ntl: revisited

I don’t believe it. Got a bill for broadband.

After several phone calls, it appears that I should have been told, back in February, to put the request to cancel in writing. I wasn’t, so I didn’t.

I didn’t even get any bills from them, until today. I wonder if it’s because of the discount I was given? Don’t know, don’t care! It’s all one with ntl’s inefficiency.

Think I’ll just file anything from ntl: in the round recepticle! On second thought, I had better keep it.

ADSL from BT (Bye Bye ntl)

Well, the man from BT told me that my line would be activated for ADSL some time between 8am and 8pm Monday 7 February.
The night before, I connected the modem and set it up with the details BT sent me.
Monday morning, I turned on the PC and it connected straight away. The connection speed is 497kbps. A bit slower than the 512 nominal speed I should be getting.
It’s also slower than the 750 I was getting from ntl .
Went to the BT web site and found that BT are going to start upgrading the ADSL download speed to the fastest the line can handle. There will be no upgrade “admin fee” (unlike ntl), and there will be no increase in monthly charges.
These upgrades are starting on 17th February and will take up to 5 months.
Conversly, ntl are apparently going to increase download speeds. This should be happening sometime in the first quarter of 2005. There will be a charge to change your speed, too. Thing is, no one in ntl seems to know any details. Speak to different people, you get different answers. There doesn’t seem to be any official announcement on the ntl website.
Still never mind. I called ntl Customer Relations and cancelled my broadband account with them, so whatever happens, won’t affect me.

ntl again

A week to the day (almost to the minute) my broadband suddenly came back to life. Odd.
What is odder still, I called ntl customer services that morning to ask if I would have to ask for a rebate on the rental. After some discussion, and the person at the end of the phone uttering dismay at what I told her, she discounted my rental until the end of March.
She then realised that I was on the 1.5mb service when I was paying for the 750kb service. I told her that I asked for the lower speed some months ago, August I think, and called them twice saying I was paying for the 750 but getting 1.5.
I also told her that it wasn’t my fault that ntl were inefficient. It took them 4 months to disconnect my phone!
I went on to say that I had ordered ADSL on my BT live and it’s due on 7 February. Like I said, strange that I should get reconnected the day I tell them I’m going to leave ntl.
When it came back, it was the slower speed. Harldy notice the difference, so going to 512 on ADSL won’t too much of a problem, especially as I like the higher upload speed.
Just got to wait till Monday for ADSL. Everything is wired up and ready. Hopefully, it will work. As the crow flies, I live within the adsl limits, but cable length will tell.
I’ll let you know Monday.

Bloody ntl!

Oh dear.
Last Wednesday, my broadband connection went down. Not a happy bunny, me!
I called the support line. Ha! Support; they don’t know the meaning of the word.
No problems in you area, they said. There is, said I. I’ve got no internet.
They checked again and discovered that there is a problem that might be affecting some people.
Postcodes from CM17 all the way to CM23 were affected by some system maintenance. This is somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 people.
According to the dictionary, it means:
The act of maintaining or the state of being maintained.
The work of keeping something in proper condition; upkeep.