TalkTalk Fibre 150 and Youview TV Box

Sheffnet

They have been putting in new faster cables in my area so I contacted TalkTalk to see if I could now get a faster connection. They offered me Fibre 150 for £26 pm.

However, they told me that the Youview box that I currently use with Fibre 65 will no longer work and if I want to continue with a TV service, I would need to get a 4k box. The 4k box only has a very limited record facility which is much worse than the Youview box. I only really ever watch programmes that I have recorded and often record more than one programme at a time so the 4k box recording facility is no good to me.

I tried to persist to find out why the Youview box wold no longer work. I just kept getting told "it's not supported" and "it won't work".

Surely the Youview box works off my TV aerial. It does have online services built in (iplayer, etc) and although these work off the internet, I don't understand why they won't continue to work also.

They said that I could even keep the old Youview box for free if I wanted to but implied that it was no good as it won't work.

Were they just trying to get me to take a 4k box?

WIll Youview work with TalkTalk Fibre 150?

Stevef_fr8ys

It will work. No idea why they persist in saying it won't.
Services are more limited but not obsolete.

kodikid

Youview is a free service just like freeview. There will be no difference whatsoever in the functionality with whoever  supplies the Internet. 
For the record TalkTalk have been named  as officially the worst isp in the country. 
So might be best to shop around for your FTTP. 

Roy

@Sheffnet @Stevef_fr8ys @kodikid

These confusions about what will and won’t work when you change something often arise because the supplier is thinking about one or other premium package that they offer.

The only relevant Boost Now though, is the ‘TV Boost’ that involves you signing up to Now, at full price, through TalkTalk, where they say:-
https://community.talktalk.co.uk/t5/Articles/About-NOW/ta-p/2457383

“Our NOW memberships are available to new and existing customers on our Fibre 35 & Fibre 65 packages and selected Full Fibre packages and existing TalkTalk TV customers on Faster Fibre”.

So if you have Now through TalkTalk on your current Fibre 65, and if the Full Fibre package you want to move to is not one of those selected ones, then Now via TalkTalk will indeed no longer work.

A lot of IFs though, and no indication, even in those circumstances, why the new 4K box would be any better.

So FUD, as if Now was the only ‘TV Service’ offered, conveniently forgetting terrestrial, and all the other apps on the YouView box.

Big deal though, even if it were all applicable; just move to getting Now direct from Now, and score those retention deals after month 1, to make it cheaper than via TalkTalk, even with the free Now Boost they throw in.

Other than that, your TalkTalk YouView box will behave just like any other YouView box used standalone outside any ISP deals. (Always assuming it now understands British Summer Time, that is 😛).

redchiz

@kodikid
How are you defining "worst" and what is the source? For the record, TalkTalk are in a crowded field of poor performers. £26 for Full Fibre 150 isn't bad is it, unless you have one of the soon-to-go-bankrupt start ups operating in your area. 

Roy

@redchiz said:

@kodikid
How are you defining "worst" and what is the source? For the record, TalkTalk are in a crowded field of poor performers. £26 for Full Fibre 150 isn't bad is it, unless you have one of the soon-to-go-bankrupt start ups operating in your area. 

https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/best-and-worst-broadband-providers-for-2023-revealed-aiAWx4a6wMg3

redchiz

@Roy
Ah, a Which? survey. Not quite "officially" then?

Stevef_fr8ys

By the way, I asked for clarification and the original instruction was to inform customers that boost channels would no longer work. Given these were removed ages ago, how that translates to a flat won't work comment I don't know.

Hopefully a new clarification will be sent to staff.

Roy

@redchiz said:

@Roy
Ah, a Which? survey. Not quite "officially" then?

Separating rabbits again? 😛

redchiz

Not at all. "Officially" would be Ofcom, where Virgin are the worst.

Sheffnet

I've rung TalkTalk again and have been told that the old Youview box WILL continue to work if I upgrade the broadband. Indeed, they are going to send me a brand new TV box which I think will be the 4K box and I think the reason for this is the 4K box is the best way for me to download paid-for content. The old box will do HD but not 4K so if I wanted to subscribe to Netflix for example, I need the new box. I won't pay for Netflix or other services, but they want me to have the opportunity to do these things.

I can keep the old Youview box in addition to the new one. And, my TV service is now going to be fully free, both boxes included.

And, they dropped the charge for free UK calls from £8 to £5.

So, instead of paying £27 for fibre 65, £8 for calls and £5 for TV, I'm going to be paying £26 + £5 (calls) = £31, and 'l be getting 150mb download.

The phone line, however, will be digital i.e. all calls go via the internet so a power cut will stop the phone working including 999. Digital voice phone is also incompatible with care alarm or burglar alarm systems but I don't have any of these.

This is an 18 month contract with inflation plus 3.7% contract price rises included.

redchiz

Nice one @Sheffnet, I trust all the nay-sayers will take note. 🙂

kodikid

Sheffnet said:

I've rung TalkTalk again and have been told that the old Youview box WILL continue to work if I upgrade the broadband. Indeed, they are going to send me a brand new TV box which I think will be the 4K box and I think the reason for this is the 4K box is the best way for me to download paid-for content. The old box will do HD but not 4K so if I wanted to subscribe to Netflix for example, I need the new box. I won't pay for Netflix or other services, but they want me to have the opportunity to do these things.

I can keep the old Youview box in addition to the new one. And, my TV service is now going to be fully free, both boxes included.

And, they dropped the charge for free UK calls from £8 to £5.

So, instead of paying £27 for fibre 65, £8 for calls and £5 for TV, I'm going to be paying £26 + £5 (calls) = £31, and 'l be getting 150mb download.

The phone line, however, will be digital i.e. all calls go via the internet so a power cut will stop the phone working including 999. Digital voice phone is also incompatible with care alarm or burglar alarm systems but I don't have any of these.

This is an 18 month contract with inflation plus 3.7% contract price rises included.

Or just ditch the landline and save even more.

Roy

@Sheffnet

BT gave us a Digital Voice Adapter, which I plugged our DECT master phone into, so we could keep using our non-DV handsets. The DVA talks to the BT hub over WiFi [Edit: @“Tim C” informs me it actually uses DECT - anyway, the DVA doesn’t need to be wired to the Hub, and indeed can’t be.]

We know that in a power cut - or an internet outage, which never seems to get mentioned, though we do have cellular fallback for that - the DECT phones won’t work, so we will have to pray that any power cut doesn’t take out our local phone masts, so we can still use mobiles.

One minor annoyance is that there is no longer such a thing as a local call, so you will have to put the area code, even for a call to a neighbour. Speed dial is your friend…

redchiz

TalkTalk provide a DVA, or a Hub 2 which has a phone port built in. Either way, your DECT phones remain usable. 

Roy

redchiz said:

Not at all. "Officially" would be Ofcom, where Virgin are the worst.

@redchiz

Ofcom don’t say that, though, so there is no ‘officially’.

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0030/237639/comparing-customer-service-report-2022.pdf

TalkTalk and Virgin are actually about as bad as each other, and the only way you can say Virgin is worst is by arbitrary weighting of some of the statistics, which Ofcom have avoided doing.

Tim C

@Roy

Just like to point out that the DVA does not use Wifi but DECT technology to talk to the SmartHub 2..

Roy

"Tim C"

Thanks, duly corrected above. That explains why it doesn’t appear among my WiFi devices on Fing, then. 

I didn’t know WPS, which it pairs over, wasn’t always WiFi 😢

Tim C

@Roy

Not often you get something wrong and I got no pleasure out of correcting you.

Roy

@Tim C

Hell, take your pleasures where you can - accuracy beats ego every time 😛

Darren

Sky dont seem to provide Digital Voice Adaptors. Not that I been using the service is I moved to Sky for my isp almost a month ago.
I seem to be getting a steady 65mb speed 98% of the time.
Openreach have been doing more work in my areas getting ready for the FTTC switch on and Kerr have put up two new phone polls near me.

kodikid

I foolishly succumbed to BT'S offer to upgrade to 900mbps. 
I was back on the FF 500 within the week. 
In real world usage it was literally no faster over wifi. It could be my Samsung S21 has a limit on recording speeds as both the 500 FF and the 900 never exceeded 450 mbps over Wi-Fi. 
I mentioned this to the cancellation team and she basically admitted the smart hub 2 cannot cope with such high speeds  and that's why they can't advertise it as 1 Gigabit.
Still live and learn.