Freeview and Free Broadband

ChrisM wrote:
Because of a recent bit of enforced belt-tightening, I have had my
NTL\Telewest broadband reduced to the £17.99 per month 2Mb service, and to
be absolutely honest for the overwhelming majority of stuff I haven't
noticed a blind bit of difference.


£17.99 for 2Mb? Are you sure about that? I'm paying the same for 1Mb(I
think). If you are def. getting 2Mb for the same price, I should have a word
with their Customer (dis)Service...

The offers change a fair bit I think... I'm paying £15 for 2mb (offer
lasts 12 months, with telewest)

cheers,
Chris

The message
from "ChrisM" contains these words:


Because of a recent bit of enforced belt-tightening, I have had my
NTL\Telewest broadband reduced to the £17.99 per month 2Mb service, and to
be absolutely honest for the overwhelming majority of stuff I haven't
noticed a blind bit of difference.


£17.99 for 2Mb? Are you sure about that? I'm paying the same for 1Mb(I
think). If you are def. getting 2Mb for the same price, I should have
a word
with their Customer (dis)Service...

He's got that wrong. I _was_ right about the 1Mbps service remaining
stuck at that speed (NTL, _do_ understand me so well! :-( )

The only thing to be said for it is that they no longer 'enforce' a
(soft) capping limit (enforcable by a 'stiff letter' advising the
'errant' customer of their abuse of the Ts & Cs clause which refers to
'fair usage'). Apparently, you had to 'cane it' for a month or two in
succession to qualify for such a warning letter.

I have to say, most of the cheapy ADSL offerings impose woefully
inadequate hard capping limits that basically make a mockery of the
concept of broadband.

It appears that NTL are offering a 512Kbps service at £14.99 a month
(the origional price for the 128Kbps cable service which was jacked up
to the £17.99 a month price point [1] when they 'upgraded' it to
150Kbps).

They don't specify, but I think this might be an ADSL service (there's
no reason why NTL should restrict their BB to cable only - after all,
the whole world and their dog (eat dog competitiors) are at it as well).

[1] That £17.99 a month service was successively upgraded from 150Kbps
to 300 Kbps and from there to the current 1Mbps service (which _didn't_
have the doubling of speed upgrade that was so recently applied to the
2Mbps service).

--
Regards, John.

Please remove the "ohggcyht" before replying.
The address has been munged to reject Spam-bots.

Johnny B Good wrote:
The message
from "ChrisM" contains these words:


Because of a recent bit of enforced belt-tightening, I have had my
NTL\Telewest broadband reduced to the £17.99 per month 2Mb service,
and to be absolutely honest for the overwhelming majority of stuff
I haven't noticed a blind bit of difference.


£17.99 for 2Mb? Are you sure about that? I'm paying the same for
1Mb(I think). If you are def. getting 2Mb for the same price, I
should have a word
with their Customer (dis)Service...

He's got that wrong. I _was_ right about the 1Mbps service remaining
stuck at that speed (NTL, _do_ understand me so well! :-( )




I've always been with Blueyonder (nothing to do with NTL until the recent
takeover) I was informed that for £17.99 pcm my connection speed would be
reduced down to 2Mb.. are you saying that this is incorrect they were lying
and I've been reduced down to1Mb?.. if so then I'll be ringing them up
pronto and giving them a good bollocking!

Andrew wrote:
On Thu, 20 Jul 2006 18:56:00 GMT, "Ivan"
wrote:

I've always been with Blueyonder (nothing to do with NTL until the
recent takeover) I was informed that for £17.99 pcm my connection
speed would be reduced down to 2Mb.. are you saying that this is
incorrect they were lying and I've been reduced down to1Mb?.. if so
then I'll be ringing them up pronto and giving them a good
bollocking!

The 2mb service (that I also use) is currently £17.99 pcm. If you are
unsure what speed you currently get, you can use the speed checker on
adslguide.org.uk. They sometimes "accidentally" set you up on a lower
speed than you pay for, and miraculously they can change it as soon as
you phone them up.

Thank you Andrew you're a real gent. I've just checked out my speed which is
revealed to be"Downstream 2,019.1 Kbps ( = 2.0 Mbps ) Upstream 241.0 Kbps
( = 0.2 Mbps )" therefore no complaints regarding Blueyonder.

On Fri, 21 Jul 2006 08:34:20 GMT, "Ivan"
wrote:

Thank you Andrew you're a real gent. I've just checked out my speed which is
revealed to be"Downstream 2,019.1 Kbps ( = 2.0 Mbps ) Upstream 241.0 Kbps
( = 0.2 Mbps )" therefore no complaints regarding Blueyonder.

I have been with them for about 18 months and have been very pleased
with their service. I use Skype for all my home telephony needs, so
that saves me £100/year line rental, so the £17.99/m is good value for
me.
--
Andrew, contact via http://interpleb.googlepages.com
Help make Usenet a better place: English is read downwards,
please don't top post. Trim replies to quote only relevant text.
Check groups.google.com before asking an obvious question.

Andrew wrote:
On Fri, 21 Jul 2006 08:34:20 GMT, "Ivan"
wrote:

Thank you Andrew you're a real gent. I've just checked out my speed
which is revealed to be"Downstream 2,019.1 Kbps ( = 2.0 Mbps )
Upstream 241.0 Kbps ( = 0.2 Mbps )" therefore no complaints
regarding Blueyonder.

I have been with them for about 18 months and have been very pleased
with their service. I use Skype for all my home telephony needs, so
that saves me £100/year line rental, so the £17.99/m is good value for
me.

I've used (Telewest) Blueyonder as an ISP since 1997 with few complaints so
far, although over the years I've read a fair number of moans from people
complaining about the level of customer service offered by NTL.

On Fri, 21 Jul 2006 09:05:59 GMT, "Ivan"
wrote:

I've used (Telewest) Blueyonder as an ISP since 1997 with few complaints so
far, although over the years I've read a fair number of moans from people
complaining about the level of customer service offered by NTL.

A lot of people judge an ISP by their customer service. Blueyonder has
been the perfect ISP to me as I haven't needed to phone them once.
--
Andrew, contact via http://interpleb.googlepages.com
Help make Usenet a better place: English is read downwards,
please don't top post. Trim replies to quote only relevant text.
Check groups.google.com before asking an obvious question.

The message
from Andrew contains these words:

On Fri, 21 Jul 2006 09:05:59 GMT, "Ivan"
wrote:

I've used (Telewest) Blueyonder as an ISP since 1997 with few complaints so
far, although over the years I've read a fair number of moans from people
complaining about the level of customer service offered by NTL.

A lot of people judge an ISP by their customer service. Blueyonder has
been the perfect ISP to me as I haven't needed to phone them once.

Same thing here with NTL. :-) It's only since the recent merger with
TeleWest that the service has suffered bouts of flakyness long enough in
one instance for me to discover just how ****e the part time tech
support is :-(

It comes as no surprise that customers serviced by the TeleWest half of
the merged company enjoy a 2Mbps £17.99 service whilst the NTL half
suffer a 1Mbps £17.99 service.

NTL have always been reluctant followers of the trendsetting TeleWest
cable company who have always led the way regarding upgrades of service
at no cost increase to their customers. I can only hope that the
TeleWest ethos prevails in this regard.

--
Regards, John.

Please remove the "ohggcyht" before replying.
The address has been munged to reject Spam-bots.

Johnny B Good wrote:
The message
from Andrew contains these words:

On Fri, 21 Jul 2006 09:05:59 GMT, "Ivan"
wrote:

I've used (Telewest) Blueyonder as an ISP since 1997 with few
complaints so far, although over the years I've read a fair number
of moans from people complaining about the level of customer
service offered by NTL.

A lot of people judge an ISP by their customer service. Blueyonder
has been the perfect ISP to me as I haven't needed to phone them
once.

Same thing here with NTL. :-) It's only since the recent merger with
TeleWest that the service has suffered bouts of flakyness long enough
in one instance for me to discover just how ****e the part time tech
support is :-(

It comes as no surprise that customers serviced by the TeleWest half
of the merged company enjoy a 2Mbps £17.99 service whilst the NTL half
suffer a 1Mbps £17.99 service.

NTL have always been reluctant followers of the trendsetting TeleWest
cable company who have always led the way regarding upgrades of
service at no cost increase to their customers. I can only hope that
the TeleWest ethos prevails in this regard.

Well since the merger there was a period (which for some lasted a couple of
days) when the news and mail servers went tits up big time.

Then there was the more recent England World Cup match which apparently
100,000 subscribers failed to see, due to sabotage, allegedly the police
later arrested an (ex? disgruntled) employee.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4982450.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/gloucestershire/5116120.stm

So fingers crossed that there are no more surprises in the pipeline!