*ALL* ntl Cap Discussion Here Please.

[Rone]

That would be a nice idea, but i dont think the senior management give a flying f*** about customers.
Its just a business to them and theres no need to worry about customer satisfaction. And yes i appreciate they have to run a business and make a profit, i'm not against that in the slightest, but a little thought about keeping customers happy cannot be that wrong surely?

[etccarmageddon]

Originally Posted by Rone

That would be a nice idea, but i dont think the senior management give a flying f*** about customers.
Its just a business to them and theres no need to worry about customer satisfaction. And yes i appreciate they have to run a business and make a profit, i'm not against that in the slightest, but a little thought about keeping customers happy cannot be that wrong surely?

but they must be keeping customers happy cos they are gaining customers in the thousands each week. and in terms of broadband they have over 1million now and growing.

where is your evidence to suggest they arent keeping customers happy?

[Hans Gruber]

Originally Posted by etccarmageddon

but they must be keeping customers happy cos they are gaining customers in the thousands each week. and in terms of broadband they have over 1million now and growing.

where is your evidence to suggest they arent keeping customers happy?

I'm a customer and I'm not happy

[ian@huth]

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

NTL really could learn some PR lessons from this, instead of all their staff basically telling people to go away who dont like it, they should be saying yeah ok I will take your feedback to my manager and mention it at next meeting, customer relations really does go a long way you know

Who knows what lessons NTL may have learnt or what the situation will be when the new speeds are available. NTL have only released details of their intentions regarding increased speeds and have plenty of opportunity to modify those before or when the new products are launched. We can talk and theorise as much as we like about what may come, when it is coming and how it will work but will have to wait and see how it pans out.

[mcmanic]

well this is interesting

http://www.ukonline.net/8000/
8meg BB
Only £39.99 a month!
download allowance of up to 500GB per month!

makes NTL rather pathtic 40gig at 3mb allowance seem silly.

[Rone]

Originally Posted by etccarmageddon

but they must be keeping customers happy cos they are gaining customers in the thousands each week. and in terms of broadband they have over 1million now and growing.

where is your evidence to suggest they arent keeping customers happy?

How easily we all forget the e-mail fiasco that lasted how long?
Or the proxy fiascos that dont go away?
Customer service that you cant speak to?
Cant say they will cheer many preople up.
Ok most are sorted as we speak at this momement in time.
If they are gaining all the adsl customers, its going to be worth switching to adsl for a better contention ratio.
Like a few others on here, its going to be a better alternative than the choice ntl are leaving us ie: take it or leave it.

[Ignition]

Originally Posted by mcmanic

well this is interesting

http://www.ukonline.net/8000/
8meg BB
Only £39.99 a month!
download allowance of up to 500GB per month!

makes NTL rather pathtic 40gig at 3mb allowance seem silly.

There's a very well quoted paragraph.

Off you go then, hope you enjoy the 8Mbit service, and thanks for the custom.

[Rone]

Originally Posted by mcmanic

well this is interesting

http://www.ukonline.net/8000/
8meg BB
Only £39.99 a month!
download allowance of up to 500GB per month!

makes NTL rather pathtic 40gig at 3mb allowance seem silly.

I dont know how long they will last in the market [i hope they do] but theres also Nildram 2mbit at £44 , no cap at all.
And they will be bound to move forward with speed and pricing as times change.

[Ignition]

Originally Posted by Rone

I dont know how long they will last in the market [i hope they do] but theres also Nildram 2mbit at £44 , no cap at all.
And they will be bound to move forward with speed and pricing as times change.

Or would be if they weren't relying on BT for wholesale connectivity (in the case of Nildram) or restricted to 8Mbit by the ANFP (Access Network Frequency Plan) in the UK in the case of UKOnline.

Neither can move in speed, or price as they both depend on BT's pricing which is in turn in the case of the IPStream product Nildram use actively regulated upwards by OfCom to avoid competition issues with bitstream wholesale services. UKOnline have already factored into their pricing OfCom enforced price cuts, they also require customers to buy a £70 wireless router and require a 12 month contract, offer no static IPs or any of the other 'value add' services that people complain about ntl not offering.

BT at present have no plans that are either public knowledge or known to their R+D department to upgrade their speeds. They are doing a network upgrade however their main project at the moment is boostable and QoS regulated services... with a maximum speed of 2Mbit downstream and 256k upstream.

Just pointing out various comparisons and refuting statements

[mcmanic]

yeah, times are a changing, more competition, better deals than NTL are offering, buyers market ATM. Seriously think NTL are falling behind in both cable and BB, i've been with them since day 1, must be nearly 10years now and what with new technology and NTL putting restrictions on BB, time to move on, just seems to me NTL are just playing catchup all the time and never quite reaching same level of service that is provided by others

[etccarmageddon]

Originally Posted by mcmanic

well this is interesting

http://www.ukonline.net/8000/
8meg BB
Only £39.99 a month!
download allowance of up to 500GB per month!

makes NTL rather pathtic 40gig at 3mb allowance seem silly.

So, you obviously love the ukonline produce (like I do) - so have you signed up? and if not, why not?

[mcmanic]

Have to talk to the Mrs lol, currently everything is with NTL at the mo, she worked for them for 10years until the Brighton Customer Service Centre was closed - there is no love lost with NTL anymore!

But yes i plan to take my TV subscription and BB elsewhere, NTL are so behind the times now, their TV iinteractive is slow and annoying to use compared to Sky and with these stupid restrictions holding back "the UK BB revolution" i'll be looking for alternatives for sure.

[Chrysalis]

Originally Posted by etccarmageddon

but they must be keeping customers happy cos they are gaining customers in the thousands each week. and in terms of broadband they have over 1million now and growing.

where is your evidence to suggest they arent keeping customers happy?

I would love to see the customer retention levels actually, how about the average length that a customer stays with ntl? Just because people are signing up faster then they leave it doesnt mean customers are happy it just means people want to signup which is nothing to do with customer satisfaction, think before you post.

Ignition the figures you gave us (95% below 6 gig) are these for ntl's entire broadband customer base or just the top tier? I think showing stats for top tier only is a fairer figure since most of the discussion is about the cap on the 37.99 package. Its quite obvious usage patterns will be lower on the 300kbit package.

My final point for today If I caught my staff telling customers to go elsewhere if they dont like what we offer I would in all likely sack them, because I dont want the public to think that of my company, of course this is just me and my standards are different to ntl's when it comes to customer relations.

[Wombat]

HI all !

I just found out about the new increase offered by NTL and the caps. I don't use my connection to do any peer to peer downloading etc. I only use my connection to download MP3's from the IPOD site for my ipod which i pay for. I am also a webdesigner by trade and I do a hell of a lot of uploading and downloading per day to various servers to test websites I work on etc. I also play alot of online games this means my pc is connected virtually 15 to 20 hours of the day. What i am worried about is that these caps will affect me due to no fault of my own. An example when software such as online games patch or you download a game i.e. from valve these files can be hundreds of megabytes in size so although your not doing anything illegal you couldbe eating away at your monthly download allowance due to no fault of your own.

Now I do think that these caps are rather unrealistic i'm not a power downloader but at the moment my average monthly usage ranges from 40gb to 45gb per month this is what I would consider as normal usage for me and i am on 750kbs NTL service. This usage has been constant ever since i got broadband so its unlikely to change. So as you can see it would affect me quite a bit so I am a bit worried. I can't switch to ADSL as the exchange is to far away from me and BT don't offer ADSL in my area which means no ukonline either etc. So i am stuck with NTL for the for seeable future.

What I would like to see is these caps increased to by 10gb more which would be much more realistic figures.

Originally Posted by ianathuth

Who says they are making a profit? Not much of a trade is it, why not pay the going rate for the kind of service that you want.

Well, you would assume companies like Demon who have been around from many years are making some kind of profit. They offer 512k uncapped without any web space and a dynamic IP for £20/month, or for an extra fiver you get 20MB web space and a fixed IP. Seems like a good trade.

Clara do 512k plus their news service for £30/month, but since I am already paying for their news service to supplement the NTL one it's more like £23 to me. Uncapped.

I think the reason people are getting so upset by this is the NTL lock-in. To change ADSL provider, you just phone up, cancel and order something else. With NTL, you have to get a new phone like and switch to Sky too. NTL won't give you back ten quids line rental if you only want TV.

On the plus side, if you phone up and try to cancel stuff, they usually offer it to you for free for a few months, hoping you will forget to cancel it again. At least that makes switching over a bit easier.