[punky]

My experience with them has been a bit hit and miss I guess. Here's what happened

For a couple of years I had a phone line with NTL which was fine. It was nice as it only cost something like £9 or £12 to install, not the usual £30,000 , or whatever it is BT charge. And they had to dig up the garden to lay the line from the street, and ran the cable properly going all the way through the attic, and down into my room. So that's a plus point.

Then I went to Uni, and in my last year, I signed up for an NTL phone line in my door. Came back from xmas holiday and the line had gone. It turns out that the temp that processed my DD order screwed up and my line got cancelled. When I asked to have it turned on, they refused because it community net (NTL service for Uni dorms) had been disbanded and no new contracts were allowed. I didnt have the time to sort it all out, being final year and all, but it was important as I had no internet access in my room. So my mum took up the challenge (she always get results with things like these). Anyway, 3 months later, after eventually talking with various people who I gather were high up in NTL (Ian Calvert, ive just looked it up), they managed to hook it back up.

Leaving Uni, I was finally able to get BB. So I ordered it for my room. There was free installation, so as per my phone line, I got him to run the line out the house, up the wall, through the attic and down into my room. Except when he left it wouldnt work. After a several calls to BB CS, they eventually sussed it was the cabling at fault. So I had to wait for another engineer to come out and re-wire the plug that the guy screwed up.

Everything was fine for like 8 months, then in the Great Heatwave of '03, I started having serious problems with my STB, but because after restarting the box everything was fine for a couple of hours, they wouldnt send me out an engineer. I kept calling every day, and eventually they thought I might have a problem and sent a guy out, to give me a new box.

So all in all, BB has been good so far *touches wood*. Speed has been consistently running at 100%, and downtime has been pretty minimal. The TV service hasn't been as good though. Some channels pixelise, and the box crashes now and again. Also navigating the menus are so slow sometimes. I once counted how long it took the Now/Next box to appear after hitting TV and it was 45 seconds or there abouts. Also, interactive service would be nice. I can't get Sky, so i'm stuck with NTL for digital TV, so im hoping that perks up sooner rather than later. Dealing with NTL customer service/technical support has never been a resounding success, but eventually everything got worked out. I just wish there were a bit quicker/more able. Everything always seems to take a minimum of 3 calls, but eventually everything seems to get sorted.