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NTL Phone/Broadband/TV

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  • 24-02-2009 11:08am
    #1
    JonnyBlackrock
    Closed Accounts Posts: 143 ✭✭


    I'm considering getting rid of Eircom altogether (no line rental if you do that:)) and going over to NTL for phone, broadband and telly.
    Does anybody have any experience with them? Do they connect you up efficiently? Is their billing correct? Is the broadband reliable? Are there any infuriating problems?
    Any help would be most appreciated.
    I've had Irish Broadband wireless service for the last 3 or 4 years and have been very happy with it, so I don't want to take on a nightmare.


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    #2
    watty
    Registered Users Posts: 32,417 ✭✭✭✭watty


    You don't have to take the TV. You can get the main UK channels all free via satellite.

    Or you can test Blueface on your existing Broadband if it's Wireless and not Ripwave. You can get real number and adaptor for phone or DECT cordless. Generally you can't ensure what the quality will be. Metro (Digiweb, no phone line either) or UPC VOIP built in systems have a Quality of Service management built in.


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    #3
    J-blk
    Registered Users Posts: 3,906 ✭✭✭J-blk


    JonnyBlackrock wrote: »
    Does anybody have any experience with them? Do they connect you up efficiently? Is their billing correct? Is the broadband reliable? Are there any infuriating problems?

    Well there are tons of threads on NTL/UPC here and you'll see varying opinions on them... I have been with them for broadband for about 4 years now and would generally recommend them, but there are problems. Even today, my connection has been down for about 16 hours or so, so I'm not in the best mood... But overall, it's pretty good.

    Good points:
    - Speed: you can get up to 20Mb, for a reasonable IMO cost (compared to ADSL providers).
    - Cap: they sell the 10/20Mb packages as unlimited, with a fair use policy in place. Some users here have reported that they get warnings around the 250GB mark, which is pretty generous. Even if you exceeded it at some point, you'd get some kind of warning initially - they do not overcharge you.
    - No problems with the billing, ever.
    - Installation was quick, painless and on schedule for me - that was 4 years ago though!

    Bad points:
    - Customer service: getting through to them is a nightmare. When you do get through to them, they are usually useless and the solution to everything is "we'll send an engineer out".
    - Reliability: this has only happened to me maybe 5-6 times in total over the 4 years, but the connection can go down for hours or even days at a time (like ahem, now) - this may be completely unacceptable to you so it's something to keep in mind.
    - Contention: this will depend on where you are, but in my area, peak hours (6pm and later) take a huge toll on my 20Mb connection dropping much closer to the 1-2Mb mark - again, not a deal breaker for me, as it is still perfectly usable for most tasks and off peak, it flies... Still, if you need a fairly consistent throughput, UPC may not provide it in many cases (but again, that could be true of most ISPs).

    But still, after 4 years, I don't think I'd change ISPs that easily when looking at what else is on offer - the TV service is fine too and I've never had any real problems with that. Don't have the phone service with them so no opinion on that...


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