NTL Broadband

Mahell

I'm just wondering if anyone out around the Salthill area has broadband with NTL and if so, how they'd rate it. I've heard it can be pretty prone to breakdown and that their customer service people are less than clued in with regards to solving problems.

The only reason I'm considering it is because we already have the channels coming in and the set up is there already for it.

And if not NTL what would people recommend? I don't want to go down the eircom bundle route coz I don't need a landline.

cornbb

I have NTL broadband in Salthill. Its reasonably reliable, but there are some outages. It was gone for around 8 hours over the weekend. I've been lucky enough not to bother ringing customer service so can't comment on that.

tman

It used to be a bit shoddy when they were bought by UPC and merged with Corus, but they seem to have gotten their act together recently.
No complaints here (Lr Salthill Road area)

galah

Lower Salthill as well, mixed results with NTL - be persistent with the customer service if you have to ring them...(requires patience, lots of patience. Or lots of red wine. Whatever works for you...)

It's been fairly good recently though (ever since they fixed our line after they realised we weren't "getting any"....), broadband has been "on" at least, although download rates are still a joke. Digital can be a bit shaky at times, but again, it's not too bad...At least the technicians know how to find the house, and are always on time ;-)

forbairt

In the city center so to speak ... so not salthill but had awful trouble with them from january on ... its actually pretty good now I've not had any outages in the last while and I pretty much use it constantly

biddywiddy

In the Salthill area - generally ok, not many outages. It can get a bit slower in the evenings, but nothing too bad.
Had a disasterous experience with NTL about 2 months ago. It was the digital tv that was gone, broadband was fine, but it took an age and alot of battling with customer service to get it sorted. Serious lack of communication between (very nice) customer service and the (equally nice)technicians......

I'd say if you have any other (reasonably priced) option, I'd go with it and ditch NTL. Just my experience though.....

ErnieBert

I've had NTL broadband since Dec 2005 and I've never had to call them. Every now and again (3 or 4 times a year) it will go off but it always comes back.

Steyr

On Eircom here, can honestly say ITS BRILLIANT, never had any problems or "downs".:)

Utopia Parkway

I use NTL broadband in the city and am pretty happy with it. Every now and then it might go for a couple of hours but it always comes back. In fact thinking about it it hasn't gone much at all in the past few months.

moonflower

I use NTL, but in Shantalla. It's alright, it's fast but it tends to go down quite a bit, usually around 6/7 in the evening for me.
It usually works well for months, and then it'll be dodgy for a week or two.
Overall it's pretty good though, much better than the old Eircom connection I used to have.

the-furbo

Good luck to ntl broadband...mine hasnt worked in months and I live on eglington street,ive come to the conclusion that ntl hate me!

JIZZLORD

i'm in terryland and up until last week ntl were in my good books, but for the last week it's been patchy as hell, it hasnt cut out as such, but i'd have to refresh pages several times for it to load, etc.

ArraMusha

The only way to get NTL attention is to stop paying them. I had issues at the start and pulled the direct debit after trying un-sucessfully to contact them, dat office in eyre sq is a joke. The boradband seems to work ok now in Ballybrit, but there are some breaks which are annoying..dont if this is contingency based??:rolleyes:

Bonzodog

I'm on NTL here in Doughiska; the service is fairly reliable, but there was an outage the other night, and a few months ago, we were getting frequent outages, but it seems to have calmed down now.
The ntl cable TV however, is another matter. Channels are frequently of very poor quality with a lot breaking up, and it seems UPC are unable (unwilling?)to keep a lot of the satellite channels after taking over from ntl themselves. We now have 5 channels with 'no longer transmitting' written across them, and we lost 5 channels from the list altogether when UPC first took over. We have to reboot the box about once a week as well, as it crashes frequently. I fear that we are going to lose the greater majority of the channels and end up with the DVB freebies now transmitted in the UK, plus Sky One AND still pay a premium for it.
However, the only alternative is Sky satellite, and guess what? Our estate has a rule BANNING the mounting of anythingon the walls.
I tried digiweb last year, but they were even worse than ntl for outages.

Sarky

In Newcastle, I found them to be nothing short of rubbish. The service was up and down like an obsessive-compulsive yo-yo, and the closest I got to customer support was them sending a technician to say "There's some upgrading going on, it should be back to normal in about a week". After more than a year of that I moved on to Digiweb, who have been excellent so far.

3 months on, NTL aren't even organised enough to call round to remove their crap from my house.

Steyr

I dont work for them BUT switch to Eircom i tells ya.

ArraMusha

"JUST ONE MORE THING" does anyone else in the Galway city area have a problem with NTL's audio reception on RTE 1 ? Its un-watchable at times. I mentioned it to a bucko in work who is in Oranmore and he said he had the same problem ?? Aneone else ?

Steyr

ArraMusha wrote: »

"JUST ONE MORE THING" does anyone else in the Galway city area have a problem with NTL's audio reception on RTE 1 ? Its un-watchable at times. I mentioned it to a bucko in work who is in Oranmore and he said he had the same problem ?? Aneone else ?

My whole street is complaining about it, in Newcastle. Eircom i tells ya.

_Whimsical_

ArraMusha wrote: »

"JUST ONE MORE THING" does anyone else in the Galway city area have a problem with NTL's audio reception on RTE 1 ? ... Aneone else ?

Yup.. me!:mad:
Is that a problem exclusively in Galway though? Someone told me it was countrywide and it was an issue with RTE itself . I thought it sounded unlikely because RTE would probably have fixed it...NTL on the otherhand...

leninbenjamin

chilly wrote: »

Yup.. me!:mad:
Is that a problem exclusively in Galway though? Someone told me it was countrywide and it was an issue with RTE itself . I thought it sounded unlikely because RTE would probably have fixed it...NTL on the otherhand...

i don't think so. we get it sometimes on the normal channels but when we switch to the digital it's all hunky dory. i don't have anything wrong with it now either... in Knocknatallaght by the way.

ArraMusha

Ya that RTE 1 audio 'crackin' is annoying and the word on the street is NTL couldn't give a hoot..I spotted a complaint in the Indo today about the service or lack of..and the usual 'nothing can be done' conclusion...Stall the Direct debit(the only way I got their attention) and they're not long ringin u up...as for the Audio cracking..."Change the channel Marge" seems the only short term thing to do.;)

Alessandra

Have had problems with Ntl broadband(in city centre) consistently since October. Haven't been able to access the internet except intermittently and rely on picking up whatever signal I can in the area. Higly annoying when coursework needs to get done, work emails sent etc. Tried talking to Ntl, no joy. Will not be renewing the contract when it runs out!

Krieg

This was my NTL experience

-Asked for 3mb (installer asured me it was 3mb), they installed 2mb...
-Wouldnt upgrade 2-3mb for at least 3months (as it "would upset their system")
-Slow Connection generally went up and down throughout the day averaging at about 1.2mb maybe.
-Lost count of the number of times I rang them (maybe 20 calls), each call lasting on average 40mins.
-Lost my patience with one of the tech support people over the phone as she said "There's nothing we can do" in a rude manner.Told her to F*** off". (Which I must say is generally out of character for me)
-3 occasions they said they would ring me back, they didnt.
-When I finally got an engineer out, He basically improved nothing.
-After 3months I asked for the upgrade, My max connection increased from 1.7mb to 1.8mb (And it wasnt very often it goes that high)
-We were supposed to get 1st 3months free, yet the bill recieved says they are charging 50euro for the 1st 3months (we already paid the installation fee).

After 5 months, everything was fine. Still not worth the hassel
There is the odd bit of downtime, Maybe 5 hours per month which isnt too bad

Edit:
Have the channels from them for a few years now, no complaints

Jamey

RTE ONE on NTL awful bad on my TV in the city centre. Not only audio crackling, the picture is pretty bad too. Only been like this in the last week and a half or so.

cornbb

I find it amusing that the ad at the top of the page says "Don't miss out - Switch to Sky Today!"

Utopia Parkway

Firstly I should say I use NTL both for TV and internet in the city centre and generally have no problems with the service itself. It's nearly always been reliable.

That said they are hoors of the highest order if you are trying to contact them. They just don't want to know. Strangely enough if you don't pay your bill on time they are on the phone to you quicksmart. No problem with their products but I hate dealing with them. Terrible customer service.

galah

I should really stop saying anything about NTL - ever since I posted here, my Irish channels are all gone...getting the UK channels alright, but no RTE, no TV3, and no TG4....ah well...

tonyhiggins

Internet's been rubbish since Friday night in the city centre. Anyone else have that? Going to ring them today...

forbairt

its been quite slow all right ... my voip connection has been acting up a bit as well which is annoying for clients

Freddie59

Steyr wrote: »

I dont work for them BUT switch to Eircom i tells ya.

You're doing a fairly good imitation though!:D

irishgooner

I have just had the most awful experience with them for one whole week trying to get connected for standard digital package. If there is an alternative broadband service then I would advise availing of that.

I suppose if you are lucky to get connected first time and all runs well then the technology looks after itself.

However, our installer mixed up the codes on the smart code and digital box that link to our account and nobody in their customer service dept was able to think smartly that this could have happened and provided a quick fix.

To add insult to injury they have no call back service once you have registered a fault and you have to spend forever online. You may also be unlucky enough to come across a dismissive customer service agent who tells you it is being dealt with and be patient and finally when you request to speak with a manager or team leader you have a call back registered that never comes. Makes you wonder if they actually value customers or the fact that there is such limited offerings that they just plough on regardless.

I think the best post has been to stop payments and then you will get some attention!

In any case back to your original point, if there is a suitable alternative I would go for that.

Regards

Devin