HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

I've been informed that the NTL HotPot team will be looking into my Upload/Download speed problems soon. Two months later I have seen no improvement. Does anyone know if this mysterious group of people acually exsist.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

Hi Adybee :welcome: to the site m8

In answer to your question - yes they do they......hang on - recieving radio traffic........................................... .................................................. ...
.................................................. .......squadron leader porky reqesting permision to take off.......rodger porky... Pigs away..........pig squadron 101 is now airborne sir....rodger................wilko and out...... :D

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

If this is the case dude, then why have I been told by NTL teccy's on numourous occasions that the " hotpot team have been informed of the problem and will be dealing with it ASAP ".

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

Fair comment Stuartbe. I'm begining to feel the same way about this unobtainable team of oddballs.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

it's just a turn of phrase by an agent

edit - they are probably referring to the Faults Managemnt Team in Swansea - who collate the examples when a fault is suspected

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

"I see said the blind man to the deaf dog"

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

Not just a good way to fob off the customer and ignore the problem then ?? :)

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

nope

a way of collecting the examples of a problem so a fault can be identified and consequently fixed....

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

:rofl:

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

well, I hope your right threadbare. Like I say, I've given up trying to get my connection sorted myself and wish this hotpot thingy would turn up the heat and get me flying again.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

hi russ, any suggestions how it should be done?

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

Yep thanks, and I'll be telling them to the people who are in a position to act on them.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

so ur not gonna tell me then?

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

As I said, my ideas go to the people who are a position to impliment them.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

oohh secrets! fair enough - hope they help improve ntl customer service

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

Not having a go at you m8 - but here is an idea...

How about putting money into the network instead of lining the directors pockets. How about sorting out the crappy proxy servers and mail servers. How about getting the system working correctly before subscibing more users than the network can allready handle. How about treating customers like customers and not a pain in the ass. How about telling customers the truth and stop fobbing of the non technical off with lame excuses......

?????????????????????????????????????????????????? ??????????????

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

Not really secret, but there's no point in taking them to people who can do nothing about them. But I agree, I hope they do something to help.

Now THERE'S a thing :D

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

Here, here stuartbe. In early December my ping was bang on, <20m/s, since then it's been pants. They now tell me it's my Ethernet card thats at fault. Load o' b#l##x. Have you ever heard of an ethernet card degrading??
The only problem I see with this situation is that when I called BT regarding broadband I found them to be just as helpful, ie, not. So what can ya do, ehh?

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

not having a go back or anything

money is invested in the ntl network all the time. you can see that on server status pages whith all the planned maintainence etc that continually goes on

ntl have been trialling new proxy servers and continually upgrading mail capacity see server status re mail servers - upgrade work is due this monday

see reseg work planned maintainence etc again on server status

tinted view here - being amember of nthellworld you can see when it goes wrong but you dont get to see when it goes right. I myself have always had excellent customer service and I am 100% happy with all the products and services I have had and currently have with ntl

I have firends who work in customer services and tech supprt - there will always be a bad apple in any occupation, but i can assure you they do their job well as do many of their collegues. you seem to be suggsting that this is always the case when it clearly is not

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

Perhaps you should try turning the pc upside down :D

Dont worry about the fault esculation procedure - I reported my 1mb connection downloading at 45-60k in january !!! They have it well in hand :rolleyes:

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

I can see your point m8 - BUT - I have worked on a tech support desk (3+ years) I know that people only hear about the bad things and not the good things. The trouble is not that there are problem as any network will have problems.... The problem is that these people get ignored, Thats the problem.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

i agree. there always seems to be a problem with communication between tech support and ppl responsible for networks, but I believe they will be restructuring so that this is less of an issue - not sure but I have been reliably informed that plans are afoot to deal with this.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

That is good news m8 - Lets hope its not all wind like normal....

Lots of good intentions but little action !!!!

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

I think the HotPot team are regionally based - usually in Lancashire.

Yorkshire has the MeatNtatty team, round here they are the ScragStew team, and further South in the posh bits they are the Casserole team.......

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

LMAO. Nice one. Let's hope the casserole team can bang up me ping an get me fraggin' again.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

So were not good enough for your opinion?

Very Suprised at you for such an awfull comment.

Edit : What was the hotpot for? Maybe I can check up on it

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

Can you influence the NTL management ---- ???????????

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

Depends on the solution/proposition. I would like to think that if I had made any contributions to anything that may be beneficial to customer service then it would be reviewed and I would receive feedback.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

Good luck m8 - You will need it !!!!!!!

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

I figured such a sad case response

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

Thats a bit bellow the belt.... I was wishing you luck... What is your problem ????????????????????

I dont know what I have done for you to have such an unreasonable hatred of me ????

Oh never mind - forget it :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

You are not worth the typing !!!!

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

Out of interest, how many times that you have given feedback have you received a respose. And of those responses, how many times have you seen action taken?

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

You know as well as I do that if you have an idea and you pass it on to, say, your Team Leader, no disrespect to him/her but it's not going to get anywhere. What you need to do is aim for the top, go as high as you can etc. As you are only 1st line, again no disrespect to yourself and the other front-liners but I have the email addresses of some very high up people in Hook and as soon as I complete my plans and ideas I'll be sending them to these individuals who will have the ability to make things happen. If they aren't acted on then fine, perhaps they were impractical (or indeed, crap). But I'll certain be on to them asking for an explanation.

We always hear "Yes, look at the server page, we're constantly upgrading the network etc", yet the level of complaints about the service seem to be as high now as they were 2 years ago. We just aren't going to accept this as an excuse anymore. NTL's email service have been pooched for some people for about a year, why is only NOW there seems to be this fix being planned? Apologies for sounding cynical but we'll see how well the email improves after next week. If it gets better, kudos to NTL. If it doesn't, what'll be their next excuse?

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

How many customers now? How many customers two years ago, bearing in mind how popular broadband has got? If, as you say, the level of complaints is the same, has the proportion of complaints compared to customers gone down or up?

Not saying everything's perfect, but I'm aware of a number of service improvement investments going on to email, news, billing, UBRs, DHCPs, monitoring tools (my bit) and DTV. Lot of money being spent, pounds in the ground, so it's a bit unfair to say the directors are taking all the cash (a lot of cash, and mainly due to share price increases, nice if you can get it). Mind you, we've got to deliver something on all this investment.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

Good point - but it's the same problems we're hearing about.

But are they delivering? The email for most seems to have degenerated over the last year. Ping times are still pants for most. NTL are taking on new customers for a service which is already creaking. Let's see some improvements PLEASE...

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

Well, a lot of kit's been delivered. The front page of this site has a comment about the email upgrade, so lets judge when that's had time to bed down.

As for tangible improvements, you remember on .com late in November, there were a lot of problems in Leeds? Big project has fixed that.

Please supply any support you have for this assertion. I'll wager that the number of people affected is substantially under 50%.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

In Manchester the pings have started to bounce around I have had my son asking me to stop downloading and I havent been. we have checked both pcs for viruses and adware both clean and trecer has shown pocket loss. yet 20 to 30 mins later its all fine again.. so whats happening?

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

disagree - these problems are in the minority. true the mail servers have a wobbly but when they have recovered if ppl type in their correct passwords then it would (suprise suprise) work!

pings are again high for a minority not the majority

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

Great, then why the hell aren't the customers (the one's paying for the service) aware of these improvements? ntl don't help themselves by not telling anyone anything, so it's no wonder the "complete communications company" line was dropped a long time ago.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

I'm not sure why we don't announce things*, but I was merely answering a point about investing and stating that, contrary to what is often thought, there is a hell of a lot being spent.

Harmony, for instance, which is the biggest project in ntl at the moment, is certainly in the public domain, go and google for it.

*I can guess that commercial confidentiality comes into it on most high-profile projects.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

That's quite a cop-out there. True, I know what you mean that some people's username and passwords give them trouble but to suggest this has any bearing on the problems NTL gives it's customers with their email borders on insulting.

I actually don't remember that. I'm not accusing you of making it up, I just don't remember that. Giving you the benefit of the doubt, cool, Leeds is ok. So what about the rest of the country, particularly those in Nottingham?

For someone in South Wales I only assume you're not part of the online fraternity then.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

Im a mere tech. I leave that work to the professionals.

However friendship is about trust. You need trust to be able build a relationship. If someone doesn?t trust you, then you lose faith.
I cannot stand some person saying 'no no, there is no need for you to know your just a floor cleaner' because that?s not the way things should be. Everyone deserves an ear. This isn?t communism. This site is supposed to be a community where people help each other out, yet one of the freaking Mods says his opinions are far too important for some schmuck to tell. By not telling him he wouldn?t get his opinion. Then one would be led to think he doesn?t want his opinion and therefore it just simply isn?t good enough because he cant 'act upon it'

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

That freaking mod has never said his opinions are too important to tell some schmuck. I'm sorry you feel that way but that sounds like an inferiority complex to me.

I've spent time and effort in the past with ideas going to the wrong in NTL, I know from experience how fruitless it can be getting your point across to the wrong people in that company. Those who worked on .com will know what I mean.

It's not meant to be a personal dig at you, you're certainly good at your job but my ideas go to those in a position to make changes.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

Im not saying how it may be. Its how it sounds.

I think you should tell us anyway.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

In that case I apologise, that's certainly not how I meant it to be.

Well you might just get lucky! :D :D

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

not what I said is it Russ? just to reiterate. mail servers throw a wobbly (which are being upgraded), mail servers ok, mail still fails to work. why? b'cos ppl use the wrong username and/or password. Its not rocket science. All they have to do is write down the correct details after reg and then type it in. How hard can it be?

My pings are spot on and always have been.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

The issue I'm talking about is that NTL's mail servers have been quite diabolical for some time. You have seemingly tried to bring in the notion that people's usernames and passwords being wrong might affect the number of people who complain about this. Quite why you've decided to bring this up fails me as it would have NO EFFECT ON THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE BEING AFFECTED BY THE POOR MAIL SERVICE whatsoever. If someone were trying to offer that as excuse, let's face, even you would have to agree it's a poor cop-out.

You would seemingly be in the minority then.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

Mine are also fine. In fact, I've had Freeserve ADSL installed over the last month (free trial - been combining that with my cable to get 1.5Mbps), and the pings on that were diabolical compared to my Cable Modem service!

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

Lucky you then!

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

again not what I said is it Russ? or what what i am suggesting is it? pointless debating with you

not really - lets see, nearly 1 million BB customers - most of them with poor pings? i dont think so.....

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

I can only assume that you've mis-spelt 'majority' here, or are labouring under a delusion. Where's your evidence that high pings affect more than 50% of ntl's close to 1,000,000 cable internet customers, which is what you're saying.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

I'm talking about NTL's mail server problems, you decide to mention usernames and passwords - yep I certainly know it would be pointless to debate with - the person who for unknown reasons goes off on a tangent.

So, was I talking about all BB customers or just the ones in South Wales? Yep, pointless to debate with this one.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

I've been over those last few posts with a comb and I find no trace of evidence to support your original statement. Let me remind you of it.

No mention of South Wales or the online fraternity, just a bald statement from someone senior on the site with no backup.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

let me put it succinctly for you Russ, most ppl's perception of a mail problem is because they have failed to enter the correct user name and/or password. This sometimes occurs after a mail server outage, because they have mistyped when presented with, the all too familiar, logon box. Mail server problems do occur, but would be far less painful if ppl entered their correct details afterwards. sometimes these perceptions form because ppl just enter the wrong details period - no help from a sick mail server needed! so the perception is incorrect - same as your perception of ping problems really.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

I take it we aren't talking "broadband" in the literal sense then :rofl::D

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

OK I take it back. I'm referring to South Wales.

So what about the people who ARE suffering from NTL's poor mail servers, you know, those people whose mail problem comes from nowhere (ie they haven't changed anything in their set-up) and when NTL finally mention a resolve, their problems clear up? You DO know these people don't you?

Seems like other people have an odd perception of reality.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

I have to agree with BBKing. Yes there are problems, but most NTL customers do not have bad pings.

That is not for a moment to undermine the frustration of those who do have network problems, but we do need some perspective.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

Which I've conceded to.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

Fair enough, and I agree the mail service has been pants. Let's hope the upcoming upgrade will finally sort it all :)

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

Nonsense - 50% of South Wales ntl customers certainly do not suffer from poor pings.

Actually Russ it seems you have an odd perception of reality. Whatever you meant to say you say that these great ideas that a former TSB tech who now is PC desktop support for a moderate size office are far too good to reveal on here.

Interesting those who accuse ntl of not informing seem to want to hold things back? Did you leave ntl on such favourable terms that you have influence still that ntl will spend money implementing your suggestions? More to the point are these suggestions so ground breaking (I find it very hard to believe you have the technical know-how to supply a solution that hasn't been thought of already by those more experienced and knowledgeable than yourself, and either discounted or in-progress) that it's going to be harmed by revealing it.

Also I have to say that I've had virtually no issues at all with ntl mail, I'd even go as far as to say that a lot of people have had pretty much no issues with ntl mail, it's a number of servers running the mail platform, and when one breaks only those hosted on that server suffer - I must have been lucky, that or I'm part of the massive silent majority who had / have few issues.

Your comments in this thread are horrifyingly inaccurate, pretty arrogant, and quite anti your former employer. You've lost a fair bit of respect from me in this thread, suspect I'm not the only one. I've no idea quite who you think you are but I can certainly tell you who you aren't. Your comments in this thread intentional or not are an insult to every member of this forum you kindly donate your time to, off-topic and completely counter-productive both towards answering the question asked, and towards improving services for customers posting on here. As an ntl: associate I find it insulting that you use your position of respect here to tell half-truths, considering the department I work in your comments are indirectly calling me incompetent. Thanks.

I tried discussing this with you on MSN before I posted it but I got as far as typing 'Russ what are you doing?' then you disappeared. I posted this in public as I think it's what a few members will be thinking after reading this, a lot though may not want to post it. Get it together man, this site is for helping users, not massaging up personal egos.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

agree 100% - would give you a rep but gotta spread it around a bit

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

these ppl are in a minority as ntl have more than one mail storage server, and these are only occasionally down. you'd swear everyone's email was down 24/7

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

Erm . . . What's this about Nottingham ? There is nothing wrong with my service.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

Yes I have. Your card could be doing something called "packet jabbering", that is sending out a continuous stream of packets. this would block an incoming packet quite effectively and slow down your pings.

How about you listen to what the tech is telling you, plug your modem in using USB and TEST it before just condemming what is said as a load of bo11ox.

I work in the IT industry and come across similar faults with NICS on a regular basis.

Also you may find that there is a problem with your network cable.

Believe it or not, the techs at Matrix Court are, in general, quite knowledgeable and can sort out the majority of problems.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

Erm, more often than not, the ntl server status page tell us customers, they will not be able to access their mail account due to a technical fault, I would say alot of customers fit into the majority not the minority and the amount of people that have complained about this here and the days on .com and other such sites tells me so.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

GRRRRRRRR don;t get me started about the ntl email service.

It is down for me more often than not.

I check the server status page which tells me that NTL are aware of the fault. Therefore I don't phone up and complain. Perhaps THAT is the majority and Russ is right!

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

Considering the publicity that .com and this site following it had, and that we are talking about a service with close to 1 million users, I wouldn't call the amount of complaints levelled a majority view - this site has what 3,000 members, or which maybe a couple of hundred have complained about service, at most? Do the moderators of this site generally have a slightly strange view of the definitions of majority and minority?

No doubt those people worst affected by email server issues will be very unhappy, but there are considerably more than 2 email servers (those who know how can find out how many!) and as far as I know I can count on the fingers of one hand the amount of hours that more than 1 has been down for at the same time.

Being absolutely honest, I have had more issues with my Pipex email since I moved and had to get DSL, than I have with my ntl email, which is still active.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

These are intermittent faults that do not affect everybody. notice the wording "ntl:home internet customers on all packages may currently experience" this is clearly designed to stop ppl flooding the call centres when they have identified a problem and are working on it. It doesn't mean to say everybody is suffering from these problems.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

The mail has been an ongoing problem. Webmail performance has been intermittant and is currently very slow, spam is enormous, pop3 timeouts are a common issue and mail can take hours or occasionally days to come through.

NTL must recognise the problem, because major work is being done this week. Thumbs up for that, but thumbs down for letting it get into the state it's in.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

Nope but if more customers were aware of this site. I am certain there would be complaints going into the many many thousands, hardly a minority. Thousands of customers being without an e-mail service is alot and it is not acceptable the amount of time it is taking to resolve these issues.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

No it isn't. That's just a totally wild and untrue statement. :rolleyes:

I use it everyday and I can count the number of times it has failed me over the last three years on my fingers (and that doesn't include thumbs).

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

if more more ppl were aware of the site and the complaints did go into the thousands they would still be a minority

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

I'm sorry pem but how do you know this, do you collect his/her mail? :)

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

I was going to ask the same question myself??

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

But it is still not acceptable though, thousands of customers being without an email service is alot of customers.... and if you still think that is a small number of customers how about you welcome them in your living room? :)

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

Agreed, it's not acceptable at all. But then nor is someone in a position of power and indeed influence here saying that 50% of ntl cable internet customers are oversubscribed, then a quick backtrack to 'South Wales'. This is nonsense. The lovely slant on the news articles, posting something positive but having to back-bite a bit. If this site is actually supposed to have risen from ashes it should be a help site as .com was. I am doing my best to help in my own time. Sadly seems I'm in a minority - this site can be more productive, saying 'go to ADSL' isn't the best solution especially if it's a minor easily fixed issue. Isn't this site supposed to be about improving user experience rather than just whinging about how bad ntl is? Obviously bits of both have to be done ;) but the balance is a tad screwy at times for sure!

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

You've asked them all?

Excuse me?? PC desktop support for a moderate size office?? Where the hell did you get that idea from?

I have never said my ideas are too good. I never even said they ARE good. But revealing them to people who have no influence over them isn't my style. You may or may not be aware of my 3hell site. On there my complaints to straight to the directors, not to the frontline people. That's just the way I do business and should be seen as a slur on the many good techs at NTL.

As I've said previously, my ideas MIGHT be crap. But let's hear that from those high up in NTL.

Sorry you feel that way.

Spose I'm fortunate that I'm not here to score brownie points with anyone.

Where do I (indirectly) say that?

You're not on my msn list.

Massaging my ego?? Yeah, right...

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

no it isnt acceptable - but then thats why ntl are preforming maintainenece on monday

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

Which has been well over due. :)

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

definately!

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

FIRSTLY I AM ASHAMED THAT THE SO CALLED MODERATORS HAVE ALLOWED THIS THREAD TO BECOME SO OFF-TOPIC.

An ntl customer asks a simple question and gets this! Start another thread yourselves and get it all off your chest. This isnt the place.

To answer the original question:

There is no Hot Pot Team.

A Hot Pot is database to collect examples of an a anomily/fault initially identified by call drivers (problems that cause customers to call in) coming into Swansea Technical Support Breau. The tech will then be able to match the customers connection problem with the symptons provided in the Hot Pot.

Hot Pots are usually uesd were faults are not easliy identified which is why examples are collected. The FMT then use the examples to find a trend and resolve the fault ASAP.

OK. :)

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

I can pull up stats on utilisation on every upstream on every uBR on the network, I can assure you that well well over 50% of the upstreams I've seen were nowhere near critical usage levels even at peak times.

Apologies I thought you were a techy for 118 UK.

Hope you mean should not be seen as a slur. Though if you're that good maybe you should be on payroll? You're honoured to have your complaints go straight to directors, most customers aren't so lucky, indeed some might ask what right you have to skip normal process, however if directors are happy with it then all good.

EDIT: Just looking at your forum, bad example, 3 has far less customers than ntl, and your forum has 31 members. ntl: would have a nightmare doing something similar - I've seen more than one instance where customer has access to director, customer repeatedly harrasses director about relatively minor / non-existent issues, then when another customer wants to talk to a director about a genuine major issue, the response to that is slowed down. Directors are there to direct, not to be the front line for a select few.

Indeed, must be cool being able to give ideas straight to directors on your own forum, usually people are paid a fair amount of money to give ideas to directors on service improvement.

Ditto, though I have won brownie points going by rep thing, which is a bonus.

[QUOTE=Russ D]Where do I (indirectly) say that?[QUOTE]
Saying that 50% of network gives excessive pings suggests that those who monitor that network, those who are involved in capacity management, and those who implement those policies are incompetent.

Yes I am.

Just the vibe I got, apologies if it's a wrong one, though I'm not the only person who got that apparently wrong vibe.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

And the reason it went off-topic is because we are getting a little weary of the way it is claimed resolution will be found 'asap' etc.

OK 'asap' doesn't actually relate to a timescale but it would be nice if we could have an update on issues which was a little more accurate. Evan an "I don't know" is honest.

I remember the problems with NTL's email were affecting people back in October. Someone from NTL (I wish I could remember who it was) came on here that they were sure work would begin on resolving the issue once and for all asap and here we are in february....

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

We'll take it as such when you want some help then

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

Haven't worked there since November, and wasn't a techie anyway! This is one of my current jobs.....

Guess I can't argue with that. But that's not the way it feels from the discussions I have with people around here.

Yes, that's what I meant, my bad.

I go straight to the directors because I've tried dealing with their frontline people and failed. but that's a story for another website.

I don't so it through a forum, I email them, just like anyone else can.

The advantages/disadvantages of the rep system has been done to death.....

Apology accepted, although not required.

I've already said that was a typo on my part, and meant to say it should NOT be seen as a slur.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

No I don't collect their e-mail - but sorry, I just do not believe their e-mail is down more often than not (i.e. over 50% of the time).

However, I will happily admit I'm wrong if they have evidence to prove otherwise (over the last month for instance). :D

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

Great, glad we kind of agree, enough arguing, I'm gonna go back to watching CSI I think. :devsmoke:

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

I agree customers do need time frames. No only does it show that ntl are doing something about faults but it gives the awareness on how quickly come of these faults are fixed. I have raised the issue of internal tools not providing first line support enough information to inform the customer and the benefits that this infomation can have from a corporate point of view as well as a custormer experienece point of view. When there is no time frame I say "There is NO time frame".

As you will know if you are so will connected within ntl the TSB have recently been using better fault awareness tools on which development is ongoing. These tools have not only made it easier for the tech to find information but also mean the techs have up to date, reliable and uniform.

With regards to saying techs arnt inflouential i believe this untrue. From my experience any suggestions that people put foward are accepted and usually receive a responce. This doesnt happen all the time but if the tech make the effort to ensure the suggestion goes to the right place it usually gets heard and somethig done. For example i have made suggestions on the internal database opening hours which where taken on by the people involved, i have made suggestions to the fault tools which have been recognised and suggestions to the phone systems which again was taken on. This is also highlighted in another thread in "General" were carthage was very influential but reveived little recognition.

I know of mail problems from further back than that but I am also aware of CONTINIOUS develepoment of the system. The load generated by email based virii had been substantial and it would be ignorant not to take this into account.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

I agree with this. NTL management (right up to director level) also have regular forum sessions with front line techs and it can get quite frank sometimes.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

Yes, I remember those sessions. Lots of ideas were put forward by techs, AFAICR no-one had any kind of response.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

:angel: Well seeing as im back after being out most of last week, found this thread and made me think . HOTPOT team thats easy, rovers return coronation street:angel:

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

It's a shame that happened with you Russ, it certainly isn't the case in my experience.

Issues that are raised are often (not always) resolved. Those that can't be resolved are justitified as to why.

I agree that it is not an ideal communication method and has an element of merely 'stroking' associates without actually changing anything.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

Is that what happened to Janet Jackson at the Superbowl?? :D

MAJOR respect to you for having the courage for saying that.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

There was a feed back forum for the fault tool, and pobably 90% of techs feedback for improvements were acted upon on the same day. Somebody was listening!! :)

Russ D...thanks for the PM, understand what you were saying about the typo :)

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

Just looked through this thread and would like to make a few comments.

PINGS. The percentage of customers that have poor pings is irrelevant. Most customers are using their connections for uses that ping times are not a concern. What is important is the ping times of customers who have a need for good ping times and I would imagine, by and large, that these customers will either complain or go to xDSL if they are consistently getting poor pings.

EMAIL. I kept seeing that email problems were caused by customers inputting wrong user names and passwords. I, and everyone that I know have user names and passwords remembered by the system and never have to input them. Quite often there are authentification problems where a box pops up and infers that wrong data has been input but the reality is that the correct data was input and the fault is with NTL, not the user.

IDEAS. Russ has been slated for saying that his ideas were best given to people high up in NTL who had the power to decide whether to action them or not. It is a fact of life within virtually all large organisations that managers don't like to think that their subordinates have more knowledge or better ideas than themselves. Many will quash very good ideas that should be adopted for fear that if the idea is passed upwards the originator of the idea may be considered bright and suitable for promotion and eventually overtake them and be their manager. Some ideas that originate at a very low level in the companies structure are modified on the way up and when they get to a person who can authorise their implementation are altered so mush that they are no longer viable and are therby rejected. If the original idea is then put directly to them by the originator it stands a very good chance of being rejected because the idea is virtually the same as one that has recently been rejected and isn't researched to the degree that it should be.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

the grass isn't always greener.... as stuartbe correctly pointed out all networks have problems

yes, maybe it is the original cause that a logon box pops up due to a glitch in the mail servers but, as i said earlier, a lot of these problems are then accentuated with ppl entering incorrect information so that a mail outage that perhaps only lasted a few minutes continues untill they call TS.

cant argue with that :D

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

Paging Dr. Freud? :)

As to the other point, it is of course purely my opinion and I still maintain that things do change as a result of these pow wows (and other communication methods).

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

I would be the first to agree that all networks have problems but that fact doesn't retain a customer who is fed up with his problems that NTL never fix.


We are not talking about an isolated customer who has mistyped his logon details, rather the email system as a whole. Today my primary NTL account will not authorise at all but my other NTL accounts are all authenticating OK. I can assure you that I have not mistyped my logon details for the primary account.

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

true but we are still talking about a minority of ppl here, and to say ntl dont fix it is just untrue

true but we are talking about a majority of ppl, and to say they dont mistype is also untrue!

Re: HotPot team?? Do they exsist?????
 

Whilst it may be true that the number of customers that complain or leave NTL because of ping problems is a very small minority of NTLs customers, what percentage is it of the number of customers that require a good consistant ping?

NTL don't always fix problems so it is wrong to say that it is untrue. I was a NTL digital TV customer and had ongoing problems with this and despite four or five STB swaps the problems still existed. Result was that I dropped NTL DTV and went to Sky, prompted by the drop in subscription of Sky+. This was the best thing I ever did and was solely brought about by NTLs inability to solve my problems.

I we were to be absolutely pedantic then yes, a few customers will mistype their logon details, but this is not the problem with NTLs email service.