Dealing with NTL

DeFive

Well, I'm at my wits end with NTL at the moment. For the last week I've been having an ongoing problem with the performance of my 6mb cable connection - 300 ms plus ping times to even local (ie in Ireland) servers and under 200 kpbs upload speed all the time. Despite five phone calls to their so-called Customer Service I still haven't gotton a call back from their techies.

Do any of you more seasoned broadband warriors have any experience/advice on how to get NTL to get off their collective backsides and actually respond to one of their customers ?

Thanks in advance for any help,

D.

Sponge Bob

since they closed their Waterford support centre in December I am afraid the answer is NO! . They are now based out of Chorus in Limerick so good luck .

dub45

Sponge Bob wrote:

since they closed their Waterford support centre in December I am afraid the answer is NO! . They are now based out of Chorus in Limerick so good luck .

Is there a chief executive (behind all those barriers) anywhere - could we recommend that people start email him/her and ccing all the emails to the joe duffy show and dare I say it Comreg? And maybe the csa as well?

Apart from the inconvenience to their customers the non performance of NTL affects us all as it lessens competition in the market whereas NTL used to be some sort of pressure on Eircom.

Eircom must be hardly able to believe their luck when the luck around and see the likes of BT and NTL as their main competitors!!!!!!!!

It must be difficult to be as consistently incompetent as BT and NTL!

red_ice

i was in the first 10 people in dublin to have cable. Lucky me! It was ok to start off with, then they got really good, but since the 'broadband' boom in the last 2/3 years NTL has gone to hell.

I've made a number of calls, some of which involed the people on the phone to me actaully knowing what they were talking about. Put it this way, i mentioned that one of the hops in my tracert was over loaded (400 ping) and that there was nothing on my end that was the problem as i had >1 ping for the first 2 hops. They put me forward to a helpline based in india or something - which was for netgear routers, the company who supply NTL with their cable modems... lol?

I've found a great way to deal with them - stop paying the bill and sign up to another service. I did it 2 days ago

Razorfish

Found this picture on NTLworld.ie



What a ****ing joke? Technical support doesn't exist anymore for NTHell/ UPC Broadband.

Mr Robert Dunn is 'Managing Director for Ireland' director for this joke of a company. I suggest we all write to him.

joer

Same in Naas, when we got broadband in via Chorus two years ago it was great and super fast as Naas had a brand new broadband cable network. But since late 2006 the speed has gone to hell on my 6mb. This is due to the increased number of subscribers and their "new" broadband network is already overloaded and requires further upgrading.

The only good thing is that NTL/Chorus are now apply some pressure to Eircom as by the end of the year all 600,000 of their cable customers will be able to receive digital tv, broadband and voip for €45 a month for the basic package! This has scared the **** out of Eircom and they have started updating their network so they can offer speeds above 3mb.

The reason Cablelink / NTL and now UPC Ireland was so behind for so long was because of Eircom/Telecom Eireann. Eircom owned 60% share of Cablelink right up until it was sold to NTL and Eircom didn't invest a penny in Cablelink, and blocked them developing a broadband network in 97/98! Then NTL purchased it overpriced just and it went to hell due to stopped upgrades, and then in 2000 the dot-com bubble burst and screwed it further.

After all that it is only now that the cable network is being upgrade and UPC is getting it together after it's 2005 purchase and merger of Chorus and NTL. So I am hoping that this will put some serious pressure on Eircom and they will have to make moves to increase their broadband to above 3mb and either included basic broadband for free with line rental or reduce the price. Ideally they should offer 0.5mb or 1.0mb free with line rental although at the price of line rental I wouldn't consider it free.

Sponge Bob

dub45 wrote:

Is there a chief executive (behind all those barriers) anywhere - could we recommend that people start email him/her and ccing all the emails to the joe duffy show and dare I say it Comreg? And maybe the csa as well?

there is indeed a management layer hidden in there, they are all UPC people not NTL or Chorus.

Their standard email addresses are as follows. John Smith would be jsmith@upc.ie but I believe the boss is called Robert and not smith

HTH

Apart from the inconvenience to their customers the non performance of NTL affects us all as it lessens competition in the market whereas NTL used to be some sort of pressure on Eircom.

Eircom must be hardly able to believe their luck when the luck around and see the likes of BT and NTL as their main competitors!!!!!!!!

I am sure Pierre stands the pints every time he meets them and encourages them to keep up the ..umm... Good ....emmmm.....Fight......ye are doing great lads

The NTL network went to hell with their disconnection from the inex together with crap congested routing via amsterdam.....last July or so . Then there was their panic disconnections of the hogs in September and their inability/refusal to read their own T&Cs on caps.

No real improvement since. I despair of them now .

It must be difficult to be as consistently incompetent as BT and NTL!

NTL were consistently competent for a long time on a low budget , tis only recently that they have disimproved to the historic standard set by Chorus and of course by BTs Billing department since the last century.

Having said that , if NTL pass the one year anniversary of their redical disimprovement with an unstable network and no support or customer care then the writing is on the wall for them. That means they have 3 montsh to deliver

1. a stable network
2. competent customer care and support
3. fix their routing .

and looking at their antics in recent times thats a tall order I fear

Jono_g

Here is an important number.......SOME NTL BROADBAND MANAGER....

Spread it wisely.....I';m a muppet for breaking the rules and posting details...I've gotten myself banned!

jd83

Ntl dont deal with the broadband silverdome communications are contracted to do it so try skipping the middleman and ring them