Are NTL lying to single householders about broadband coverage?

Narc

I just moved into a place on Thomas Street in Dublin 8, directly across from NCAD and half way between Francis and Meath streets. I contacted NTL before xmas and the guy said that I WAS braodband enabled and that after the account was set up, I'd be connected early in the new year. However, I lost the contact details for this customer service rep and am now dealing with someone else who informs me that I'm NOT good for broadband yet and that she doesn't know when I will be as apparently, 'the technicians tell them nothing' and they could connect me tomorrow or a year from now...I just have to wait for a letter to notify me that the cables are in.

THEN, I spoke to some friends about this and they told me that (information here from an NTL insider) NTL don't care about single households. They are spending so much time at the moment flooding new suburban housing developments with sales reps and technicians that it wouldn't be cost effective for technicians working on hooking the guts of an entire apartment block/estate in Blanch or wherever to come all the way in to Thomas Street to connect one apartment.

And further, two groups of friends live in the same apartment block in the city centre, one having NTL braodband for the last year. When the second group moved in recently and contacted NTL they were told that they weren't broadband enabled yet. They rang NTL later in the week and said that they have to be as the guys down the hall have it and the girl on the phone suddenly changed track and said she'd made a mistake, apologised and now they are happy with NTL broadband.

Is this ringing any bells for people? Does anyone close to me have NTL brodband?

I'm considering just going with Smart but I'd really like to avail of the deal NTL are having at the minute regarding braodband with free cable for the year.

_S.

KdjaCL

I know a girl living close to you with NTL but its mental i tried to fix it a few times and gave up, sometimes it works others it doesnt.

Got her a new modem but same **** ringing NTl wasnt helful at all, in the end she went to Smart. Think shes in Pimlico(sp)


kdjac

Blaster99

But but NTL NEVER disconnects or has any failings what so ever. I'm so disillusioned now.

Seriously though, I'm surprised. A buddy of mine in Sandyford, an oasis of NTL BB availability in south Dublin presumably due to NTL's fibre in the industrial estate, gets cold calls from NTL trying to sell him BB and stuff. They have to send out technicians to "install" the digital TV offering and they're certainly very happy to do that.

dub45

This is more like the NTL I am familiar with from just having the TV service:rolleyes: Mindnumbingly incompetent and and indifferent and thats being complimentary:eek:

spurious

NTL baffle me - either there is no planned 'enabling' of areas, or they are really incompetent and have no idea in which order things will be done. I'm in the North Strand area in Dublin - anyone nearby got anything positive from NTL?

Does no-one work for them? Even if it is all top secret, surely to God they could give a rough estimate - this year, before 2010?

dub45

spurious wrote:

NTL baffle me - either there is no planned 'enabling' of areas, or they are really incompetent and have no idea in which order things will be done. I'm in the North Strand area in Dublin - anyone nearby got anything positive from NTL?

Does no-one work for them? Even if it is all top secret, surely to God they could give a rough estimate - this year, before 2010?

Well they have long had a policy of not announcing availability until an area is enabled - whether thats good or bad policy is another issue but at least they are consistent. And certainly their csrs do not know whats happening in that respect. (In lots of other respects too apparently) and I am sure boards drives them mad with all the speculation.

Having said that there is no excuse whatsover for the type of attitude detailed in the Narc's post for telling people that the system is down and not undertaking to get back to them. It certainly does not convey any sort of enthusiasm does it?:(

dub45

Blaster99 wrote:

But but NTL NEVER disconnects or has any failings what so ever. I'm so disillusioned now.

Seriously though, I'm surprised. A buddy of mine in Sandyford, an oasis of NTL BB availability in south Dublin presumably due to NTL's fibre in the industrial estate, gets cold calls from NTL trying to sell him BB and stuff. They have to send out technicians to "install" the digital TV offering and they're certainly very happy to do that.

Surprised? If you ever had any dealings with them on the tv side you would not be surprised:rolleyes: Honestly no mater how small the issue is they are incredibly incompetent. Its the one issue that would make me wary of getting bb from them. Maybe Liberty will change the approach to customer service but it will be difficult to do.

gaui3d0pnbz86o

similer story;

I dont live in an estate but am surrounded by them. all the estates around me can get NTL BB but i cant, even though the main box for NTL is at the top of my house and the cable to the estates is fed from the top of my house too.

NTL say we cant get BB off them but Id wager I could if the bothered to come out and check

bk

NTL don't test lines like Eircom, instead they just have a DB of addresses which are BB enabled.

Unfortunately because we don't have postcodes in Ireland, no DB of addresses will ever be perfect. There will always be circumstances where an address isn't in the DB that should be. I wouldn't blame it on conspiracy theories, if you can get BB, then they certainly want to sell it to you.

If you a certain you should be able to get BB (for instance if everyone else in your apartment block has it) then keep bugging them, ask to speak to a supervisor etc. They normally sort these situations out.

Narc

Giancarlo Enough Colt wrote:

I dont live in an estate but am surrounded by them. all the estates around me can get NTL BB but i cant, even though the main box for NTL is at the top of my house and the cable to the estates is fed from the top of my house too.

NTL say we cant get BB off them but Id wager I could if the bothered to come out and check

That's ridiculous if you ask me. If they didn't put the broadband cables in your gaff when they were doing the work around you then their technicians are incompetent. More likely that you are broadband enabled but that they just don't want to waste technician time connecting a single household.

I'm gonna ring them up tomorrow with a more aggressive attitude and see how I get on. Hopefully I remember correctly the guy I spoke to before xmas (Micheal I think) who was very keen to sell me broadband. Failing that, I may spin a few stories to suit my needs. Will let ye know.

_S.

paulm17781

Narc wrote:

I'm gonna ring them up tomorrow with a more aggressive attitude and see how I get on.

An aggresive attitude will not help. If the person says you can't get it, there is nothing they can do. All they do is take calls and tell you what the computer says. Ask to speak to the BB roll out manager or a tehnical manager. Screaming at the person on the other end of the phone will not help if they are only CS staff.

bk

Narc wrote:

That's ridiculous if you ask me. If they didn't put the broadband cables in your gaff when they were doing the work around you then their technicians are incompetent. More likely that you are broadband enabled but that they just don't want to waste technician time connecting a single household.

That isn't how it works. The cable going into a BB enabled house is no different to the cable going into a non BB enabled house. When they BB enable an area, they don't go near peoples homes, they only do work on the local node.

That is why the DB might not be perfect, because they might have connected the house 20 years ago for TV and the address might be wrong or it might be noted as having been connected to a different node. As far as I have heard, record keeping in the old days when they connected for just TV was awful.

There is no more or less effort to connect just one home over estates/apartments as they connect every premisis one at a time. They don't actually do anything special at your house when they come, they just connect the "modem" to the coax cable that is already there and then connect it to your PC and register it. These guys are typically just TV install subcontractors and typically know very little about the internet. Actual NTL engineers would have done the work of enabling your local node at an earlier time and this would have made BB available to everyone connected to that node.

So I'm afraid your conspiracy theory is simply wrong.

Gazza22

Narc wrote:

'the technicians tell them nothing' and they could connect me tomorrow or a year from now...I just have to wait for a letter to notify me that the cables are in.

:rolleyes:

Yes NTL really pi$$ me off. I was told that over a year ago

dub45

paulm17781 wrote:

An aggresive attitude will not help. If the person says you can't get it, there is nothing they can do. All they do is take calls and tell you what the computer says. Ask to speak to the BB roll out manager or a tehnical manager.
Screaming at the person on the other end of the phone will not help if they are only CS staff.

Have you ever tried to speak to somebody beyond the CSR desk?

''To dream the impossible dream.....''

Wookie

Along similar lines...

Used to have NTL BB in my last house in Crumlin. Bought a house in Rathfarnham during the summer. Rang couple of times, each time I was told sorry no BB available in my area.

So last week I am paying my bills online and I decide to check my NTL account number on their site since I have it handy. The site says YES BB is available and I tick the box asking them to contact me. Since I didn't think they would follow up I gave them a buzz and am told NO you can't have BB. So I leave it at that... two days later I get a call following up my inital check on their site. So they say YES you can have BB??? I am now scheduled for the install on the 13/01. TBH I still don't think it is actually available, but I will know for sure next Friday!

I live just off Marian road, any of you folks from around those part and have BB.

paulm17781

dub45 wrote:

Have you ever tried to speak to somebody beyond the CSR desk?

''To dream the impossible dream.....''

Never tried and don't doubt it. None the less, I doubt you would like if I called you up tomorrow and screamed at you for something you have absolutely no power over.

People need to realise that the folks on the other end of the phone are not NTL or Eircon or BT. They are simply people who have a job, which they probably hate, in said company and have no power over what they company do.

dub45

paulm17781 wrote:

Never tried and don't doubt it. None the less, I doubt you would like if I called you up tomorrow and screamed at you for something you have absolutely no power over.

People need to realise that the folks on the other end of the phone are not NTL or Eircon or BT. They are simply people who have a job, which they probably hate, in said company and have no power over what they company do.

I am not advocating screaming at people by any means but over a long period with some small number of honourable exceptions i have found NTL's csrs and supervisors to be very poor and in particular lacking any semblance of cop on. In turn the internal management processes seem to be appalling.
One of my last dealings with them the contractor who came out to the house told me that was his last job for them as he simply could not take any more of their messing around and general incompetence.

And in that case I had specifically asked for a an early morning call - he had been told afternoon by NTL and had passed by my house that morning:(

Narc

There is no more or less effort to connect just one home over estates/apartments as they connect every premisis one at a time. They don't actually do anything special at your house when they come, they just connect the "modem" to the coax cable that is already there and then connect it to your PC and register it. These guys are typically just TV install subcontractors and typically know very little about the internet. Actual NTL engineers would have done the work of enabling your local node at an earlier time and this would have made BB available to everyone connected to that node.

So I'm afraid your conspiracy theory is simply wrong.[/QUOTE]

What I was actually saying was that if two techies were in Blanch connecting 50 homes then were called into town to connect me then (assuming as you say, it takes the same time to connect each place) they will be losing connection time for the 50 gaffs simply by being on the road to and from my single apartment. Anyway, this was from someone who spoke to an NTL head, supossedly.

Well, I rang them again and got no joy, even though I threatened them with an Arsenal season ticket. So it's Smart all the way for me now. Of course I wasn't actually aggressive to the csr...I have little time to be squabbling over the phone like this and I'm hoping that Smart will be hassle free (relatively speaking of course) in this regard.

Note that the quote from above was from BK's message; I'm not getting a quote box here for some reason.

MOH

An American friend was living over here last year, they told him the week he arrived that he could get NTL broadband (in Temple Bar) in about 3 weeks.
Having just arrived, he couldn't understand my scepticism. For about the next five months they kept assuring him he'd have it in a few weeks. Hed long since gone with someone else, but was interesting to see how they kept stringing him along.