F*%^ed off with NTL

ok i give up now ntl keep screwing me around. my internet dies every day on a regular basis. i ring ntl when it dies and all i get is some TW*% saying unplug ur modem rotuer and pc and turn them back on this will fix it. when i say ive already done it they say well will you try agen :@ and last night one of the customer service ppl had the nerve to say that it was my computers fault and the computer did not have enough power to keep up with the modem :| i no for a fact taht is BULLS*$% just look at my pc spec its a 64 bit ffs. right well anyways because of all the stuff that has happened with ntl i am now changing broadband provider. adsl seem to be the best way to go atm so my dad is going to change back to bt. wat i want to know is one hwo much is bt line rental and two what is the best adsl provider for me. i download ALOT and game alot so i cant deal with a cap.i was thinking about PIPEX 8mb Unlimited. does anyone know what they are like

(i posted this in netowrking / broadband and got no replies :( so i posted it here cos i want to change isp ASAP )

Is your ntl broadband from your set box or have you got a cable modem?

Have you posted your problems on www.chetnet.co.uk? Thats where some ntl techs provide unofficial help to customers, just don't start slagging off ntl there though otherwise they wont assist.

Also have you checked the server hotline lately, I checked last night cos my service went down & I'm sure it said they were doing network optimisation in Cambridge this week but don't quote me on that.

Having said all that I know of someone that used to be a Cambridge Ntl customer & he said it was crap service in that region too.

Yeah I'm with NTL and i live in cambs and the coverage is crap. It dies at least once a day and if I'm using alot of bandwidth it will cut out. Its my dads connection so i cant change it. I'm just used to it now.

Herb

I'm moving this too Networking AND gonna tidy up the nicely covered up bad language....

hey...man...I hated NTL too, and I have to say.....good luck cancelling your agreement! But keep your abuse down a tad please.

Ta

actually...I;m not gonna tidy it up...its not that bad really....you are angry after all, just no more please.

ok sorry for te bad language but u can understand why. ive got a cable modem.

Last night when I was on the phone to them there were outtages in the LU1, LU2 and SG2 postcode areas, if that helps :)

well my post code is pe19 so not really but thanx and its not an outage thing it happens on a regular basis... like 5 mins ago :@

I've had them for over 2 years now and only had it go out 2-3 times (I'm in SE London). I agree that it's irritating when it's clearly a network fault and then a guy in India tells you to unplug your modem and generally sod about for 10 minutes before they'll agree to send a tech round or have a look at the line.

What really annoys me is that they're now changing to an 0870 number for their tech support. I'm damned if I'm going to pay 10p a minute for the privilege of phoning them up to tell them about a problem that's their fault- I'll withold the relevant amount of payment from my phone bill if necessary.

Yeah i phoned them for about 20 mins once trying to tell them that it was aproblem at there end and it cost me £2 on the phone bill. :@(

NTL is shocking, everything about it. The service and the coverage is bad, but not quite in the same league as the customer service. We had lightening hit our street at university and completely fried out cable modem, i rang up to tell them, first response "turn it on and off again that will fix it", i was like ffs, its fried, i can smell burning from it and it just dosent work. 2 hrs later talking to 3 different people (all non UK call centres) they agreed to send an engineer round but would be up to 14 days time. The engineer brought a new modem, rang through the mac address and left, 5 min job, i didnt recieve a penny in compensation for my touble and no net for 14days

lol, if its their problem then u can claim back the cost. acer screwed me around good and proper i spent over 100 quid phoning them .. and got every penny back :D

btw anyone on pipex wanna know wat they are like dont wanna go form ntl to worse lol

this is just ironic my net has screwed up 3 times since ive started this thread :@

Have you tried to unplug your modem reboot you computer see if that helps.:lol:

The first question is, are you using a router?

If yes, you are screwed as ntl/telewest dont offer support if you have a 3rd party router.

If no and you only have the cable modem ring through to the support lines/ techy peeps and ask them to send the cable modems profile/firmware file to your modem just so it gets updated.

If you still want to move from NTL try going over to Telewest, although they have been bought out by NTL they still have a great customer service team. I had a problem with slow speeds for downloading (i was on 2mb, been upgraded to 10mb), rang up customer services and they guy was helpfull, once you tell them you know how to do ipconfig via cmdpromt they realise that they dont have to talk to you in baby language and things move quickly on to sorting out the problem.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gorgeous

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

If you still want to move from NTL try going over to Telewest, although they have been bought out by NTL they still have a great customer service team.

---

Unfortunately Telewest dont cover the same areas as NTL, so if your region is NTL you can't get Telewest. Which is a shame cos I've heard so many people say Telewest provide great customer support and ntl's Indian call centres just drive me round the bend.

Anyways to original poster I really would suggest heading over to chetnet's forum to see if they can help you out. At least you'll speaking directly to the ntl techs and they'll be able to have look at what's going on for you.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by flcherb

Yeah i phoned them for about 20 mins once trying to tell them that it was aproblem at there end and it cost me £2 on the phone bill. :@(

---

It's been an 0800 no for ages (or free from an NTL line) ...
I guess I must have been lucky, I've had no real complaints in ~14 years ...

buff yes you are bloody lucky lol. thanx for all the great advice guys.

Whenever I have problems with NTL (too bloody often lately) I check this site out - http://forums.ntlhell.co.uk/

Very handy!

I am with Freedom 2 Surf - and am well happy. Good throughput, very reliable (been with them 2 1/2 years) ... Hope that is not gonna be 'commentators curse...!'

If you switch to F2S (and if you are unhappy with your current ADSL providor, I recommend you do), enter etheav8r as your recommedee and I will get a bit off my next months bill!!

tbh im really interested in pipexs 8mb uncapped service just wondering if anyone knows wat pipex is like. also does anyone know hwo much bt line rental is

from £11.00 per month depending upon how you pay etc.

I'm with NTL, since they rolled out the 10Mb upgrade its been well naff, I've complained on there feedback page on there website but havent really got much in the way of a reason just a standard crappy appology...

I like NTL because if you spend a lot of money with them you get some good deals this year i got the 2mb for £19.99 Premplus i got for free and i don't pay for Sky Sports.
I don't lose my connection much very rare so the get the thumbs up from me.
I just wish they had a box like Sky +.:woowoo:

I'm with ntl and until this week I had been suffering with an apparent loss of service every few hours. I tracked it down to the router and not the modem/ntl connection which was solid as a rock. It turns out that torrent programs managed to destroy my router so it would drop all network connections - effectively cutting me off from the net. I now have a new router and it has been fine ever since.

a) are you using a router?
b) is it definitely the internet connection that drops and not the network?
c) do you use torrent programs?

minimarc yes yes and yes but i still ahv the sme problem when i am connected directly to the modem and not using torrents so it has to be the connection also it happens on all of my 5 pcs

I had a mate who was with NTL and NTL decided to switch his telephone number with his modem number without telling him. This meant anyone ringing him up got a modem noise but he did not realise the problem until 50 people rang his mobile to say what's up with your phone.

He then spent 5 hrs on the phone to NTL - I kid you not. It took them a week to sort it out and even then the internet did not work properly.

I also had another friend who was stupid cos he signed up with NTL knowing their history. Did he have problems? Of course he did.

I would take this experience as a lesson learned and change your provider to anyone but NTL and use a router (half the NTL problems are due to the crap they supply), they are one of the worlds worst companies and deserve to die with forks in their eyes.

I've been with NTL for years, and I have to say, if you think their service is bad, you should have experienced it a few years ago...!

I've heard plenty of bad things said about BT and Telewest - I've had bad experiences with BT as well. In fact, I left NTL to go to BT for my phone line, because the line quality was so bad and they couldn't fix it. BT messed me around so badly, not getting the line setup for weeks, that I ended up getting enough compensation to give me in effect a free phone line for a few months, after which (things were still crap), I went back to NTL, who had by then upgraded their exchanges, and the line was crystal clear.

I've been on broadband for years, and recently got upgraded to 10mb. I had to have the cable modem upgraded, and then replace my router, and now get a rock solid 10mb (or near as you're going to get). Very rarely do I get problems.

However, getting NTL to replace the cable modem was like pulling teeth - I just phone back until I get someone competant to talk to, and I'm fairly forceful. For example:
"I'd like a new cable modem please, as the one I have only supports up to 4meg line, and I'm paying for 10megs"
"Certainly, that will be £50"
"Er, no it won't, it will be free. You provide the cable modem, I am paying for the service. You will provide me with a CM fit for purpose".
"Er. Oh. OK.."

And the engineer arrived when they said he would, and handed me the new CM, when I said I could fit it.

So TiMeZeRo, I do feel for you - I think the service is regionally patchy, but customer service is fairly poor all-over.

BTW, as you sure the problem isn't your cable modem? Which CM do you have?

i hav an ntl home 200 model cable modem the silver one my friend runs 10 mb connection on it fine then agen he doesnt live in my area. b4 i went to ntl i was with AOL ... need i say more lol. i became friends with one of the customer service ppl because i was on phoen to them so much :@

Have you tried borrowing your friend's cable modem? Just to make sure yours isn't buggered.

Try and pin point it to the modem at least. try it on another PC, playstation 2, xbox directly
if you do have a router.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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 :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by theslasher@ntlw

I just wish they had a box like Sky +.:woowoo:

---

It's coming

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 :)

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 :)

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).

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