Telecommunications victory!
Our Virgin Media bill (for TV, broadband and landline phone) was £50 this month. I'm about to go on maternity leave and can't afford to keep forking out that much when I'll need all my cash to buy wine baby stuff so we decided to get a cheapo freeview box, and go elsewhere for broadband and phone.

But where to go? I don't want BT to have my money as I think they're cunts (based entirely on past experience and their stupid fucking adverts). Still, if I'm not going with Virgin then I need to use a BT line instead. There's already one in my house - it just needs reactivating.

Next stop, Internet trawling to determine good deals. TalkTalk have good broadband with reasonable T&Cs plus there's £50 cashback through Quidco when you join, and they waive the £30 joining fee for web sign-ups, so that'd easily cover the price of the Freeview box. So far so good.

TalkTalk website redirects us to their customer services phone line. Apparently we have to pay a "reactivation charge" of £70 to get the BT landline sitched back on. Also, because we have to sign up over the phone there'll be a £30 service connection charge. They tell us that's much cheaper than what BT would charge. I weep gently at the thought of my diminishing cash and tell them no.

Now, I'm not the world's biggest fan of the Post Office but five minutes of googling shows that the Post Office reconnect BT lines for free, with no minimal line rental time period, with the line rental itself costing £12 a month - with inclusive calls. Happy days. One phone call and we are assured our BT line will be reactivated in a couple of weeks, at which point we can switch online to TalkTalk, get the cashback, have faster broadband, and no more Virgin-on-the-ridiculous bills.

My victory is hollow, however - Freeview doesn't have the Hallmark channel so no more nightly Law and Order: SVU for me. You win some, you lose some.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Thu 24 Jun 2010, 10:27, 17 replies)

There is always this little website...
All of Law & Order SVU.

Should keep you entertained for a while.
( jim_bob can herd cats., Thu 24 Jun 2010, 10:31, closed)

And that's the night feeds sorted.
ta!
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Thu 24 Jun 2010, 10:32, closed)

No problem
Also... they have a pretty exhaustive list of TV shows. Mainly American dominated, but oh well!

Lots of telly!
( jim_bob can herd cats., Thu 24 Jun 2010, 11:49, closed)

Just talk to VM, tell them you're thinking of changing provider, they'll do you a deal
I pay half of what you're paying for the same services as you in the UK.
( broadsword w⚓, Thu 24 Jun 2010, 10:35, closed)

Yeah, I considered that
but TalkTalk's broadband is much better and Captain V actually sat and read all 37 pages of their Terms and Conditions before declaring that it would be a moral victory as well as a financial one if we switched. He takes these things very seriously, bless.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Thu 24 Jun 2010, 10:37, closed)

Last time I had phoneline broadband in the UK it was terrible
became pretty much unusable in the early evening, cable broadband doesn't suffer from that, though VM's traffic management is a bit poo for the pirate-y types.
( broadsword w⚓, Thu 24 Jun 2010, 10:57, closed)

I've not had problems with virgin cable for my perfectly legal downloads...
had some issues with the tv recently which resulted in several phone calls and engineers coming out to sort.

I never had to wait to speak to someone on the phone and the engineers came out on a day and time that suited me, were prompt and have sorted the problem.

I was shocked.
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Thu 24 Jun 2010, 13:23, closed)

Talk Talk are fine until something goes wrong and then their customer service is completely shit.
But that said, you and catface are more computer savvy than me so probably won't have had to deal with the cunts.
( girlinthehole, Thu 24 Jun 2010, 10:46, closed)

Try plugging the cable in directly
Change the cable connector to a standard antenna-coax plug, stick it in the telly and tune it. You pick up the unencrypted analogue channels, not sure if that includes Hallmark, but it's generally more than Freeview.
( Ungersven would support SpankyHanky's patreon, Thu 24 Jun 2010, 10:47, closed)

This sounds worth a try, cheers.

( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Thu 24 Jun 2010, 10:49, closed)

TalkTalk is shit
don't do it! Crap customer service and intermitant sporadic mystery speed broadband.
(Psymon_Spark Jesus Saves! The rest of you take 4d6 damage, Thu 24 Jun 2010, 10:48, closed)

Hmmm. Are they worse than other providers though?
They all seem a bit rubbish (with BT and Orange being more rubbish than the rest).
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Thu 24 Jun 2010, 10:52, closed)

I've used PlusNet for years and had no trouble with them at all
Line rental, free calls to 01 and 02 numbers, plus broadband for £30/month.
(Reverend Fister "a disciplined fuckwit", Thu 24 Jun 2010, 10:56, closed)

Good God, plusnet.
I used to work for them years ago...
( jim_bob can herd cats., Thu 24 Jun 2010, 11:47, closed)

Now owned by...
BT
( Snappyuk gets BIGGER with free sample., Thu 24 Jun 2010, 12:22, closed)

Well I wish they'd talk to each other
cos BT send me a nice letter every fortnight pleading with me to go back to them, offering me a deal that's still worse than the one I'm on with PlusNet. It must cost them - literally - pounds every year to write to me for no reason. Fannies.
(Reverend Fister "a disciplined fuckwit", Thu 24 Jun 2010, 13:12, closed)

£70 Reconnection fee??
That's virgin on the ridiculous
(TheManWithThePlan cussed your mum on, Thu 24 Jun 2010, 10:52, closed)

"One phone call and we are assured our BT line will be reactivated in a couple of weeks"
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

*breath*

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
( Ring Of Fire A petty, drooling belming butthurt retard., Thu 24 Jun 2010, 10:55, closed)

Post Office were really good with us.
They connected our old BT line really quickly for free and they're cheap. I wouldn't go with talk talk though, had them when I was a student. The internet was crap, and the customer service was worse. We've got O2 broadband. I got it free with my mobile contract but they're not horribly expensive and I've never had a problem with it slowing down.
(Nightviolet, Thu 24 Jun 2010, 11:00, closed)