Due to my satisfaction with our NTL Telephone and Digital TV Service, we decided to change our Broadband provider.
We had been unhappy with Supanet for some time (see previous review) and therefore NTL seemed the natural choice. However, I didn't enter into the decision lightly - the last ... Read review
Advantages: Fast , efficient Customer Service Disadvantages: Have to have an NTL phone line
...to my satisfaction with our NTL Telephone and Digital TV Service, we decided to change our Broadband provider.
We had been unhappy with Supanet for some time (see previous review) and therefore NTL seemed the natural choice. However, I didn't enter into the decision lightly - the last thing I wanted was for us to be stuck with another under achieving Broadband supplier and so I looked into what NTL could offer me and took the time ... ...and TV, I looked into NTL Broadband via their website, ntl.co.uk. Before viewing the Broadband options available to you, you must enter your Postcode to ensure that Broadband is available in your area. Once you have done this, you are then able to view the Broadband packages that NTL currently offer.
There are currently 3 Broadband options available:
1mb Broadband Internet - £9.99 per month (Usually £17.99)
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Due to my satisfaction with our NTL Telephone and Digital TV Service, we decided to change our Broadband provider.
We had been unhappy with Supanet for some time (see previous review) and therefore NTL seemed the natural choice. However, I didn't enter into the decision lightly - the last thing I wanted was for us to be stuck with another under achieving Broadband supplier and so I looked into what NTL could offer me and took the time to understand my options.
As with my Telephone and TV, I looked into NTL Broadband via their website, ntl.co.uk. Before viewing the Broadband options available to you, you must enter your Postcode to ensure that Broadband is available in your area. Once you have done this, you are then able to view the Broadband packages that NTL currently offer.
There are currently 3 Broadband options available:
1mb Broadband Internet - £9.99 per month (Usually £17.99)
2mb Broadband Internet - £24.99 per month
3mb Broadband Internet - £37.99 per month
Our previous Broadband connection with Supanet was 1mb and this suited our needs entirely so I again opted for the 1mb connection with NTL.
As we are already an NTL telephone and Digital TV customer, the sign up process was maybe easier than if I were a new Customer. For example, when placing the order, I simply entered my account number and my details came up on the screen. I then chose the Broadband service that I wanted. In this case, they were offering the 1mb Broadband for £9.99 per month for 12 months. This would usually cost £17.99 per month. I was then able to choose a date for installation. I chose 24th June - this was around 2 weeks later but this was to ensure I would be able to get the time off from work. I was then able to choose am (8am - 12pm) or pm (12.30pm - 5.30pm) installation. I chose the morning - I would then have the whole afternoon with the computer and internet all to myself!
I was then able to review my order, to ensure that what I had selected was correct. I was given the choice to amend or add to the order if necessary. In this case, I was happy to proceed.
Once the order had been placed, I received an email shortly afterwards, advising me of my order number and details. Should I need to contact Customer Services at any point before installation, the order number would ensure I would be dealt with by the appropriate department.
This proved to be quite handy! Two days before the installation was due, I was asked to cancel my Holiday for Friday, due to some urgent work that had to be done. I couldn't very well say no - after all, work do pay my wages, so I agreed and rang NTL immediately to advise them that I would have to re-arrange the installation.
After only being on hold for a few minutes, I gave the order number I had received in the email from NTL. My order was quickly located and I explained to them that I couldn't make the installation date and asked to rearrange. However, instead of simply rearranging, the customer services agent asked me to hold the line whilst they contact the Supervisor of the Engineers that would be attending the property. She came back quickly and told me that the Supervisor had agreed for the Engineers to call before we went to work in the morning. I agreed to this and was left feeling a bit confused - would NTL really do that for me? There was only one way to find out…..
The Installation date finally arrived. I got up at 6.30, in preparation for the Engineer who was scheduled to call at 7.30am. After pottering around for a while, my bell rang at 7.15 - it was the NTL Engineer come to install my Broadband!
I apologised to the Engineer for him having to attend so early - I'm not sure if they make a habit of installing Broadband at 7.30am in the morning! He got straight to work. I had already been told that the installation wouldn't take long - we already had the cable boxes installed, as we have TV and telephone so it was just a matter of routing some thick white cable from the cable box at the back of the TV to the Cable Modem by the PC.
Once the Engineer had completed this, rather than leave the cable on the floor, he secured it to my skirting boards - now it's very hard to even see the cable.
NTL provide the Cable Modem and the Installation disk - these are brought with the Engineer. The rest of the installation was up to me which meant installing the Modem driver. The instructions for installation are clear and easy - instructions are provided with the disk are for PC's and Apple PC's so whichever type of PC you have, you'll know exactly what to do.
Installation took around 5 minutes - in this time, I was required to validate my details by entering my username and password which is sent via a letter from NTL before installation takes place. I can then choose my username for my main email address.
Once fully installed, unlike other providers, there isn't an icon you need to click on to connect to the internet - NTL Broadband is on all of the time and by simply clicking on the Internet Explorer icon, you are immediately taken to your home page. It doesn't disconnect, you can't reconnect - it's a constant connection.
So far, my NTL Broadband connection has remained constant - I've never been 'thrown off' the internet like Supanet used to do. There are added bonus's to NTL Broadband as well which includes:
Free modem and set-up Free anti-spam & anti-virus Free 15 email addresses Free online support
Upon completing my installation, I then downloaded NTL's free antivirus. This took 5 minutes to download and includes a Firewall, Spam Blocker, Antivirus and Pop up Blocker. It also has a 'Privacy' Blocker' which warns you when potentially dangerous sites are trying to access your PC - you can choose to approve or block these addresses.
Of course, NTL Broadband isn't available to everyone - it isn't available on a BT line - you have to sign up to NTL's basic telephone service at a cost of £9.99 per month if you don't already have it. You also have to be in a cabled area - if the cables for NTL are not in your street, chances are you won't be able to get NTL Broadband for a very long time.
Of course, as with any other Broadband provider, NTL require that when you sign up to their Broadband service, you do so for 12 months. However, NTL has just announced that they will be upgrading their speeds - 1mb customers will be upgraded to 2mb at no extra charge - it definitely seems worth it!
The broadband speed seems consistent - I do a regular speed check to ensure I'm not getting short changed! Downloads are also much quicker with NTL - on average things that took around 2 hours are taking half the time.
I'm very happy with NTL's Broadband service - from order to installation, the service has been excellent. Everything seemed to have a 'personal touch' to it - something I felt bereft of when I signed up with Supanet. I would highly recommend them - especially to existing customers.
Again, as with TV and Telephone packages, it is best to sign up online for the best deals - NTL are currently offering £10 cash back until 31st August 2005. I had a quick look around on the internet and can't find any similar deals from alternative providers.
I cannot recommend NTL enough - their service for me has been superb - I'm only sorry I didn't sign up with them sooner!
Advantages: Improved customer service, always on connection, connection speeds and therefore cost can be varied Disadvantages: Can't access certain work based websites, slow upload speeds
...cards, to a property with NTL installed, I thought I would give them the opportunity to impress me, and that’s exactly what they did.
While this op is about their broadband provision, I shall give you a brief outline of what finally swayed me.
For those who don’t know, NTL offer various Broadband options for residential customers, namely:
• 156K download speed and 64K upload speed for £17.99 a month
For someone who had already been enjoying 576K ... ...1MB connection. NTL 600K and 1MB customers get three months free access to Broadband Plus which gives you access to a whole host of premium content from companies such as Tweenies and Encyclopedia Britannica. After the trial period it costs £3.99 a month. Having researched this and established my needs, the next step was to contact NTL and discuss what else was on offer. It was at this point I discovered that number portability has become a reality ...
sue.51 10.04.2004
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of NTL - Broadband
Advantages: It's as fast as they claim Disadvantages: Download limits, flakey email and newsgroups service
...I vowed never to use NTL again after being driven to distraction by the shortcomings of their phone-service.
Annoyed by constant telephone queues and the apparant inability of their staff to resolve simple queries without making more of a mess, I toddled off back to BT, never to see NTL again.
Having moved to a new house, and wanting to get broadband in one form or another, I contacted BT only to find that ADSL wasn't available here - despite being ... ...changes to this exchange because NTL have cabled up all the streets.
This I found quite incredible given that this would be a really good area for ADSL take-up (a heavily populated suburb outside Leeds) but in fairness to them it's good that they're concentrating on areas where there is no other broadband alternative, so that overall as many people can get hooked up to BB as possible.
This time round, my experience of NTL was quite different - ...
andyev 15.06.2003
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of NTL - Broadband
Advantages: fast and reliable Disadvantages: need to be in ntl cable area
...Our neighbour was already on ntl so I looked into the price and found them competitive. As he had no major problems I decided call ntl and agree the contract.
The offer at the time was free installation, which involved connecting to the underground cable under the pavement outside. (There is a little ntl metal grate set into the tarmac).
The cable runs along the side of the house attached to the brickwork, just above the foundation liner.
The ... ...house and plugged into the ntl supplied broadband modem. Then you could use either a USB or ethernet cable to connect the modem to the PC,
ntl also supplied the CD to install the necessary software, and again this was simple, just following the step by step instructions in a short manual and on screen.
Connection since then has been pretty good and reliable, Of course there is the odd failure at some point in the network and the ntl website has ...
exup35 26.01.2007 (20.03.2007)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of NTL - Broadband
Advantages: Fast, cheap and getting faster Disadvantages: Slow upload speeds and slow customer service
...based on 100% experience with NTL from the dial-up age through the current broadband revolution and as a previous and current customer of their TV and telephone services.
I first used NTL for the completely free (and it was completely free) dial-up service they offered way back in 1999. Although this service led to their near bankruptcy, it was a good service. Then, in the year 2003 I switched to their broadband service. At the moment I have their ... ...bad, really. I briefly used NTL for my TV service provider as well but it got to expensive. After briefly using Freeview, I changed again for reasons told later on in the review. I'll go through my experiences with this new broadband thing now.
The packages that NTL currently offer are 1mb, 2mb (soon 4mb), and 10mb. NTL have also stated that they're going to make the 10mb package the standard speed for all of its broadband customers by the end of ...
sunny_boy 28.05.2006
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of NTL - Broadband
Advantages: speed, no re-dialing Disadvantages: cost
This review will be about NTL Broadband, NTL themselves; my technical failings of that there are many and the faffing about I’ve had with them trying to find information out. You need some background information on my lack of home PC use firstly to understand the lack of technical words mentioned; I like to keep things simple!
Finally I’ve taken the plunge and bought a PC for home, have used them for years at work, but finally realised ... ...a BT line, everything is NTL based. On speaking to NTL on the many occasions they said I could still connect to FreeServe and just pay NTL for the phone/net calls, but it still sounded a lot of faffing about to me. Then started the week long tirade of phone calls to NTL, my friend also rang them even though she’s in a different part of the country. My query was could I get on NTL World which is the free service. A variety of responses were ...
Bevdav 12.09.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of NTL - Broadband
Speed, always-on, flat-rate charge, leaves phone line free for voice calls
expensive, seriously crap news server, only available in areas of high population, must have a BT line, must have a credit card or Visa Delta card, le (*)
