NTL > Reviews (148)

When I moved into my house two years ago workmen were digging outside my house. This turned out to be the Sub Contractors for NTL.

The only reason I went for NTL was not for their telephone service, but for their offer of NTL world, which boasted no internet call up charges and no monthly subscription. I was also interested in the TV service, which was analogue at the time, but the internet offer did it for me.

As for the Telephone service, where do I start. Its not so much the telephone itself that is annoying, its the customer service advisors who dont seem to know what they are doing, thats after waiting well over an hour for someone to answer the phone after been put on hold, and forced to listen to that music played over and over again.

I decided to add the call divert onto my package, which costs £1 per month extra. That was fine as when I was at work I diverted my fixed line to my mobile, brilliant no more missed calls. The problem was when I tried to cancel the divert off the phone, it would not do it, and I was stuck with people phoning my fixed line and getting through to my mobile, bearing in mind that I was paying the mobile call costs when anyone called my fixed line. After calling NTL and waiting and waiting I got through to someone. I told them the problem, and they said they would remove divert, but I didnt want divert removing permanently as I needed it and was paying for it, she said "the divert is stuck and the only way to get it off is to take it off permenently". I said ok and the call was finished, to my anger it was still on, and to cut a long story short, after 6 weeks of calling NTL and getting passed around from pillar to post, it was finally off. But that wasn't it, they kept on charging me for the divert even though I did't have it.

It is little things like these that really get peoples backs up. Like having to pay £2 extra per month just because you don't want to pay by direct debit, hard to understand tiers of the packages available are ever confusing to anyone.

As for the phone call costs, these are not that bad. But bearing in mind every call you make other than to an NTL number costs you 2.5p charge on top of the standard cost of the call. If you phone another NTL number off peak, the call is free as long as it is a local call. A local call to me is another number in the same area dialing code eg 01924 is wakefield, so you think you can call another number off peak in that area. Wrong. When I phoned NTL about this they said local means within a seven mile radius of your home, sorry, to me they are trying to confuse people and it seems to me you need a degree in Geography to work out exactly where your local area is.

They brought an easier to understand call cost advert to the TV. 1 2 3 it was called. you paid 1p per minute off peak to local numbers, 2p per minute for standard national numbers and 3p per minute on peak to both national and local numbers standard numbers, but you still kept paying the 2.5p connection charge.

Mobile rates vary and seem to fluctuate from time to time.

Finaly NTL is not that bad. The digital service was launched I think while it was still being tested and caused a few problems, but that seems to have been sorted out now. Paying your bills are payed monthly and not quarterly like BT, so the Bills seem to be a little cheaper. The digital service is not available in all areas yet, but is being rolled out gradualy. NTL has just launched its mobile service called "NTL Mobile", they have partnered up with Orange to offer Mobile Phones. You can then phone this mobile with your NTL fixed line phone and recieve 30% off your calls and vice versa when using your mobile to call home. NTL to be fair is getting better and I would reccomend it even if just for the Broadband internet