TalkTalk drop charges for Multi-room but add charges for TV subscribers
Just received an email from TalkTalk saying:
"Enjoy TV in a second room, on us.
Our Multi-room service was £4 a month, but we’re removing this charge from next month.
Just pay for an extra TV Box – click here to register your interest."
Our Multi-room service was £4 a month, but we’re removing this charge from next month.
Just pay for an extra TV Box – click here to register your interest."
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https://www.talktalk.co.uk/shop/multiroom
what we need is a wireless solution with no need for an engineer visit
Free PLAs if needed, or are these extra?
Then you get the backward EPG, plus Pause and Rewind, over what the average Smart TV** can do?
And if you have Boosts, another place you can watch Boosts? Except for some Boosts, and trying to watch the same Boost on both boxes?
** So more valuable if the TV you want to use with it isn’t Smart, or isn’t all-the-Players smart. And a tad less so if it’s a Freeview Play set with a backward EPG anyway.
I’m trying to figure out the value proposition. Have I missed anything?
It's not like you to be so cynical.
That is the Boosts and the TV / Film rental / purchasing store.
Those previously on the MultiRoom offering will basically get it free going forward.
There is also a sweetener (but for how long) of the first rental per month, up to £5, being free providing you claim your "voucher".
If you don't use Boosts or Rentals, then you can request TV is removed from your account and the £4 charged is not therefore payable, and you become a Broadband customer only. There is some confusion as to whether you can keep the box depending on who you get, but the general view is the box is yours to keep.
As for MultiRoom, there is, as has been pointed out, a catch of having to purchase a non-recording box and paying for installation. This allows for boosts and rentals to be viewed on another box.
There are many people (me included) who have more than one box who are effectively penalised for having the box already and can't have the option without it being "set up" and paying for it.
If you want to get the TV option and charge taken off, I suggest you use the TalkTalk Community Forum rather than phone up as there they say you can keep the box.
But I thought the take-up of Boosts on TalkTalk was very low?
However, I remain confused, and now more than ever by this £4/month charge for TalkTalk TV. What did it cost before? Surely TalkTalk didn’t just give you a box for free?
And yes, you do get free PLAs with Multi-room, which has got to be worth the £25 engineer installation fee on its own; I just paid £49 for a pair; though the far end is also a WiFi extender, but that only added £10.
And finally, what was TalkTalk Multi-room accused of?
So going forward, all registered TalkTalk TV customers, whether they subscribe to TV Boosts or not, will be charged £4 a month going forward? Do I have that correct?
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So TalkTalk customers own their router and set top box, and so don’t need to send them back, if they got them as part of a new service with TalkTalk.
But not if they had any such replaced outside the warranty period (a rather skimpy 12 months) and the customer did not arrange continued ownership of the replacement equipment.
Now there’s a sting in the tale....
Have you asked, or put the question to, the TT Community manager? Because up to now nobody can get a straight answer out of him. I don't think he knows (which isn't his fault).
But I see that TalkTalk support staff have started to do the FUD thing that BT used to do, trying to pretend that the YouView box is pretty useless without the TalkTalk service, and perhaps you ought to send it back, as it’s not yours; which, as with BT, is largely given the lie to by their own T&Cs.
Except, startlingly, with warranty replacements (+EDIT:) for the box, and any PLAs TalkTalk users might have been supplied with as necessary to get the internet connection from router to box.
As a TalkTalk TV customer who currently does not subscribe to any TV Boosts I have been following the discussion on their community with some bemusement. The facts are slowly beginning to emerge.
Two important things I have gleaned so far. You can cancel your TV service if you wish and not be liable for the fee. And no, you do not have to send your box back.
Finally @Roy yes, the TalkTalk TV service was "free" (included with your package more accurately) with a £50 payment for a recording box (often reduced during special offers), or zero for the lite version. You had to commit to one month's TV Boost as a minimum.
We CS's are leaving this topic to the OCE's to handle!
PS, yes I recognise you from all 3 forums we are on together!
The second thing I don't understand is after all these years in operation, users are being suddenly told they have TV attached to their account, even though they have never used, or ever will, TT TV and the onus is on them to cancel. Thats bad. Really bad.
The situation becomes even dimmer when one considers the vast majority of both TT & BT customers don't take TV. And then theres the knock-on effect on customer services - a vast upsurge in incoming calls, all complaints, which are the most difficult to deal with which results in increased call handling times, which further results in increased call waiting times. Its poor all round really and yet another PR disaster to add to TTs long list.
When I phoned up to query something, I was informed if I renewed my contract I would get a free box and the free sky channels as part of my broadband deal.
I think that for a period of time everyone who signed up for broadband got a free box and access to the channels, so they unwittingly became TV customers.
It's only in the last few years they tried moving people away from this and I know when renewed off this contract they offered me the entertainment boost, free calls and it cost the same, so appeared a no brainer to renew.
Once those deals finished people removed the boosts but their contract still showed them as TV customers, which is where the confusion has come from.
Then along comes this £4 fee. What? Hence the confusion/uproar. And I think where TalkTalk have misjudged this is two-fold.
First, with ongoing TV customers for whom this represents a real price increase. The fact that it may still compare favourably with other providers is neither here, nor there for the moment. It will settle down of course when it becomes recognised as part of the overall TV cost.
Second, for the more passive TV customers who are at best bemused, as I was, or at worst annoyed as to why you have to opt out of a new fee. But opt out you can with no repercussions, despite the signals coming from some customer service advisors. The only excuse for that is that they have not been briefed properly. And whether that is wilful, or otherwise, who can really say.
Also they are telling customers they are in discussion with Amazon about getting the prime app which suggests each will need a separate agreement to allow the app on their box (what that actually means for both TalkTalk and Retail getting the prime app remains to be seen as we are not seeing any movement on that despite it being on BT for a few months) and further what that means for NowTV as again BT have offered some content to sky for it to allow it them to have it (will that include Retail getting it, obviously TalkTalk already have the sky boosts but are they priced well compared to the NowTV app).
Interesting times ahead.
Is the £4 charge to drive people from using the Boosts? I have speculated before that with moving customers to O2 Mobile that TalkTalk may be wishing to go back to basics and become a Broadband and Phone company again. TV would then not fit in the way it does now and it could then be seen, that with fewer actual customers in this regard a reason to divest themselves of, or reduce this particular funding.
But there are positives in this too. First, multiroom is now effectively free, save for setup charges. And somewhat buried in all this is a free £5 monthly rental voucher for the TalkTalk TV store.
My own view is still emerging, but it may be that TalkTalk are trying to harden whatever it is that is their TV base. Everybody with a box? Surely not. This way they can more accurately target sales, marketing and perhaps with the help of YouView even advertising and other metrics at a more active, rather than passive TV base. Just a thought.
Here's part of the conversation:
So no misleading statements.
So that is 80 channels you have just chosen to cut yourself off from, then?
They are calling it a "TV Access Fee".
It's ok though, you can opt out and keep everything exactly as it is.
WTH?!?
Have a look at the TV section of their forum.
https://community.talktalk.co.uk/t5/TalkTalk-TV/bd-p/116
Page informing customers of the charge.
https://community.talktalk.co.uk/t5/Articles/TalkTalk-TV-pricing-is-changing/ta-p/2279095
Their excuse is customers are paying for the ABILITY to order boosts on a 1 month contract.
Then shouldn't they inform customers with boosts that prices are going up by £4 and advise customers who don't have boosts that if they take 1 it comes with a £4 a month charge.
How they can get away with this is beyond me.
edit: Forgot to add, they don't tell customers they can opt out of the £4 charge.
https://community.youview.com/youview/discussion/7604952/charges-dropped-for-talktalk-multi-room#latest