Prospero

Yikes! Hasn't Telewest recently been taken over by NTL?

I've been with Telewest since I moved to Edinburgh in 2001. In all that time the only trouble I've experienced was a single service outage that lasted a couple of hours. Now looking forward to a receiving a free speed hike to 4MBits beginning next month. Should I be worried by this takeover?

JSC

If you're already a customer I wouldn't worry too much, it's usually customer service which sucks and as long as you have no issues with your line or getting connected, then you can avoid all of this. Plus it will be some time before they are able to merge the 2 organisations so in the meantime your service will probably be unaffected.

SchmeckFlyer

I'm shocked by how expensive some of the services are mentioned here. And how unreliable it can be sometimes. Surely this is not common in the UK?

I have 10MB cable modem, which includes wireless modem and telephone services using regular phone and number (with free calling to fixed lines), for 32 euros per month and no installation fees. So far, it has been very reliable over several months, with no problems.

BA or bust

Slightly OT. I have had NTL for nearly 10 years in its various iterations, starting with Videotron. It has poor customer service but I held on till last year because they kept promising Broadband in my area.... it never arrived (some techie infrastructure problem). Gave up and got a spare BT line and Broadband AOL. For me... perfect. Never had any problems with my Internet. I know there is cheaper stuff but the various adds ons from AOL are good if you have a family.

phreegreens

ntl always seem to get a hard time, I have had their cable modem service now for about 4 years, it's been excellent, I got a 3mb service it's reliable and quick. I have had a few outages over the years, 2/3 days when some Muppet in a high speed Escort took out the green street box, not a lot ntl could have done about that and a few other odd occasions. Customer Service in the early days was pretty poor, the couple of times I have contacted them recently about service changes, calls have been answered quickly and efficiently.

Most folks I know in my area are really happy with ntl, sure there will be horror stories around, but I have been v.v happy with them. I've had significantly less problems than friends on BT or BT wholesale ADSL. .. ^

Prospero

Thanks JSC for those reassuring words. Perhaps now would be a good time to order a replacement remote control for my set top box. Damned telly has been stuck on Dog the Bounty Hunter and the Ultimate Fighting Champion for the last two weeks

BA or bust

I think this proves my experience is not the norm, but still think it shows NTL as pretty variable. I think a lot is to do with what area you are in.

jakesterUK

I hasten to add, I was leaving them - they were good initially, but they were overtaken (in terms of products and services, no matter how attractive the underground cabling is) by Sky and other telecoms providers. It also didn't help that they were (and still are?) £ billions in debt (though this didn't prevent me from signing up with them).

The reason that I dislike them is that they continued charging my monthly fee even though they had not installed a line at my new house, and I had not contracted them to install one - I ask you, why would I pay them for no line?

The cable service was no competition to Sky + either (yes I have one of those ghastly mesh things on the front of my house).

fliesfrequently

I've been with Demon Internet since the early ninties with short forays to other suppliers such as pipex/virgin/bt/freeserve and telewest and have found them to be the best in my experience.

Slightly costly compared to other offerings, I'm on 2Mbps for £24.99/month no download limits, however their tech support is excellent. Very knowledgable staff who recently helped resolve an issue with my (unsupported) broadband router I'd picked up from ebuyer. I was exteremely pleased.

They seem to target business customers mostly, which perhaps explains why their service remains good.

DocH

Whilst have had NTL Broadband for a year, and previously NTL dial up and Never had a problem, I'm not sure individual anecdotal evidence is very useful. I'd go with one of the surveys rather than individual advice.

Only problem is , it is very easy for a small outfit to get good ratings when starting up, as they are often at very low useage levels, compared to capacity, and the business model goes for a cheap price to attract a customer base. Much more difficult to get good ratings once established.

Jimmie76

Count yourself lucky you can have Broadband at all, a mate at work made a deal with BT back around 2000, to get broadband put in. He spoke to someone who said no problem, and then a few days later he takes the day off to let them in, to do the installation. No one shows up!

He calls BT at about 4pm and gets no joy, just on hold for long periods, which isn't great. Next day he comes into work and leaves the speaker phone on hold and his call is finally answered many many minutes later. Lady on the other end says ah yes sir we've been trying to get hold of you, you live 20ft too far from the exchange to have broadband so we cancelled the installation. Did you not get our letter telling you this?

I've never heard that many four letter insults in one call.

jakesterUK

See here for more information. The complaints may be about 'landlines' but they all come down the same cable.

It might also interest you to know that I had to complain to OFCOM in order to resolve this particular issue. Anecdotal it may be, but it was nevertheless a very bad experience (which included debt collectors), and as a result I would not recommend NTL.

Epilogue:

I spoke to a customer service agent after the reported matter had supposedly been closed, and hadn't actually been closed by NTL. He said that he couldn't be bothered to listen to any more complaints, and would just wipe the charge from my bill. He said he didn't care anyway as he had just been made redundant and the call centre was moving elsewhere in the world!

That sends out a pretty clear message to a potential or departing customer...

flyclub

Morning all!

In a rather interesting twist - I had a call from BT wholesale/technical department of BT last night at 9pm from Exeter.

Apparently "there is a serious error affecting over 1000 customers in some parts of Cardiff".

Apart from my first reaction of amazement that it has taken them two days to work out what I suspected on Saturday evening ( ) what baffels me evenmore is how a friend of mine who lives two door down from me who also has ADSL with BT has been completely unaffected!!!

The guy on the phone stated they had a 'job completion time of 0730 on the 18th October' (why they couldn't have said tomorrow morning, I don't know.... ).

Anyhow, checked it at 0815 this morning before leaving for the office. Still no joy.

dgc

surely only consideration should be tesco broadband for the bonus clubcard points.

according to an industry insider bulldog(despite c&w backing) may get pulled following current OFCOM investigation as they are so bad.

as previously posted don't buy retail broadband if you need guaranteed 24/7 service

I have had no problems with btbroadband though had to chase them for the 2MB upgrade. when setting up router had to get passwords reset and helpdesk not clued up: i suppose if you have any it knowledge you wouldn't be working for peanuts in a call centre. what with this and offshoring c.s. seems to be a major issue when dealing with any large business.

parents have ntl broadband and certainly you get a lot for your money(with tv and phone)

obviously the test of any service is what happens when things go wrong: but not much chance of bt being insolvent(pension fund aside)

Dave_C

My word they are shocking. Just had to get a MAC number from them to migrate away. 45 min + waits to speak to tech support in some dodgy call centre in India. Only to be told after half an hour of going through the motions that he thought my microfilter was dodgy. Broadband still wasn't working a week and three microfilters later, only for them to eventually admit there was a problem at the exchange.

To say nothing of them not being able to collect a direct debit, and then demanding £200+ in one go.

Useless. Avoid.