NTL Broadband

[marko]

Hi all my nephew would like to sign upto a 600k connection with NTL. Are any of you good people using this ISP, and if so have you had any problems with them ??. Any information would be most appreicated thanks in advance.

[BUFF]

Overall I've been very happy with NTL 600K.

Their email servers can be a bit flakey sometimes (but supposedly there is a major upgrade coming ) & their newsgroups servers aren't good for binary files if that's your thing.

[Raz316]

Ive been using their 1mb service for quite a while now and am loving it My pings to UK servers have always been great too.

The only problem I have had is, on two occasions for 1 or 2 days a time, something crazy happens and I am unable to fill in web forms (like post on a forum or something).

They dont take too kindly to people constantly downloading the whole time. Im not sure of the rules for certain, but I think you are allowed 1gb a day, go over that limit 3 times in 2 weeks and they will send ya a letter or something. It's never happened to me, and I know full well I have been over this limit once or twice

[Jiff Lemon]

Another 1 meg user here - never had a problem. Prefer it to my ADSL install as it's true "always on"

[Ferral]

I'm on NTL 600k

Average download speed for me is around 75k - 80k per sec (Occasionally drops to around 65 if its early evening when kids get in from school etc) With regards to what Buff was saying about the mail servers I concur ! They seem to be having probs lately (Since just before Christmas coming to think on it!) with them. It can occasionally take upto a minute or so just to connect and can be pretty slow at retrieval. Overall though its a really good service for the little extra more than the 128k service.

[Spud1]

NTL = a vvvvvbad idea unless you live in a sparsely populated area or one full of ppl who dont use cable.

For a start their TV service is cr@p compared to sky anyway, tho its cheaper. And the same goes for their 'Broadband' service. Cheap and nasty.

600k is a speed you will rarely get if there are other cable 'broadband' users in you area, as its shared between them. So if you are on a street with say 30 houses and 10 ppl use the net at the same time, it will be slower than 512kADSL - which is pretty much guarenteed speed if you live near enough to a local exchange.

You also only get 128kps upload speed on teh 600k service. compared to 256 on 512kADSL - this is bad for online gaming or if you upload stuff (greater u/l is better)

Another (very very) bad thing is the bandwidth limitationf 1gig a day - which NTL enforce. this means if you download things (game demos, movies, patches etc etc) you have to stop when you reach 1gig - not nice when you can easily reach 1gig in just 4/5 hours of use

I would avoid NTL like the plague, go for a decent adsl isp instead, much safer and better

[Howard]

In short, I've never in my life experienced an ISP who's services are of such apalling quality as NTL's. The internet crashes fairly frequently (often overnight when I leave my server on to dwonload/upload) resulting in you having to go and reset the set top box to get it working, the email is slow at best, and at worst, doesn't connect. THey also often decide that your webspace needs a clean out, so they delete the files for you. Isn't that kind?

The TV service is alright I suppose, but the picture quality could be better, and the box crashes when you try to access interactive.

I can't complain about the phone service, it works nicely

Oh yeah, you only asked about the internet didn't you

Basically if there are alternatives available to you, go for them.

[Grey M@a]

if you are after cable, can you not get Blueyonder down your way, if so go for BY rather than NTL. I have heard numerous complaints about NTL, although BY has its problems its nothing like what the NTL customers are describing. BY charge £35 for the 1 meg line and £25 for the 512 so it maybe worth a look. Try http://www.blueyonder.co.uk/blueyond...ge=serv_signup and there is a little box where you can put your postcode in and it will tell you if you can get it or not.

[BUFF]

Howard The internet crashes fairly frequently (often overnight when I leave my server on to dwonload/upload) resulting in you having to go and reset the set top box to get it working, the email is slow at best, and at worst, doesn't connect. THey also often decide that your webspace needs a clean out, so they delete the files for you. Isn't that kind? .

There is your problem, the set top boxes are crap for internet but the cable modems are ok.
& they've never cleaned out my webspace...

oh well, variety is the spice of life, everyone's perception is different etc.

[MiniMarc]

The internet crashes fairly frequently (often overnight when I leave my server on to dwonload/upload) resulting in you having to go and reset the set top box to get it working, the email is slow at best, and at worst, doesn't connect. THey also often decide that your webspace needs a clean out, so they delete the files for you. Isn't that kind? .

There is your problem, the set top boxes are crap for internet but the cable modems are ok.
& they've never cleaned out my webspace...

oh well, variety is the spice of life, everyone's perception is different etc.

I have to agree there, when I got ntl's 1mb service I had the set top box and I would get disconnected about 4-8 times a day every day and had to power down everything for it to start working again. After a lot of hassle I managed to get an engineer to install a cable modem and havent had a disconnection problem since

On the other hand ntl have a disgusting problem with their DNS, about once every 2 months it's impossible for me to resolve any webpages as their servers are pointing up their own [well I wont say it ] and that normally takes about 4 days for them to fix.

As for the bandwidth limiting, I'm lucky enough to live in an area full of countryside and old people and I think I'm one of the only people with ntl broadband in the area so they dont bother to enforce the limitations with me atm and I exceed the 30gb/month limit by 2 to 3 times every month

[Zak33]

Another happy NTL bloke here.

TV service is slow for data exchanges (like prgram info)

but Broad Band is FAST

Email accounts are a bit tempremental, so dont betempted to mess with your settings.....wait until the morning or use a different compant for that....

but I like it A LOT

and if you email them for help, you get replies quite quickly

[Zak33]

oh....one more thing in their favour.

They're not BT

so thats good...gooder and gooder

[Spud1]

but then BT are not NTL, which kinda makes them even better

[BUFF]

Spud1

Another (very very) bad thing is the bandwidth limitationf 1gig a day - which NTL enforce.

Actually i don't think that they do - it was just a threat to get the worst of the abusers to move/cut back.

[Aaron]

600k is a speed you will rarely get if there are other cable 'broadband' users in you area, as its shared between them. So if you are on a street with say 30 houses and 10 ppl use the net at the same time, it will be slower than 512kADSL - which is pretty much guarenteed speed if you live near enough to a local exchange.

I've never had a problem with this. I live in the suburbs and it always downloads at maximum speed (~70kBps) when on reliable sites.

You also only get 128kps upload speed on teh 600k service. compared to 256 on 512kADSL - this is bad for online gaming or if you upload stuff (greater u/l is better)

The bit about it being bad for gaming is, quite frankly, BS. Beyond a certain limit, ping and packet loss are far more important than bandwidth. I haven't played many games online for a while but I used to get single figure pings on Quake 3 during games. For games, cable does seem to be better than ADSL, as the pings are almost always superior.

Your comment about uploading stands though. Having 128k when uploading is a right pain.


My main gripe with NTL is the reliability of service. It's almost as bad as BTOpenworld used to be for me at times. Other than that, it's pretty cheap and fast. And the NTL engineers are slightly more competent than the BT ones, which is nice if you don't want your house ruined when you get broadband installed.

[Howard]

and if you email them for help, you get replies quite quickly

I've never experienced this. Their customer service is the worst part IMHO.