You're absolutely right! There are fundamental flaws in the way the telecom industry was deregulated (or actually unregulated). The telephone bucket shops haven't contributed one iota to the telecoms infrastructure of this country, yet they have been given extraordinary powers of poaching BT customers and then fleece them relentlessly. This clearly shows something has gone seriously wrong. For BT also there seems to be no incentive to improve the infrastructure as they as much money can be made by notional charges such as standing charges and line rentals on lines laid probably a century ago  when BT were a real public utility company! Compare this with how British Gas improved and transformed their infrastructure with such efficiency and determination.

This is EXACTLY the case I have been trying to make for nearly a year on this forum.

Talk Talk and AOL are both owned by Carphone Warehouse. So what they are trying to tell you is that their own companies do not talk to each other. OFCOM couldn't give a fig about anything and in the mean time innocent customers are being given the run-around. 

I know people think I am some kind of BT advocate but they couldn't be further from the truth - I am merely a HIGHLY experienced and HIGHLY qualified IT professional who knows the minutia of complex communication systems. Whilst BT owns the cable infrastructure for 90% of the UK communications network, the de-regulation of the systems meant that you got a load of inexperienced and technically incompetent companies that then were able to call themselves Internet Service Providers. In fact, they are merely reselling bandwidth over which they have extremely limited control and knowledge. So OFCOM introduces the MAC concept to try and "smooth the way" for people to change from one rip-off to another. This is useless when it comes to changing from an LLU service back to a BT service as the MAC system is totally irrelevant. It is the same argument when moving from a cable service to a BT service - the MAC is meaningless. Therefore the who MAC concept is fundamentally flawed and useless in certain conditions.

The principal problem here is that the government QUANGOs and so-called 'experts' lack real experience and expertise and merely add to the confusion and idiocy of a poorly thought out deregulation process in the first place. People may not like it, but facts are facts. If you don't own the network from the outlet in the house to the outlet in the server space, then you introduce a weak link that can only ever be just that - weak and therefore a liability. 

I hope that this explains the situation better for you all.

SHARK! 

Do not despair! If all give in and simply pay up whatever they ask,well, that's all they want!. Have a look at www.moneyclaimonline.gov.uk, set up by the Government with the laudable intention of giving easier access to the law.

Same thing happened to me. TalkTalk couldn't migrate me from AOL even after I gave them MAC code twice and I couldn't revert to BT! It looked BT were taking revenge! So I had to move to cable phone changing my number after nearly 35 years! Think of the inconvenience and hassle. On top of it, TalkTalk kept on sending ever increasing bills and started to threaten with debt collectors. So I was left with no alternative and have started sue them for damages and stress caused. I am 68 years old and have twice survived a heart attack, so I will fight on till the end. I didn't know that TalkTalk are indeed perhaps the worst of the phone bucket shops who have stung thousands of customers. Their call centre in India is totally useless as they read from the same script every time you ring and ask for 7 days time. Strange! But there's a great deal of money to be made in telecoms with all those connection, disconnection, migration,and standing charges and premium rate numbers; that's why there are so many sharks are operating in that market.

Back on line now, with no help from the virgin support. 1 week without boardband, and all virgin could say was it a nationwide problem. Thinking it would take a day or so for them to fixed, I telephone virgin everyday to ask what was going on. After 1 week I phone to cancle my boardband with them and ask /requested a MAC code.This must of touch a bone because they then imform me its not thier fault, but BT. With this in mind I telephone bt and ask if They could fixed my problem with no boardband. This is their answer..Boardband connection within less then 24 hours. I am FREE

Hi, its the same georgieo reporting back, for some reason having problem logging back into this forum? Ok what a pain this 'back to bt ' has been, firstly they have given me another telephone number, after I requested to the india call center BT has now got, to have my old number back on. Now after 6 days waiting for the old number to come back on, every day telephoning BT to chase it up, they now imform me their new system which has gone live 5 months ago has clash! reasons given 'overloading'. So in nearly 14 days since going back to BT, I have paid £124 got given A new Phone Number I don't want, and to make thing even worse, my internet conections has gone potty, it keeps cutting out after 10 minutes, with more phone calls to my internet sever they imform me my phone line need to be sorted out first to correct this problem. I could stand on top of blackpool tower and scream!!!!!!

I'm sorry to say it, but I have been warning people of this time and time again.

You (and many others like you) are going to have a lot of pain caused (in my opinion) by blatent mis-selling in the first place. You should have been warned by the salesman at the time you took out your Talk Talk contract that you could be liable for a fee if you wish to cancel your contract and return to BT. They know this can happen and in my view they should be made to pay it if they fail to disclose this at the time.

There is no such thing as FREE and there are very few things that are 'cheap' except talk ...

SHARK! 

I Cancle my talk talk after their promise of free boardband didn't happen after 2 years wait. With virgin now offering boardband plus free evening telephone calls for £14.99 I 'll sign up with them(vigin).After this talk talk then cancle my contract with them and now my phone line has gone dead.This after 3 days of trying to contact BT about the dead line I was told it would cost £124 for me to go back to being a Bt a/c holder. And to rub salt in they say it takes another 72 hours for the line to become live. So warning to all that have thier line rental paid through talk talk,  this is what happens to you if you want to change over to another telephone or boardband sever.and you have to have a bt line to do so. The promise of cheap calls isn't any more....