NTL: Any good?

PaddyofNine

Is broadband supplied by NTL any good? We moved house while I was in the US during the summer and I've been tasked with setting up a new BB account. Don't have a phoneline in the house and don't want one! Thinking about NTL - we already have the cable package in the house. Are they generally good or no? We had IBB in the old place, and their service was dire, so I'm shopping around this time.

So, NTL: yay or nay?

Shiny

yay

markpb

Before everyone else jumps in and tells you how awful they are lately I've been with them for 4 months and never had any problems. I'm on the 2 meg package and my typical rate is 230kbs down and 25kbs up.

They don't seem to be peering with INEX yet so expect all your traffic to route via Amsterdamn and back again. This might be an issue if you're playing games but generally not apart from that. I'm pinging 66ms to boards.ie at the moment.

If you already have NTL (and bb is available in your area) and you don't have a phoneline, they're definitely worth considering. There have been plenty of other threads about NTL and their problems lately though, you might want to read those before you decide.

CiaranC

Couldnt recommend them at the moment, see other recent threads on this forum

PaddyofNine

Just rang them and it turns out BB isn't supported in my area

She said it'd be worth hanging on for though. My arse - it could be months before they're ready. <sigh> Back to Irish Broadband I suppose, unless someone has any other ideas?

markpb

If IBB are the only other company available, I can give you a great deal on a paper cup + wet string package :rolleyes:

PaddyofNine

Ya, I know it's an unfortunate situation alright. Anyone got any other ideas?

Drapper

they are good, but mixed views from people lately since the Chello takeover!

FrankGrimes

They used to be good before the takeover but now offer a poor product with even worse customer support

DemonOfTheFall

NTL = Pointless for games since Chello took over.

Also they'll rape you if you go over the 40 gig cap.

Also their support are incompetent.

Deicde for yourself.

BendiBus

I'm still happy with NTL. But I don't play games so can't comment on that.

JNive

on eircom due to actual good peering, going to east coast USA was 7 hops, 3 on eircoms side, direct peering in NJIIX, and 3 from NJIIX to my server.

With Chorus ( aka Chello, same as NTL at the moment ), that turned to about 20 hops, here to london, to amsterdam to france, peered with abovenet, across to USA, peered with deutche telecom, and then to my server,

complete and utter mess right now, and due to their current peering in london/amsterdam ( ie, no irish peering ) voip isnt exactly great. using the blueface tester, i get minimum 200ms jitter on the upload, but the upload speed is maximum at 480kb/sec. So, plenty of bandwidth however the other side cant hear me lol.