NTL bull****

m1ke

Anyone wonder why these big companies have to come over and promise loads of **** and then not deliver ?
I was looking forward to some sorta flat rate deal for me isdn, even a cable modem... I ring the ****ers and they tell me to ring back "next year".

I hear announcements from press conferences and **** over the 6 o'clock news and then notice there's nothing on the website ?

Is it all bull**** or is there a secret society thing going on here ?

SickBoy

Call me a pickey bastid but how did you hear anything from the 6 o'clock @ 05:32 PM
Only messing mate I feel your pain. I think we should start up a support group for People fighting large phone bills. Waddaye think?

gandalf

Yep Mike I agree with you regarding NTL. I contacted them trying to find an answer to when the 2 way cable internet service will be available in my area as the applet they have on their webpage doesn't work. After exchanging mails with one of their sales muppets (who kept sending me marketing sh!te) I contacted their MD. Funnily the mails have now dried up.

At the moment all thats coming out of them is marketing crap infact I feel so strongly about this now that I would call them liers. If I'm quiet in work tomorrow I think I'll ring them up again and make someones life hell in there

Gandalf.

bubbles

Don't you live out in the sticks m1ke?

SantaHoe

Gah, I've just about given up all hope of getting cable any time ever.
Just put it out of your mind, I'm sure when it's available in your area they'll be shouting and screaming about it all over the place.

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The Dr00g

Fear not for the future of comms in our troubled universe. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

Think of NTL as our Obi Wan Kenobi - Hiding in the desert. But when the time comes he will produce the goods. He's our only hope.

In time, the light-wire will bring balance to our world.

elexes

i got it lads lets start up are own company it will be fun . he i have a spare fiver that will start us off now all we need is about 30 million more

cheeky_monkey

I have a mate who can sort us with some fibre optic - let's do it!

Let's start a terrorist campaign!! We can call ourselves SANTL or something! Surfers Against NTL

sutty

I'v seen NTL worker's putting down a large cable at the top of the keys in Dublin City, they seem to do it late(thats why we never see them doing anything )

if you think thats bad you should hear what eircom said to me about ISDN "there is no ports for Hi-speed in your area"(leixlip) now heres the strange thing....I can think of about 10 ppl and 5-10 companys that would know/use isdn ffs, most ppl in leixlip dont even know you need a modem to connect to the net so how are the ment to know about isdn??????? they realy p*ss me off!!!!

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Ciaran Sutcliffe
aka: sutty
[HIV]sutty
For a good time goto:
http://www.hotinternetvirgins.com

The Dr00g

Originally posted by m1ke:
Anyone wonder why these big companies have to come over and promise loads of **** and then not deliver ?

Because all that Eircon will ever offer is overpriced legacy technology. Then they'll charge you premium rates for so called technical support. Then leave you high and dry with no fix in a lot of cases.

For example:
One of my clients calls me saying he can't get his new ISDN Internet access to work. Even after Eircom support had told him that un-installing and re-installing dialup networking would definitely fix the problem. They hang up and leave him to it. No, they didn't ask him to check that TCP/IP was even installed, let alone configured properly (could have had bindings to file/printer sharing!). No, they spent ages with him on the phone fiddling with the ISDN adapter drivers etc. What the **** is this ****?

I've had to phone them a few times myself looking for DNS, IP, POP3, and SMTP settings and the like. You wouldn't believe how much hassle you can go through just to get those most basic things from them.

Isn't it obvious? It't all a big con. They sell you things without all the information you need to get it to work. Then charge you more to talk to someone who MIGHT be able to figure out your particular problem "on the fly"!

Ever try asking the guy who installed your ISDN equipment, "What signal protocol does this line use?". Or, "What are my SPID numbers?"... Look, that guy doesn't even work for Eircon. He's probably an elctrician who has been shown where to put the cables and how to wire it all up.

Eh, sorry about the rant. But hey, the more of these big overseas companies we get the sooner we'll catch up and keep up with the rest of the world.

SantaHoe

Gah, I've just been looking at the eircon website...
I just can't believe they're still rabbiting on about the "new" and "advanced" ISDN.
Not a whisper about DSL or even a flat-rate dialup.
It's almost as if they're trying to keep people from finding out about DSL, and making everyone believe ISDN is the future - today.
Such unbelievable PANTS.
It's outright extortion.
I honestly hope eircon go bust when NTL gets the finger out.

Say what you like about NTL, but at least some people have cable net-access at home.

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Blitzkrieger

Originally posted by cheeky_monkey:
We can call ourselves SANTL or something!

Sounds like a tampon

Dustaz

has anyone ever forwarded these threads to ntl or Eircon? that would be pretty funny, might even jog someone into action.
/me looks for alfie kanes email addy

elexes

soon there will be another compeditor in ireland (well i hope) to compeate against eircon . btw anyone hear reely good with sfx maby we could kidnap the head of eircon and replace him with someone who would do are every word . in that case we could forget about cable and just look for a t1 in every house o what a nice dream world i live in .......... off to the dream world again ....

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what type of world will we live in when there is no world ?

TheWarden

Well its quite obvious what Eircom are up to. They have been sitting on ASDL for quite a while now methinks. But there is no point bringing it out until NTLs cable network is any sort of competition. Which it doesnt look like being for quite some months yet despite their propoganda. So they can still make a lot of money from pushing ISDN in the irish market. When cable modems begin to threaten business eircom will release ASDL. They aint in it to be groundbreakers and revolutionise irish telecoms (sadly). They is here to make money. And their business plan is pretty sound in this respect sadly

Dustaz

Actually their business plan in this respect is bloody awful.
Eircom are about to be thrown into a really open market, one in which the competion will be quite heavy, once everyone has access to the local loop and ntl have thier sh1t together.
Instead of money grabbing in the short term with ISDN, wouldnt the smart thing be to roll out DSL now to try and ensure some customer loyalty?
If Eircom rang me up tommorow and offered me 1mb dsl, free tv and pay per view video on demand, flat rate etc etc, or a combo of some of these things, i would instantly forget about ntl as would most ppl i suspect.
Eircom have had dsl for ages now and it is this short sighted approach that will ensure that they will lose way too much business 'when the revolution comes'
Plain and simple, they are morons.

TheWarden

Nah... altho Eircom bashing is also one of my favourite pastimes I don't think they're being silly at all. The fact that they arn't even whispering about ADSL rollout means theyre quite confident NTL are a good few months away from getting their **** together. What are the bets that once NTL goes online in a key dublin area (no offense Tallaght) that ADSL will magically be ready to go. ISDN is gonna be the fastest most reliable way to connect to the internet for the next 6 motnhs. Why not milk it for all its worth? Its always been waaaay overpriced for those few extra k/s.

I wish this wasnt Eircoms business plan and that they were at the forefront of pushing new technology. But in the long run I dont see their present plan costing them too many customers. It all still hinges on their timing of ADSL rollout - which will probably be 1 week b4 NTLs cable modem service goes mainstream This is just the way I see it happening. Hopefully Im wrong....

TwoShedsJackson

Well from Eircom's point of view - atm I pay around 350 quid per two months for my isdn - if they bring in ADSL that goes down to 100-120 quid per two months depending on what price they bring it in at.

As pointed out above, they're not in the business of advancing comms, they're here to make money. Eventually they will have to bring it in to stay competitive, but from their pov at the moment it makes fine sense to squeeze every drop they can out of ISDN.

SantaHoe

...and that's fair enough from a business POV.
But just look at their website, it's all pictures of families and talk of super-fast connections (ie. ISDN...pffft), giving off the image of a company that genuinely cares about its customers, and is already using top of the range technology.
Why don't they replace all that with pictures of the bags of money (yes the ones with the large "$" on it) that they're making off the poor fe*kers who have little other choice than to pay big bucks for old, underperforming technology.

Sure they're well entitled to hold off DSL until they've made their money, but we're entitled to be p!ssed off about it.

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TwoShedsJackson

I agree Santa, just pointing out their main reason for not rushing in proper highspeed connections.

Dustaz

Tallaght is online with ntl, Walkinstown is next, then terenure i think. In those three areas something like 300 or maybe 350k ppl are covered. Thats a whole lot of customers to lose, even tho they wont all go straight into it. They cant roll out DSL a week before ntl go live, because ntl are doing it gradually. So they must judge a critical point to do it. When this point arrives, they then have to woo back the ppl they lost to ntl. This means advertising and marketing, this means a higher bill at the end of the day, and that possibly might be a difference between someoen looking at thier price and ntl and choosing ntl (remember that their price is fixed now). An ideal situation would be if the local loop got sorted at around the same time, allowing other companies to offer us broadband. Since eircom have no idea how to be competitive, theyd be pretty dead in the water.
Everyones saying "Once ntl are real competition to eircom, theyll offer broadband". When did Esat start snl? where is Eircoms similar deal? They havent a clue.

Coyote

Eircom will not bring in DSL at a price most
people can pay for, you think your paying
lot for your phone bill you do not even know
what companys are paying for lease lines. eircom
makes more money from 4 or 5 small companeys
than they make off 100,000 people like you.
the proift levels are too high to give up.
DSL will lose them money, who would call
someone when you can use your pc to vid talk
for free ? NTL is the same they are not
bring in 5mb cable why ? (ireland has more
bandwiht that anyother contry in the EU +
it's as cheep as on the rest of the EU for
them) well 256K is better that any think out
there so why give them more.
your getting done up and there is not a thing you can do.


Coyote

Dustaz

And when Esat and the rest have access to the lines? When they start offering higer bandwith connections for less? Eircom will have to pay catch up. The above points are all very well and good for the present time, but my point all along is that Eircom refuse to look to the future.
btw Part of the reason ntl arent offering 5mb cable is because they cant guarentee it with shared bandwith. but theyll still offer lines twice as fast as my companys leased line at a fraction of the cost. Hence, Eircom will have to also. DSL will be affordable, it will be pricey, but managable and the prices can only drop once theres some competetion.

Coyote

Esat is just as bad as eircom, that are trying to stop other compansy moveing in to ireland. and as for NTL not beening able to guarentee the bandwith, they are not guarenteeing the 256K that is sharded per node which is 600 people they could give you up to 40mb a sec dl if they wanted to but they make to much money from companys paying for lease lines and there not going to under cut there own lease lines.
and even if esat got in to the local loop today it would still take 12-18 months befor they could even start to give it out in a very few places (look at NTL which has owend cablelink for a few years and is spending 350mill) it would take time even if they wanted to, which they do not

Coyote

Blitzkrieger

the bottom line is we are in the minority. Most people don't have a clue about telecommunications and don't give a damn either. Why would they roll out a better service when most people don't know the current one is utter ****e?

The only thing that will help us is competetion. The more the telecommunications market opens up (hopefully) the more prices will go down and service go up.

As most people see things (for us intolerably slow) in the near future there will be genuine competition and then customer loyalty will be an issue. I don't know about you but I probably wouldn't be arsed changing my provider every 3 months to take advantage of the best deals. As long as the company I was with was within about 10% of the competition I just woundn't bother.

It'd take one hell of a deal to make me sign up with Eir-complete_crap_who've_been_screwing_us_for_years though

m1RV

Originally posted by Dead{o}Santa:

Say what you like about NTL, but at least some people have cable net-access at home.

Like me, 600k or so down (70k/sec downloads) and 128k up, yum

Ronin

..Getting NTL would be sweet but the problem is that they don't know where its being installed when.

I've been told I'll have it within 3-4 weeks, I live in Tallaght, they stoped around the corner from my house. The sales dude was trying to get in touch with the ppl doing the cable work to find out when it would be finished where I live.

50 a month is nothing to pay, well for me its 3-4 less beers a week, I can live without that.

It's just a case of when its in. but its taken them nearly 2 months to come back to my road..they where here in august..or someit..so holding of breath is not worth it..

hopefully I'll have it by xmas..

Ro

Blade

Well as you know cable is shared and M1rv who was one of the first here to have it has already said that it can suck for games, one second 20 ping the next 200, imagine what it's going to be like when loads of people have it! Personally I'd rather a solid 100 ping.

Anyone I've spoken to abroad with cable has said the same thing and most of them wish they were back on ISDN. We've one guy in our clan from Sweden with cable and he's only ever played 1 war with us and that was with a 500+ ping. The thing to bare in mind is that with ISDN (apart from it not being shared) you can change ISP's if routing to a particular server you have to play on is bad, but with cable your stuck to the same ISP all the time. Maybe it's ok if your playing on the same servers all the time but we play in different UK leagues and we're forever swapping ISP's as ping differences can vary from 60 to 300 from 1 ISP to another on foreign servers.

That said you can't beat a 24 hour connect like that for 50 squid a month especially if your a big warez head.

Blade

The Dr00g

Let's not forget lads. The POTS will always be there. As will ISDN. None of the old technology will be left there to rot in the ground. It'll just get cheaper as it's over-taken by all the new "bells and whistles".

It'll be used. By us. We'll have our premium rate, always on, high bandwidth connections. But we'll have the option to use ISDN and analogue at the same time for other little goodies, and at laughably cheap rates.

Sound good? No reason why it shouldn't happen.

[This message has been edited by The Dr00g (edited 30-10-2000).]

tobi

Maybe just maybe www.EsatFusion.ie Eh Eh!!!

Well for those of us living outside Dublinanyway.