I am making this post after reading many of the horror stories posted on this site, which are then occasionally contradicted to some degree by other posters who score TalkTalk quite highly.

A question that I am beginning to ask myself is if one of the main differences between the two groups of posters is that posters who advise that they are pleased with their TalkTalk service are [in the main] connected to exchanges where TalkTalk have installed LLU?

I was seriously considering moving to TalkTalk, until I read some of the other posts, most of which are rather scary! I don't want to move my account [for 18 months!] and go through what some of the other posters have encountered, but I have noticed on the samknows.co.uk website advises that TalkTalk has already installed LLU at my local exchange!

So, my question to other posters is "Does installation of TalkTalk LLU at your local exchange make the difference to the TalkTalk internet service provided and problems encountered, or does this play no part at all?

For readers who do not have much time to post a full reply, a short answers just saying "LLU at local exchange - Yes/No" and "TalkTalk INTERNET Sevice - Good/Bad" would be sufficent from current TalkTalk users [although if your ISP is someone else, I would be interested to hear your situation] to give some indication of the part it plays!

Thanks for reading this post, and posting your findings.

1: LLU has made no diffrence to me.

2: In a nutshell regarding TalkTalk.

Accused us of downloading more than 40GB while 6000 miles away on holiday thus throttling our (supposedly 4Meg) internet access down to 500kbs for 5 months (even though they told us we were not being restricted)
Accussed us of being heavy users! (self employed, around 12 hours a day & then a stack of paperwork in the evening)
As we speak we are getting 2.8Meg maximum speed. (supposed to be 4Meg)
ADSL to surf the net & read e-mail !!!! I could do that with dialup.
but what do I know!...........It's your decision.

Thanks for the response sparks72. Another scary story! I am assuming that by the way that you have replied, that your local exchange has LLU installed for TalkTalk?

I don't get any of the scary situations described is numerous other posts with my current ISP! I have had a few occasional minor problems, all of which have usually been sorted in reasonably short period of time.

I thought ISP's have been saying that the main problem with download speeds that they were able to deliver to the customer was that home connections went through BT exchanges, and that was the reason that they were slow. I also thought that they were saying speeds would be considerably improved when and where they installed their own equipment in local exchanges, which is described as LLU - Local Loop Unbundling.

My local exchange has got TalkTalk unbundled, but by using the amount of replies to my original post as a barometer, there seems little evidence of improved speeds.

Or could it be that TalkTalk customers are so fed up with the poor standard of service that they receive in other areas of the TalkTalk service that they pay for, they feel that additional download speeds that LLU brings pales into insignificance, and TalkTalk are not worth supporting/defending?

I would still be interested to hear from other posters about where their ISP has unbundled at their local BT exchange, and whether LLU has delivered any download speed improvements [or otherwise!] from any ISP, but particularly from TalkTalk.

Thanks for reading this latest post.