NTL Phone service

Mojito

bk wrote:

Sky is definitely better, however NTL Digital really isn't bad. I have had Sky before and NTL is fine, the EPG isn't as good or informative, but in the end the shows are the same.

A friend has HD, ridiculously expensive and little on it. I can wait until it matures.

Not always, I'll unfortunately will have no choice but to move to Smart Vision service soon and I'll end up getting significantly less for more expense:

Smart Vision
- 2m BB
- 100 channel TV, no Sky One, Discovery or History channel (the channels I watch most) and no free multiroom.
- Phone service but no free call package.
- Total: €75

Compare that to NTL:
- 2m BB
- 120 channel TV including all important channels and free analogue multi room.
- phone service
Total: €65

And with NTL I'd have the option of going up to 6m BB (which I currently have) and free call packages, all of which aren't available from Smart, grrrhh :mad:

Good Lord!!! I'm not going to use smart for their TV service. I didn't even know they had one! Think I'll stick with sky, for the time being...

HD is expensive compare to what? NTL HD? HD may be expensive on SKY now, but what do NTL offer, ring them up and ask when they will have HD just to see what they say. You'll be waiting a long time for NTL+ as well but thats another story...

What I meant by being cheaper is that I've had sky digital for the past 3 years so I've being paying for NTL's analogue service when I don't need it not that I've had a choice.

The money is not an issue with me but there decreasing caps since I signed up and now the problems (since the take over) with broadband I've been having for a while is the issue. I'm lucky enough that I'm covered by most of the BB providers around and it ended up being a toss up with Smart and Magnet in the end.

Like you I had NTL and had no problems for the best part of 3 years and would have been the first person to tell some one to sign up but now that I've been having problems they just say "oh its the contention thats the problem"

NTL were (when I signed up) the best but their not now, for me anyway.

Time will tell, but for now they've lost another customer.

JNive

i believe they are breaking a rule with regard to VoIP/non-PSTN based Telephony, by not highlighting that should there be a power failure, your voice service fails to function and will not be able to call emergency services.

watty

They don't have it in small print somewhere?

bk

Mojito wrote:

Good Lord!!! I'm not going to use smart for their TV service. I didn't even know they had one! Think I'll stick with sky, for the time being...

The Smart Vision service is a fibre optic service running to the apartment building, it delivers TV, phone, BB. The TV service isn't available on Smart DSL. I was just making the point that Smart is the same as everyone else, when they have a monopoly (in the case of Smart Vision, you can't get anyone else, including Sky) they threat their customers just as badly as Eircom.

Mojito wrote:

HD is expensive compare to what? NTL HD? HD may be expensive on SKY now, but what do NTL offer, ring them up and ask when they will have HD just to see what they say. You'll be waiting a long time for NTL+ as well but thats another story...

I was saying it was expensive in comparison to anyone else, I was just saying it is down right expensive full stop. Sky HD box €450 plus €15 on top of your existing subscriptions for between 6 to 9 channels!!!

I'll think I'll wait for it to get a lot cheaper then that.

paulm17781

You don't even get anything free with the NTL "line rental". It will give you a cheaper phone service than Eircon, but the offer is actually very poor to people who know about VOIP.

bk

paulm17781 wrote:

You don't even get anything free with the NTL "line rental". It will give you a cheaper phone service than Eircon, but the offer is actually very poor to people who know about VOIP.

In case you missed it, you can add free call packages for €5 off-peak or €10 anytime.

paulm17781

bk wrote:

In case you missed it, you can add free call packages for €5 off-peak or €10 anytime.

I know, it's still too expensive. I have the Blueface 9.99 package, I don't use the phone that often, I rarely use my 300 minutes, it's closer to 60. For me to get the NTL basic phone package, I am throwing money away as soon as I make a call. If they had made the service free and just charged for calls, it would be a very attractive offer. They could then charge 5 and 10 for the call packages making it even better. I would jump at their current offer if I still had an Eircon line but what they are offering is terrible when compared to Blueface.

bk

paulm17781 wrote:

I know, it's still too expensive. I have the Blueface 9.99 package, I don't use the phone that often, I rarely use my 300 minutes, it's closer to 60. For me to get the NTL basic phone package, I am throwing money away as soon as I make a call. If they had made the service free and just charged for calls, it would be a very attractive offer. They could then charge 5 and 10 for the call packages making it even better. I would jump at their current offer if I still had an Eircon line but what they are offering is terrible when compared to Blueface.

Of course that would have been very attractive, but in fairness they are not a charity, there are expenses to running a service like this, this isn't just a plain simple VoIP service from what I can see, it is a lot cheaper then Eircom, for people who aren't technically sophisticated or who need a service more reliable then Blueface, then it is a good deal.

paulm17781

bk wrote:

Of course that would have been very attractive, but in fairness they are not a charity, there are expenses to running a service like this, this isn't just a plain simple VoIP service from what I can see, it is a lot cheaper then Eircom, for people who aren't technically sophisticated or who need a service more reliable then Blueface, then it is a good deal.

I suspect it is just a VOIP service, they aren't specifying it as non-techies may be off put by technical jargon. Now, if I am wrong and there is lots more to it then fair enough. From what I can see though, it is an over priced service, considering you already pay 21.50 for the basic charge.

JNive

They don't have it in small print somewhere

if its in small print then it would still be wrong, they are required to display the warning prominently at the point of sale and anywhere the products features are described if i remember correctly.

Blueface have it, and they have a large sticker on their modem, magnet also had a large sticker come with their service, i wonder if NTL have anything.

Freddie59

dub45 wrote:

That's another interesting aspect to the offer. I was chatting on the phone to someone just now and I mentioned that NTL were offering a phone service now and he said that all of his friends used mobiles so a 'landline' of any description was of no interest to him at all.

That depends entirely on your disposable income. I know people in their mid-20s who run up regular mobiles bills of between €150 and €300 per month (I kid you not!).

But a lot of other people will compare like for like (landline vs BB phone).

I will say that I have Blueface's €15 service myself and find it great. They also have, without exception, the best customer service of ANY service industry in Ireland today.

carrotcake

My parents got a call from NTL the other day, asking if they wanted to sign up. But given the abrupt end the last time they offered a phone service, they quite rightly said no!

dub45

carrotcake wrote:

My parents got a call from NTL the other day, asking if they wanted to sign up. But given the abrupt end the last time they offered a phone service, they quite rightly said no!

Given their poor image with the public at the moment it seems a strange time to launch a new product no?

jimmycrackcorm

I'm going to try freespeech.ie instead. I already have a voip ATA so Idon't understand the necessity of paying ntl line rental. Given the high dependence on mobiles in the house, a landline is not of much use except for the odd incoming landine call.

PixelTrawler

Freddie59 wrote:

I will say that I have Blueface's €15 service myself and find it great. They also have, without exception, the best customer service of ANY service industry in Ireland today.

I second this. I signed up with blueface about 2 weeks ago. Had a few issues getting signed up as i was configuring my own equipment and I was shocked how good their service is. 9pm on a friday night and they were ringing me to help me sort it out!

I dread to think of having problems with the NTL service and having to go through their support...

bk

dub45 wrote:

Given their poor image with the public at the moment it seems a strange time to launch a new product no?

Now is the perfect time, launch the new products now, work out any snags and then when everything is working well, change the name to UPC and hope people don't remember the problems they had with the old NTL.

This is a fairly normal practise in the telco industry.

BTW As for being able to use the phone when the power is out, maybe it with contain a battery backup like a lot of similar cable voice services in the US do. We just have to wait and see when someone gets it.

Blaster99

bk wrote:

This is a fairly normal practise in the telco industry.

No, the norm in the telco industry is to get right from day one. NTL is not a telco, it's a cheap-ass cable operator and therefore don't get it right.

I would be surprised if the service is anything other than VoIP. There's no reason to do packet voice anymore and VoIP can relatively easily be done right if you own the network.

dub45

bk wrote:

Now is the perfect time, launch the new products now, work out any snags and then when everything is working well, change the name to UPC and hope people don't remember the problems they had with the old NTL.

This is a fairly normal practise in the telco industry.

BTW As for being able to use the phone when the power is out, maybe it with contain a battery backup like a lot of similar cable voice services in the US do. We just have to wait and see when someone gets it.

What a case of collective amnesia that will take!!!:rolleyes:

JNive

battery backup like a lot of similar cable voice services in the US do. We just have to wait and see when someone gets it

This wont work, what happens when the batter goes dead lol.
The point being that the line requires equipment to be electrically powered to work and thats the warning which is required. whether battery operated or mains is irrelevant

bk

JNive wrote:

This wont work, what happens when the batter goes dead lol.

The battery is usually good for a few days (8 hours talk time) and automatically recharges when the power comes back on.

JNive wrote:

The point being that the line requires equipment to be electrically powered to work and thats the warning which is required. whether battery operated or mains is irrelevant

In the US all the networking equipment is also backed up by battery UPS systems to make it continue to work when power is down. All of this is done in the US to comply with 911 laws. It isn't just cable companies who do it either, Verizon does it with it's FiOS (Fibre to the home) service.

Now I'm not saying NTL are doing all this, but it is certainly doable.

JNive

using VoIP you CANT call 999 here as far as i know, only landline and mobile can do that ( as eircom pay for each 999 call )

If im incorrect or the situation has changed, then by all means correct that statement, but off the top of my head, thats how it is, with standard VoIP providers.

fatherdougalmag

http://www.blueface.ie/help/faq.aspx?section=numbers&item=emergency

Cabaal

999 does indeed work on the likes of blueface, I remember someone posting on the VoIP forum saying he had to call it when his wife went into labor.

He was using blueface at the time, its not that it doesn't work on VoIP systems, its just its not recommended to be depended on due to the many factors that can impact a VoIP setup (loss of power, high latency, loss of net connection etc).

JNive

yah wasnt sure about that, there was some battle last year with eircom demanding that CPS carriers pay them upfront for 999 calls lol

Couch Potato

Doesa anybody know if this new service would support standard dial-up modem connections eg. Sky dialback ?