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NTL Phone service

paulm17781

I just noticed NTL are now offering a phone service. Not great value, cheaper than Eircon but not as cheap as Blueface or other VOIP providers.

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mwrf

"Line rental of €10 per month"

what a rip off.
what exactly is this "line rental" for?

UPC = money grabbing idiots

just noticed that "line rental" is €15 when you only subscribe to 2 services.

dub45

stebishop wrote:

"Line rental of €10 per month"

what a rip off.
what exactly is this "line rental" for?

UPC = money grabbing idiots

just noticed that "line rental" is €15 when you only subscribe to 2 services.

Indeed they have increased the cost of their addtional points considerably too:rolleyes:

The prices are very good in comparison to Eircom.

Phone Only
Eircom €24.18
NTL €10

Phone + off Peak
Eircom €29.99
NTL €15

Phone + Anytime
Eircom €39.99
NTL €20

So basically NTL is at least 50% cheaper then Eircom

That should focus minds over at Eircom HQ.

As for stebishop comments, what does it matter if they call it line rental, would it make a difference if they just called it a €15 package like Blueface does instead?

There are not a charity and it is a good deal and I think a lot of people would like the flexibility.

Of course Blueface is still cheaper, but then you have an equipment cost with Blueface that you don't have with NTL and NTL "might" be more stable.

BendiBus

Is there guaranteed, reserved bandwidth for this product? I presume it's not like Blueface or whatever where you might suffer from contention, or where a fast download running on your PC would interfere with your call quality etc.

dub45

bk wrote:

The prices are very good in comparison to Eircom.

Phone Only
Eircom €24.18
NTL €10

Phone + off Peak
Eircom €29.99
NTL €15

Phone + Anytime
Eircom €39.99
NTL €20

So basically NTL is at least 50% cheaper then Eircom That should focus minds over at Eircom HQ.

As for stebishop comments, what does it matter if they call it line rental, would it make a difference if they just called it a €15 package like Blueface does instead?

There are not a charity and it is a good deal and I think a lot of people would like the flexibility.

Of course Blueface is still cheaper, but then you have an equipment cost with Blueface that you don't have with NTL and NTL "might" be more stable.

Once again you are being selective! To get NTL phone service for 10 euros you need to take 'three services' to get it for 15 euros you need to take 2 services. So unless my quick calculations are wrong you need to pay NTL a minimum of €67.47 monthly plus agree to direct debit to get the phone service for €10?

http://www.ntl.ie/

Will people who sign up for the NTL phone service get answered any quicker by NTL customer service?

dub45 wrote:

Will people who sign up for the NTL phone service get answered any quicker by NTL customer service?

Personally I've never had a problem getting through to NTL support quickly, but then I haven't had to do it in over 12 months. So maybe it is bad now.

Can't be any worse then BT, spent 3 hours on the phone to BT recently trying to order BB for my sister.

dub45

bk wrote:

Personally I've never had a problem getting through to NTL support quickly, but then I haven't had to do it in over 12 months. So maybe it is bad now.

Can't be any worse then BT, spent 3 hours on the phone to BT recently trying to order BB for my sister.

3 hours is actually quite speedy when compared to this:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=52379349&postcount=22

dub45 wrote:

Once again you are being selective! To get NTL phone service for 10 euros you need to take 'three services' to get it for 15 euros you need to take 2 services. So unless my quick calculations are wrong you need to pay NTL a minimum of €67.47 monthly plus agree to direct debit to get the phone service for €10?

NTL has a deal where you can get Digital TV, BB (1m) and phone for €55.98, add an extra €5 for free calls off peak.

The same from Eircom (assuming you got digital TV from either NTL or Sky, both @ €30) would be €80

Eircom line rental: €24.18
Eircom 1m BB: €24.99
TV (Sky or NTL): €30

That is a €24 saving by going with NTL for everything, basically free line rental.

Even at €15 it is still far cheaper then Eircom.

As an example for a person who currently has TV from NTL and a phone line with Eircom (a very typical setup in Dublin), they can save at least €10 per month by moving there phone service to NTL.

I'm not being selective, I'm trying to be as broad as possible and do the maths on typical setups that most people have. Under most circumstances you will save lots of money with NTL over Eircom.

Even in comparing it with BT it still comes out better in most circumstances:

BT 1m BB + Total Talk: €40
TV (Sky or NTL): €30
Total: €80

NTL 1 mbb + Digital TV + Phone + anytime calls: €65.98

I'm actually finding it hard to find an example where Eircom is any cheaper?

The only circumstance would be if you wanted Sky instead of NTL and but even then, getting NTL would still be a good idea under many circumstances (for multiroom).

dub45 give me a single example of where Eircom is cheaper then NTL?

dub45 wrote:

3 hours is actually quite speedy when compared to this:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=52379349&postcount=22

The 3 hours was spread over a week worth of calls, getting cut off after 45 minutes and them not calling me back. Add BTW this was sales, not support!!! If you ring NTL sales, you'll get through almost immediately.

dub45

bk wrote:

NTL has a deal where you can get Digital TV, BB (1m) and phone for €55.98, add an extra €5 for free calls off peak.

............................

dub45 give me a single example of where Eircom is cheaper then NTL?

I never claimed that Eircom were cheaper I merely pointed out that you were being selective which you were in the examples you quoted at the commencement of your post:

Phone Only
Eircom €24.18
NTL €10

Phone + off Peak
Eircom €29.99
NTL €15

Phone + Anytime
Eircom €39.99
NTL €20

Those NTL rates are not available without having to spend a considerable amount of additional money and you neglected to mention that no? You made no reference whatsoever to the fact that two or three other NTL products were required to get those prices.

dub45 wrote:

Those NTL rates are not available without having to spend a considerable amount of additional money and you neglected to mention that no?

Who is being selective now?

If you agree that NTL are cheaper then what is your point?

It doesn't matter what way you try and spin it, NTL has brought in products that are significantly cheaper then Eircom.

So the table I displayed didn't include all costs, I created it after stebishop post about you needing to get it as part of a package, so it should have been obvious.

dub45

bk wrote:

Who is being selective now?

If you agree that NTL are cheaper then what is your point?

It doesn't matter what way you try and spin it, NTL has brought in products that are significantly cheaper then Eircom.

So the table I displayed didn't include all costs, I created it after stebishop post about you needing to get it as part of a package, so it should have been obvious.

They are cheaper in certain circumstances and you consistently refuse to highlight this. For example it is possible to get an Eircom phone service for under 25 euros and no qualifications. It is not possible to get a phone service from NTL unless you are spending a minimum of €42 euros approx.

OfflerCrocGod

Don't bother bk it's dub45's pastime to find faults in everything anyone posts in the broadband forum. For many people who have cable or cable and broadband with NTL the phone offer is good value and cheaper then going to Eircom; in other words it makes sense to the majority of people with NTL.

dub45

OfflerCrocGod wrote:

Don't bother bk it's dub45's pastime to find faults in everything anyone posts in the broadband forum. For many people who have cable or cable and broadband with NTL the phone offer is good value and cheaper then going to Eircom; in other words it makes sense to the majority of people with NTL.

As a matter of interest do the majority of people with NTL have two services?

I know it is early days for the 'new' NTL but it seems to me that in that short period they have become a far less attractive company for many people.

The customer service has deteriorated drastically both in terms of phone service and call outs. People on here have been regularly quoted periods of up to three weeks before an 'engineer' will be available. Apparently people are being told there will be no compensation for periods without service.

They have put up their prices and are attempting to force people on to direct debits. They have introduced late fee charges.

Their communication with their customers during this period has been dire. (if they had at least communicated with customers and told them that there would be difficulties because of the change over etc etc they might have generated some good will)

They have now 'vanished' into cyberspace as they are no longer providing an address at which the desperate might choose to visit them.

Whether you are a customer of NTL or not this affects us all as realistically it lessens real competition in the bb market. We have debated here before the impact of Smart and the resultant increases in speeds etc.

Nothing NTL have done in the past while makes them a more attractive company to be with (I believe anyways) and they surely have a lot of suspicion to overcome with any telephone product after their previous debacle with a telephone service.

So surely a telephone product which requires the spend debated above is hardly going to set the world on fire?

dub45 wrote:

As a matter of interest do the majority of people with NTL have two services?

Well the majority of people with NTL will have at least one service, TV, so adding phone is going to make two. Even with two services (therefore line rental of €15) it will end up being at least €10 per month cheaper then Eircom (and €15 cheaper for the comparable anytime product).

Whatever way you look at it, for all existing NTL customers it is a total no brainer. There is no extra cost outlay, you just transfer your phone number to NTL and pay the extra to NTL on your existing NTL bill, simple.

One less bill to pay and at least €10 cheaper, great.

I'm also looking at it from the bigger picture. This product will worry Eircom greatly. Not only are they losing customers to mobile phones, now they will be losing customers to NTL also and NTL are a very dangerous threat to Eircom. Remember all those 500,000 NTL customers (yes I know it probably doesn't work for all them yet, but in time), with get a nice leaflet in their next bill telling them about the tremendous new phone service that will save them at least €10 per month off their phone bill. NTL has a lot of marketing and sales punch, more then any competitor Eircom ever faced before.

Now Eircom will have to think twice about increasing the line rental again, like I'm sure they were thinking about.

NTL will now be only the second telephone company in Ireland with a truly independent network. Surely you can see that this sort of competition is good for everyone?

Yes I agree that it seems NTL has gotten worse over the last few months (though as a NTL 6m BB and Digital TV customer I've had non of the problems others have spoke of) but with them now starting to route through INEX again and with this, hopefully things are improving, maybe the last few months were just merging pains.

What I don't get is why you have such a blind hatred for them? Did they fire you or something?

dub45

bk wrote:

Well the majority of people with NTL will have at least one service, TV, so adding phone is going to make two. Even with two services (therefore line rental of €15) it will end up being at least €10 per month cheaper then Eircom (and €15 cheaper for the comparable anytime product).

...............
What I don't get is why you have such a blind hatred for them? Did they fire you or something?

Don't have a blind hatred for them at all -I have many reasons to dislike them:) - have been a customer of theirs since before they were NTL and have always found their customer service to be dire.

And it is not only my experience - I have yet to come across anyone and yes I mean anyone in the ordinary course of day to day life who has a good word to say about them whether as a tv or bb customer. Certainly any one I have spoken to about NTL recently would not remotely be interested in any additional service from them. I did not dream that it was possible for a company to get worse in this area and they have succeeded in proving me wrong over the past few months. They have shown nothing but contempt for their customers in recent times - I was astonished at the degree of insensitivity they have displayed to the public criticism they have been getting.

(Another factor which has surely gone against them in recent times to some degree anyways is the availability on Sky of UTV and Ch4 (the latter with limitations admittedly)

On the other hand I cannot for the life of me understand your unconditional love for them:) and it is miraculous truly how you never have problems with them - do you own shares in them or something:)

Mojito

Yip, have to say I aggree dub45.

I've been on to customer services 4 times since Monday about a problem I'm having with my broadband and they keep saying they'll call me back and they still haven't! I was given a number to call if no one rang me back. As you can guess no one rang me back so I rang the number and couldn't understand a word the other person was saying?!?!?!

When I signed up to them it was because they had no caps. They kept uping the speed and lowering the caps? So now I have a 6MB product with a 40GB download AND UPLOAD limit! It's like putting a kid in a candy store with 10 euros and telling him only to spend 1 euro.

Since the take over they've gone from ok to crap.

NTL Digital! LOL The only people who like it are the ones who have never had Sky. How anyone who has NTL digital can compare it to SKY digital is beyond me. I used to have NTL digital and switch over to SKY because of a number of problems with it. That was about 3 years ago and still to this day there EPG is full of bugs! Will it ever have HD? LOL

Lucky for me I can get smart telecom and I'm just waiting for the modem to arrive any day now and I'm canceling my broadband max and TV service.

I'll be actually saving money as well!

Good God! I can just imagine the problems they'll have with their phone service.

dub45 wrote:

On the other hand I cannot for the life of me understand your unconditional love for them:) and it is miraculous truly how you never have problems with them - do you own shares in them or something:)

I certainly don't love them, but I do like them a lot and from my own personal experience they are one of the best operators and have brought some competition to the market.

1) They were the first to bring affordable faster then 3m residential BB to Ireland at 6m and Smart are the only other company to match it since.

2) There the only company with 512k upload.

3) I use to have DSL, I've found cable to be much more reliable and stable then DSL. Note I work from home, use VPN and VNC, so I immediately notice any down time.

4) When I signed up with them I got 12 months free TV and 3 months free BB and free install and equipment. That completely blows everyone else out of the water.

5) I've always found their sales and customer support to be excellent. However I admit I've rarely had problems, so I've rarely needed to contact them.

6) Their not Eircom.

I suppose I like them so much, because I've never had any problems with them and their products are the fastest and best value for money on the market.

It is also because their one of the only companies to have it's own wired network, completely independent of Eircom and therefore they have great potential to drive real competition in the Irish BB market.

I'll readily admit that they have had a very rocky last 6 months, I personally feared that this would happen over a year ago when we first heard that Chorus and NTL were merging. I've experienced Chorus in the past (being from Cork) and they make NTL look like angels in comparison. I feared that the Chorus staff would take over from NTL and mess it up. And that looks like what happened. However I'm an optimist and I've been hoping that it was just merging pains and that everything would improve in time.

I'm getting an excellent service (touch wood) and hopefully they can sort out their customer support and routing, while continuing to roll out exciting new products like these and we will eventually get some real competition in Ireland. Wouldn't that be great for everyone?

Mojito wrote:

NTL Digital! LOL The only people who like it are the ones who have never had Sky. How anyone who has NTL digital can compare it to SKY digital is beyond me. I used to have NTL digital and switch over to SKY because of a number of problems with it. That was about 3 years ago and still to this day there EPG is full of bugs! Will it ever have HD? LOL

Sky is definitely better, however NTL Digital really isn't bad. I have had Sky before and NTL is fine, the EPG isn't as good or informative, but in the end the shows are the same.

A friend has HD, ridiculously expensive and little on it. I can wait until it matures.

Mojito wrote:

Lucky for me I can get smart telecom and I'm just waiting for the modem to arrive any day now and I'm canceling my broadband max and TV service.

I'll be actually saving money as well!

Not always, I'll unfortunately will have no choice but to move to Smart Vision service soon and I'll end up getting significantly less for more expense:

Smart Vision
- 2m BB
- 100 channel TV, no Sky One, Discovery or History channel

(the channels I watch most) and no free multiroom.
- Phone service but no free call package.
- Total: €75

Compare that to NTL:
- 2m BB
- 120 channel TV including all important channels and free analogue multi room.
- phone service
Total: €65

And with NTL I'd have the option of going up to 6m BB (which I currently have) and free call packages, all of which aren't available from Smart, grrrhh :mad:

Sarsfield

I savaged NTL on these boards over Christmas when my bb went down.

But I must report that on the 4 occasions I had to speak with them, the 3 calls I made were answered by a real person within a couple of minutes. And the promised callback did happen in good time (given the intervening Christmas Day & Stephens Day). On all occasions, the people I spoke to were knowledgable helpful and generally quite pleasant to deal with.

Just for the sake of being even vaguely on topic, I just don't really need a phone line. I've 2 mobile numbers which is more than enough.

dub45

Sarsfield wrote:

I savaged NTL on these boards over Christmas when my bb went down.

But I must report that on the 4 occasions I had to speak with them, the 3 calls I made were answered by a real person within a couple of minutes. And the promised callback did happen in good time (given the intervening Christmas Day & Stephens Day). On all occasions, the people I spoke to were knowledgable helpful and generally quite pleasant to deal with.

Just for the sake of being even vaguely on topic, I just don't really need a phone line. I've 2 mobile numbers which is more than enough.

That's another interesting aspect to the offer. I was chatting on the phone to someone just now and I mentioned that NTL were offering a phone service now and he said that all of his friends used mobiles so a 'landline' of any description was of no interest to him at all.

mwrf

bk wrote:

I certainly don't love them, but I do like them a lot and from my own personal experience they are one of the best operators and have brought some competition to the market.

1) They were the first to bring affordable faster then 3m residential BB to Ireland at 6m and Smart are the only other company to match it since.

2) There the only company with 512k upload.
3) I use to have DSL, I've found cable to be much more reliable and stable then DSL. Note I work from home, use VPN and VNC, so I immediately notice any down time.

6) Their not Eircom.

I suppose I like them so much, because I've never had any problems with them and their products are the fastest and best value for money on the market.

It is also because their one of the only companies to have it's own wired network, completely independent of Eircom and therefore they have great potential to drive real competition in the Irish BB market.

You talk like it's the same company now as it was two years ago. I was once an unofficial NTL sales rep in that I was preaching they joys of their Broadband offerings to anybody that would listen.

I ditched my Eircom phone line and went with blueface which worked beautifully until UPC took over. Now the network is in ****e and the BB max is not worth €39.99 a month anymore IMO. Remember before they took over we could have a nice juicy 10MB connection that actually worked. There is no proper infrastructure anymore.

This phone deal is a rip off end of story.

If blueface can operate an unlimited uk/ireland plan for €15 why do NTL charge an extra €10 for people with 2 or less services. They obviously came to that price by comparing to eircom and people will think it's great value when it's not because of this comparison to eircom.

You wouldn't pay €1.30 for a mars bar when you can get it in the shop next door for €0.80 I presume. They are exploiting the fact the eircom is so expensive.

It annoys me that NTL customers are going to jump on this when they could have cheaper telephone with blueface. It's the same consumer ignorance that causes people to sign up for eircom broadband when they can get the same product for cheaper from another supplier.

You say they have great potential to exploit the market. THey dont have the will to. They can give us 10MB if they wanted but they dont, they will just continue to milk as much money from the irish market before they pull out.

dub45 wrote:

That's another interesting aspect to the offer. I was chatting on the phone to someone just now and I mentioned that NTL were offering a phone service now and he said that all of his friends used mobiles so a 'landline' of any description was of no interest to him at all.

Oh I agree completely, I think Eircoms high line rental has completely destroyed the fixed line phone market and many people have gotten out of the habit of using a fixed line. If Comreg ever get their finger out and develop the at home mobile phone service (land line call costs on your mobile while at home) Eircom would be completely finished.

However cheap phone lines like NTL and Blueface are still handy if you use it for business like I do (long calls to the US and China every day) or if you make lots of international calls. A landline with a reasonable rental is still very good for this kind of usage.

BTW I wonder if NTL will be getting the social welfare free line rental scheme on this. I hope so.

mwrf

bk wrote:

I wonder if NTL will be getting the social welfare free line rental scheme on this. I hope so.

When comreg understand what Voip is. Might take a few decades though i'd say.

On another note. I wonder will Ntl's Voip service work with Sky Digiboxes??? I think not.

dub45

bk wrote:

Oh I agree completely, I think Eircoms high line rental has completely destroyed the fixed line phone market and many people have gotten out of the habit of using a fixed line. If Comreg ever get their figure out and develop the at home mobile phone service (land line call costs on your mobile while at home) Eircom would be completely finished.

However cheap phone lines like NTL and Blueface are still handy if you use it for business like I do (long calls to the US and China every day) or if you make lots of international calls. A landline with a reasonable rental is still very good for this kind of usage.

BTW I wonder if NTL will be getting the social welfare free line rental scheme on this. I hope so.

I agree the line rental is high but I think it is as much a cultural thing and it would have happened anyway. Its not just in Ireland that it is happening.

stebishop wrote:

If blueface can operate an unlimited uk/ireland plan for €15 why do NTL charge an extra €10 for people with 2 or less services. They obviously came to that price by comparing to eircom and people will think it's great value when it's not because of this comparison to eircom.

Well it isn't quite comparable. NTL will be supplying free equipment that Blueface charge for. NTL will be sending out an engineer to do an install, so again expensive and I assume that they are using the PacketCable standard rather then plain VoIP, that should give far better reliability and sound quality over plain VoIP, but also costs more to run a PacketCable network then a plain VoIP network.

stebishop wrote:

You say they have great potential to exploit the market. THey dont have the will to. They can give us 10MB if they wanted but they dont, they will just continue to milk as much money from the irish market before they pull out.

You may well be right, but I hope not.

This new service and them starting to peer in INEX plus them heavily upgrading the Chorus network in Swords, gives me hope that things are about to change for the better.

dub45 wrote:

I agree the line rental is high but I think it is as much a cultural thing and it would have happened anyway. Its not just in Ireland that it is happening.

You are right, it does seem to be happening elsewhere also, but it seems to be happening much faster in Ireland. Eircom deserve everything they get.

mwrf

bk wrote:

Well it isn't quite comparable. NTL will be supplying free equipment that Blueface charge for. NTL will be sending out an engineer to do an install, so again expensive and I assume that they are using the PacketCable standard rather then plain VoIP, that should give far better reliability and sound quality over plain VoIP, but also costs more to run a PacketCable network then a plain VoIP network.

I forgot to factor in the cost of equipment and an engineer, so i suppose it's not as bad as I first thought.

I'm unaware of packetcable but if you say it costs more to run then i suppose it will add to the cost.

I feel sorry for blueface in a way though. I know this is going to eat into customers that they could have gained in the future and im sure you will agree that they are a top class company offering a top class service. I can't see NTL offering the same level of service.

anyways, down with eircom!

stebishop wrote:

I feel sorry for blueface in a way though. I know this is going to eat into customers that they could have gained in the future and im sure you will agree that they are a top class company offering a top class service. I can't see NTL offering the same level of service.

I couldn't agree more, Blueface is an excellent company and I'm glad NTL aren't as cheap as them as it will give them some chance, but I always felt that the business Blueface was in was a very short lived one without heir own network.

stebishop wrote:

anyways, down with eircom!

I'll drink to that

OfflerCrocGod

stebishop wrote:

They can give us 10MB if they wanted but they dont, they will just continue to milk as much money from the irish market before they pull out.

Not yet they can't as they must carry out some infrastructure upgrades on the old Chorus network before it can carry the speeds the NTL one can. Or has everything been upgraded already?

mwrf

OfflerCrocGod wrote:

Not yet they can't as they must carry out some infrastructure upgrades on the old Chorus network before it can carry the speeds the NTL one can. Or has everything been upgraded already?

i don't know, i was only talking about the ntl notwork