NTL still active???

An Gaiscíoch

Howdy folks

Just moved into an apartment yesterday and rang NTL to order the digital tv and broadband (previous tenants had it too)
When we plugged in the tv today we seem to have all the channels working already through the aerial. Sky news, Utv, BBC's etc etc etc
Did NTL not switch off the service or whats the craic?

bk

In order to turn off the analogue TV service, UPC need to send out an engineer to physically disconnect the cable. Often it can take them a while to get around to sending out an engineer to disconnect the cable.

As you've ordered Digital TV and BB anyway, I wouldn't worry about it.

An Gaiscíoch

I'm not from Dublin so it's always been either Sky or a mother of an aerial on the side of the house for the basic terrestrial channels. Someone was saying that these might be free-to-air channels??? Can you shed any light on this?

icdg

The story is that Cablelink's long-running policy was not to disconnect anyone at all, unless they had **serious** credit control issues (i.e. they hadn't paid a bill in months). If someone cancelled their subscription, Cablelink's policy was to close the account and then immediately open a new account at the same address for "The New Customer". You have to remember this was a time before dodgeyboxes and when Sky's share of the market was miniscule. Cablelink had a take-up rate of about 90% of homes passed so it was not a unreasonable assumption that the new customer was also going to subscribe.

Times have changed, but maybe Chorus NTL still have a little bit of this mentality left - that if a customer is moving, the new customer will sign up.

The bottom line is that there are no free-to-air channels on cable - if this is a cabled house, and you are recieving channels other than the FTA Four, Chorus NTL is going to expect **someone** to pay the bills.

An Gaiscíoch

I see. AFAIK if we set the ntl box to standby the channels still work on the tv. Not 100% sure though. Because they were only the basic ones led me to think they might have been FTA. Does NTL digital work off the same principle as SKY whereby it's all done through one AV channel on your telly? When I flick through the channels using the NTL remote the SKY SPORTS NEWS, BLOOMBERG etc etc etc comes up on the display on the box. (These are not any of the channels we have) I haven't tuned in the AV channel (if that is the case) yet so dont know what the NTL display will come up as.The channels we are getting are just coming up on the regular 1-15 channels using the TV remote.

I probably explained that horribly!

watty

UPC (ex Chorus/NTL) is cable. There are NO free channels. If you use it, even though some channels may not be encrypted, and thus work without an NTL/UPC box you are liable for bill, potentially from when you move in.

We always wrote specifically explaining we didn't want their service to avoid later unpleasantness.

Technically unless you have a subscription you need an aerial for RTE, TV3 and TG4. They are only Must Carry, Must supply included on Cable, not free.

An Gaiscíoch

Okey doke. Cheers folks

positivenote

hey guys just back from our hooneymoon and alot of our channels through the NTL Digital have gone missing... the normals ones like the BBC's and channel 4 etc....
the first station it recoignises is no. 105 (sentata ireland)... can anyone please help me find the rest of the channels here in ireland that were here when we went away...
any help would be great
regards

watty

You need to ring UPC.

How long were you away?

positivenote

we were away since june 11th... we changed the cards before this time with the new card they sent us in the post

watty

Give them a call then.