engineer visit today. and changed the connector at the back of the box from a 10dB to a 6dB. the 10dB was weakening the signal to the box. and now i can surf the interactive for ages and the data is still there and everything works. (which helps!)
so anyone with the same problem should call ntl (it's not that painful) and an engineer should replace the connector.
by connector i mean the socket were the coax lead goes into before being connected to the set top box. like this:
------- >>>>>>>>[
coax Connector digi box
