NTL/UPC Phone service - Whats it like?

s_gr

Hi,

Thinking of porting my landline number over to ntl, does anyone have experience of what the service is like compared to an eircom phone line.

Sixaside

Can't answer your question unfortunately but was drawn to the thread as I am thinking of leaving Magnet broadband/phone and moving to Chorus/UPC(Limerick City).

No point starting a new thread as someone may be able to answer both our queries.

I already have Chorus TV/DVR and am very happy with the service. I had Magnet TV for a while but that was a joke so returned to Chorus. The Magnet broadband is fast and reliable but the phone service is a joke.

Terrible interference if on the phone while downloading, no messaging service and no interest from Magnet about sorting this out.

One thing that really annoys me is that when I power off the modem I lose the phone service also. Just wondering if Chorus broadband allows you to use the phone independently of the broadband. eg, if the power goes or if I plug the modem out(as I do at night) can I stil use the phone?

paulm17781

@Sixaside

The phone ports are a part of the modem so it needs to be plugged in for the phone to work.

@ s_gr

I've never used it but there is no reason it is not as good as Eircom. They have QoS and it is a private network.

I use http://www.blueface.ie not quite as good quality but excellent value. I'd recommend them with NTL. I've had both for 3 years now. You can port your number to Blueface too.

Aquos76

Have their phone service nearly a year now and its excellent. €4 line rental and €10 for all land line calls in Ireland anytime. I am really happy with it.

Sixaside

Thanks for your help guys. I'll probably go ahead with that. It's going to work out much cheaper than Magnet also

paulm17781

Sixaside wrote: »

Thanks for your help guys. I'll probably go ahead with that. It's going to work out much cheaper than Magnet also

I'd give Blueface a look first. The quality isn't quite as good but it really is excellent value. Unless you're somewhat dependent on a landline it would be a better choice IMO. 9.99 per month gives 5 hours free calls to a load of destinations.

s_gr

Thanks Guys. Think i will investigate changing the line over.

itsonlywords

s_gr wrote: »

Hi,

Thinking of porting my landline number over to ntl, does anyone have experience of what the service is like compared to an eircom phone line.

Hopefully you have not changed over yet. I am leaving UPC because of the very bad phone service and the fact that when broadand is down then ditto your phone line. My phone has been causing me severe problems for a long time now but yesterday I rang Eircom to go back to them. UPC phone service stinks

vibe666

just so you knoew both sides of the coin, i do a lot of torrenting and when my broadband is busy the phone sometimes doesn't ring and people can't get through on the ntl landline. if i make an outgoing call it works fine and call quality is perfect, but just something to watch out for. yes it's got qos but its not perfect if you're hammering your broadband.

itsonlywords

vibe666 wrote: »

just so you knoew both sides of the coin, i do a lot of torrenting and when my broadband is busy the phone sometimes doesn't ring and people can't get through on the ntl landline. if i make an outgoing call it works fine and call quality is perfect, but just something to watch out for. yes it's got qos but its not perfect if you're hammering your broadband.

It happens when I am not using the internet. It is crap phone service, period. When a company sells a product and they cannot provide a service then they are guilty. They cannot provide me with a phone service. They have changed the modem 4 times. Their technicians blame the "switch", the "switch" blames the modem but this subscriber who would not know a Torrent if it jumped up and bit him has a bad service. I had no outgoing line for days also. Maybe you work for them?
So to my original comment. Keep away from UPC landlines as they are useless for most people

watty

Something is wrong.
The phone service by Magnet, UPC, Smart and Digiweb on their own networks should be using vlans and managed QOS so it's unaffected by your ordinary traffic.

Maybe you have a poor upload cable circuit locally. That will interfere with good phone service and managed QOS can't fix that.

If you have Analogue or Digital TV from UPC, or any extension cables or splitters disconnect them all. terminate all unused wall plate with screw on 75 Ohm terminators, esp. the FM radio outlets. Disconnect any coax wiring you have added.

Then try phone service with only the Modem connected to main coax point.

then on PC open a console
type
ping -t www.heanet.ie

let it do a screen or two, then hit Ctrl-C

If packet loss is as much as 1% your cable connection is bad somewhere between you and the UPC headend and voice calls may have problems. The ping should not change much either.

cruizer22b

I have UPC / NTL Broadband and Phone and find it great.

bk

Watty another possibility is that the router/modems are dodgy and can't handle lots of bandwidth traffic and voice traffic at the same time, perhaps insufficient processing power or ram or simply overheating.

Mimikyu

This post has been deleted.

watty

bk wrote: »

Watty another possibility is that the router/modems are dodgy and can't handle lots of bandwidth traffic and voice traffic at the same time, perhaps insufficient processing power or ram or simply overheating.

Four faulty modems seems odd.

My Cable modem has done two phone calls and 20Mbps data simultaneously, and that was 13km on a Radio adaptor designed for 10km max. Old model not sold for a couple of years.

There are certainly some WiFi / Routers that are underpowered. We found with 3 WiFi users that pings rose from <1ms to 35ms on the ethernet LAN sockets/Switch (separate from our Modem), on LAN only traffic. We changed it to having a separate switch and only one LAN ethernet port in use.

I'm sceptical as to how well some of the cheaper 802.11n router/WiFi units may perform.

I don't think any Cable modem supporting DOCSIS 1.1 or 2.0 with built in ATA for phone handsets is going to blink at 2x 100kbps on the Voice and 20Mbps on the data simultaneously unless it's broken.

They do get warm, so don't want anything on top or in a small cupboard/tight shelf.

vibe666

itsonlywords wrote: »

Maybe you work for them?

oh yes of course, because the first thing i'd do if i worked for them is warn people that it's not perfect. :rolleyes:

maybe upc just have a poor signal on your planet?

SerialComplaint

I'm looking at switching landline & broadband from UTV to UPC. However, UTV tell me that if ever I want to switch my landline back from UPC to UTV (or any traditional landline service), I will lose my phone number - are they spoofing?

paulm17781

SerialComplaint wrote: »

I'm looking at switching landline & broadband from UTV to UPC. However, UTV tell me that if ever I want to switch my landline back from UPC to UTV (or any traditional landline service), I will lose my phone number - are they spoofing?

Yes. Your number is tied to your UAN.

iMADEtheBBC

I switched to UPC in late September and was delighted to get rid of my old Eircom package which was never going to support speeds above 2MB. No more line rental.

20MB broadband package + phone.

Broadband package I cannot fault in any way.

The phone package has been consistently giving problems.
The service will disconnect for no apparent reason at random times. So people phoning our landline cannot get through and when we go to use the 'phone we get no dialtone.
The only fix is to reboot the cable modem.

I have no digital TV service and the modem is connected to the only co-ax point which itself is connected less than 2 meters cable length to the co-ax at the side of our house which itself is less than 10 meters in distance from the UPC box on our street.

Using the ping test above I get 0% packet loss. Average ping times of 8ms with no mad variation in ping times.

I've now called UPC support several times (I've lost count) and have been extremely patient with them. After the last time I called (2 weeks ago) the service appears to have improved but lo and behold this morning I went to make a call and there was no dialtone. I've had engineeer visits...traces...and the last time I called I was told I'd get a callback from the engineer who appeared very helpful and believed the problem was with their switch. I haven't received a call back.

I really don't want to get rid of their service because their phone system unofficially supports Sky digibox dialback and works with our monitored alarm system. I do not want to go back to Eircom and know that other VOIP services (Blueface) will not work with my Sky boxes or alarm system.


I'm about to call them again seeing as I have a free half hour.

iMADEtheBBC

For the benefit of anyone investigating this:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=63413976&posted=1#post63413976