My ADSL woe Welcome Back NTL

[bywater]

I decided to go for adsl as I was told it was better than cable. My chosen ISP was Metronet as I am a light user and thought it would save me money. Big Big mistake. I was charged a installation fee of an extortionate £70. I had the service for four days and the quality of line was poor. Customer services very poor. There are issues with there DNS servers which don't work very well too often, which means you can not surf most of the web. I believe many other customers have had the same problem. They will try and blame your operating system even when it is working fine as was proved. After 4 days I decided to cancel. Be warned they will still charge you £70 even if you can not connect to the service. On top of that they will still charge you for three months service even if you do not use. Even after cutting you off. They keep your debit cards on record and will debit your account even if you do not wish them to do so. It is not not cheap either compared to other ISPs it if you use the max out of the connection you end up paying over £32 a month which is well above other ISP's. If you do decide to cancel and join another ISP you will have to pay another ISP another connection charge unless they offer free installation. my advice if you can get cable in your area stick with that. ADSL is a total rip off especially from these guys. If anything goes wrong its pass the buck BT to ISP ISP to BT. Totally disappointed and £200 out of pocket for a service I don't have and have only used for 4 days. £200 pounds is a lot of money. Don't risk it.

Ntl seems like heaven now the grass is definately not greener on the otherside as I have found to my expense.

[Chris W]

Originally Posted by bywater

I decided to go for adsl as I was told it was better than cable. My chosen ISP was Metronet as I am a light user and thought it would save me money. Big Big mistake. I was charged a installation fee of an extortionate £70. I had the service for four days and the quality of line was poor. Customer services very poor. There are issues with there DNS servers which don't work very well too often, which means you can not surf most of the web. I believe many other customers have had the same problem. They will try and blame your operating system even when it is working fine as was proved. After 4 days I decided to cancel. Be warned they will still charge you £70 even if you can not connect to the service. On top of that they will still charge you for three months service even if you do not use. Even after cutting you off. They keep your debit cards on record and will debit your account even if you do not wish them to do so. It is not not cheap either compared to other ISPs it if you use the max out of the connection you end up paying over £32 a month which is well above other ISP's. If you do decide to cancel and join another ISP you will have to pay another ISP another connection charge unless they offer free installation. my advice if you can get cable in your area stick with that. ADSL is a total rip off especially from these guys. If anything goes wrong its pass the buck BT to ISP ISP to BT. Totally disappointed and £200 out of pocket for a service I don't have and have only used for 4 days. £200 pounds is a lot of money. Don't risk it.

Ntl seems like heaven now the grass is definately not greener on the otherside as I have found to my expense.

I am quite suprised by your post... my g/f is with metronet and i have to disagree with some of the things you have said.

She has never had any problems with the dns servers, if she did i assure you she would be moaning about it! Whenever i have tested the connection it is running at at least 500k (she is on the 512k service) and upload is always good too.

It is not unreasonable for them to charge you for the 3months because that is the mimimum term in the contract. From what you have said it does sound like a line problem, in which case it is BT's problem.

I haven't had to contact metronet at all, so can't comment on their customer services. As for your comments on maxing out the connection, the fact that metronet offer payg services suggests that it is designed for lighter users, if you max out the connection it will cost you more, and this is obvious when you sign up. If you are on the 1mb service, i don't think £32 is too much, and if it is the 512k connection this is charged at £23.99 maximum plus vat... so won't cost you more than £28 per month.

MB

EDIT: and for those of you that think i am always pro ntl, i am sticking up for someone else this time :pp

[bywater]

Well after my experience I am now very pro NTL. Free modem. No woories about watching the clock. Free maintanance no need to buy an expensive modem. I only jumped ship as we were having problems with slow connections since January but since I have changed my cache everything is running fine. Up until then the service had been great only had a few outages in 3 years of service. I think generally ADSL is a rip off compared to cable.

Originally Posted by monkeybreath

I am quite suprised by your post... my g/f is with metronet and i have to disagree with some of the things you have said.

She has never had any problems with the dns servers, if she did i assure you she would be moaning about it! Whenever i have tested the connection it is running at at least 500k (she is on the 512k service) and upload is always good too.

It is not unreasonable for them to charge you for the 3months because that is the mimimum term in the contract. From what you have said it does sound like a line problem, in which case it is BT's problem.

I haven't had to contact metronet at all, so can't comment on their customer services. As for your comments on maxing out the connection, the fact that metronet offer payg services suggests that it is designed for lighter users, if you max out the connection it will cost you more, and this is obvious when you sign up. If you are on the 1mb service, i don't think £32 is too much, and if it is the 512k connection this is charged at £23.99 maximum plus vat... so won't cost you more than £28 per month.

MB

EDIT: and for those of you that think i am always pro ntl, i am sticking up for someone else this time :pp

You have me shocked m8

[th'engineer]

I thought Neil would have some comments on this

[Neil]

Originally Posted by th'engineer

I thought Neil would have some comments on this

Yeah-because the ratio of customers leaving ntl for DSL, then going back to ntl must be huuuuuuge.....

Originally Posted by bywater

My chosen ISP was Metronet as I am a light user and thought it would save me money.

NB-I've never heardof Metronet, but I'm sure if you'd gone with one the higher profile DSL ISPs, then you wouln't have had this problem.

What made you go with Metronet as opposed to Tiscali/Pipex/BT etc? (they also have 'Light User' packages)

Originally Posted by bywater

I was charged a installation fee of an extortionate £70.

That's why I asked what research you did prior to signing up?

Originally Posted by bywater

I had the service for four days and the quality of line was poor. Customer services very poor. There are issues with there DNS servers which don't work very well too often, which means you can not surf most of the web. I believe many other customers have had the same problem.

Are you talking about ntl or Metronet there?

Originally Posted by bywater

They will try and blame your operating system even when it is working fine as was proved.

No comment.

Originally Posted by BYWATER

After 4 days I decided to cancel. Be warned they will still charge you £70 even if you can not connect to the service. On top of that they will still charge you for three months service even if you do not use. Even after cutting you off. They keep your debit cards on record and will debit your account even if you do not wish them to do so. It is not not cheap either compared to other ISPs it if you use the max out of the connection you end up paying over £32 a month which is well above other ISP's.

The more I read this, the more as I see this as a Metronet issue, & not the ADSL one that the title implies.

Originally Posted by bywater

If you do decide to cancel and join another ISP you will have to pay another ISP another connection charge unless they offer free installation.

Most companies tie you to a 12 month contract, but will release you under 'Sale of Goods Act' etc if the service/product is not up to scratch.

Originally Posted by bywater

my advice if you can get cable in your area stick with that.

You 'advice' should be Steer clear of Metronet.

Originally Posted by bywater

ADSL is a total rip off

No it's not.

Originally Posted by bywater

especially from these guys.

Ah-that's totally different.

Originally Posted by bywater

If anything goes wrong its pass the buck BT to ISP ISP to BT. Totally disappointed and £200 out of pocket for a service I don't have and have only used for 4 days. £200 pounds is a lot of money. Don't risk it.

Like I said-you should be saying 'don't risk it from Metronet'.

Originally Posted by bywater

Ntl seems like heaven now the grass is definately not greener on the otherside as I have found to my expense.

It most certainly is when you get a decent ISP.

[Shaun]

Just looks like the guy/gal picked a package that is totally incompatible with his/her usage pattern. If you want to max your connection then you are not a light user. As with most light user packages was a connection fee and you had to buy your own modem, if this isn't what you wanted then you should have picked a different package, there are plenty out there that are more appropriate for your requirements. As far as I can tell it looks like you didn't research the product you bought. I agree with Neil, that's an issue with you not the ISP or ADSL as a technology.

Believe me I'm all for people swapping NTL for ADSL, I did and I wouldn;t go back if it was free (Again). IF others are looking to move from NTL and want to make sure they don't fall into this pitfall I suggest you look on www.ADSLguide.org and find a package that suits you, THEN go to www.ISPreview.co.uk and checkout what other users have to say about your chosen ISP.

For reference these are the links to user reviews for NTL and MetroNet. They make interesting reading

Even more interesting is the comparison graphs from www.ADSLguide.org Compared with : NTL, Tellywest, Bulldog, and Pipex they come up tops on C/S, Relability and Speed.

I think this must be a one off problem you've had, maybe a call to Metronet C/S and asking for a word with a manager may help you sort this out. As far as paying for 3 months, if the product was not fit for the purpose it was sold then I suggest you report your credit/debit card lost and then write to metronet to tell them that you will not be making payment as the product wasn't fit for sale in your eyes. Try looking on the BBC's site for an appropriate letter to send to them.

I hope this helps, sorry you had trouble with your Internet connection but I honestly believe that this is one off problem.

[themelon]

Originally Posted by Neil

Yeah-because the ratio of customers leaving ntl for DSL, then going back to ntl must be huuuuuuge.....



NB-I've never heardof Metronet, but I'm sure if you'd gone with one the higher profile DSL ISPs, then you wouln't have had this problem.

What made you go with Metronet as opposed to Tiscali/Pipex/BT etc? (they also have 'Light User' packages)

Actually ADSL Can be very pants using anyone of the above mentioned ISPs certainally some exchanges are becoming very busy and contention ratios are pants...which might show why some get terrible service on ADSL.

Certainally two of the above BT and Tiscali offer poor service Pipex is ok but at certain times every ADSL Service can and often does behave much worse than a 56k modem service.......some would say, including myself.......the above are worse than any service ive recived from ntl.

Of course everyone has different experiences......

The point I always try to make is that ntl can be great for some people, just because certain users of this site had a poor service doesnt mean everyone does.....why do people have to keep telling us ntl are crap and cant we decide for ourselves?? I have made my mind up after experienceing ADSL (upload aside) it is pretty pants compared to what im used to, but maybe im the lucky one of the 1 million ntl customers