UPC Triple play

paulm17781

SiliconRepublic.com wrote:

UPC makes it a triple

30.06.2006 - UPC Ireland is to launch a triple-play service consisting of digital TV, broadband internet and telephony with the first phase scheduled for the new residential development at Adamstown in Dublin.
The digital telephony element of the new triple-play bundle uses voice over IP technology, which UPC said would enable future services including video telephony and integration of mobile and fixed lines. The telephony service will be delivered directly over the cable infrastructure without the need for a copper-wire phone line and consequently without the need for line rental.

The service offers most of the features currently available on traditional fixed-line networks including caller number display and call forwarding. No computer is needed to use the service: users can plug their current telephone into their existing cable connection.

UPC, which owns the cable operators NTL Ireland and Chorus, has not released pricing details yet for the new telephony service except to say that it will be “competitive”. The company said it plans to make an announcement on this early next month.

First to avail of the service will be residents in Adamstown, Lucan, Co Dublin in July. UPC said that it would continue to roll out telephony as part of its triple-play services across its NTL and Chorus national networks. The service will be rolled out to Galway and Waterford from the fourth quarter of this year, the company added.

UPC also said that it shortly plans to introduce more features for its digital TV service such as digital video recording and high-definition TV as well as interactive services.

The development of a telephony service to complement its TV and broadband offering comes after several years of promises by NTL, now a UPC subsidiary. Across Europe, UPC Broadband offers telephony services in the Netherlands, Hungary, France and Switzerland and recently added Austria, Poland, Romania and the Czech Republic to its market list. The company claims to have more than a million voice customers in Europe.

At least it's a start. Does anyone know is this a mini-monopoly or are they just laying new wires for a new development?

Drapper

paulm17781 wrote:

At least it's a start. Does anyone know is this a mini-monopoly or are they just laying new wires for a new development?

great news! think they have been beavering away from what I've here!

are the using Coax or FTTH to deliver this ?

bk

Drapper wrote:

are the using Coax or FTTH to deliver this ?

For new deployments like this I'd assume it is fibre to the node, with a low number of homes per node (about 400) and high quality (800MHz+) coax from the node to the home.

No real need for FTTH.

Drapper

bk wrote:

For new deployments like this I'd assume it is fibre to the node, with a low number of homes per node (about 400) and high quality (800MHz+) coax from the node to the home.

No real need for FTTH.

excellent, looks good!

dub45

Any chance though of them sorting out their ongoing problems anytime soon?

Anyone I know who has NTL bb seems to be having dire problems at the moment.

Drapper

maybe they will listen

bk

dub45 wrote:

Anyone I know who has NTL bb seems to be having dire problems at the moment.

Simply not true, you know me and my NTL 10m service is working perfect, thank you very much

Why is it that in the BB providers pool at the top of the forum, they have by far the best ratio of satisfied customers to unsatisfied?

dub45

bk wrote:

Simply not true, you know me and my NTL 10m service is working perfect, thank you very much

Why is it that in the BB providers pool at the top of the forum, they have by far the best ratio of satisfied customers to unsatisfied?

It simply is true - anyone I know who has NTL is having dire problems at the moment - just because yours is working does not mean that other people are not having problems - and not alone that but the customer service they are receiving in relation to the problems is equally dire - you have only got to look at very recent threads on here to have that confirmed - they do not appear to keep their csrs up to date at all - nothing new about that of course - but look at the variety of explanatioins that customers are reporting here about recent difficulties - and as long as I have been reading boards forums I have never seen anything as inept as the handling of the recent updates where they had to be carried out on an individual basis.

bk

dub45 I know many, many people (who I convinced) to get NTL, who haven't had a single problem and couldn't be happier. But that is just a personal observation, it doesn't tell me anything about the overall pattern, and neither does your observation that all your friends are having problems.

Every ISP has problems, there isn't a single ISP out there who hasn't gotten complaints here on boards. But you can't judge an entire ISP by the experience of a few friends.

Taking a look at the "Broadband providers poll" at the top of this forum shows 76 people are satisfied with NTL, 2 are not. This is the best ratio up there.

So your assertion that NTL are having dire problems and the subtext that all NTL customers are having problems is simply not true. You can clearly see from the broadband providers poll that the vast majority of users are very happy with them and have no problems.

That is not to say that NTL don't have problem areas, I'm certain they do. But they are one of the best ISPs out there.

bk

dub45 wrote:

and as long as I have been reading boards forums I have never seen anything as inept as the handling of the recent updates where they had to be carried out on an individual basis.

You do know that BT in the UK is currently going through the same problems with the upgrade to 8m. Upgrading to such high speeds is just hard. I have no doubt that Eircom will go through the same pain when they make similar upgrades.

And do you know what it really wasn't that painful. Unlike you, I actually went through it, all you had to be was patient. I called them just 2 times and had to wait 2 weeks before I got the upgrade. But you know what it was so worth the wait. Right now I'm downloading the Ubuntu DVD ISO at blindingly fast speeds and I'm paying significantly less then what Eircom charges for just 3m BB.

dub45

bk wrote:

You do know that BT in the UK is currently going through the same problems with the upgrade to 8m. Upgrading to such high speeds is just hard. I have no doubt that Eircom will go through the same pain when they make similar upgrades.

And do you know what it really wasn't that painful. Unlike you, I actually went through it, all you had to be was patient. I called them just 2 times and had to wait 2 weeks before I got the upgrade. But you know what it was so worth the wait. Right now I'm downloading the Ubuntu DVD ISO at blindingly fast speeds and I'm paying significantly less then what Eircom charges for just 3m BB.

So what? Nothing you have written there takes away from the points I made.
The fact that BT in the uk are having problems or that Eircom may or may not have troubles in the future make for lousy arguments in favour of NTL particularly when there is a different medium involved - lousy customers sevice is lousy cusomter service and just because you are happy at the moment does not take away from that - NTL are not slow to take their two month dd's irrespective of the service they provide.

And how low tech is 'please upgrade me Mister?':rolleyes:

dub45

bk wrote:

dub45 I know many, many people (who I convinced) to get NTL, who haven't had a single problem and couldn't be happier. But that is just a personal observation, it doesn't tell me anything about the overall pattern, and neither does your observation that all your friends are having problems.

Every ISP has problems, there isn't a single ISP out there who hasn't gotten complaints here on boards. But you can't judge an entire ISP by the experience of a few friends.

Taking a look at the "Broadband providers poll" at the top of this forum shows 76 people are satisfied with NTL, 2 are not. This is the best ratio up there.

So your assertion that NTL are having dire problems and the subtext that all NTL customers are having problems is simply not true. You can clearly see from the broadband providers poll that the vast majority of users are very happy with them and have no problems.

That is not to say that NTL don't have problem areas, I'm certain they do. But they are one of the best ISPs out there.

Again I dont know why you exaggerate - I made no such assertion and as for 'subtexts':rolleyes:

bk

dub45 I notice that you once again decided to ignore my post about NTL having the best performance in the BB providers poll. I notice you always ignore that when I bring it up. Maybe because it doesn't support your distorted view of NTL.

You said:

Anyone I know who has NTL bb seems to be having dire problems at the moment.

When people say things like this, there is usually the obvious implication behind it that all the people you know are having problems, therefore everyone most be having problems.

That is how I read it and I'd imagine that is how most people would read it.

dub45

bk wrote:

dub45 I notice that you once again decided to ignore my post about NTL having the best performance in the BB providers poll. I notice you always ignore that when I bring it up. Maybe because it doesn't support your distorted view of NTL.

You said:


When people say things like this, there is usually the obvious implication behind it that all the people you know are having problems, therefore everyone most be having problems.

That is how I read it and I'd imagine that is how most people would read it.

The poll is irrelevant - it reflects a very small number of users (of any of the isps) at a given moment in time.

You do not seem so keen to acknolwedge recent threads critising NTl as being as vaild as the bb users poll even though they are by their very nature more current than the BB uses poll and refect day to day experience of the NTL product and their customer service. We must do a poll soon on the effectiveness of upgrades.

When I write that anyone I know who has NTL is having problems it means what I write how you read it and how you imagine other people read it is beyond my control.

bk

dub45 wrote:

The poll is irrelevant - it reflects a very small number of users (of any of the isps) at a given moment in time.

Ha, how convenient, so the opinions of all the people who bother to post are irrelevant.

Such a poll is one of the only ways to get a view of the overall pattern. The poll clearly show IBB to be one of the worst ISPs and NTL to be one of the best. You can't simply ignore that because it doesn't support your point of view.

dub45 wrote:

You do not seem so keen to acknolwedge recent threads critising NTl as being as vaild as the bb users poll even though they are by their very nature more current than the BB uses poll and refect day to day experience of the NTL product and their customer service.

I do acknowledge that there have been problems, I clearly acknowledge it in my above posts. However all ISPs have threads on boards where customers criticise their ISP, all ISPs will have problems and will have customers that have problems, who will of course come on here and complain.

What we have to look at is the overall pattern,
- Are all customers having problems or only a small minority?
- How serious are the complaints?
- In general are customers satisfied or not?

Clearly from the poll the general pattern is that NTL customers are highly satisfied, satisfied far more then with any other ISP.

dub45 wrote:

We must do a poll soon on the effectiveness of upgrades.

And a survey if customers are satisfied after the upgrade. I certainly admit that the upgrades didn't go smoothly, but it wasn't really a major problem. Most people still had the fastest and cheapest BB connection in the country (3m for €40). The only real problem was that NTL announced new speeds 6m, people got very excited and wanted it straight away (we live in that sort of society now, immediate gratification), but NTL weren't able to deliver it immediately, it took a few weeks.

Now a few weeks later, it seems everyone has gotten the upgrade, everyone has stopped complaining about it, probably because people are too busy downloading hundreds of gigs at 10m for a fraction of the price it would cost from Eircom.

This whole thing really wasn't such a big deal, how can you in anyway equate it with the "real" serious problems that, for instance, IBB has?

dub45 wrote:

When I write that anyone I know who has NTL is having problems it means what I write how you read it and how you imagine other people read it is beyond my control.

What I would like to know is, you don't seem to have NTL or ever had time, yet you frequently seem to jump into threads about NTL to criticise them. Why?

dub45

bk wrote:

Ha, how convenient, so the opinions of all the people who bother to post are irrelevant.
Such a poll is one of the only ways to get a view of the overall pattern. The poll clearly show IBB to be one of the worst ISPs and NTL to be one of the best. You can't simply ignore that because it doesn't support your point of view.

I do acknowledge that there have been problems, I clearly acknowledge it in my above posts. However all ISPs have threads on boards where customers criticise their ISP, all ISPs will have problems and will have customers that have problems, who will of course come on here and complain.

What we have to look at is the overall pattern,
- Are all customers having problems or only a small minority?
- How serious are the complaints?
- In general are customers satisfied or not?

Clearly from the poll the general pattern is that NTL customers are highly satisfied, satisfied far more then with any other ISP.

And a survey if customers are satisfied after the upgrade. I certainly admit that the upgrades didn't go smoothly, but it wasn't really a major problem. Most people still had the fastest and cheapest BB connection in the country (3m for €40). The only real problem was that NTL announced new speeds 6m, people got very excited and wanted it straight away (we live in that sort of society now, immediate gratification), but NTL weren't able to deliver it immediately, it took a few weeks.

Now a few weeks later, it seems everyone has gotten the upgrade, everyone has stopped complaining about it, probably because people are too busy downloading hundreds of gigs at 10m for a fraction of the price it would cost from Eircom.

This whole thing really wasn't such a big deal, how can you in anyway equate it with the "real" serious problems that, for instance, IBB has?

What I would like to know is, you don't seem to have NTL or ever had time, yet you frequently seem to jump into threads about NTL to criticise them. Why?

Firstly I clearly explained why I think that the poll is irrelevant and why up to date threads reflect the most up to date customer experience. To put it ultra plainly if I subscribe today to the poll and say my isp is the most wonderful in the universe and it goes belly up for the next few weeks the poll still reflects my positive vote.

I don't know where in your posts above you acknowledge that NTL have had problems? And who are you to decide on behalf of NTL customers that the upgrade problems were not a major problem? Surely that is for the individuals concerned to decide?

By the way I must yet again point out to you that an NTL customer cannot get 3Mb for €40:) And as far as I know Eircom still do not charge for exceeding the cap (that is not to say they haven't but I have not heard of it so your claim that NTL customers are busy downloading quantities that would cost Eircom customers a lot more is spurious to say the least!

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054952600

Yet again you seem incapable of sticking to the content of my posts. I did not equate NTL's problems with those of IBB or anyone else you are the one who persists in bringing other isps' issues and non issues into the thread.

And as for announcing the upgrade and then 'blaming' the customers for then looking for it............... I can only imagine the derision of your good self if Eircom announced an upgrade and then stated that everyone would have to be upgraded on an individual basis. Surely NTL management are not so inept as to be surprised when customers look for announced upgrades? If NTL keep adding customers I can only imagine how long the next upgrades will take!

The reason NTL concerns me is that NTL represents the future of fast internet speeds for most users for whom it will be available. I believe that the telephone network cannot sustain many more major speed increases due to quality issues. So if we want 'super speeds' it will be via cable.

NTL in my experience as a tv customer of theirs for many years consistently supply the worst customer service of any company that I have experience of and I have always been wary of this aspect of their services.

There appears to have been a golden age in relation to NTL bb when it was only available to a relatively small number of people and customer service seems to have been excellent then but with the expansion of BB their 'normal' lamentable customer service seems to have reappeared. In particular their internal communications seem to be absolutely non existen and little or no effort appears to be made to keep csrs up to date at all with ongoing issues. Surely it cannot be that difficult to keep csrs informed of major tv or bb problems? For example look at the variety of explanations for a major fault which people claim to have been given here:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054946639&page=2

A good example of how they turn a 'good thing' into a shambles is the wireless router issue - that should be a major plus for them but it is a lottery as to whether people can get it or not - it can save up to 80 euros for a person and there should be no doubt as to whether a new customer can get it or not but they cannot even organise themselves to do that!

Sarsfield

I believe UPC are introducing triple play. Maybe I should start a new thread for discussing it

dub45

Sarsfield wrote:

I believe UPC are introducing triple play. Maybe I should start a new thread for discussing it

Indeed:) Anyone know if they will be giving fire extinguishers with their voip offering?

Blaster99

bk wrote:

dub45 I notice that you once again decided to ignore my post about NTL having the best performance in the BB providers poll.

So NTL is having no problems because a poll was taken before all these problems occurred? Excellent argument (not).

I'm slightly puzzled (actually I'm not really because we're talking about NTL) as to why they would only launch triple play in a new estate. With all this marvelleous cable technology surely it should be possible to enable voice in the other couple of estates that can get broadband?

I would be positively surprised if HDTV could be rolled out on their cable too. NTL's SD digital TV is overcompressed **** so I can't see how they will be able to fit in HD.

bk

dub45 wrote:

Firstly I clearly explained why I think that the poll is irrelevant and why up to date threads reflect the most up to date customer experience. To put it ultra plainly if I subscribe today to the poll and say my isp is the most wonderful in the universe and it goes belly up for the next few weeks the poll still reflects my positive vote.

And I have explained why I think a poll does do a good job in showing the over all quality of an ISP.

dub45 wrote:

I don't know where in your posts above you acknowledge that NTL have had problems?

I said it here:

That is not to say that NTL don't have problem areas, I'm certain they do. But they are one of the best ISPs out there.

And I've said it in many other threads in the past.

I'm probably more aware then most people about the problems that NTL has had as I visit this forum daily and often answer questions and try to help people out.

Some of the problems so far have been over the years:

1) Major problems in D15, seemed to have been due to the node having very bad backhaul and being oversubscribed. Seems to be fixed now, but I readily admit it took them far too long to fix it.

2) Problems with upgrading people immediately. This really wasn't a big deal, NTL never promised that the upgrades would be immediate and they seem to have been done now.

3) The odd time when pings seem to go high, there is a thread about this down further. Seemed to have lasted 12 hours, but fixed now.

dub45 wrote:

And who are you to decide on behalf of NTL customers that the upgrade problems were not a major problem? Surely that is for the individuals concerned to decide?

True, but IMO as a customer who was actually effected by it, it wasn't a major deal at all. I think as a customer who was effected I'm in a far better postion to comment on it, then you, who doesn't have and never had NTL!!!!

dub45 wrote:

By the way I must yet again point out to you that an NTL customer cannot get 3Mb for €40:)

You are right, they get 10m/6m for €40, the 3m is €30 now

dub45 wrote:

And as far as I know Eircom still do not charge for exceeding the cap (that is not to say they haven't but I have not heard of it so your claim that NTL customers are busy downloading quantities that would cost Eircom customers a lot more is spurious to say the least!

Now you are putting words in my month, I didn't say anything about Eircoms cap. I now many people go way over Eircoms cap, I was just saying that you can just download at over 3 times faster with NTL then with Eircom for far less money then Eircom.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054952600

dub45 wrote:

Yet again you seem incapable of sticking to the content of my posts.

Are you happy now, I'm quoting you point by point.

dub45 wrote:

I did not equate NTL's problems with those of IBB or anyone else you are the one who persists in bringing other isps' issues and non issues into the thread.

You are right you didn't say anything about IBB, but I brought it up when you said:

and as long as I have been reading boards forums I have never seen anything as inept as the handling of the recent updates where they had to be carried out on an individual basis.

I was just amazed that you could find the relative minor problems people had with the NTL upgrades to be the most "inept" thing you have ever read on boards, when you have seen the real problems IBB customers have with getting speeds less then dial-up or BT customers have with billing.

dub45 wrote:

And as for announcing the upgrade and then 'blaming' the customers for then looking for it............... I can only imagine the derision of your good self if Eircom announced an upgrade and then stated that everyone would have to be upgraded on an individual basis. Surely NTL management are not so inept as to be surprised when customers look for announced upgrades? If NTL keep adding customers I can only imagine how long the next upgrades will take!

NTL weren't upgrading people on an individual basis. What happened was that they announced the upgrades and said they would happen on a phased basis. People who wanted it immediately (me included) started ringing support to get the upgrade immediately and support where nice enough to push through individual upgrade orders for those obviously enthusiastic customers. However quickly CS got flooded with requests and it seems their systems went down. Now it seems the phased upgrades have actually gone through. I honestly don't think there was anything malicious about the whole incident.

I'm sure NTL management will learn from their mistakes and do better in future, just like they learned from the mistakes of NTL UK and sold the product as 6m (but really 10m) because of the problems some UK customers had.

dub45 wrote:

The reason NTL concerns me is that NTL represents the future of fast internet speeds for most users for whom it will be available. I believe that the telephone network cannot sustain many more major speed increases due to quality issues. So if we want 'super speeds' it will be via cable.

Couldn't agree more.

dub45 wrote:

NTL in my experience as a tv customer of theirs for many years consistently supply the worst customer service of any company that I have experience of and I have always been wary of this aspect of their services.

Certainly not the worst, try dealing with Chorus customer support and you will literally beg to return to NTL.

Personally I've found NTL CS and sales to be one of the best I've ever experienced:

When I called up to order BB first from NTL, I spent at least 15 minutes asking all sorts of difficult questions about Linux support, etc. and she patiently gave me the answers to my questions and then proceeded to offer me 12 months analogue TV for free, without even asking for it!!!

They sent me a text the day before the install, to remind me, very nice touch.

Any time I've called support I've gotten straight through, no waiting and they have always been very friendly and tried to help out, if not always succesfully.

Personally I just worry about UPC dumping NTL support and replacing it with Chorus support, now that is horrifying.

dub45 wrote:

There appears to have been a golden age in relation to NTL bb when it was only available to a relatively small number of people and customer service seems to have been excellent then but with the expansion of BB their 'normal' lamentable customer service seems to have reappeared.

While I joined them after the golden age and they still seem to be pretty good, certainly as good as any other ISP, but certainly lots of room for improvement.

dub45 wrote:

In particular their internal communications seem to be absolutely non existen and little or no effort appears to be made to keep csrs up to date at all with ongoing issues. Surely it cannot be that difficult to keep csrs informed of major tv or bb problems?

Couldn't agree more, this seems to be a problem across most call centers, not giving staff adequate training and management not keeping them informed.

dub45 wrote:

A good example of how they turn a 'good thing' into a shambles is the wireless router issue - that should be a major plus for them but it is a lottery as to whether people can get it or not - it can save up to 80 euros for a person and there should be no doubt as to whether a new customer can get it or not but they cannot even organise themselves to do that!

Again agree completely. Plenty of room for improvement. I believe (and can only hope) that these problems have happened because of the transition from NTL to UPC, and NTL not really wanting to make any major announcements until the merger is completed. Hopefully things will become more solid when the merger completes.

bk

Blaster99 wrote:

I'm slightly puzzled (actually I'm not really because we're talking about NTL) as to why they would only launch triple play in a new estate. With all this marvelleous cable technology surely it should be possible to enable voice in the other couple of estates that can get broadband?

I'm interested to see if it will be VoIP or PacketCable. If it is VoIP, then the rollout should be very fast as many NTL customers have already trialled it with Blueface

Hopefully it will just be a quick trial to test their systems, before they have a a quick full rollout to all BB areas. I wouldn't be surprised if it is more of a marketing issue, wait until they rebrand as UPC to launch triple play.

Blaster99 wrote:

I would be positively surprised if HDTV could be rolled out on their cable too. NTL's SD digital TV is overcompressed **** so I can't see how they will be able to fit in HD.

The compression seems to have improved in my area over the last few months, as has the buggyness of the decoder boxes. Perhpas they are improving the infrastructure.

I'd imagine they will only be able to rollout HD in areas with newer nodes and coax capable of 850MHz. But I wouldn't hold my breath, on the other hand they won't want to leave Sky get too much of a lead.

dub45

Personally I've found NTL CS and sales to be one of the best I've ever experienced:

When I called up to order BB first from NTL, I spent at least 15 minutes asking all sorts of difficult questions about Linux support, etc. and she patiently gave me the answers to my questions and then proceeded to offer me 12 months analogue TV for free, without even asking for it!!!

They sent me a text the day before the install, to remind me, very nice touch.

Any time I've called support I've gotten straight through, no waiting and they have always been very friendly and tried to help out, if not always succesfully.

I have never read any other reports on boards of NTL's customer service even remotely approximating yours nor has any NTL bb customer that I know experienced anything like that.

It seems to me that you are living in Carlsberg world as far as NTL customer service goes you seem to be alone in there but enjoy it while you can:rolleyes:

And as for texting about an appointment their csrs in my experience refuse point blank to ask the technicians to phone ahead to give some notice of their time of arrival - they also insist on house visits when the problem is patently nothing to do with the 'house'. and they will not undertake to record a problem unless a visit is arranged (that is on the tv side) the last contractor I had at the house told me that he was so fed up with NTL's incompetence that he was leaving them!

And I will gladly repeat that I have never found any customer service department as inept as NTL's and that's based on many years of dealing with them.

It costs an NTL customer 50 euros a month give or take a cent or two to get 3Mb when are you going to acknowledge this and stop misleading people?

bk

dub45 wrote:

It costs an NTL customer 50 euros a month give or take a cent or two to get 3Mb when are you going to acknowledge this and stop misleading people?

I have NTL BB, it costs me €40 for 10m BB, not a cent more.

Of course I got the analog TV service free for 12 months, as do many people.

NTL 3m BB + Analog TV = €50
Eircom 3m BB + Line Rental =~ €79

NTL 10m BB + Analog TV = €60
Eircom 5m BB + Line Rental = €224

1) NTL always give the first 3 months BB for free.
2) NTL gives free install and equipment (€30 with Eircom)
3) NTL often gives the Analog TV service free for 12 months.

It doesn't matter what way you try and paint it, NTL is significantly cheaper then Eircom.

BTW You can now get this BB products from Chorus without the requirement of having the TV service.

Furthermore I resent your remark that I'm trying to mislead anyone, I've never been anything less then honest in my posts and ask you to redraw that remark.

dub45

bk wrote:

I have NTL BB, it costs me €40 for 10m BB, not a cent more.

Of course I got the analog TV service free for 12 months, as do many people.

NTL 3m BB + Analog TV = €50
Eircom 3m BB + Line Rental =~ €79

NTL 10m BB + Analog TV = €60
Eircom 5m BB + Line Rental = €224

1) NTL always give the first 3 months BB for free.
2) NTL gives free install and equipment (€30 with Eircom)
3) NTL often gives the Analog TV service free for 12 months.

It doesn't matter what way you try and paint it, NTL is significantly cheaper then Eircom.

BTW You can now get this BB products from Chorus without the requirement of having the TV service.

Furthermore I resent your remark that I'm trying to mislead anyone, I've never been anything less then honest in my posts and ask you to redraw that remark.

As I have pointed out earlier in the thread i wish you would stick to the actual content of my posts I made no mention anywhere of Eircom costs!!

So i dont know where you get this:

It doesn't matter what way you try and paint it, NTL is significantly cheaper then Eircom.

i have not been doing any painting! You are the one who consistently brings in other isps particularly Eircom. And speaking of Eircom according to www.eircom.net there is no current charge for install or equipment:

Order online before September 30th and get FREE connection (usually €29.99). We have also included the router for FREE with every product.

You omitted to mention Smarts offer of 3Mb for 35 euros including line rental.

In two of your posts you wrote the following:

And a survey if customers are satisfied after the upgrade. I certainly admit that the upgrades didn't go smoothly, but it wasn't really a major problem. Most people still had the fastest and cheapest BB connection in the country (3m for €40)

You are right, they get 10m/6m for €40, the 3m is €30 now

NTL customers cannot get 3Mb for those prices (unless with a special offer which sooner or later finishes) and if your posts above are not misleading then what are they?

And unlike in your Carlsberg tinted NTL world many people do not get offered a year's free tv service - NTL cannot get that one right either just like the router issue.

paulm17781

Glad I started this thread. Good to see some people still know EVERYTHING!!!! :rolleyes:

Drapper

thier off at it again !! lads get a room :-) losts of anger and stress to release!