F*%^ed off with NTL

[TiMeZeRo]

mutley u cant borrow other ppls routers are ntl goes crazy when the mac ids dont line up with the line lol.

kumagroo i tried pluggin pc laptop and other pcs into modem directly and still no luck just keeps fooking up

[Kumagoro]

Using other peoples routers doesnt matter with ntl the mac of the modem is what they
use. Which i reckon is what you meant.

If the same thing is happening between different computers with no modem inbetween
then it must be either the modem or something their end.

what to do? you could electrocute the box and demand a new one.

[TiMeZeRo]

hmmm ... well ive had enuf of them so i think im just gonna change now

[manwithnoname]

Just for balance I have had a NTL 1mbit connection for about 5 months - sensing sods laws coming as I type this - I have never had any connection failure. I did have a billing issue that took about 10 mins to sort out over the phone.

[TiMeZeRo]

lol you are a very luky person manwithnoname. .. i still aint got an answer abut if anyone knows if pipex is any good lol

[davidstone28]

NTL have been doing "service upgrades" for months now when means that intermittently there is no broadband service - see www.ntlworld.co.uk service indicator.

I live in Leeds, Yorkshire and even before Christmas up to now, there will be the occasion where there is simply no broadband service (thought the TV channels seems to be fine). It lasts from several hours to about 1 or 2 days of there being no service. At a rough guess, I'd say its been happening on average about 5-6 occasions a month for the last few months now.

Have to admit that its been a bit of a disappointment in terms of reliabilty. Speed is pretty good though (2mbps) My previous ISP, Freedom2Surf (pre-Pipex takeover) was faultless in over 12 months.

[TiMeZeRo]

ive been having this trouble for almost a year now so unless its a fooking huge upgrade to their service lol. yey good review for pipex

[BUFF]

I just wish they had a box like Sky +.

It's coming

[MD]

Call tech support at NTL and ask them to do a line check. Dont call customer services.

I had to do this when my Digital TV was freezing and my modem was dropping everytime I plugged another machine in to the router. Turns out the noise on the line was 4 x what it should be. They came round, fitted filter things and now its been steady as a rock, twice as fast too

[Lead_Head]

Well I'm having the same issues (Nottingham) Been happening for the past few weeks, really really annoying.

What I've been doing is loading up DOS and entering 'ping www.bbc.co.uk -t' to ping bbc's website every second. When I play my game and it lags, I alt + tab out of the game and see the ping is stopping with a 'Request Timed Out'. Being returned. This eventually lags me out of the connection of a download or online game and I disconnect from the internet.

Annoyingly enough this conincided with me buying a new online game (PES5) and a Linksys router. So I swore blind it was the router. I tried every setting under the sun with the router on the router page and within XP. No luck, still this same request timed out.

So I moved all my PC gear next to the modem, plugged it in to the cable modem directly with my PC. Guess what, same thing happened... timing out randomly. I then noticed out of the corner of my eye the Terayon TJ210 modem's 'cable' light turning off and then flashing, and then returning to solid, as if it was reconnecting.

So, pretty peeved I've spent XX man hours trying to fix a non existing problem I decided to phone NTL tech support. I get through to an Indian call centre (really annoying and very difficult to explain a technical problem to someone who uses English as a second language - it's like giving directions to a tourist whose miles away from the landmark they want to visit, absolute nightmare). Anyway, I do my best to try and explain the problem to this polite lady and she runs some tests on my line. She says it has now been upgraded and if I can monitor my connection and give them a call back if the problems persist. Great I thought, problem must of been solved if the firmware etc has been upgraded.

How wrong was I... still the same problem, same issues. So I thought this is no use and gave them another ring, hoping to get to someone who is English. Back to India and I explain the symptoms I am experiencing. The guy tried to blame the game server, but I know it isn't. In the end I stuck to my guns and after 35mins on the phone with about 15mins hold time he suggests I get an engineer out.

OK I thought, at least I'll get someone face to face and he can be here 'hands on' to sort the problem. The guy on the phone asks if I have a pen and paper to write down the fault reference number... "Your fault reference number is:.... BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP" Phones dead. You are having a laugh surely.... So I don't even know if an engineer has been booked for me or not!! He took my mobile number before the line went dead but he didn't phone back, so I guess it isn't booked. I am going to check tomorrow morning when I phone Customer Services which actually are based in the UK.

Anyway, still in my fit of rage at being disconnected I decided to head over to nthell.co.uk and cableforum.co.uk to read through a few threads and came across someone who is experiencing the same problem as me in the NG5 postal area, not too far from me. (Read the threads here: http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/sh...ad.php?t=44652 AND http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/sh...ad.php?t=43920)

From the sound of it, it looks like the Terayon modems can't handle the upgraded network laid by NTL. Luckily I rent my modem from NTL so I'm hoping the NTL engineer will replace it for the newer blue model of cable modem and it will fix the issue like on that forum.

My god, that was a bit of a long one ehh! Sorry... but I feel so much better now. nn

[aidanjt]

I'm with ntl here in Ireland, I've had to call them on two occasions, the first occasion the 'engineer' who origionally installed the digital tv and internet make a bollocks job of the wiring, which escallated the level of noise and interferance 3 times higher than normal, making the internet to drop like a whore void of contraception and the digital tv totally unwatchable after a few days.

Anyhow, after wrangling with 'customer services' listening to retarded nonsense like disconnecting the modem and rebooting my computer... yes, reboot my computer (the modem is connected via the ethernet interface btw), getting pissed off with the nonsense I told the poor girl on the other end of the phone "theres nothing wrong with my computer or its configuration, i don't care what your screen says the problem lies between your modem and your network, i want to speak to an engineer or I'm pulling all this s**t out of my house and leaving it on the doorstep for you to pick up".. anyway, got talking to an engineer, booked me in to see me tomorrow, came around, found the shoody cabling job, fixed it.. worked perfect....

Second occasion, the connection just died overnight, rang them up in the morning to tell them their network has a problem.. "did you check the cables, blah blah blah {insert usual support nonsense here", so then the 'customer support' agent proudly proclaimed the modem was faulty and she'd have to send an engineer to replace it, I said "fine fine, get it done".. 2 hours later, sure enough the connection was up again.

Oh yea, btw, if you're using a router box (i.e. not windows or ntl hardware) if they ask "Is the modem connected to the computer", just say yes, and if they ask "did you try disconnecting the modem and reboot your computer" think of the question as 'did you try to reobtain a DHCP lease by restarting the interface' and say yes. It will save you a whole load of headaches trying to deal with monkeys.

Technically cable technology is quite good in terms of performance, ntl just needs to get it sorted out with the numpties on the support lines (at least where internet connectivity is concerned).

[TiMeZeRo]

wow how can u write that much lol does anyone know if there is a number to get thru to the ENGLISH customer support line even if it does cost more cos the ppl on the phoen atm are PISSING ME OFF SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH