[orangebird]

Mike Lockey, 65, of Redcar Road, Marske, has his cable television, phone and broadband with ntl.

He told the Gazette he attempted to contact the call centre after his email crashed twice in less than a week, for two days each time.

Mr Lockey, who runs his own DVD business, said he relies on the service as he needs to maintain contact with international customers.

He had hoped to speak to someone about the problem within minutes.

Instead he said he was kept waiting for an hour before his call was dealt with.

"It is horrendous. They just fob you off after you've been waiting for about an hour. I'm not at all happy with the service," he said.

A company spokeswoman said the problem was with the software which Mr Lockey had installed on his PC from another provider not the ntl broadband service.

I jolly well hope he had a business account....