Direct Save Telecom

I signed up with DST when I moved in February 2007 as I'd found some decent reviews which had been complimentary about service levels and the price at the time was competitive. I'm not sure what happened but I think they must have sacked all the staff who cared about customer service.

When the 9 houses in my road lost their broadband last winter everyone else in the road was reconnected in a day. I remained without connection for weeks. That was bad enough but getting anyone at DST to care about the problem was close to impossible I never had a proactive call and rarely had a prompt call back. Every time I chased I was fobbed off.

I determined to cancel but was in the process of trying to sell my house at the time and I didn't want to get caught in a minimum contract period with a new supplier.

Once I had a date for leaving the house I gave notice of cancellation. It was within a month of my call to them in mid-July so I advised them that they should charge me for the full month from the date of the call.

I had expected to pay at worst to the end of August but I subsequently received a bill for line rental and call/broadband package for the September service period and also a £19.50 "no notice" invoice despite notice having been given.

I had cancelled my direct debit back when I had had no service last winter. I have lost count of the number of letters demanding payment, email replies and telephone conversations explaining the situation that have passed between us but all to no avail. At least now they have moved on from threatening disconnection (communication you see is not the strong suit of this communications company) and the latest demand merely threatens a county court summons.

I can only recommend that anyone and everyone avoids this company.

Used to be a very good service. Unfortunately tis last 6 weeks i have found it increasingly dificult to actually GET ON the internet during peak hours. Pages do not load up or time out, i have done a multitude of speed tests and I am geting 0.1 mbps during peak hours. They are re-sellers for Eclipse. Before 8am the service is fine as is weekends when i am getting up to 3mbps, my sync is 6.4mbps. Unfortunately I do not want to USE the internet just at off peak times. I have sent data about my download speeds (haven\'t received a reply yet. So I have requested my MAC code).

Bundled telephone service is ok, price is good.

Hope this is not tempting fate, but after the terrible talktalk service DST seems like nirvana!

Telephone helpline is first class, sometimes a small wait to get through, but the staff are very helpful and really know their onions.

Installation from CD is quick and simple, even for a newcomer to broadband. I have only given 6 for speed since I am at extreme range from exchange and was warned in advance that I could not expect any high speeds, so I can only say that jumping from 30kbps to around 550 seems like lightening to me!

Price for package of line rental, unlimited calls 24/7 and broadband is very reasonable. So far so good!

This is my second day with Direct Save Telecom ,I am a silver surfer every e-mail I have sent them has been answered .their e-mail page was down ,so I e-mailed them .Without asking they phoned me ,and set up my e-mail on the spot ,It is now all working ,it is a direct save email address ,and it is configured to work through Outlook Express.My speed is 6.1 mbps the computer has been on constant for 2 days and everything is perfect.I know its early days but fingers crossed and all that.I hope this early review has been a help.

The broadband is provided by eclipse so is quite good but not spectacular, speed suffers at times.

Service response to telephone enquiries is excellent and you can call on a standard landline number, however response to e-mail enquiries is poor to non existant.

The main gripe I have is they advertise e-mail but do not actually provide it unless you are happy with one through eclipse until they eventually get their own up and running. I have been waiting 5 months, and now use web mail.

Package cost of line rental, 24/7 calls and broadband is about ?30 if you add caller ID in (free from BT) which I think is very good value