Seeking cheaper than NTL

[Traveller]

Hi All.

I am currently on NTL dial-up which is costing me £13.49 a month for something that is UNBELIEVABLY slow.

Pages take even longer than normal to load because the 'signal' keeps hanging many, many times during the loading of any page.

Is there an alternative that is compatible with cable, or do all other services require a BT line?

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[MovedGoalPosts]

to Cable Forum

All dial up services will be slow - you are limited to the 56kbps modem, which rarely achived even that. However even with an ntl phone line you should be able to use the majos=rity of different ISPs dail up services. I doubt there would be much financial advantage, and in many cases you might be penalised if ntl's phone service will not allow the special rate prepaid freephone dial up connection.

Realistically broadband is your beneficial option. There are only two main braadband technologies (excluding speial needs areas like satellite or local WiFi). Cable or ADSL. The cable systems are only available in the ntl or Telewest areas, whilst ADSL is available to the majority of people served by a BT phone line. You can't have an ADSL service without using a BT type phone line, although some ISPs (like Bulldog) now offer to take over the entire phone and broadband service as part of LLU (this might save costs but only apllies to a small area of the country at present).

ADSL has a wide choice of ISPs offering different price ranges, speeds and other levels of service. Cable is stuck with the ntl or Telewest service and price tarifs (you can only have ntl in a ntl area, and vice versa), although you can also get AOL over ntl cable.

I believe ntl now offer their own adsl in some areas (via an ntl phone line of course).

[Chris W]

ntl have a value pack for 1meg broadband + talk unlimited local phone line for £24.99 a month. will probably be cheaper than what you are paying for your phoneline and dial up connection at the moment.

---------- Post added at 09:05 ---------- Previous post was at 09:03 ----------

Originally Posted by Paul M

I believe ntl now offer their own adsl in some areas (via an ntl phone line of course).

do they??

The only ADSL products i could find on ntl's website were the virgin.net packages and these require a BT line.

[Traveller]

Thanks for the Welcome, Rob! Thanks also to everyone else who's replied.

Yes, all dial-ups are slow, but I'm talking ridiculous sometimes. I am 99% sure it wasn't this slow when NTL were giving it away for free, or even when they started charging £10 for it. I think £13.49 is way too much for the pathetic NTL dial up. Apart from it hanging, sometimes if someone picks up the phone downstairs, it will get cut off; not good if I'm in the middle of something really important, like making a last minute bid on ebay or paying for something online! This never happened with the old dial-up.

Is it possible that it's my pc that is to blame for the speed (not for the cutting off)?

How do I know which services NTL would allow?

Thanks Paul/Chris; I'll look into those option as well.