NTL converged service

Spinnaker

Hi

I am interested in converged service over cable ; digital tv, phone, broadband

NTL are upgrading cable in Dublin 14 area (Rathfarnham). Cable guy told me "boxes" (street exchange ?) would be installed "shortly "after for delivery of services


i did read some material in sunday papers a month or two ago about this.

No information on their website or site "service check " on availability.
What opinions are out there on this offering frm NTL. Will they deliver ? when ? Pricing ?

Thx
Spin

dub45

Spinnaker wrote:

Hi

I am interested in converged service over cable ; digital tv, phone, broadband

NTL are upgrading cable in Dublin 14 area (Rathfarnham). Cable guy told me "boxes" (street exchange ?) would be installed "shortly "after for delivery of services


i did read some material in sunday papers a month or two ago about this.

No information on their website or site "service check " on availability.
What opinions are out there on this offering frm NTL. Will they deliver ? when ? Pricing ?

Thx
Spin

What is the point in posting this here?

If NTL will not give information how can anyone on boards possibly know if they will 'deliver' or not?

Ask NTL themselves about their plans.

There are plenty of threads on boards about NTL's current performance to allow any prospective customers to draw their own conclusions!

Sponge Bob

they announced 2 different models of PVR in the past month alone

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055095671

both announcements appear to be defensive manoevres against sky+ and will not work at all unless they bring in a 7 day epg .

Voipjunkie

7 day EPG how about they get the current EPG to work that would be a major improvement

Spinnaker

Dub45,

I posted this cos I believe Boards.ie is a DISCUSSION forum. With 4005 posts I expect you understand that. I WILL post what I like within rules or until a moderator advises otherwise. You didnt add any valuable comment or refer to a relevant link as others did so maybe you should QUESTION YOUR OWN POST NOT MINE.

My point in posting is that i am interested in other's views against my NEWS that NTL are now taking action in South Dublin. It was also posted against a lack of news on NTLs own website, mixed messages from phone-ins and some press that I and others come accross.

Again I will post what i like. Until you have something HELPFUL and respectful to add why dont you carry yourself away to spoil someone else's thread ...

Away with you ...

Sponge Bob

spinnaker

ntl have been eternally promising convergence since the 1990s only a gob****e would believe them any more.
they installed converged gear in tallaght in 2000 and deconverged it about 2003
if I had €1 for every "coming soon" promise fo theirs I'd be rich
as i said they have promised 2 different pvrs alone in the past month , the boss himself mentione done to the sunday business post while a different supplier altogether was mentioned to other media outlets since .

If the bosses keep misinforming then what do you expect from the minions

We are supposed to have a 10 mbit service here in Galway, already. No sign of that either as it happens.

Spinnaker

Hi Sponge

Thanks for the helpful ;-) comments.

I for one believed the SBPost commentry albeit without lacking clear commit dates. it does explain why "minions" have different messages

I'll retune my sceptism

Cheers
Spin

dub45

Spinnaker wrote:

Dub45,

I posted this cos I believe Boards.ie is a DISCUSSION forum. With 4005 posts I expect you understand that. I WILL post what I like within rules or until a moderator advises otherwise. You didnt add any valuable comment or refer to a relevant link as others did so maybe you should QUESTION YOUR OWN POST NOT MINE.

My point in posting is that i am interested in other's views against my NEWS that NTL are now taking action in South Dublin. It was also posted against a lack of news on NTLs own website, mixed messages from phone-ins and some press that I and others come accross.

Again I will post what i like. Until you have something HELPFUL and respectful to add why dont you carry yourself away to spoil someone else's thread ...

Away with you ...

Spinnaker I stand by my post that this is an infuriatingly pointless thread.

I see absolutely no point in speculating on what NTL may or may not do and that is all you are asking people to do. And again I say if NTL will not comment what is the point in asking people here for their views when none of us have the foggiest notion of what NTL are likely to do.

You are welcome of course to post what you like as I am! And I will end by reminding you that good and worthwhile discussions are usually based on substance!

watty

The Pointless NTL/UPC/Chorus speculation forum is here
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=54

Spinnaker

DUB 45

If you find this "an infuriatingly pointless thread" why ON EARTH do you bother to read it...

You don't OWN boards,

You are NOT a moderator,

You dont own the server space that this FEW KILOBYTES sits on

I am not asking you to make it your business

but most CRITICALLY .... YOU ARE NOT ADDING ANYTHING !!!!

watty

Personally I believe very little on Internet or in Newspapers. Newspapers are comics for big people and I distrust the Hive Mind. The Hive does not often reflect the attitudes and information of real people I know.

Spinnaker

Watty

Thanks for the link.. useful

Spin

BobbyD10

Spinnaker wrote:

Hi

I am interested in converged service over cable ; digital tv, phone, broadband

NTL are upgrading cable in Dublin 14 area (Rathfarnham). Cable guy told me "boxes" (street exchange ?) would be installed "shortly "after for delivery of services


i did read some material in sunday papers a month or two ago about this.

No information on their website or site "service check " on availability.
What opinions are out there on this offering frm NTL. Will they deliver ? when ? Pricing ?

Thx
Spin

For what its worth I have broadband and digital and if I wanted I could have the phone also and I live in Dublin 16. NTL have been doing a lot of work in Rathfarnham so I would believe the cable guy( Jim Carey I think it is)..

Sponge Bob

Spinnaker

They have been pimping this vapourware since last year. Shane O Neill the chairman in october 2006 .

http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2006/10/22/story18259.asp

O’Neill expects that once UPC begins selling its new ‘bundled’ services early next year

So then you the read the either O Neill or Dunn the md in April telling the Sunday Business Post something about scientific atlanta

Then a senior director in charge of sales AND marketing tells silicon republic something else only a month later

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/news.nv?storyid=single8370

The box, manufactured by French firm Thomson, will have a storage capacity of up to 160GB and will be able to hold around 80 hours of saved TV. UPC sales and marketing director Mark Coan confirmed it will be launched in Ireland this July.

Does this tell you anything at all about UPC/NTL and its core values and its competence and strong customer focus and can do ethos then Spinnaker ????

Could you change the thread title to "More NTL Lies and Complete BS " and ask for it to be locked please

paulm17781

Once again Dub45 has come to give out to someone for asking a question rather than just ignoring the post he doesn't like... how helpful.

Be warned spinnaker, he once was so busy arguing with me, he started arguing with himself and continued to do so when I pointed out he was disagreeing with himself. Very useful... :rolleyes:

Spinnaker, I have digital TV and broadband from NTL, I use a third party IP phone service from http://www.blueface.ie I would suspect the NTL one is better quality (they can give QoS as it is their network) but if you are like me and want a landline but don't want to pay Eircom 24.18 for a service you barely use, this is a good option.

po0k

I can USE caps TOO.

watty

OK lads. Play nice or we take away the toys.

UPC has picked up an interesting legacy in buying and combining the neglected Chorus and NTL Ireland.

LGI ultimately call the shots. I'm sure they have a lot of work still to do to sort out the Network.

The NTL phone service when it is sorted uses the Broadband cable, not phone line and in theory should knock the spots off Blueface for quality. Inherently it's higher QOS, more secure and VOIP spam proof, if they set it up right.

watty

I suspected they are looking at Thomson box for ordinary cable TV and Scientific Atlanta for DVR... Or they keep changing their mind, or are doing both.

Don't forget they are stuck with 70,000 Chorus DVB-T MMDS as well as the main DVB-C cable and 16,000 odd NTL MMDS using DVB-c

(Numbers approximate).


They do want to give everyone 120+ good TV channels, Phone and Broadband. It won't be easy

Gran Hermano

I wonder how usage of NTLs VOIP service will impact on their
cable modem usage policy and download/upload caps.
I can see further contention issues.

Guess it's only a matter of time before their CS team advise
to install DUmeter on the VOIP handset

Am I correct in recalling that their last VOIP handsets which
they deployed in the Tallaght region were subject to a hasty
recall due to a problem with 'spontaneous combustion' ?

The tax man

Spinnaker, I'm living in Rathfarnham also and I've been getting mail shots over the last couple of weeks informing me that I can avail of all three products. I'm using their BB right now. If you've been changed onto the new network you can get all 3 products. If you've had to retune Discovery Channel,CH4 and E4 on your TV well then you're on the new system.

See that's why people post questions here. You never know who has the answer you're looking for.

As the the pricing, I'll quote the mail shot I got yesterday.

€24 per month will get you broadband+digital phone.(on top of TV charges)
1mb broadband value
A digital phone service
Competitive call charges
Free installation.

All for less than Eircom line rental charge.

NTL freetime gives you free local+national landline calls at off peak times for €5 extra a month.

NTL anytime gives you free local+national landline calls anytime for €10 extra per month.

No mention of per minute charges for calls.

Some pics of the actual voip modem....

BobbyD10

The tax man wrote:

If you've had to retune Discovery Channel,CH4 and E4 on your TV well then you're on the new system.

I have retuned the three channels you mention but is there any chance of retuning any other ones..

The tax man

BobbyD10 wrote:

I have retuned the three channels you mention but is there any chance of retuning any other ones..

Don't really know what you mean by that.

Basically the 3 channels that are on Band 1 have been dropped on the upgraded system and can now be found on the UHF band.No other channels were moved.
Some people will have done this years ago when NTL did their own upgrade in Tallaght and surrounding areas.
What I was getting at was that if you've had crews in your area doing alot of re-cabling and you've had to retune those 3 channels,you're on the new system. Many areas have had this work carried out but they are still on the old system cause the switch over hasn't started yet.

BobbyD10

Sorry Taxman,

Pre NTL we had the basic seven/eight channels that where tuned in on the TV.

Now with NTL we have all the channels on AV1 but if we go back to where the old stations where we have the three you mentioned, are the only one's that are tunable.

Is it possible to tune in stations manually on the TV as I have been unable to apart from them three.

Spinnaker

Ahh....helpful answers.... Don't I love Boards afterall ...

Even it seems like "old hat" thanks to Sponge, Paul , Watty, Rathfarnham neighbours etc etc .....

Spin

The tax man

Spinnaker send me a PM if you want some info. If not fair enough.

The tax man

@BobbyD10 It's sounds like you've NTL digital seeing that you get all the channels on AV1 on your TV. Try an auto tune on the TV,if you still only get the same three channels then your TV has a fault. The TV's tuner should pick up Band1,Band3 and UHF. It's possible that the tuner has gone faulty and it's only picking up Band1.Not a very common fault but it does happen.

One thing to ask you, was the TV bought in Ireland?? If it's a UK set it may only pick up UHF hence the 3 stations you're getting.(only if on new system)

paulm17781

Tax man, do you have the NTL phone service? Is it good quality?

BobbyD10

Yep tax man it is the digital service all right..

The TV was bought in Ireland (Panasonic) have a few years now..

It must be a fault with the TV, it only ever auto tunes in the same three stations which are the only ones I can watch if I'm taping something..:mad:

Ah well can't really complain the digital and broadband I have have been very good.

The tax man

paulm17781 wrote:

Tax man, do you have the NTL phone service? Is it good quality?

Well the few times I've made a call it's been fine. The only thing I've noticed is it takes a fraction longer to connect to the other phone then you'd find on an Eircom line. Just down to the(longer) routing of the call I'd say.

@BobbyD10 Ah well at least it's only the taping issue where it's causing you grief.

Rosser

just as an fyi, I've just had a guy at my door trying to get me back to NTL on the basis that they now do phones. Since I switched to Sky in Feb I've had more communication from NTL than in the last 10 years

Sponge Bob

strange NTL story on BB board.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055091198

She then told me that Yesterday the Customer Services Dept. had a big meeting to find out why so many customers were leaving... This I found funny, because they were Kinda unclear as to why.. The agents were asked to get clear reasons from customers leaving and try to keep them by offering them faster speeds..

INEX connections would be nice instead of hopping all over europe like they have done since last august .

Solair

The tax man wrote:

Well the few times I've made a call it's been fine. The only thing I've noticed is it takes a fraction longer to connect to the other phone then you'd find on an Eircom line. Just down to the(longer) routing of the call I'd say.

@BobbyD10 Ah well at least it's only the taping issue where it's causing you grief.

It's actually because, unlike the eircom exchange, the router doesn't know you've finished dialling (Eircom knows what a valid phone number looks like so connects)

Try dialling # at the end of your numbers. It should connect instantly (same for most VoIP adaptors)

Freddie59

The tax man wrote:

Well the few times I've made a call it's been fine. The only thing I've noticed is it takes a fraction longer to connect to the other phone then you'd find on an Eircom line. Just down to the(longer) routing of the call I'd say.

@BobbyD10 Ah well at least it's only the taping issue where it's causing you grief.

I use NTL BB with Blueface and there is a slight delay also. Nothing major. Sponge Bob - where are you getting 10 Megs from? Their advertised service max is 6 Megs.

Sponge Bob

UPC have stated that they will launch 10mbits initially in GALWAY only and by end June 2007. No sign of it of course, maybe they meant 2009 ????

paulm17781

Sponge Bob wrote:

UPC have stated that they will launch 10mbits initially in GALWAY only and by end June 2007.

Sigh... obviously they don't realize that when we were part of NTL (UK) many of us had a solid 10Mbits for sometime.

Sponge Bob

I did not bother to mention the downgrade FROM 10mbits that they inflicted on certain of their customers last summer ....around when they pulled out of the INEX and screwed up their international links.

Should I

paulm17781

Sponge Bob wrote:

I did not bother to mention the downgrade FROM 10mbits that they inflicted on certain of their customers last summer ....around when they pulled out of the INEX and screwed up their international links.

Should I

To them, probably. It can't hurt to help them out with why customers are leaving.

Sponge Bob

There is no point, one would be informing Chorus customer care in Limerick and they have been beyond caring for anything since the last century sometime..

UPC should never have closed the NTL customer care unit in Waterford last year in favour of consolidating everything in Chorus in Limerick.

Its too late I'm afraid

paulm17781

Sponge Bob wrote:

There is no point, one would be informing Chorus customer care in Limerick and they have been beyond caring for anything since the last century sometime..

UPC should never have closed the NTL customer care unit in Waterford last year in favour of consolidating everything in Chorus in Limerick.

Its too late I'm afraid

If it is true that management are wondering why customers are suddenly leaving then we should try to raise this with these managers. No matter how useless the staff are if management realize what the problems are maybe something will happen. I really don't want to have to get a landline again but I am losing patience with NTL.

dub45

paulm17781 wrote:

If it is true that management are wondering why customers are suddenly leaving then we should try to raise this with these managers. No matter how useless the staff are if management realize what the problems are maybe something will happen. I really don't want to have to get a landline again but I am losing patience with NTL.

It is blatantly obvious that it is the management of the Company who are 'useless' and lose no opportunity to prove it.

From the very first days of the takeover they displayed an arrogance and a contempt for customers with the dd and late payment charges fiasco and incredibly long phone delays - no attempt at communicationn with customers. Then a statement from one of the managers appeared on the website promising improvements from 'this week' and he had not even got the cop on to put a date on it!!

Any well run company would have a feedback system from their support services and in that way know exactly what the common problems people are having and address them accordingly.

There appears to be no coordination within the company - the sales people are obviously selling the products without any regard whatsover for the capacity with consequential speed problems. (I get at least one letter a week offering me their digital service)

The staffing is totally inadequate in important areas - long waits on the phone indicate far too few support people - three weeks into the future for an appointment with an 'engineer'.

There seems to be a lack of reliablity in the bb service - many users seem to experience breaks in service and they dont know if it is the equipment or the service that is at fault and worst of all it seems that a lot of the time NTL dont know either - the service often comes back for no apparent reason and when the engineer appears three weeks later well thats another wasted resource!

Dishonesty on the product details - look at the website - no contention ratios listed (at least that I can see) no qualifications on the speeds - confusion as to how download/uploads are calculated. No way for a customer to measure downloads. Lack of transarency on whether torrents are allowed.

And they wonder why people are leaving?

As I have posted before whether you are an NTL/UPC customer or not these things make a difference as they lessen competition - I am sure Eircom and Sky cannot believe their luck with these idiots messing things up:rolleyes:

Sponge Bob

Apart from the perennial incompetence of the senior management in Chorus/UPC who now (sadly ) run NTL there is a further issue.

Can their staff write down what the customer tells them ???

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055097462

NTL Digital customer service
Apologies for long rant.

Anyone having trouble with their ntl recently? Ours has been down since last friday (upgrade message on the screen) and every time one of us in the house rings up we are given different and conflicting stories. To be honest their customer service seems like a joke.

First time we rang they immediately asked were we from our area before we had given any customer number or any other details. They then preceded to tell us they hadn't heard of any problem there and we were the first to ring up but someone would check on it. Another housemate then rang the next day and again they told us they had not had any problems logged about it but we were given guarantees that it would be fixed. This went on for several phonecalls and days, each time promising someone was out to fix it but the next phonecall claimed they hadn't been sent.....ridiculous stuff.

Obviously it's been taken off our bill but all I wanted was an honest answer. Yesterday I had a girl apologising to me saying nothing was in the system about it. She then put me on hold, said she had personally talked to the engineers and logged it in the system and they would be out in the next 24 hours as it had to be an area fault. I left a note for my housemates to this effect with the girls name.

Apparently they had already talked to her on saturday about it and gotten nowhere so they rang again and talked to someone else who confirmed nothing was being done and it must be a problem with our house. The only time people could come were between something like 10 and 4 or if we wanted saturday we would be waiting a month - her words. Apologies if any of you work there but they are a total joke.

and on and on.

And if you ask me its getting worse and worse in the Chorus bunker in Limerick.

paulm17781

dub45 wrote:

It is blatantly obvious that it is the management of the Company who are 'useless' and lose no opportunity to prove it.

<snip>

So what do you propose people do to try and fix it? Pray, complain here, nothing?

All of these have done very well lately. Now, it has been claimed that management have become concerned of late, perhaps if we can get to them, something will be done.

dub45

paulm17781 wrote:

So what do you propose people do to try and fix it? Pray, complain here, nothing?

............................... Now, it has been claimed that management have become concerned of late, perhaps if we can get to them, something will be done.

Well if you want to spend 45 minutes upwards on the phone in the hope of getting through to an obviously uncoordinated, uninformed (by their own management) and obviously totally ineffective support unit there is absolutely nothing to stop you.

As usual you miss my point(s)! It is an indictment of said management that they are only becoming concerned 'of late'. If at all of course:rolleyes:

They are paid via our subscriptions to be concerned on a daily basis - they have demonstrably demonstrated, and continue to do so, contempt for their customers - they have all the evidence available to them of what's wrong and a 'big meeting' of an evidently small customer support staff which results in the extraordinarily innovative approach of asking a customer why they are leaving and a 'bribe' of a 6Mb upgrade to stay is hardly going to change much either.

The analogy of offering a faster car to remedy a traffic jam as one poster put it elsewhere on boards sums up that Company admirably.

It is not up to the customers to 'fix it' - it is up to NTL/UPC to provide the service that people are paying for and if it breaks, as services will, to fix it quickly. That should be their priority not signing up customers through special offers that the system evidently cannot cope with, not providing lousy customer service, not letting too many staff go, not changing conditions of service without consultation etc etc etc.

paulm17781 wrote:

All of these have done very well lately.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055097141

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055096604

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055095626

Done very well lately??? Do you know something the rest of us dont???

The tax man

Solair wrote:

It's actually because, unlike the eircom exchange, the router doesn't know you've finished dialling (Eircom knows what a valid phone number looks like so connects)

Try dialling # at the end of your numbers. It should connect instantly (same for most VoIP adaptors)

Ah right,didn't know that.Thanks.:)
Imagen the time I'll save with every press of the hash button.:D

paulm17781

dub45 wrote:

Well if you want to spend 45 minutes upwards on the phone in the hope of getting through to an obviously uncoordinated, uninformed (by their own management) and obviously totally ineffective support unit there is absolutely nothing to stop you.

As usual you miss my point(s)! It is an indictment of said management that they are only becoming concerned 'of late'. If at all of course

No dear, you're missing my point. I said try to contact management I didn't say anything about sitting on the phone. You're solution still seems to be to do nothing. You go girl.

Dub45 wrote:

Done very well lately??? Do you know something the rest of us dont???

Yes, I know when some puts for the options of pray, do nothing or complain here, they are probably being sarcastic.

Sponge Bob

If you do wish to contact senior management then email them as follows.

a person named Mick Murphy would be mmurphy@upc.ie and all senior management are @upc.ie

HTH

paulm17781

Sponge Bob wrote:

If you do wish to contact senior management then email them as follows.

a person named Mick Murphy would be mmurphy@upc.ie and all senior management are @upc.ie

Cheers Sponge, that's the kind of useful info I come here for.

korvin

The tax man wrote:

...
Some pics of the actual voip modem....

Hi lads.

I've just got that modem with NTL Broadband and the question is: am I able to configure it somehow to use with one of VoIP providers (like blueface for example)? Did anyone try to do it? Any luck?

P.S.: Why I want to use something like a blueface? Because their 'pay as you go' service sounds more attractive to me - it doesn't have a monthly fee... I don't plan to call a lot - just need to be open for incoming calls.

Thanks!

Freddie59

dub45 wrote: »

I am sure Eircom and Sky cannot believe their luck with these idiots messing things up:rolleyes:

EIRCOM?? ROTFL!!:D

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055152268

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055152166

aka7

Like Korvin, I just got the BB from NTL with Sc Atlanta modem + Netgear wireless router and my questions are:

-can I sign to a voip provider and start using it once I plug a phone in the modem above?
(i would like to try one or two other providers before the ntl option)
Is there anybody who is already using this, or more equipment is necesary?

- I was able to get BB only from ntl - but not sure if I could get the phone added on without any tv package. It is not clear on their website and ntl didn't reply to my email yet - few days later

korvin

Hi aka7,

NTL's support wasn't helpfull in giving me access to the settings of the ATA in their modem - may be they didn't understand what I wanted from them, may be all the settings are hardcoded (modem is locked to be used with NTL only).

I had to buy one of those cheap voip routers from ebay (myne is Linksys pap2, bought it for around 28 euro) and it works perfectly with any voip provider (i use blueface and a few other providers).

If you're able to get access to the VOIP settings of your Atlanta modem - let all the world know how you did it