Page 1 of NTL Digital Cable

Is NTL digital cable any good? Having problems with Sky freezing pictures they want £250 to replace box :( I won`t pay it !! Any suggestions. Cheers.

I have NTL digital.....

Still unsure about it.....

The picture has a habit of going black for a second or two at least a couple of times a day.

Missing the teletext more than I thought I would also.

I have also had to have my box replaced twice we are now on our third box in about a year..... but one good thing about that is that NTL replaced them free of charge...

Another thing to consider is NTL`s customer service.......er......mmmm... lets just say a bit pot-luck at times.... depends if the person you are talking to actually knows what they are talking about....

Just my opinion of NTL

Garry

I have to agree with Garry, but i`ll add what customer service!!

When I had it upgraded from analogue the engineer said I needed a repull (their term for rewiring) due to a weak signal, as they didnt have the cable with them it would be 2 weeks before they did. When they came back by some miracle the signal was strong enough and it didnt need doing.

The picture kept freezing, strange that it kept happening on a Wednesday evening in the main but occasionally other times to. I had a series of 5 engineers round to my house some within weeks due to freezing pictures or no picture at all. Finally one of them said that the signal wasn`t strong enough and I needed a repull! Well they didnt that and for quite a few month everything was OK - Until last week the dam thing started freezing again - can you believe it this time the problem was that the signal was to damn strong!

The NTL engineers didnt have a clue it took a contractor hired by them on twice their salary to work out the problem!

What really hacks me off is that as I am an ex-C&W customer I cant get internet connection with them (Either NTLworld or broadband as its not in my area - coming to my area soon so they say - they`ve been saying that for 12 months or more!!) so its costing me a fortune.

Basically NTL customer service sucks big time! but there is no one else to use and they know it!

I live in the manchester NTL area (formerly cable and wireless) - I opted for Sky a couple of years ago because I`d heard about all the problems with the cable system here - it freezes etc.

A couple of years ago I was selling my previous house and was showing a couple of dudes around - I told them that cable is available in the area but I have sky - they said something along the lines of - "we work for cable and wireless and it`s crap, sky is much better".

I still have sky but recently purchased NTL for the broad band - I`ve put the ntl tv box on the spare TV and the picture qualify compared to SKY is pants - when object move you can see them go fuzzy! Also the program guide is slow, cumbersome and generally a joke! See you SKY program guide - well you`ll miss it big time!

Also - if you opt for the `free` phone line - beware - you dont get caller display - so if you scrap your bt line and you have caller display phones then you`ll also miss that!

Also - the pricing structure means that NTL works out slightly more expensive than SKY if you opt for all the programs!

BUT the broad band is fast and very reliable but it was a major pain to install - they sent me a guide to install it on your pc - which arrived a week after the engineer had been to install everything!

with regards to SKY - as far as I know they have a policy where they will replace a box for about £50.

if not then I suggest you cancel your subscription - the threat of cancelling should make them offer you a replacement box - when you ring them to cancel they will transfer you to another dept called `retentions` you wont know this of course! and this dept`s job is to try and stop you leaving them!

if all else fails, cancel sky and then try to resubscribe again using one of those cheap offers.

In the old days of Sky analouge, if your privately bought set top box gave up the ghost all you had to do was ring Sky and tell them that you were canceling your subscription because the repair bill was to high to fix your set top box, and they then would offer to have it repaired for you! they didn`t shout this service from the rooftops they only offerd it when faced with a subscription cancelation..... so call their bluff!

This item was edited on Saturday, 10th November 2001, 00:46

Thanks to everyone who replied , think i`ll stick with Sky and try and blagg a free box out off them by cancelling my subscription. Thanx