canx my NTL account today.
 

Phoned NTL today to canx all three of my services. they were very good about it & even asked what the problem was. the young lady told me I needed to be transferred to customer services to cancel my account.

What made me laugh, they put me on hold for 15mins just to cancel.

buggers:p:

Re: canx my NTL account today.
 

well it's 9months since I canceled all my services with NTL and OH MY GOD it's been great I have been able to sleep at night

I ditch NTL's full TV, talk 24 and there 1meg service for

Skys full TV which is loads better
got BT Line and a bulldogs DSL 2meg biztime 20:1 ratio
since I phoned them on day 1 I have never had to phone these companys once but when I did phone them they made me feel welcome unlike the responce I used to get at NTL

I like BT as they have caller ID there voice mail works and the line has never gone down unlike NTL's

SKY package is A: cheaper, B: interactive is much faster and loads more to it

Bulldogdsl, well what can I say they offer Adsl lot cheaper than NTL and offer speeds much higher than NTL and almost the same cost as there 1.5meg service

plus I also get billed on the right day and the money is taken out on the day they say it will unlike good old NTL and that was the final straw for me I won't go into it but thats what broke the cammels back for me

BT 10 outa 10:tu:
Sky 10 outa 10:tu:
Bulldogdsl again 10 outa 10:tu:

NTL luckly to get a 1 outa 10 :td: join at you own risk I say

Re: canx my NTL account today.
 

Don't hold back now - tell us what you really think :)

Welcome to the site and I hope you stick around :)

Re: canx my NTL account today.
 

Makes me laugh when people fall for the 'Sky is cheaper' blurb...it simply isn't.

What Sky do is quote their price, which does not include phone, quote ntl's, which DOES include phone,a nd then tell potential customers they are £9.50 a month cheaper than ntl!

We've caught them doing this SO many times you wouldn't believe it. They are misleading their potential customers to dupe them into signing up.

Sky DO offer cheaper deals initially for new customers...but so does ntl. This does not make Sky cheaper. That's another old trick...compare a short term discount price with a competitior's full price, and present your discount price as if it's full price. BT have been cuaght doing this trillions of times.

So watch the small print of the deals you sign up with for ANY company. Most companies tell blatant lies to win business...and let the buyer beware!

Re: canx my NTL account today.
 

my only reason for having a phone line is to have adsl, I know you have to have one for sky to but when you think about it for sky and the basic BT package it's close in price not much but to me it's all down to the service the give you and sky has a better interactive service loads more channels than NTL dose. Like I say BT has caller ID which NTL can't provide in EX C&W areas which they fail to point out in there NTL phone that they sell with the feature of caller ID, wasted 50quid a cheap and nasty phone :mad:, There 1.5meg service is also the same price as a bulldogdsl's 2meg service and i must add they have not BANDWITH/DOWNLOAD LIMIT yes I can download gigs and gigs of stuff and not have to worrie at all :upyours: I feel at the end of the day my side of the fence is much greener than NTL's side, if ntl want to continue they need to get the CS upto BT's and SKY's level like answering there phone within 5mins of waiting never had to wait that long for sky BT bulldog or even vodafone, but good old NTL you can be sure to have to wait at least 45mins before u get an answer and then you get past from pilla to post as the right have dose not seem to know what the left hand is doing(more than likely iching there bumm)

if they had just been able to bill me right then I may of still been an NTL customer to this day but when you set a DD with them and they don't bother to take the money when there ment to and have the dam right cheek to phone you up and say your account is in arrears, and after 3weeks of phone calls and details not beening loged on the account of arrangements made and NTL calling there customer(ME) a lier you get a tad peed off so after they just tryed to take the money out my account with out even informing me they were going to do so and causing me a 30fine at the bank I told them to shuve there services right up there big fat assholes and I have right here 2 months statements from NTL for the months were they did not take my dosh showing no charge for the service and I am happy to scan and post them up for you to see I am just waiting for a court letter or something so I can take my own action on them for what looks to me as 2 free months BB they know they were in the wrong and thats why since they came and got there junk from my house I have never heard from them again LOL!!!!

Re: canx my NTL account today.
 

OK Now I'm really confused.

For a start 9 months ago 2Mbit Biztime with a 20:1 ratio from Bulldog cost over 60 quid a month. The Alltime 2000 service cost just over £40 a month I believe, however that carried a 40:1 contention ratio I think, more than twice that ntl aim for.

Secondly 10 out of 10 my backside. I have the misfortune to use the Bulldog network as a handoff to my ISP. My connection is a true Biztime 2Mbit IPStream service...

I haven't been able to hit near 2Mbit for over 3 weeks now, here's a typical test in more peak times...

http://www.adslguide.org.uk/tools/sp...e73f4618cdc7cc

Downstream 751 Kbps (93.9 KB/sec) 811 Kbps (inc. overheads)
Upstream 86 Kbps (10.8 KB/sec) 92 Kbps (inc. overheads)

Oh and my pings are stunning:

Statistics for clarity.jolt.co.uk:
Packets: sent=100, rcvd=91, error=0, lost=9 (9% loss) in 51.534487 sec
RTTs of replies in ms: min/avg/max: 39.804 / 72.604 / 102.440

I'm glad I don't pay the full £63 a month for this service.

Yes I work for ntl, no I'm not being economical with the truth, check out http://bbs.adslguide.org.uk/postlist...&Board=bulldog for some more lovely stories about the hell that has been Bulldog for most customers over the past 3 / 4 weeks since they

1) Oversubscribed their core network
2) Oversubscribed their BT Centrals
3) Botched up integration of new kit
4) Denied knowledge of any issues for a while, while treating their customers to 2+ hour waiting times to speak to customer services.

10/10 for sure, though not in a complementary way ;) (Yes I love Bulldog it's obvious isn't it :angel: )

If you've had such a great service from them you must be about the only person in the country outside a small pocket in Central London (though they managed to kill their own unbundled customers as well!).

You and most other people on Bulldog which is why their internet service is such oversubscribed sh*t (excuse the language but people are paying a lot of money a month for much worse speeds than the test I posted above, one I did earlier upstream was higher than down!) they invite people to come and download as much as they want on the cheap, pile em high, contend em hard.

Personally I'd rather take a 'flexible' cap than enjoy appauling speeds on the rare occasions I actually need the extra speed. You thought surfing through proxies was bad try surfing with packet loss and severe contention is like surfing through treacle.

http://www.adslguide.org.uk/tools/sp...f4c35b4a577d7e

Downstream 548 Kbps (68.5 KB/sec) 591 Kbps (inc. overheads)
Upstream 231 Kbps (28.9 KB/sec) 249 Kbps (inc. overheads)

At least the upstream came back I guess :(

EDIT:

Rereading your posts there's something a little... strange about them. The way you write is a little unusual for a 26 year old, and what you say is odd too:

Never had to call Sky BT or Bulldog since day one but but they've always answered the phone within 5 minutes? Bit contradictory? That's what sales tend to do whomever you speak to - try calling Bulldog CS now...

Re: canx my NTL account today.
 

http://www.adslguide.org.uk/tools/sp...26a37ff30065c5
http://www.adslguide.org.uk/tools/sp...336e6cc5637f49
thats my speed tests seems to work fine here and I was only commenting on that there is no cap on the service and I don't do heavy downloads I use my connection for mainly hosting my email/webserver and the odd game server thats why I went for the 20:1 biztime connection and well I did tell a small fib I forgot that I had to ring them to get my 8 gobel ip address for my hosting, got almost straight though to there customer services, I did read the adslguide and did see people complaining about the mess up they seem to had done, but I did not get it really as for the last 5 weeks I have been fiddling around on my servers setting the things up but I could sit here and harp on about NTL's poor speeds and oversubscribed network for the last few years that I payed the full hit for there 1meg service which again did'nt hammer it

well just for your info I am dyslexic ok my grammer ant the best and find it harder to put things down in words instead of just speaking the way I feel, but at least I am trying

Re: canx my NTL account today.
 

Just out of interest I have just called Nildram support.... (2:09am)... Two rings and " Good morning and welcome to Nildram support my name is ******* How can I help you "

If NTL can do this I will eat my hat with a side helping of Bopdudes keyboard fluff !!!

Re: canx my NTL account today.
 

Still confused as to the cost aspect.

Bulldog charge for a /29 subnet, and Biztime 20:1 was over 60 quid a month when you would have bought it. Can't see how this is close to the cost of ntl's 1.5Mbit offering. If you were paying the £43 / £40 a month for Alltime 2000 it wasn't 20:1.

You could harp on about ntl's poor speeds and oversubscription over the past few years, apart from that broadband hasn't been available for more than 3 years and I can't think of anywhere that's been oversubscribed to the extent that Bulldog have. I can't wait for my connection to leave those cowboys :)

I wasn't talking about the way you were saying things I was talking about what you were saying, as in contradicting yourself and saying things that are to the best of my knowledge untrue.

Bulldog make ntl look like the epitomy of efficiency :rolleyes: here's hoping Cable and Wireless clean their act up rather than using them to pimp telephony as seems quite possible :(

Stuart: Give Pipex a chance to ruin the Nildram Customer services, just a question of time :D (GXN / Pipex bought Nildram recently)

Re: canx my NTL account today.
 

That 1.5mg line is way too expensive, BT adsl is only 26.99 for the 1mg, thats enough for me.

TV was crap as well.

lucky for me, BT have an offer with new customers, if you want SKY along with your connection, you get 3 months free with sky.

counting down the 30 days. ;)

Re: canx my NTL account today.
 

Oh pleeeeeeeaaaasssseeee NTL - just once, answer the phone in 2 rings :p:

Re: canx my NTL account today.
 

I tried to cancel my account today, spoke to 2 different people who put me through to 'the relevent department' and finally a third who advised me that the systems wer down compleatly and could I call back later ??!?!?! 30 mins for that! I'll have another go now.

Re: canx my NTL account today.
 

And this just gets better and better, I've made 2 calls that have both just mysteriously gone to the engaged tone. e.g. on hold and the engaged tone just cut in.

On hold again Ho hum

Re: canx my NTL account today.
 

Another 20 minutes on hold and yet again the systems are still down...

The nice gent did suggest that I try at 4pm.

I'm upto 50 minutes and 4 phone calls now. At least any lingering doubt that I might have about leaving NTL has been quashed.

Re: canx my NTL account today.
 

Have to disagree with you there JAN, I'm on their (supposedly problematic) primetime 2000 package and I get a full 1880Kbps with downloading during the evening and sometimes during the day too. I NEVER have problems with the switch the other way and the speed pages load are great, no poxy proxy's. And for £29.99 a month the primetime 2000 is great value too.

The two times I've had to phone them they were courteous and efficient. the model company as far as I'm concerned.

NTL, well thats another story, had them install TV 3 weeks ago, worked for 7 days and hasn't since, their provisioning computer is down so they cant reconnect the account they disconnected in error, and after spending 6+ hours on the phone I've canceled the lot.

I'd rather deal with Bulldog any day of the week.

Re: canx my NTL account today.
 

We'll have to agree to disagree on that one :tu:

Re: canx my NTL account today.
 

you also have to send a letter to NTL head office to confirm the cancellation. address is on the billing paperwork.

Re: canx my NTL account today.
 

I didn't have to when I cancelled NTL

Re: canx my NTL account today.
 

Okay, I'm a little confused...
Take a look at these two pages:
http://www.ordersky.com/channelpacka...ckage.asp?id=4

http://www.home.ntl.com/icat/familypack


The show the Family Pack TV packages for Sky & NTL.
They are both listed as £19.50, but on the NTL page it says:
"Great value at only £19.50 per month, exclusive of your telephone line rental which you must purchase with your TV package.", and at the bottom of the page:
"Price is exclusive of £9.50 telephone line rental which must be purchased with your TV package"

Now, does that mean the phone line is £9.50 on top of the £19.50? Exclusive used in this term, to me means it's not INCLUDED :confused:

Re: canx my NTL account today.
 

It's exactly what it says, 19.50 exclusive of phone line which at 9.50 must be purchased with your package, making 29.00 in total.

ntl have been experimenting with advertising it this way rather than the old '29.00 including phone line rental' method, mainly because Sky will not stop telling potential customers that their packages are 9.50 a month cheaper than ntl's, which is nothing short of a blatant lie.

Re: canx my NTL account today.
 

No its TRUE, if NTL's package is 29.90 a month and Sky's are 19.50 then they are cheaper, no matter which way you cut it. Sky don't supply pones so why should they include it in the price?

Come on. :)

Re: canx my NTL account today.
 

I am very very pleased with Bulldog now anyway.

http://www.adslguide.org.uk/tools/sp...04a554540247d5

Downstream 452 Kbps (56.5 KB/sec) 488 Kbps (inc. overheads)
Upstream 265 Kbps (33.1 KB/sec) 286 Kbps (inc. overheads)

I would expect a better download rate on a 512k DSL line, the upload was so dodgy it confused the checker :(

Time to download: 86.11 seconds
File size: 5040KB
Throughput: 477.6 kilobits per second
Throughput: 58.5 kilobytes per second

http://speedtest.bulldogdsl.com/lt.html

Grrrrrr stroll on migration time!!

Re: canx my NTL account today.
 

O/T but what have Bulldog said about your situation?

Re: canx my NTL account today.
 

It's simply not a valid price comparison, whether people like it or not.

A car sold with a trailer is not a valid price comparison with a car without a trailer.

ntl are getting round Sky's lies by quoting the price separately in some advertisements now.

My own personal view is that phone lines should be a completely separate product, and you should be able to have TV without phone if you choose to. That would put a stop to the lies and misinformation spread around by other companies. But that's my personal view.

Re: canx my NTL account today.
 

Yet Ntl still wont do it, why, because they think they'll squeeze that little bit of extra money out of the customer. :(

Re: canx my NTL account today.
 

At the moment I think it's the logistical nightmare of reprogramming all the billing systems.
With Harmony well on the way they won't want to spend what would be vast sums on doing that on systems that will be replaced within the year.

Re: canx my NTL account today.
 

So, Sky are comparing Apples with Pears.

In my opinion, Sky cannot say that their package is cheaper than NTLs, as if you bung the phone line rental in (and you do need a phone, at least for the first year), it isn't cheaper.

I do think, however, that NTL should do a cheaper package without the phone line.

Re: canx my NTL account today.
 

My comparison of NTL vs Sky seems to work out slightly in favour of NTL in the first year, Sky in subsequent years, assuming that Sky Movies is preferred over the the NTL phone line:

So it seems that for the first year, Sky+ is £5.50/m more, and the telephone line is substituted for Sky Movies 1. But in subsequent years, the Sky is £11/y less.

NTL has the advantage of offering DSL and a phone line, Sky offers more channels, and better interactive TV.

Regards,
Ian Tresman

Re: canx my NTL account today.
 

Good, thats what I was thinking, I knew they used to quote the price including the phone line.

So, I'm paying exactly the same for my Sky plus a phone line (£19.50 + £9.50) as I would for NTL.
At least thats cleared that one up, they are both the same price when you take into account the phone lines.

Re: canx my NTL account today.
 

They might be able to answer the phone but does the person on the other end have a brain because when my uncle switched back to cable from ADSL he had a load of problems with nildram because they didnt cease the line on the right day and he paid 11quid a quarter to keep his nildram email address and they deleted the mail box when the adsl was ceased _(after he had paid).

Re: canx my NTL account today.
 

Isnt there a 1gig a month cap on that service or am I wrong?

Re: canx my NTL account today.
 

Im logging in here for the first time in an age, and I personally havent been happier, since dumping NTL.

ADSL, BT Phoneline and Freeview suits me down to the ground, yet to have a problem with any of the above :]

Re: canx my NTL account today.
 

I cancelled my digital TV for Sky+, kept my phone and broadband.

When I returned from holiday, my broadband had been cancelled as well! I was told that the only way I could get up and running was to re-register which would mean another years contract!

I ranted and eventually I was re-connected.

Wasted a lot of time and was without broadband for 4 days.

Sky+ is a marvel. I hung on for NTL to pop in a hard drive to their STB for long enough.....

Re: canx my NTL account today.
 

You forgot the cost of the Sky+ box, they aren't free last I checked sir!

Re: canx my NTL account today.
 

I'm back off a long weekend and I think that's what I'll have to do.

I'm going to give it one more try today to do it by phone and then its trusting the post offcie (HA HA) to deliver the letter in a timely manner.

Scarlett.

p.s. just had a note from NTL re my last DD payment bouncing (because they won't move the due date) dated 02/09 I got it on 20/09 (had been mis-delivered by the PO))

Re: canx my NTL account today.
 

yes there is, but thats more than enough for me.

if you go over the limit there's a surcharge. :erm:

Re: canx my NTL account today.
 

send the dear JOHN letter mate, bugger the phone ;)

drop your prices NTL !!!!

Re: canx my NTL account today.
 

I guess this article in El Reg explains some of the trouble you've been having, but does this mean I'm on DataStream, and your on IPStream? :confused:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09...lldog_apology/

Re: canx my NTL account today.
 

Of course not. It's a PVR. You don't get those for free no matter what (and if NTL did them they wouldn't be free).

Cheapest I've seen Sky+ now is £99 which equals the price of a TiVo when it was at it's cheapest.


Exactly, so the age old "but NTL includes phone" argument is irrelevant. All parties involved (Sky, BT, NTL) compete and will raise/lower prices to match so who's cheaper doesn't really come into it.

To be fair to Sky though, the comparison should not be Sky + BT(or NTL) phone line compared with NTL, but Sky compared with NTL minus phone line. Sky are doing nothing wrong by publishing prices without the phone as they do not provide a phone service. You also don't have to get BT to have Sky.

However, what you get in terms of content and customer service is another matter.


As for Broadband, I'm afraid NTL is living in the dark ages when it comes to speeds, network infrastructure/connectivity, package options, and prices.

I switched to 2Mbps PlusNet uncapped for £40 recently and I'm just gobsmacked by the general browsing and download performance which I put down to the connectivity they have. The pings are just amazing by comparison to what I was getting with NTL. Download speeds are excellent, as are upload speeds, even at peak times.

I'm paying £2 more than NTL's 1.5Mbps service for a 512kbps more, fully uncapped service, with 250mb web space including CGI/PHP/MySql support, static IP, your own domain name, flexible online control panel to configure your account (rather than having to phone on a 40 minute hold), and one heck of a level of customer service the likes I've not seen before! (I'm truly impressed by their CS, but that's not difficult when I'm used to NTL).

If I go for a capped service, it's cheaper than NTL and yet I can PAYG for each GB I go over the cap. If you don't go over often it works out a lot cheaper in the long run.

And then with ADSL, you have an advancing technology, with ADSL2/2+ around the corner promising speeds that make cable a joke. Cable is still stuck in the dark ages with NTL bosses grumbling about "bandwidth hoggers" :rolleyes:. Even NTL admit that it's cheaper to invest in ADSL technology, to expand the network (hence they are).

I still think NTL's 128kbps upstream for the <1.5Mbps service is pathetic though. The big advantage with ADSL is the 256kbps upstream which you can get on 512kbps for £15 (a heck of a lot cheaper than £38).


BT's benefits...

ADSL works with BT, this means you have "choice" when it comes to BB ISPs
Caller ID availability
3rd party call package options
Voice over IP options (BT themselves are due to switch completely to VoIP by 2009). I'm not aware of NTL even considering this.
SMS via landline support.
No 40 minute wait on the phone to CS, only to be cut off when they answer