UK's Biggest?
 

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04/05/ntl_broadband/

Seemingly 200k more than number 2. Quite an achievement for a company so badly mired in debt a few years back.

Re: UK's Biggest?
 

Remember the NTL circle

Gain customers, lose customers to poor service, worry what shall we do , offer discounts, Gain Customers, lose customers to poor service, worry what shall we do, offer discounts etc :rolleyes:

It all goes round less investment in people to keep network going ( Job cuts recently)

Less investment in equipment to support new subcribers (to give shareholders more divi)

Re: UK's Biggest?
 

Hmm, not bad, Th'engineers comments notwithstanding.

Re: UK's Biggest?
 

been the biggest doesnt mean you are the best

Re: UK's Biggest?
 

It does mean that you are doing something right though seeing 9/10 of the customers could go elsewhere if they felt it was necessary.

Re: UK's Biggest?
 

The actual fact being the biggest is a bad thing in business because all it takes is the competition to offer something different and you need more investment to keep up.

Say for instance BT offered all customers un capped unlimited broadband the whole NTL investment plan would be in tatters .

The city would look at NTL plans and put investment in BT not NTL

What Bill Goodland is gambling on is selling bandwidth not a BB service

Also the dividends would go down and more staff would be made redundant .

Re: UK's Biggest?
 

I think NTL have high turnover which explains why they are having to constantly have a special offer on to recover customers at a greater rate they are losing them.

Re: UK's Biggest?
 

It's not that high. And they are still gaining customers quarter on quarter.

Re: UK's Biggest?
 

This is actually fairly true - I monitored the roll out of Ambit 250 modems (purely out of interest) and was astounded at how many went in in the first month - not all would be replacements for dodgy modems by a long chalk.

What we're seeing, of course, is a huge increase in the market for broadband, BT and ntl are chasing an ever increasing pot so it's not surprising that both manage to sign up great wodges of new punters* every week.

*Sorry 'highly valued revenue generation units'**

** Gremlins again I'm afraid - meant to say 'customers'

Re: UK's Biggest?
 

:LOL: Nice one you been on a course at the NTL Bill Goodland School of Customer Service ;)

Re: UK's Biggest?
 

I went to the 'who the f*** do you think you are' school of customer service, which is why they don't let me talk to customers, and I have to wear this muzzle.

Re: UK's Biggest?
 

:cool::LOL:

Re: UK's Biggest?
 

But is the claim a load of balls anyway? According to the news item on www.adslguide.org.uk, it probably is. If you go to BT 3rd Quarter results & highlights, under the Retail section you find this paragraph:
"The growth of broadband continues with 1,491,000 BT Retail connections at December 31, 2004, an increase of 16 per cent in the quarter. Net additions of 208,000 were a 26 per cent share of the DSL market additions. Broadband turnover grew by 79 per cent to £145 million. "

Re: UK's Biggest?
 

And they do:

As a network Ntl are miles behind, they shouldn't be after all they have all the best technology on their side (allegedly!!).

Re: UK's Biggest?
 

Go away and find out the relative % of the area of the UK served by BT exchanges and ntl cable. Then ask yourself why BT might have a few more connections...

Re: UK's Biggest?
 

Shouldn't matter, if they ran the current promotions and had a service thats wasn't renowned for constantly being broken then they should IMHO have captured 80% of people in their catchment area. After all the 3 for £30 deal is a GREAT deal but they are just too well known for supplying dodgy products that break constantly. Here in Leicester things have been so bad in the last few years that people actively walk up to the Ntl stand in the ~Shires and have a go at the sales guys, I've seen them do it.

I'm not knocking Ntl for the sake of it, I'm just pointing out that the story isn't what it seems to be.

Re: UK's Biggest?
 

5 Mil wholesale connections. Split up between the other ISP's it still puts Ntl at the upper end of the Spectrum.

Miles behind? :confused: Where does that come from.

Re: UK's Biggest?
 

I was talking about connections as a network not as an ISP :)

Re: UK's Biggest?
 

So the only provider to cover the whole of the UK has more connections than others that only cover sections of the country... Someone page Rupert, we've got a big story here! :D

Re: UK's Biggest?
 

Thats not what I said and you know it my points were:

That Ntl's penetration into the market (for all services) is not what it should be with the deals they are offering.

Also that Ntl are getting a reputation for having a creaking network that for many doesn't work more often than it does.

Oh and that BT rubbished Ntls claims, but I guess you read that in the article. :erm:

Re: UK's Biggest?
 

Possibly... although most people tend to stay put as its easier to moan than vote with your feet.
I however find it easier to moan (sometimes), although we are looking at moving house and I dont wish to sign up to a Sky/ADSL 12mth contract combo only to end up moving before then :)

Although if we ended up in a TW area, I'd definitely get their broadband... but still get Sky :)

Shaun has a point definitely - for what NTL are doing to gain customers, they dont appear to be gaining an amount to justify how much time/money they're putting into the campaigns.

Re: UK's Biggest?
 

I agree with that was in the arndale centre in middleton manchester having a cuppa. Cafe on balcony over main mall and there was two of the sales team talking to each other. not a sale made in twenty minutes one seemed to be permanantly attached to mobo phone.

Noticed baguley id so must be NTL Staff.

Anyway was doing lots of shopping walked past did not even ask people if the wanted cable.

A bit further up was a Sky Sales pitch he had a queue signing people up

Two NTL people and did less than one sky sales person.

But not surprised both perminantley on mobos .

Looked like they must be paid by false pretencies, if it was me would have them on a bonus scheme no sales no pay.

Re: UK's Biggest?
 

I have to agree, ntl have always operated by channelling all the emphasis in one direction, and then having a complete change of emphasis when it all goes wrong.

From day one ie: when they were called CableTel, the emphasis was on keeping customer churn below X percent. This carried on into ntl days, and to meet these targets they would give good offers and even free service to those who threatened to leave or had any complaints about lack of service/functions, when the shareholders started to see through the statistics and realise the high percentage of customers that were not fully paying for the service they were receiving, the emphasis turned onto getting rid of these people because they were in effect bad debt. This made customer numbers decrease, so they then built up a customer retention department..................... Its all swings and roundabouts, a good report in one area is often hiding bad news in another area. They even tried to make the figures look good by keeping tens of thousands of customers from old closed networks on the books, and keeping bad debtors/closed accounts to make figures look good, and for that reason many people with closed accounts ended up getting letters from debt collection agencies.

Re: UK's Biggest?
 

But moving has a cost attached (£60 ADSL installation & £70 new ADSL modem/wireless router in my case) so you have to be pretty fed up to leave.

Re: UK's Biggest?
 

Not necessarily. Most ADSL ISPs provide you with a free modem and a lot of them waive the connection fee through extended offers, as does NTL a lot of the time when they have offers on.

Re: UK's Biggest?
 

Okay, most will waive the connection fee if you are prepared to sign for a 12 month contract (or even better, stipulate that if you cancel within 12 months the fee becomes payable). And yes, most provide a usb modem but not a wireless modem/router or ethernet modem compatible with an existing wireless router afaik...

Re: UK's Biggest?
 

It all boils down to conveniance I have already mentioned it before.

NTL as an isp are poor, (transperent proxies, performance all over the place can be real poor in some areas, no product for power users)
NTL as a tv supplier are poor, (again can be great in some areas but other areas are getting a analogue only service reducing in quality each year)
NTL as a phone supplier are average.

Given that you only needed 1 of these 3 things, I think most people would not choose NTL, the reason why NTL are so popular is they supply all these products under 1 name making it easier for people, their is also the problem that some people cannot have BT/SKY due to landlord restrictions, and there only been 1 reseller of NTL broadband (AOL).

Re: UK's Biggest?
 

So NTL doesn't have any tie-ins, or fixed term contracts and supply a wireless cable modem/router?

Re: UK's Biggest?
 

Of course NTL have tie-ins and don't supply free routers. The point was that having been with NTL for a while, there can be an upfront cost to moving away. Enough said.

Re: UK's Biggest?
 

But, your argument is full of holes. There is no major up-front cost of moving. You say that you can't move away as you have to pay a set-up fee. Many don't enforce this. You say you have to buy hardware, which many give free. The only thing that stops people leaving is not wanting to change, or laziness. They can't be bothered. This is why so many people get bad service and pay over the odds for poor quality in all aspects, banks, credit cards mortgages. If you're not happy with the service/cost, move, simple as that.

I moved away from NTL a year ago and haven't looked back. I wasn't happy with the way they were moving (Caps, crappy email and a laughable news server service), so I got ADSL. In the last month my monthly bill for my 2Meg line has gone down £10 and if I wanted, I could move to UKOnline and get 8Meg in the enxt couple of months, but I'm not sure I will as I'm happy where I am.

Re: UK's Biggest?
 

Moving can have a significant cost attached - it depends on circumstances.

I did move and it has cost me a significant amount (>£100 ) to duplicate the setup I had with NTL. My preffered choice of ISP charge an initial fee on the package I opted for, which I believe works out cheaper & better in the long run. I also have a preference for ethernet networking equipment, rather than the bundled USB modem most ISPs offer. I haven't included the cost of wiring a phone extension to my study for convenience's sake, which isn't a necessity due to the wireless router but will be costing me a few bob.

I agree that some people can move without any upfront costs, but some can't. I also agree that some people are lazy and put up with bad service, but a significant number won't.

At the end of the day, a decision to move ISP is an indiviudal calculation between how poor the service is/the aggravation of getting it sorted and the cost/aggravation of moving.

Re: UK's Biggest?
 

Agreed, and the big plus of ADSL is, once you are enabled, many ISPs run month-to-month contracts and you can port to another one if not satisfied.

Re: UK's Biggest?
 

Hmm I would disagree with that.
i have had NTL Broadband for 2 Years and had one Minor blip that was rectified straight away
I have had 2 years of fantastic service!! Creaking Network? Doesnt Work? certainly not the case for me, actually the reverse!!

Well done NTL :);)

Re: UK's Biggest?
 

You are probably in the majority its the small amount of other people that seem to get in a bad service trap .

NTL service is good the majority of the time, but is not consistant with each customer.

You need only to read these forums to understand that, customer service is improving by good leadership at NTL.

NTL are being restructured to maker themselves more profitable and more customer focused.

Many people have gone that dont meet that grade but NTL are getting there

Re: UK's Biggest?
 

I agreed with a couple of your earlier posts, but now have to disagree with this one :D

You say "Many people have gone that dont meet the grade" I disagree to a certain extent with that statement, because the many bad managers have built themselves secure empires. If I had drawn up a list of the top ten useless technical managers/senior engineers in networks 5-6 years ago, you would find that 6 are still employed by ntl, 3 have left the company of their own choice, and only one has been made redundant.

I heard a familiar story last week anout a guy who has stirred the s**t over non0responding set-tops, he has apparently brought to light big issues that have been covered up by certain people high up the technical ladder, to make the figures look far better than they really are. The guy is outspoken and can often be a liability, but as usual the director harmed by this being brought to light will probably have it in for this guy instead of admitting and sorting out the issues.

I would say that in the technical management/corporate engineering arena, ntl has still retained the worst of the employees that they had years ago and some of the worst engineers at regional level are now supervisors/managers.

Until the empires are broken down ntl will never perform efficiently.

Re: UK's Biggest?
 

Apart from the customer services I think Ntl are still performing well in most areas, My connection has not dropped once since It was installed, I have just been upgraded to 2mb at no extra cost and 2 days ago when sorting out my direct debit at 12pm I figured I'd have a bit of digital. Called through to sales and got family pack for £10 a month for 6 months. It was all installed 2 hours later. :shock:

Cant fault them but then I used to work for them so I'm bound to be blowing bubbles up them:dozey:

Re: UK's Biggest?
 

Got to remember quality varies by region, most people in Leicester will tell you its a shambles here, other regions like cambridge are apperently very good. So because you had no drop for 2 years doesnt stop us unlucky souls having drops every month for the urgent upgrades they doing, well at least I hope its because of upgrades. Leics still analogue only and still lots of my region cannot have broadband. I also think some areas get better customer service/tech support, whats the reason NTL need me to key in my phone number when I dial 150? Obviously not all calls over country routed to same place.

Re: UK's Biggest?
 

I think most of the time the service is mostly okay for the majority of customers. (Well if you ignore the BIG email problems a while back). The problem comes when the service does stop working. NTL just don't seem to be very good at talking to the customer and getting things sorted.

Its bad customer service that transforms a generally happy customer, who accepts that faults happen, into a disgruntled customer who thinks about leaving.

The Indian Call Centre is a big step backwards IMHO. Firstly it irritates customers when they have language difficulties, secondly there seems to be no leeway for techs to deviate from the fault diagnosis script and thirdly it appears (from the customer's viewpoint) that there is a dictat to avoid escalating problems if at all possible.

Re: UK's Biggest?
 

Q uite agree Bill Goodland is still there :tu: