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View Full Version : My review of NTL


FusionXN1
02-10-2006, 01:54
Well as some of you may know, I was moving house to an NTL area (NTL virgin ;)) and was put off NTL after all these bad reports.

Well I got in ordered NTL from the local rep on a Monday and got it the following Thursday. We ordered:
10MB Broadband
Unlimited 24 Phone
Family Pack DIGITAL TVWe got it all for £60, now we thought it was a good price and we took it.. And I have had NTL for a month in 6 days and what can I say?

Well, the installer was in a crash on the way here do we got another installer come out but was all installed in the set time and was happy with that but then... what's this... he removed some of our small roof tiles out side and put the internet cable through it into the room and left the tiles off! Now if it had rained we would of had a problem so we called NTL and 2 days later they moved it over and they didnt even have to make another hole into the room and it didn't cost a penny so that was OK.

Next, the first bill came a week after and let's see it says £25... Wait a second, it says we have TV and Phone and 4MB for £25?! That's not right.

We called and they said we are not down as having broadband and was told they couldnt alter anything so until next month's bill we wont know if we will be charged the £60 or £25?!

Ok next... Activating broadband had a problem, our post code wasn't attached to out PIN so we called the local rep he came over and sorted it... happy. :)

RIGHT, Now after these ups and downs it's all done except for the bill thing we can't sort yet but what can I say for the services.

Well, Phone:- Clear quality, better then BT and nothing much more I can say except it's more then good enough

Next, TV:- Quality is NEAR Sky unlike what others say with the compression problem it looks good to me.. we even compared it with our old sky box - and ondemand just launched in this area this month and loving it very nice + for NTL. Happy.

Last, Internet:- 10MB the big question whats it like? I just came from 2MB with pings of 60 - 80 and as soon as NTL was done and the net working I was blown away. It is very fast pings from 12 - 35 in games and pages seem to resolve faster.. Ya! But whats the speed. Well we pay for an upto 10mb service and let me say i get about 9.4mb on tests usually 1.1mb/s to 1,2mb/s down and 58kb/s to 60kb/s up and I'm happy with it compared to my old 2mb connection (235kb/s and 28kb/s).

Speed is always fast until around 5 - 11 at night then its around the 6MB speed surfing pages but using download accelerators and the odd torrent i get around 1.1mb/s to 1.2mb/s so it goes to show you that accelerators work in the peek times and 6mb surfing speed is fast enough.

If i were to rate NTL i would say in our case:

Install: 6/10 - could be better :/
Price: 9/10 - better then what we were paying *thumbs up*
Speed: 8/10 - very nice for an upto 10mb connection shame about peek times needing accelerators but I am happy!!
Reliability: 10/10 - no downtime in a month of use so far - fingers crossed.

Would I recommend to the new customer? YES.

It will very from area to area but I would say give them a try - you can try for a month free and get it turned off at no charge if you dont like it during the first month!

For reference my area is Grimsby / Cleethorpes. AND GOOD LUCK!

P.S. I was told by the rep that 18mb, 30mb and 50mb is on the tables for Q1 next year and remember this wasn't the installer and said it was discussed in the meeting that morning but take it with a pinch of salt for now!

Nedkelly
02-10-2006, 07:42
Only had small problems then:) Resolved fairly quik:tu:

FusionXN1
02-10-2006, 15:33
Yep :)

TheCrow
04-10-2006, 23:50
Amazing, when i first ordered it all got installed after two weeks of installers not turning up.

Then when it was all installed on demand didn't work, the broadband wouldn't let me register, and the phone they had to sent a seperate engineer as the first didn't know what he was doing.

Glad you had better luck!

FusionXN1
05-10-2006, 02:26
Thanks but im suffering from slow speeds even with download accelerators. My speed is now 6mb - 1mb :( Seems since these 20mb trials come around - i dont know.

Locky
05-10-2006, 19:44
fusion maybe jsut a lot of congestio nthat is all, is that useing 1 downlaod thread or a download manager ?

FusionXN1
05-10-2006, 19:51
fusion maybe jsut a lot of congestio nthat is all, is that useing 1 downlaod thread or a download manager ?

download manager, and yes i have tried other sources :(

jtwn
06-10-2006, 01:40
Personally I think ntl in North Lincs is top notch. Can't say I've heard many/any horror stories from anybody round here.

kev350d
06-10-2006, 20:09
Well as some of you may know, I was moving house to an NTL area (NTL virgin ;)) and was put off NTL after all these bad reports.

Well I got in ordered NTL from the local rep on a Monday and got it the following Thursday. We ordered:
10MB Broadband
Unlimited 24 Phone
Family Pack DIGITAL TVWe got it all for £60, now we thought it was a good price and we took it.. And I have had NTL for a month in 6 days and what can I say?

Well, the installer was in a crash on the way here do we got another installer come out but was all installed in the set time and was happy with that but then... what's this... he removed some of our small roof tiles out side and put the internet cable through it into the room and left the tiles off! Now if it had rained we would of had a problem so we called NTL and 2 days later they moved it over and they didnt even have to make another hole into the room and it didn't cost a penny so that was OK.

Next, the first bill came a week after and let's see it says £25... Wait a second, it says we have TV and Phone and 4MB for £25?! That's not right.

We called and they said we are not down as having broadband and was told they couldnt alter anything so until next month's bill we wont know if we will be charged the £60 or £25?!

Ok next... Activating broadband had a problem, our post code wasn't attached to out PIN so we called the local rep he came over and sorted it... happy. :)

RIGHT, Now after these ups and downs it's all done except for the bill thing we can't sort yet but what can I say for the services.

Well, Phone:- Clear quality, better then BT and nothing much more I can say except it's more then good enough

Next, TV:- Quality is NEAR Sky unlike what others say with the compression problem it looks good to me.. we even compared it with our old sky box - and ondemand just launched in this area this month and loving it very nice + for NTL. Happy.

Last, Internet:- 10MB the big question whats it like? I just came from 2MB with pings of 60 - 80 and as soon as NTL was done and the net working I was blown away. It is very fast pings from 12 - 35 in games and pages seem to resolve faster.. Ya! But whats the speed. Well we pay for an upto 10mb service and let me say i get about 9.4mb on tests usually 1.1mb/s to 1,2mb/s down and 58kb/s to 60kb/s up and I'm happy with it compared to my old 2mb connection (235kb/s and 28kb/s).

Speed is always fast until around 5 - 11 at night then its around the 6MB speed surfing pages but using download accelerators and the odd torrent i get around 1.1mb/s to 1.2mb/s so it goes to show you that accelerators work in the peek times and 6mb surfing speed is fast enough.

If i were to rate NTL i would say in our case:

Install: 6/10 - could be better :/
Price: 9/10 - better then what we were paying *thumbs up*
Speed: 8/10 - very nice for an upto 10mb connection shame about peek times needing accelerators but I am happy!!
Reliability: 10/10 - no downtime in a month of use so far - fingers crossed.

Would I recommend to the new customer? YES.

It will very from area to area but I would say give them a try - you can try for a month free and get it turned off at no charge if you dont like it during the first month!

For reference my area is Grimsby / Cleethorpes. AND GOOD LUCK!

P.S. I was told by the rep that 18mb, 30mb and 50mb is on the tables for Q1 next year and remember this wasn't the installer and said it was discussed in the meeting that morning but take it with a pinch of salt for now!

Well this is what everyone of us would have said until late!! Now im afraid .5mb on 10mb accounts after 6pm just doesnt wash.. Would i sing NTL/Telewest from the roof tops ????

Would i hell until they start updating their network or admitting they have contention issues (stop allowing new customers in over subscribed areas)

FusionXN1
06-10-2006, 20:25
Im in north east lincs and the net is fine now after a few days has passed. But admitted I think although im happy - they should update their equipment to allow others to join the network without causing any suffering for other customers in the area.

FusionXN1
08-10-2006, 15:26
Just thought I would update my review a bit. Last night I was very happy with NTL getting (at peak times) over 900kb/s without an accelerator and it seems to be continuing.

I would also like to point out to anyone thinking of getting ntl they allow you to change your email address(s) and your NTL username, something that other ISPs do not offer!