connection issues. The exact same thing happened today and we have now worked out the between 6pm and 12am the service will not work, however any other time of the day is fine – so we guess OnLive and TalkTalk are going to have a little chat (to say the least).

This is a massive blow for OnLive as people may think that it is their service which is not up to scratch, one thing is for sure – if Xbox Live or the PSN was affected in a similar way it would soon be resolved – hopefully there will be an update on the situation soon, when we hear news we will keep you posted.

For now we would love some feedback from our readers on this matter, therefore if you in the UK and experiencing frequent connection issues please leave us a comment below. In your comment please state what ISP you are with and what times of the day these issues are most frequent – it will be interesting to see the results.

Accruing to an article on The Guardian during the first six months of this year the company had the most complaints from customers. Between April and June it had more complaints about its phone and broadband services than all of its rivals. This is compared to BT Retail, BSkyB, Orange, and Virgin.

Virgin had the least amount of complaints for both its services during the same period. This is the second quarter in a row that TalkTalk has topped Ofcoms complaints list for broadband and phone services.

For every 1,000 phone service customers it has it received 0.8 complaints, this compares to 0.58 for its broadband service. Meanwhile Virgin received only 0.15 complaints for both of its services. The number of complaints the provider receives has dropped substantially over the last year, but it will still be embarrassing for the company.

Only last month TalkTalk were fined £3 million for overbilling 65,000 customers for services they didn’t get, which was the largest fine of its type imposed by Ofcom. Meanwhile the mobile provider that received the most complaints was 3UK. They have seen a steady increase in customers complaining since October 2010.

The Mobile provider that saw the lowest amount of complaints was O2 that only received 0.02 complaints for every 1,000 customers. Are you happy with your ISP or mobile provider?

According to an article on The Guardian, TalkTalk’s David Goldie has accused BT of building a monopoly with fiber-optic broadband that will leave the country with a sub-standard network that will fall behind other developed nations. The company has promised to invest £2.5 billion in the technology to supply two thirds of the country’s 25 million homes.

It is also hoping to secure a £360m government subsidy to get the technology into more rural areas. These will be awarded by local councils across England and Scotland over the next year. Goldie stated “At all times BT is thinking about how it can recover the monopoly position that it lost many years ago”.

There are other companies looking to secure the same funds as well, which include Fujitsu. TalkTalk and Virgin Media have promised to back Fujitsu as they want to see a serious competitor emerge to BT. The Japanese electronics company will be hoping it can persuade BT to reduce the fees it charges for renting the company’s infrastructure, which will carry the fiber-optic technology across the country.

BT will reveal interim prices this month, and telecoms regulator Ofcom it will make a move if these prices turn out to be too high. Fujitsu are believed to be hoping BT drops its prices by fifty percent, over a period of up to five years.

The UK has already fallen behind other European countries such as Holland and Hungry, but is still on a level playing field with France and Germany who have yet to build such a network. Do you think BT will have a monopoly with its fiber-optic network?

The survey doesn’t make good reading for the bosses of TalkTalk, as almost a quarter of TalkTalk customers who were surveyed were unsatisfied with its phone and broadband services. The poll conducted from 11,000 people found that 23 percent of its customers were unhappy with their landline phone service. According to an article by Mark King of guardian.co.uk, 24 percent of TalkTalk customers were also unhappy with their broadband service.

The people in the survey were asked to give their opinion on their most recent experience of customer service. This included the speed which they were dealt with, and the advice they were given by the person who were dealing with their problem.

The most satisfied customers for landline services from the survey were customers of BSkyB, with 66 percent satisfied compared to 17 percent dissatisfied. Amongst broadband suppliers Orange fared well with 76 percent happy compared to 11 percent unhappy customers. This is a great improvement by Orange who only scored 42 percent for customer satisfaction back in 2009.

Amongst the mobile phone providers in the country T-Mobile scored highly with 72 percent of customers satisfied, compared to only 9 percent of unhappy customers. Vodafone only scored 14 percent of satisfied customers, while 3 only achieved a lowly 11 percent. Subscription TV customers scored BSkyB 66 percent just ahead of Virgin Media.

Customers contact their service provider mainly to change their package or service, and to complain about poor line quality. For broadband customers they complained mainly about connection speeds or to change package. A big problem they had as well was higher than expected monthly bills.

Back in April Ofcom had reported that TalkTalk who are the UKs third biggest provider, was the most complained about between October 2010 and February 2011. The company’s broadband offering had 1.27 complaints per 1,000 customers, and the landline phone service got 1.78 complaints per 1,000.

Since TalkTalk took over Tiscali back in 2009 it had experienced increasing customer service complaints, and has seen it pay out £2.5 million in compensation to 62,500 customers. There are new rules coming into force today that require providers to do more in resolving customer complaints. But some have called this survey flawed as it only covered 11,000 customers.

Who provides your internet and phone services? Are you happy with the service?

James Thompson of The Independent is reporting that the service will be under the TalkTalk brand name which was floated from the Carphone Warehouse group back in April. The agreement with Vodafone’s UK wholesale division will allow TalkTalk customers to have the new services added to their existing fixed-line contracts and broadband contracts.

Since the company first started to offer fixed line services in 2003, and free broadband in 2006 the company has expanded rapidly and are the second biggest broadband provider behind BT with 4.23 million customers. Some City analysts have taken the news with some trepidation concerning the level of additional revenues, but by offering customers more services will reduce the chance of them going elsewhere.

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