Re: Goodbye NTL, hello BT Broadband
 

It is. BT don't randomly cut me off at 1am every Monday evening without fail, citing 'router maintenance'. Oh, and when I actually want to talk to BT, I don't wait 3 hours in a queue just to be put through to the wrong department.

Not that I'm defending BT in any way, you understand. They're plainly incompetent. They just can't seem to go that extra mile of plain idiocy that ntl have made their trademark.

Re: Goodbye NTL, hello BT Broadband
 

but that is only your experience , i have had ntl cable since they brought out the 64k service and hand on heart i have had very little trouble , either with the service or c.s. / t.s. , and anyway i am stuck as my local exchange is only half way towards being enabled for adsl , so i couldnt move if i wantd to :(

Re: Goodbye NTL, hello BT Broadband
 

Quite right. I actually had very few problems with my cable when I had it. It was when the problems did actually arise that I had trouble, for example contacting them about billing, outages, disconnection etc. Factor into this the fact they can't even perform a simple task such as switching a phone line off, it doesn't exactly inspire me.

Re: Goodbye NTL, hello BT Broadband
 

The whole point is that users leave NTL because they think BT offer this supreme service. BT are equally as **** as NTL are.
OK ntl has this site, what happened to BTopenWoe?
What happened to the constant disconnection the ADSL users in some areas reported last year?
What happened to all those people who were told Yeah you can have ADSL and they buy the modem to find out they cant actually have it?

I know it isnt just BT but the grass certainly is NOT greener.

Just look at BT, you know BRITISH telecom with its CS in INDIA!!!!!

Re: Goodbye NTL, hello BT Broadband
 

BT pulled their fingers out & did something about it?

I bet you don't find anywhere near the same problems with BT users that ntl customers have to endure.

Summed up well by 'prolific8' for me-the real problems begin when you have to phone ntl.

My DTV failing I can live with.

My BB packing up I can live with too.

I can even put up with my phone line failing.

But pi$$ poor service I cannot & will not accept from anybody.

Re: Goodbye NTL, hello BT Broadband
 

You should have paid the 120 pounds, the bailiff will find you and when he does he will have no problem taking away your computer when he finds you haven't got the cash to pay him, bailiffs rarely give you any amount of time over a few hours to get the money owed and like everyone else says there will be other charges on top.

Its true ntl have a poor service but to be honest thats no excuse not to have paid that bill, if you had paid the 120 pounds and then cancelled you would have been fine.

When I was with nildram I cancelled my service after openly admitting to them I no longer had the cash to pay them, they deffered the month's payment I owed them and told me they would order a cease, it turned out they took their time doing this and I had free ADSL for nearly 2 months but because I had communicated with them and made an agreement over the debt this was done with no ill feelings between me and nildram, of course the bill has now been paid.

Re: Goodbye NTL, hello BT Broadband
 

you could still get out of this, I would do this.

offer to pay of some of your debt by using the money you still got left after the costs of getting adsl, and then offer to pay of the rest in monthly installments, ntl will likely accept this, then explain that you havent had any service since it got suspended and ask for the charges you have incurred since the suspension date to be dropped, and if they agree again you are back to the original debt and have a good way of paying it off interest free. Of course the longer you leave the harder it will be to get rid of it.

Re: Goodbye NTL, hello BT Broadband
 

Stewart W really isn't bothered mate, I shouldn't worry. he'll learn one say :)

Re: Goodbye NTL, hello BT Broadband
 

Absolutely correct!!

BT Broadband is the pits I 'used' it at work, it went off more than it was on and the emnail servers were nearly as bad as ntls. Now on Pipex which is ok most of the time. Incidently BT closes down a lot of sites like this one similar to ntl with nthellworld.com

BT Telephone years of **** poor customer service, reached the end when i was speaking to an indian called 'bob', who knew nothing about telephones and seamingly had no knowledge of how to log problems on a computer system despite 5 calls!! And apparently speaking to the same person everytime. I have had years of a crackly telephone, BT wouldnt even send an engineer out unless I tested 5 telephones in the line (where the **** do i get 5 telephones) even they I would likely have to pay. I cut my losses and went to ntl.

A honestly dont think phoning BT is any better than ntl.......trying to speak to someone with little grasp of the english language is not something you want to do.

I still deal with BT on a regular basis, they are **** poor, have always been **** poor and always will be.

Different people have different experiences, ntl is not great, BT isnt great, Telewest isnt great, $ky isnt great etc etc.

They are all big companies who know they can get away treating 50% of their customers like ****e! look at BT......they offer the only telephone line rental in some areas, there is no choice! if people in the outer limits of scotland want to pay their line rental to another company because BT CS is ****....they cant!! if they want a landline BT is the only option.

Its better to have choice, and if people change thats upto them, but a service isnt always bad for everyone.

There does seem to be a concensus on this site that BT are brilliant, ADSL is the dogs bollox and Sky is the best thing to happen!! My experience with the above would suggest otherwise.

Re: Goodbye NTL, hello BT Broadband
 

THis guy said he doesnt have a bank account.
He cant be on NTLs register as the paying customer.
He isnt responsible for the bill.
As for being billed for a month when NTL didnt provide you with any service, thats total BS and you would probably win if you argued that in a court of law.

If NTL';s accounts department are anything like the rest of the company they have probablylost his account details and billed some guy in the Shetlands for it by now.

Re: Goodbye NTL, hello BT Broadband
 

I had no problem with NTL's phone service & since moving back to BT i have had no problem with BT's phone service however i have noticed although the standard line rental are the same BT is the cheaper of the two because included in the standard line rental you get a few quids worth free of off peak calls making my phonebill each month less than what it used to be (without having to pay an increase price on my rental charge each month) when i was a NTL telephone customer, the level of customer service has'nt changed since moving either, both NTL & BT customer services have been polite & helpful.

The main difference for me between ADSL & NTL BB cable is that my connection is alot faster especially at peak times simply because i have an ADSL service that is faster than NTL's 1mb BB service for around the same price that NTL charge per month.

I switched over from NTL digital TV to sky years ago simply because for choice of the amount of channels available to me & price.

Re: Goodbye NTL, hello BT Broadband
 

Is that the standard package for £9.50??

For me personally BT £9.50 worked out very expensively as I had to pay 7.9p a minute for daytime calls which I doo tend to make a number of. I was getting bills in excess of £50 on BT the mostI have with ntl is £25

A lot depends on you preference in calls, but both services are equally bad or good. I dont think any company in this country is perfect.

Re: Goodbye NTL, hello BT Broadband
 

I did post the info before but im having trouble finding the thread & post...

BT Standard day time charge is still 7.9p a minute

BT Standard Line Rental is £9.50 paid via DD you get £2.15 worth of free off peak calls making BT's line rental £7.35 a month. (providing you use up all your free call allowance each month)

you also get a free answering machine service 1571 to get this free just ask BT CS it takes about 24hrs to set up

From the 1st February 2004, customers will pay the standard line rental fee for additional lines on the same BT Together account.

BT also do call options pay more rental & your charged a cheaper rate for phone calls...

BT Together Option 1
Rental £11.50 inc vat per month by DD
Day Time 3p a minute inc vat
Evening & Weekends 6p up to an hour per call
(up to 1 hour per call - if you talk for over an hour, every extra minute is charged at 1p)

BT Together Option 2
Rental £17.50
Day Time 3p a minute
Evening & Weekends No charge
(up to 1 hour per call - if you talk for longer, every extra minute is charged at 1p)

BT Together Option 3
Rental £28.50
Day Time No charge
(up to 1 hour per call - if you talk for longer, every extra minute is charged at 3p)
Evening & Weekends No charge
(up to 1 hour per call - if you talk for longer, every extra minute is charged at 1p)

All BT Together Options also offer you:

5% off all calls you make to UK mobiles.

Reduced Evening & Weekend calls to our most popular international destinations

Additional 10% discount on five Friends & Family Overseas numbers

Extra ways to save on International & Internet calls with a range of Add-ons

Friends & Family is a residential discount scheme that is free to join. You can nominate up to 10 numbers, including one international & one mobile number. You receive 10% discount on direct dialled calls to those nominated numbers. Your home telephone number is automatically added as an eleventh number so that you receive a 10% discount when you call your home number or your Friends & Family numbers using your BT Chargecard or Ring Me Free cards. Premium Rate Service numbers are excluded.

Friends & Family members can nominate one of their 10 existing Friends & Family numbers or their home number to be their BestFriend number. This means that they can enjoy an extra 10% discount on calls to that number, saving a total of 20%. However, the BestFriend number cannot be a mobile or international number.

Finally, Friends & Family members can receive a 10% discount on five further international numbers by joining Friends & Family Overseas. Friends & Family Overseas costs £1 per quarter for customers who do not have BT

Which is the cheapest NTL or BT? its swings & rounderbouts but i rekon the swing is more to the BT side depending on your phone usage.

Re: Goodbye NTL, hello BT Broadband
 

I had my BT phone line installed today, (Couldnt look the guy straight in the face after he managed to somehow take out a traffic calming bollard in the street I live in in his BT van. Honestly how he hit a bollard thats up on its own island in my road I shall never know, looked like he was coming in through my front windowfor a second.)

Lines installed now fine, when its all activated and ive paid my first month, im going to invest in a DLink ADSL modem, and get myself some nice Zen ADSL 512k Broadband I think, after 4 years as a customer, using and experiencing all aspects of their services, I cannot wait to leave them for pastures new.

Re: Goodbye NTL, hello BT Broadband
 

Good luck m8. As far as I'm concerned, it's better the devil you know. :shrug: