[Merged]Ntl to buy Telewest

[Neil]

Originally Posted by andrew_wallasey

Sorry but what rubbish! Sky often took ages to answer the phone and when I was with BT I used to have to wait hours getting through to the faults dept.

You can't say that someone else's personal experience of any company is rubbish.

[andrew_wallasey]

Originally Posted by Neil

You can't say that someone else's personal experience of any company is rubbish.

You can when it is blatently wrong because when I left sky in 2001/02. I used to be on hold everytime for up to an hour before someone answered. Don't mean to come across to curt just bad habbit. lol.

[orangebird]

Originally Posted by Neil

You can't say that someone else's personal experience of any company is rubbish.

Very true. Neither can you say an entire company is rubbish because of your own personal (bad) experience.

[Neil]

Originally Posted by orangebird

Very true. Neither can you say an entire company is rubbish because of your own personal (bad) experience.

I wouldn't-I base my opinion of ntl of my experience in dealing with them as a customer, & also whilst with NTHW.com, but I would still never say that details of someone's personal experience of something was "rubbish".....

[themelon]

I therefore can verify that BT and Sky can be bad.

I have dealt with them as a customer and on a wholesale product basis (working in iTV and for an ISP), and they both strongly represent all that is wrong with the communications industry in the UK.

Of course everyone has different experiences.

[eshaq786]

nexy year is gonna be one busy year for all the companies. LLU will start taking off, telewest and ntl may merge and BT may be no more.

[Ignition]

Originally Posted by eshaq786

.... and BT may be no more.

I have no idea what gives you that idea at all. We may not like some things they do but doesn't change the fact BT are a multi-billion pound company that aren't going anywhere any time soon.

[goldoni]

News from Computer shopper dated 11/11/04: Link

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by eshaq786

nexy year is gonna be one busy year for all the companies. LLU will start taking off, telewest and ntl may merge and BT may be no more.

Unless you know something I don't about BT's financial state, I would think BT will be around for many years to come. They won't be using the same tech (for instance, they are moving to VoIP for call traffic), but they will be around.

[eshaq786]

well maybe saying BT will be no more is a over statement but BT seriously do need to make major changes if they are to be competitve next year. They are still stuck at 2mb down and 256k up while others such as uk online already have 8mb down 400k up and that may further increase next year in terms of upload. other companies such as bulldog will follow soon so BT should do the same instead of being stubborn.

[ian@huth]

Originally Posted by eshaq786

well maybe saying BT will be no more is a over statement but BT seriously do need to make major changes if they are to be competitve next year. They are still stuck at 2mb down and 256k up while others such as uk online already have 8mb down 400k up and that may further increase next year in terms of upload. other companies such as bulldog will follow soon so BT should do the same instead of being stubborn.

Have you ever stopped to think that BT and others may not want to offer 8Mb at this moment in time? What type of customer do you think it will attract and what problems will their use of the network cause?

BT, NTL and every other ISP are in business to make a profit and will provide whatever products they are technically able to provide if the cost of provision is recouped in a reasonable time by revenue from those products. ISPs look at the market as a whole and take a marketing decision on whether introduction of a higher speed is beneficial or not at any specific time.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by eshaq786

well maybe saying BT will be no more is a over statement but BT seriously do need to make major changes if they are to be competitve next year. They are still stuck at 2mb down and 256k up while others such as uk online already have 8mb down 400k up and that may further increase next year in terms of upload. other companies such as bulldog will follow soon so BT should do the same instead of being stubborn.

There is another way to look at it. The higher speeds (and I count 1 Meg in this) are less profitable for companies, such as BT. Based on things I have read here in the past, the number of 1.5 Meg users on the NTL network is a small fraction of those on 300K. It also carries a large cost in terms of network usage and expansion. For instance, one 1.5 Meg user at £37.99 can use the same bandwidth as 5 300K users @ £17.99 each. Which would you say is more profitable??


If it is proved that people want speeds of 8 Meg or more, I am sure BT will pull their finger out and increase speeds.

[DeadKenny]

Originally Posted by andrew_wallasey

You can when it is blatently wrong because when I left sky in 2001/02. I used to be on hold everytime for up to an hour before someone answered. Don't mean to come across to curt just bad habbit. lol.

You can't say someone's experience is wrong just because you had a bad experience, nor can you judge an entire telecom on the basis of one user.


NTL on the other hand has had a track record of extremely long waits on the phone. You only need to do a search back in the archives of this and any NTL related forum to see that, and I know around 20+ people with NTL who all repeat the same experiences (they're a classic office moan too whenever anyone mentions NTL). Sure not everyone had a problem, but NTL did go through a period of average 40 min waits on the phone, and that's something not that can't be denied (and not just because some people got through okay).

My worst experience was when I tried to get through to them for 4 days in a row, continually phoning leaving the phone on speaker for hours at a time. Almost without fail it would be cut off after 40 mins and I'd redial.

They claim it's all sorted now and those days are gone. I don't know if anyone else has problems, but the last few times I called them I got aprox 15 to 20 mins waits, with recorded messages saying they were experiencing "technical difficulties" and may not be able to help anyway (it was at this point the final straw broke and I quit NTL for good... or at least I've been attempting to which is another story . I ditched NTL's TV for Sky of course years ago as they offered a product which NTL did not deliver for years after).

Oh, and I frequently got cut off when I finally got through to anyone, which is the rudest and most annoying thing any company can do .


My experience of Sky has been a call answered within seconds usually (once past the menus of course ).

BT has been good though slightly longer times, but nothing beyond 5 minutes. Although I've been without them for about 7 years (the length of time I was with NTL/CableTel), but before then they were always fine, and others I know with BT have no complaints about getting through to them.

I can't however say whether either BT or Sky are good or bad based on my personal experience. From my friends/family reports they seem okay, but that's no measure either. There are of course likely to be plenty of forum posts around the net with horror stories, though I haven't looked.

The point really is that you can't say that BT and/or Sky are good or bad based on one experience, nor can you say the same about NTL. What I can say about NTL is my experience and those of people I know and of the huge amount of forum posts about them, plus admissions by support staff and customer complaints department. Still doesn't mean I can blanket say they are bad (much as I'd like to ) or one person's good experience is "rubbish".


I'm also not going to comment on whether BT/Sky are better than NTL in other ways than call wait times. I know my opinion, but the sub-topic here is just call wait times, which is off topic anyway.

[andrew_wallasey]

I can say peoples experience is rubbish if in my opinion they are exaggerating how much worse NTL is compared to BT and Sky.


I would love to know what number you rang when getting through to Sky customer services because you must have VIP CS number because I was on hold frequently for ages. With BT whenever there was a bit of rain all you got was "due to the recent bad weather call volumes are very high we expect to get to you as soon as possible".

[Neil]

Originally Posted by andrew_wallasey

I can say peoples experience is rubbish if in my opinion they are exaggerating how much worse NTL is compared to BT and Sky.

Not on here you can't.

Respect other people's experiences-I had nothing but lousy CS from ntl in all the years I had their products (fact), does that make my experience "rubbish" in your opinion? (no)

Originally Posted by andrew_wallasey

I would love to know what number you rang when getting through to Sky customer services because you must have VIP CS number because I was on hold frequently for ages. With BT whenever there was a bit of rain all you got was "due to the recent bad weather call volumes are very high we expect to get to you as soon as possible".

Perhaps you should have withheld your phone number.