NTL Broadband would you recommend it?

Am loooking for the cheapest, most effective and fastest broadband I can get.

How does Ntl stand up. Is it a reasonable service? Quick to install? Hassle free? It's seems to be fairly cheap. Free installation and 20 yo yos a month and contention 17:1.

I want to get rid of my Eircom phone line as we rarely use the line, well except for dial up connection, and I have already Ntl tv in house.

I've trawled through other posts and can't seem to get the answer I'm looking for.

Would have thought it was fairly black and white issue but apparently ....


Thanks.

Gunnerbar said:

Would have thought it was fairly black and white issue but apparently ....

Click to expand...

I've had NTL BB for about four years and never had a problem. For other views have a look at :

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=259

I know other people have had problems with it, seems like it depends on where you live.

We got NTL Broadband installed over the xmas period last year.

To answer your questions directly:

It IS a reasonable service.
It IS quick to install.
It IS hassle free.

However - (theres always a however eh??).
Our experiences dealing with NTL were not hassle free.

December 2006 - phoned and requested broadband, asked for best connection as Mr Truthseeker works from home occasionally.
Late December 2006 - NTL engineer arrived, performed installation, NTL point was in different room than computer so he made us wireless within the house - no need to move NTL point. He explained that the connection was 4MB not 6MB as requested and that he needed to change it over back in the office - it was a bank holiday weekend (may have been New Years), so Tuesday would be the earliest for the office bit.
He showed us how to test connection and if it had not been changed by Tuesday to phone NTL.

Thus ensued over a month of calls to NTL, no one on the help desk seemed to understand the problem, 3 different engineers arrived at the house - each exclaiming once the problem had been explained that this was a job to be done back in the office....
I spent a large number of hours on hold.....
Eventually a bill arrived - we were being charged for 6MB but still only had 4MB.
More calls.....
More hours on hold.....
More incompetent help desk personnel....

Finally I had had enough.
I send a Howler of an email citing number of calls made, number of engineers who called to the house, number of hours spent on hold etc...
I sent the same Howler in letter format.
Less than an hour after I sent the email a woman phoned from NTL - breathless with apology.
I was given a choice, the connection would be switched to 6MB or stay at 4MB and adjust my bill.
I chose to stick with 4MB as it suited our needs.
She said she would sort it out and phoned me back 20 minutes later quoting my new bill amount and assuring me all was sorted.

And it was.

If not for the sheer difficulty of getting them to understand a small issue Id say it was a fantastic service.

Thats my experience. Ill let you make your own call on it.
You might want to bear in mind I was phoning the helpdesk at their busiest period, just after xmas.

I had NTL BB in an apt for a year last year and I found it to be an excellent service. The only problem I had was that if I switched off the modem it took a while to kick back in, but I just left it on all the time. I never had to call due to a connection problem in the course of a year and only changed because we were moving and NTL was not available in the new apt.

I could never recommend NTL.

Requested Broadband and TV combo last year. TV was set up fine, broadband didn't work (engineer said they had to do something back in the office). After about 2 weeks of phone calls, broadband eventually works (albeit much slower than advertised, but that's common enough) - for a week! Cue phone calls and emails. Every time you ring them, it's the same thing - "this is the first we've heard of it", "unfortunately we can't do anything right now", "an engineer will call you".

For 6 months, between myself and my landlord, we logged over 40 phone calls, 8 emails and a snail mail. Over that time, an engineer came out twice, admitted their was a problem with our local box (for the neighbourhood) and would fix it. In both cases the fix only lasted 2-3 days.

Refused to pay the bill after that and they eventually cut off our TV as well!

From what I know, with NTL - if it works, it works well, but if you have any issues, well, burning in hell sounds like a better experience than dealing with their customer service!