ntl Broadband Development Team

ntl_cable_modem

Unfortunately, due to the way in which the network is construted it is not possible to provide an accurate map (simply because half of a street could be capable of receiving the service, while the other half may not).

Can I ask that you call the designated cable modem number 1800 923005?

The original post was to put a stop to any false rumours and to provide an honest account of what we are doing and was not to gain any favourable coverage.

As I mentioned earlier, when I have some real news for you I will come back and give you ALL of the details.

Until then, let me once again thank you for you invaluable feedback.

Best Regards

Matthew

Dangger

Thank you Matthew.

IrelandOffline are meeting with NTL on the 24th of September at 10am.

David Long

IrelandOffline

kamobe

Read a few angry posts there above in the thread. NTL, or any company, posting here is a GOOD THING! Shouldn't be discouraged

PiE

I agree Kamobe, I'm delighted that the upper echelons of the ISP's are here aswell but you have to wonder would NTL have started this thread had it not been for UTV doing it first?

NTL haven't done a lot for us internet users since it came here and I understand that theres been financial difficulties and all that but we've been told many a time that they're "releasing cable broadband" only to find out they were just re-releasing it in the same areas before. Bleh.

And Thank You Mathew for addressing me personally, but I'm sure you'll find many people feel the same way as I do.

DEmeant0r

Hi ntl_cable_modem:

Could you give me some info on your service in the Galway region?

Thanks.

XbLaDe

Hi matthew,

As ntl is also based in Waterford, does the company have any plans to roll out the cable modem service here in the near future ?

regards,

zynaps

NTL....guy, how about updating ntl's site to reflect the actual situation or at least keep a brief note on it of what's going on, rather than just ze usual blurb about how great cable internet is and that it's only currently available in "selected" areas of West Dublin?

Details, man, details!

...

(mod edit)
Problems with other user's posts (especially if they turn into sagas) are a little more suited to PMs. There's a thread on spelling over in Personal Issues that may be of interest. Thread cleaned (and part-sent to Recycle Bin) accordingly
(/mod edit)

jiffy

I have to agree ! The customer service from NTL is the worst I've ever known. I frequently have to wait 45 minutes to talk to someone to complain about the service. It's not just the Customer service that stinks either, my TV is always on the blink ! I hope that the cable modems work better..

spongebob

snippet

new broadband punters can sign up and get free installation until the end of December

and here is the snag , sorry, T&C's , we'll have that ....we will we will.

Piliger

Originally posted by jiffy
I have to agree ! The customer service from NTL is the worst I've ever known. I frequently have to wait 45 minutes to talk to someone to complain about the service. It's not just the Customer service that stinks either, my TV is always on the blink ! I hope that the cable modems work better..

I rang to complain about television signals being interrupted for several hours for two days running and the girl contradicted her own pre-recorded statement played before she picked up and said no I 'did not have an interuption' !

And then she proceeded to tell me that if I wanted to make any future enquiry or report an outage of service I would have to pick a password and have it ready when I ring !

I told her to put it where the sun don't shine !

These people's customer service section needs a new manager and a complete retraining NOW.

Neil_Sedaka

Dear Sir / Madam,

Since subscribing to your Go Digital pack in February I have been experiencing severe disruption to the service, several of the channels disappear for hours at a time and others have a staggered and jumpy look to them.

On Thursday September 12th. I waited on hold for 22 minutes to your customer service department and was eventually told that a technician would arrive on Tuesday September 17th. between 9:00am and 1:00 pm.
I took the morning off work and waited for the technician, who never arrived.
At 2:00pm I left for work only to arrive home that evening to find the technician had arrived at 2:15pm and could not gain access to my home (naturally)

The only reason I subscribed to the Go Digital package is because one of your sales staff ensured me I could have a deal on it together with your cable modem service, which I was informed would take about 3 weeks to set up, note this was in February and still no sign of the cable internet service.

I have mailed you before and waited several weeks for a reply, which when received was a standard mail-out and answered none of my questions.

Please explain this to me as I have lost all confidence in your company and will not be renewing my contract unless I receive a satisfactory response anon.

Yours,

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

jiffy

Dear Customer Service,

My wife reported bouth our Digital and Analogue TV as not working on the 5th of September. The service had been off since the previous afternoon but as there are often outages that last for an hour or two we were not surprised until it was still off the following morning (5th). As I said, my wife then reported the fault after being made to wait in a telephone queue for almost an hour. She was firstly quizzed on whether or not our neighbours TV was working and then told that it would be 48 hours before an engineer would be able to correct it. We were going away on holiday on the 6th for ten days and my wife told the representative who said that it didn't matter as the problem was external to our house.

We returned from our holiday on the 16th to find that the TV was still not working. On the 17th my wife called to report it again and asked if there was any record that she had rung previously. The representative told her that there was and that an engineer had called to the house to fix it but found no one in. She was then informed that the engineer would be out to us within 48 hours. At this point my wife protested at being told she had to wait in for 48 hours and was then told that an engineer would come before lunch either that day or the next. At lunch time on the same day she went out and when she returned a note had been put through the door to say "TV OK now" and that the TV was indeed fixed.

My address is XX Ellensbourough, Dublin 24.

I have several questions:

- Why is your service so dreadful that your customer service lines are permanently queued for the best part of an hour ? I have also complained by email in the past and not received a reply for three weeks !

- If the engineer could fix the fault on the second visit without anyone there why couldn't he on the first visit ? I assume that the engineer found no one in and was too lazy to investigate and saw it as an excuse to go home early !

- Why was no reason or apology given for our outage, just a scribbled note ?

- I assume that we will be receiving a refund for the two weeks that we were without your service, please could you let me know how much that is and when I can expect to see it on my account ?

We are both extremely displeased with the quality of both the service and customer care that we recieve from NTL. There are frequent outages that last from a few seconds to a few hours, the picture regularly breaks up, freezes and pixelates and when one of us tries to report it I give up after thrity minutes in a queue. To make things worse, we are paying for the priveledge !

I expect a reply to my questions sometime in the next three weeks !

Regards,

Another Satisfied customer :-p

MDR

You should complain to the ODTR and the ODCA too ...

Pepe LeFrits

What parts of D16 ?

Neil_Sedaka

I feel your pain jiffy, I do!

kamobe

I don't like the negative posts bout NTL on this thread. Sure, they can be clowns sometimes, and their TV service isn’t up to scratch. I even have a snappy mail I sent em here....
but nothing will come of slamming them on this thread. As i said earlier, NTL posting is a good thing, and after the rush of negative posting, I wouldn't be surprised if they judge it as a mistake, and never do it again.

I'm not saying that they're a great company, or even that their terrible customer service should be forgiven. Only that to complain in this thread, where they have (bravely) come forward, mightn’t be a good idea. Would\will also serve to discourage other potential users (Esat etc) from following in UTVs footsteps.

jiffy

Originally posted by kamobe
I don't like the negative posts bout NTL on this thread

Neither do I, I'd love to be posting messages about how wonderful they are and what great service they offer but the fact reamins that they are sh*te !

After registering my interest for a cable modem 6 months ago and engineer finally called me to tell me that my area had been upgraded and they wanted to offer me a months free trial. You can imagine how I nearly took his had off accepting ! He was half way through filling in the form when he said, "I just have to check something and I'll call you back". That was three weeks ago. I rang them a few days later to see what was going on only to be told that my area wasn't upgraded and guess what "We don't know when it will be".

I have to disagree that no good will come of slamming NTL ! If anyone of an authority sees this thread, maybe something will be done.

Originally posted by kamobe I'm not saying that they're a great company, or even that their terrible customer service should be forgiven. Only that to complain in this thread, where they have (bravely) come forward

I agree that they are brave to come onto a forum like this and say

Originally posted by ntl_cable_modem The FACTS are we are in active discussions with vendors and contractors for expanding this service and naturally timescales will not be available until discussions have been completed , which is expected to be later in the year.

Which means nothing at all and is the standard reply that I've been getting from them for over a year !

Maybe we should start a separate NTL Slamming thread ?

Sorry to rant but they really do wind me up and make me mad whenever I have to deal with them !

spongebob

YES it was brave to come in here.

YES it was a good idea

NO , it is not wrong to give them some stick now.

I asked early on in this thread for 2 simple answers.

1. Is there any hope for Galway (the answer is negative but I would like to see it from the horses mouth)

2. Can NTL say with certitude where the service will be available by end 2002. Next years menu can wait. They said they were negotiating on expansion ...thats fine... but I assumed that they would have settled where the work WILL be done this year and thought that many regulars in here would hold off for NTL at least until the end of the year.

I got no answer to either question.

Nature abhorrs a vacumn

M

MDR

I got no answer to either question.

I wouldn't be suprised if they stopped reading the thread after the reception they got ...

spongebob

...because people honestly thought that were were gonna get hard information from NTL.....and then the nature-vacumn problem started.

It is still possible to retrieve it with a nice new thread called

NTL plans 2002

maybe including what will definitely NOT happen in 2003.

People can plan where to lock themseleves in for a year on that basis.

Note that not one single poster complained about the service itself but about the lack of clarity in NTL's utterances as to where it is actually available.

Of course the fact that the user NTL_Cable_Modem refuses to accept email or PM's does not really bode well for the future.

M

Mountjoy Mugger

Originally posted by Muck

Note that not one single poster complained about the service itself but about the lack of clarity in NTL's utterances as to where it is actually available.

You're kidding Muck, right?

I rang to complain about television signals being interrupted ...

I told her to put it where the sun don't shine !

I have to agree ! The customer service from NTL is the worst I've ever known.

Why is your service so dreadful that your customer service lines are permanently queued for the best part of an hour ? I have also complained by email in the past and not received a reply for three weeks !

I tend to agree with Kamobe. The thread is getting totally out of hand, and off topic.

spongebob

you noted

You're kidding Muck, right?

I meant the cable service, the guy was only talking about that. The tv service and accounts havent improved either.

M

Hannibal_12

Yes I feel that s\he did not get a very good reception (pardon the pun). This is a board focused squarely at internet related matters and so complaining about long customer waiting times to get your television signal fixed is slightly off topic and more likely to mean cable modem wont come back and as a direct consequence no information for us.
Although I know everyone complains about every aspect of €ircon, but they're an exception. I wonder what kind of discussion would ensue if an €ircon manager came in here.

Mountjoy Mugger

Originally posted by Hannibal_12
I wonder what kind of discussion would ensue if an €ricon manager came in here.

/me breaks out in a cold sweat.

kamobe

I wonder what kind of discussion would ensue if an €ircon manager came in here.

Probably just be a thread full of "****"

LFCFan

I was wondering if anyone knew if NTL lay a proper 2 way system when new estates are built? If so, then why are these estates not put on the availabilty list for Cable Internet access?

spongebob

Ahhhh

Remember that you live in the E-Tub of Europe ™®©®™®

You should ask the Local Authority if they have any standard planning conditions regarding NTL when they give permission for these estates.

You should ask the Local Authority if they require that any operator independent ducting be installed when they give permission for these estates.....that ducting to remain in public ownership of course.

If you choose to install your own cable in what looks like the Eircom ducting on a brand new estate then this is probably legal. The rationale as to why you may is complex but it has to do with the fact that the estate has not yet been 'taken in charge' by the local authority (reverse privatised if you will). This is where you are a home purchaser on that estate of course.

If YOUR cable is in that duct at the point where the estate is 'taken in charge' then the Local Authority has accepted its 'right' to be there and must protect your cable, in terms of 'rights in the soil' forever.

It often boils down to whether the Local Authority are muppets or not, tragically many of them are. I would not give NTL permission to lay anything other than 2 way cable on a new estate which gives you 5 years from the date of planning permission to get the planning condition enforced .......

'in the interest of proper planning and developement'

as the law states.

M

LFCFan

and yer man said that all new estates are provided with a 2 way network but won't come online until the whole of Dublin, Waterford and Galway does. In other words they are not gonna bring places online bit by bit but they will do, all in one go whenever that is. He said he has no idea when that will be. Knowing this effin country it will probably be when other countries are upgrading to the next level of broadband and we are still lagging behind with old technologies.

LFCFan

Hi,

As you have been kind enough to give us some information about your plans for Cable Internet Access could you answer me this.

I rang up NTL and was told that all new Housing Estates(I have a new house in Tyrrelstown) have a 2 way network.

1. Is this true?
2. If so, why can't these estates be offered the service?

I was also told that these places that could technically have Cable Internet access now won't do until all of Dublin, Waterford and Galway are online.

1. Is this true?
2. Is so, why can't large areas(like new housing estates) not get the service now?
3. As NTL seem to have stopped upgrading their network, does that not mean that those places that are upgraded are being wasted?

Hope you can answer some of this.

Thanks!

gandalf

DO not believe one word NTL's customer service reps tell you. While I'm sure they are all very nice people they do not know what is going on with regard to Cable Internet rollouts. We have heard directly from NTL that there will be no new areas upgraded until next year at the earliest and even then they may not have the cash available.

Basically you cannot have Cable Internet from them unless you are in a already upgraded area.

Gandalf.