|
 CATEGORIES
 Dialup
DSL Cable Satellite Other
|
NTL Broadband
Description: Award-Winning Broadband
Great Value Digital TV
Unlimited Call Plans
Exclusive Online Offers
Save £££s With Value Packs
NEW - ntl on demand
Reviews (12):
 Not getting all of our emails. Technical service does not recognize it's shortcomings.
Reviewer: Peter Ruskin 05-16-2006
I am leaving NTL Broadband and changing ISP.
Lack of help from the company
Reviewer: Towers 05-16-2006
I really had to write this review on the back of such a bad experience with NTL Broadband.
I am on their 2MB service, which I am on because NTL upgraded my service several times from 512k to 1MB and now to 2MB.
When I was on the 1MB service, or even 512k, I was having a good time with NTL. The connection was good. I hardly ever had a loss of connection, and although it did go slightly slower during peak times, it certainly wasn't too noticeable.
HOWEVER for the past 6 months or so I have been on a 2MB connection and the service is terrible. I have such a slow connection, which is constantly flicking on and off, meaning simple things like opening up a basic web page can take up to 4 minutes (I have timed it), and even after the waiting you still might get a timed out error.
I can't even can't get Messenger up and running as the connection doesn't stay strong enough for it to connect.
I haven't sat on my bottom for 6 months and let it all pass me by. I've phoned at least 4 times and got no help whatsoever from them. They'd tell me I need to clear my cookies and other rubbish such as that. What annoys me the most is that they are over-confident that the fault is with my computer. I told them this was impossible as I have tried 3 PC's and one laptop with the same connection, and had the EXACT same problem.
Anyway I finally decided I'd write them one last letter (which showed my annoyance with the company) in the hope that they could resolve the problem, but they didn't really care, and just said ring technical support.
After Christmas I shall be changing my broadband company. I'm going to probably give Pipex or Bulldog a try.
I have reason to believe the problem with my connection is over-subscribing in certain areas. I think that with so many people near me connected to the same server it's over-loaded and times me out. NTL don't seem to care though.
Too many problems to mention
Reviewer: bjfkdf 05-16-2006
NTL are hopeless! I have their phone and broadband package, and I have had so many bad experiences you would not believe. Also their customer services and 'technical support' have to be experienced to be believed.
I have had enough, and I am going back to BT, and can't wait to get another Broadband supplier. I have taken time off work to wait for the 'engineer' and they NEVER turn up. They are unbelievable.
 Technical support does cost quite a lot but as do most internet providers, just tough really.
Reviewer: kdbur 05-16-2006
Very happy with NTL Broadband service over the 3 years connection. I have only had 2 small problems which were sorted out quickly and staff were helpful. Extremely good value for money and on the least available connection through my phone line.
Can't use it properly.
Reviewer: mjthomas392003 05-16-2006
I have been an NTL Internet Customer for an exceptionally short space of time. Just one month. I am appalled and horrified therefore, to have ascertained that I cannot connect to my NTL email at home. Having contacted the customer care line, they tell me that I am to telephone technical faults on a customer line which will cost me £0.50pence per minute!!!! If I am talking to a technician for 20 minutes it will cost me £10.00 etc. I am not going to do this they are in breach of contract. They should be providing a service to me for which I am paying, they are not providing this service and therefore they are in breach of contract.
I would be fully within my rights to cancel my direct debit. I have now heard that if I wait for NTL to contact me I will be waiting till hell freezes over. Talk about mistake....wish I had known sooner.
The worst customer service ever
Reviewer: ccfcb 05-16-2006
For starters it takes several calls to sort out any little problem with NTL broadband, and often we have to wait over 30 minutes to talk with a real person. But the worst happened when we moved home. NTL promised an immediate smooth transfer of the service, which never happened. In fact, two months later they still had not disconnected from the old house, saying that "there were technical problems in the disconnection department". During this time, we were calling them almost every single day, and sometimes waiting over 2 hours on the phone (seriously) to talk to somebody! When they finally disconnected from the old house, they still had a series of excuses to not install it in the new house, but also would not cancel the contract, because we had not yet spent 12 months with them. Four months in our new home, and still without internet, so we decided to cancel the direct debit payments, and now NTL is threatening us with a legal action.
If you phone up the support line, be prepared to listen to "hold" music for roughly 4 hours.
Reviewer: KX36 05-01-2006
I've had my internet from NTL for about 8 years now.
I had my internet from cable and wireless, then they became part of NTL, and I've had NTL ever since. I first had their free 56.6kbps dial up internet, which was very reliable and free, and you can't ask much more from a dialup, then when they finally did away with it, I switched to 512kbps cable, which was the fastest, cheapest internet available, and reliable. stuck with that for a few years. Then they upgraded it to 1meg, then 2meg without upping the charges; then when i heard they were upgrading their 3meg service to 10meg, i switched to that.
In all this time, I've had a good quality, reliable service. It's cable, so the speed you see is the speed you get; unlike ADSL, which decreases as you get further from the exchange and the given speed is only a maximum burst speed, normally ADSL is far below what you think you've got.
The only bad service i've had was when chavs destroyed the green cable box in the street.
When I first got cable internet, they installed it within a few days, and it was all working by the following day.
I had previously tried AOL, BT, freeserve (now wannado). Back in the days of dialup. None were as good as NTL. Freeserve even sent me a bill for £35 for what was supposed to be a free trial!
NTL get unfair criticism! They are a lot better than other companies out there.
Reviewer: cutecat 05-01-2006
We have had NTL broadband for around two and a half years. We rang them up to arrange to have it installed. This was done quickly, and the engineer arrived on time. As we have laminate flooring, making it hard to hide the wiring, he spent time choosing the neatest option. He worked neatly, making little mess.
As you install the software for the broadband yourself, we had a problem with this so we phoned customer service. We got through straight away, and we were told the engineer would call back the following morning, which he did, and he sorted it out.
We have only had one problem, and we rang customer services who were very helpful, and we were told there was a problem in the area which would be sorted within a few hours, which it was.
We have used NTL for the TV and phone packages for many years, and we have never had any cause for complaint at all!
I firmly believe that NTL have the worst possible broadband service ever available.
Reviewer: leggb 05-01-2006
I firmly believe that NTL have the worst possible broadband service ever available. Frequently we suffered from the connection dropping and not working for hours and hours. When you phoned them to tell them you would be on the phone for about 20 minutes before you even spoke to a real person. Just to make it more annoying, they signed us up for TV when we didn't ask for it, and ended up having to call them continually to get them to stop charging it to us!
My one piece of advice in this life: avoid NTL like the plague! I know of nobody who has had NTL that has been happy with it!
Slower than dial-up, especially at peak times (supposed to be 2Mn).
Reviewer: WheathampsteadUser 05-01-2006
NTL Broadband's Tech support staff seem to operate from a script, and don't seem to have any expertise. This makes finding out that the problem is at their end, not yours very frustrating.
Poor speed + poor support + expensive = Very poor value for money.
Outsourced Technical Helpline - can be misleading and time consuming.
Reviewer: cherok 05-01-2006
I consider myself very frugal and somewhat of a scrooge, and I paid quite a few visits online to see if there were any reviews that would sway my decision to eliminate the worst Broadband service provider out there.
Having read numerous bad reviews I decided that NTL was not going to be added to my shortlist, however I came to the realisation that you really cannot believe all that you read, as I am now with NTL and really cannot fault their Broadband and customer Service!
I had shortlisted at least 3 companies and NTL was far from my mind, and I never considered them on the strength that many comments had lent to the notion that they were basically... Inferior. BT was proving to be long in the tooth and be there. A relatively young company was offering a staggering 24MB, also I considered Plusnet at £14.99 a month, but just had to hold on to see if any other company would entice me :)
Some 4 weeks passed, and 'Her Indoors' decided that she had become tired of waiting for me to decide, and decided to plunge into the deep end and just go with NTL!!! I thought to myself, 'What the heck', after all we had their TV package for over 8 Years, and thus far no major problems.
Having also considered their phone line, we were advised by two separate engineers that this was not possible, but Broadband was definitely an option. After a few minutes of installation we were ready to go. I plugged in my old laptop running Windows 98SE and installed the software, everything seemed OK, but the Software had a 'Glitch' as the USB drivers failed to install.
Much to my dismay I breathed under my breath, that NTL had proven all my worst fears. They were totally unreliable, and so was their software! I contacted the Technical Support line based overseas, and to my surprise, not only were they informative, but very polite and seemed to know what they were talking about! I had even read that calls to the Tech support line costs in the region of 50p a minute, but after checking my mobile bill... Yes my MOBILE PHONE bill, the calls were charged at the standard rate of 10p a minute, and having spent some 30 minutes on the phone, I was very surprised!
To end this on a neutral note, I live in the London area, and I recently bought an iMac G5 for Christmas and connected the cable modem via Ethernet, and I have been totally amazed at how fast the NTL broadband service is. I have ditched my old IBM Laptop since, and I cannot fault it as yet, and will be back to add any relevant comments.
If you are unsure, just give them a call and let them answer any questions or concerns you may have, before taking the plunge? And to top it all off if you hate talking to them on the phone, they offer a great Mobile Text service that allows you to either let them know to call you, or advise you of any problems.
NTL called me to make an appointment
Reviewer: wetherell 05-01-2006
NTL called me to make an appointment, then called the day before to confirm that they'd be coming between 12 and 6. At 6.30pm I called to see if they were still coming - and they said yes - at 10.30pm I gave up.
I called them the next day, and the only guaranteed first appointment they could give me was two weeks hence. I begrudgingly took this, and believe it or not they turned up 2 hours late and could only install cable TV, and not the phone line or broadband.
Definitely not recommended!
Average Reviewer Rating: 
Add my review on this item
|
|
