Should I stay or should I go??

[PoRL]

At the moment, I'm with NTL for TV (All channels plus movies plus sport), Broadband Internet (2 Meg) and Telephone.

I'm thinking of moving to SKY+, Bulldog and BT.

What are the pros & cons that anybody can tell me about??

Many thanks for your opinions,
PoRL:dunce:

[Chris]

:welcome: to the site. :)

For starters, is there anything about your current service you don't like?

My 2p ... I have Sky/BT/Virgin Broadband since I moved off-net, but if I could get NTL where I am now, I would be back like a shot. Cable broadband is way better than ADSL (especially if you have distance-from-exchange issues), NTL's EPG is better than Sky's in almost every respect (the one annoyance is the restriction on the number of days ahead NTL can display) and as for the phone ... well, it's a phone. I'm not a heavy user, so all the tariffs and providers are as good as each other so far as I'm concerned!

Sky may beguile you with the sheer number of channels they claim to provide, but don't be fooled, the overwhelming majority of them are appalling cr@p that I promise you will never watch, ever, ever.

[Neil]

*Moved to Other ISPs Discussion forum*

[ian@huth]

Unless you are a heavy telephone user it doesn't make much difference who you use for the telephone. Who you use for broadband and TV largely determines which telephone provider you use. If you go with NTL for TV it makes sense to use the NTL telephone service as you will have to pay for it in order to get TV. If you prefer ADSL then it rules out the NTL telephone service and therefore TV.

NTL would be (and is) my choice for broadband. Unless you want to download far more than NTL's cap I don't think you need anything faster than NTL provide. If you do want to download huge volumes be prepared for the present uncapped ISP's to introduce usage restrictions in the not too distant future. I don't think that the time is right for deciding on changing your ISP for broadband at the moment unless you are forced to. I would wait and see how NTL's service pans out when the lower tiers are moved onto 10Mb and how ADSL providers manage higher speeds on their networks.

As for TV, as Chris T says a lot of channels are appalling cr@p but which ones are such varies with the individual. Some people hate shopping channels, others love them. You have to consider which channels you want and make a decision based on which supplier carries those channels. As things stand at the moment I don't believe that you can beat Sky if you want to subscribe to the premium movie and sports channels. A new Sky customer can get an installation for £49 with a Sky+ digibox which really does change the way you watch TV. Taken over the first year the subscription costs are roughly the same for both Sky and NTL with no worries about repair costs if anything goes wrong. After the first year you can review the situation to see what both Sky and NTL are currently offering then.

[goldoni]

If you do go to BT for your phone use uswitch.com and check out the best price for your phone.

Or you can use toucan for your landline which will cost £9.99 per moth line rental which is a little cheaper than BT. Then you can pay an extra £9.99 for free landline calls 24/7 0845 numbers not included, but the good thing with Toucan you can stay on as long as you like and not have to ring off after 59mins.

Hope this helps

[AdamD]

Bulldog is nice, when it works, but there's so many disaster stories about customer service, it puts alot of people off

I am on 8mb bulldog and the service is super fast, as expected, but I dread the day I have to call customer services.

[PoRL]

Hi, and thanks for the info so far....

I'm especially interesting in the TV comparison - SKY+ to NTL's service..

PoRL

[AdamD]

Personally speaking, sky's offering is superior in many ways, imo.

[Chris]

Hi, and thanks for the info so far....

I'm especially interesting in the TV comparison - SKY+ to NTL's service..

PoRL

It all depends on what you want out of digital TV. What do you want? :)