NTL/Virgin Media
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I thought Branstons mission was to sort their shit organisation and cust services out! Clearly not working.
I was gonna get this in my new house when i move in, but probably just gonna stick with Murdoch. So whats the beef with them then?
In a nutshell:
No broadband for last 3 months. Being put on hold for 30 mins plus. Hundreds of phone calls where I'm passed from pillar to post. Having to explan my problem to different departments several times in same phone call. Being put on hold for 20 mins. IT helpers who can't understand/speak English. Rude IT helpers who get frustrated and hang up on me twice. Unkept promises for people to contact me. Not answering phone for 40 mins. Unkept promises for account credits for lack of service.
Come back Sky all is forgiven.
Virgin and NTL are legendaryily crap these days. I should point out that the Virgin brand in this case is nothing to do with Branson.
I can see this is going to come down to me taking the Tardis over to Horwich.
Yeah that wouldnt really endear me to them either.
I was tempted by the 4 for £40 deal where you get TV, Broadband, Phone and Mobile all-in, but then i reasoned that if i got them seperately and one provider was shit, it wouldnt be as big a deal.
One of the reasons the cable firms are such a bag of toss is that NTL appeared virtually overnight, swallowing up all the little local cable companies. There is poor synchronisation of working practises and technology between them. Then again this has been the case since 2000, so they cant really apply the bear with us and we will get it sorted soon tack
Doctor? wrote: Virgin and NTL are legendaryily crap these days. I should point out that the Virgin brand in this case is nothing to do with Branson.
I can see this is going to come down to me taking the Tardis over to Horwich.
Really? Hows that then?
To be honest Stevie my PC is 10 years old now and I've been thinking about getting a lap top and wireless for some time now.
Really It's just because I like to spend money 
Missy Jem wrote: To be honest Stevie my PC is 10 years old now and I've been thinking about getting a lap top and wireless for some time now.
Really It's just because I like to spend money
Well that brings 2 things to mind.....
What modern software have you bought that makes your machine obselete? I mean why change a working PC because of a busted exteranl service. It's like buying a new cooker cos there was a power cut. Of course if you've gained a sudden penchant for Supreme Commander or Medal of honor, then yes, you need to be spending 7-800 quid (and not in fucking PC world. Dixons, Curries, Woolworths or sodding Tesco neither), otherwise, keep the and save the money.
Laptops are good, buy straight from Dell and they will still sell you XP instead of forcing vista onto machines that cannot run it like everyone else (just built 2 3GHz-ish dual core 64 bit boxen, vista ran OK on one, and totally choked on the other, despute the only different being the CPU (AMD worked, Intel didn't) and motherboard). But wireless is slow (tho you will not notice this with the internet), and you have a choice for setting it up. You can either use WEP or WPA encryption, WPA is good but hard to set up, WEP is easier to set up but can be hacked in around 2 second's giving everyone the ability to download kiddie porn on your account.
WHY DON'T YOU JUST LIVE UP THE ROAD YOU AWKWARD COW :D
NTL have always been rubbish. I was with them about ten years ago and they were utter crap then.
In fact, the hold times mentioned here are better than I got, so there's some improvement.
Freeview is so good now, certainly for someone like me who watches hardly any telly.
Get a good broadband service like UKOnline - they've never given me a moment's hassle, the (free) support line is excellent and the service itself is never down.
I think it would be legally called a merger with Branson as a shareholder. Definately connected in a big way though.
Cant argue with the use of cunts and wankers to describe the organisation though...
:)
My computer is fine, but I cannot easily carry it from Dining table, to lap-in-front-of-TV, to garden, to bed.
I will keep my PC though. Even if it's just so you can maul with it on your next visit...
Yes Cambo - PIMP MY PC 
that's why I'm still on 512kbps with freeuk, it works, no throttles, firewalls or caps, cheap static IP's and when my bro DOES phone them about an outage it's hilarious....
Overhead one day:
"Errrr John, this bloke says he's not using windows but something called Linux, what do I do" From distance: "whatever he tells you to"
Missy Jem wrote: My computer is fine, but I cannot easily carry it from Dining table, to lap-in-front-of-TV, to garden, to bed.
I will keep my PC though. Even if it's just so you can maul with it on your next visit...
Yes Cambo - PIMP MY PC
Not too much can be done for it in terms of "hotting it up". More Ram is always good, and a new video card if you want to play games, apart from that, a damned good cleanout was all it needed when last I seen it.
I think your video card has a TV out....why not buy a wireless KB and mouse, the use that little RF relay box for your sky to relay your PC display to a comfy TV?
Of course if you want a new fangled PC of mass destructiodn, send about 800 quid this way and wait 2 weeks :D
PS
Inspiron 1501 PISSES all over the 1300 I bought in January, for less money and all!!!!!!
I'm very content with th 1300 too, at least in linux, it's a bit sluggish in Dos-XP, but that's more to do with all the cack Dell pre-installed. I'd format and fix, but I don't wanna touch the only legal copy of windows I own.
(remember, specify XP, not vista)
PPS, get the BIG battery too, with the small one, if the machine is doing more than smailing sweetly on the desktop, it's useful only when moving rooms, from power point to power point, honestly 60mins life under heavy load.
(and don't forget to untick the support options to get it at the published price....evertyhing that's likely to actually break on it is under normal warranty anyway...except when you rip the DVDRW door half off it when too sore to catch it as it slips 
)
Lordy my computer must be knackered, all I could read of your last post Steve was:
,.mclkjkoafjsio lkdfjsioa f.lkdmfljdsaio lfmakldfusui yl dfjsh fosyao lamnklfj ysa LAKjsd oyf oasf lssssfuiasd foya CHRISSY WADDLE laj;dfjdlsajf'asjkfi'd a'dfj'l fj'as ja
In Horrwichish.....
Buy t'laptop fromt Dell lass
If tha wants a new desktop I will build you a deathstar, a true beast for 7-800 notes, or a ruddy good one for 500 (mine has a silly motherboard (space for 14 hard drives! as well as being the only one I could find that can run 2 videocards at full speed, all the others run them at half speed, making it a waste of time and money....I only have one card, but have built expandability into this box) and videocard that you will not need)
Doctor? wrote: In Horrwichish.....
Buy t'laptop fromt Dell lass
If tha wants a new desktop I will build you a deathstar, a true beast for 7-800 notes, or a ruddy good one for 500 (mine has a silly motherboard (space for 14 hard drives! as well as being the only one I could find that can run 2 videocards at full speed, all the others run them at half speed, making it a waste of time and money....I only have one card, but have built expandability into this box) and videocard that you will not need)
I'll buy you one (1) top-spec laptop, kitted out with all the latest software for every person you can find in Horwich that can understand that.
Just nick one
BIGINOIL wrote:
Doctor? wrote: In Horrwichish.....
Buy t'laptop fromt Dell lass
If tha wants a new desktop I will build you a deathstar, a true beast for 7-800 notes, or a ruddy good one for 500 (mine has a silly motherboard (space for 14 hard drives! as well as being the only one I could find that can run 2 videocards at full speed, all the others run them at half speed, making it a waste of time and money....I only have one card, but have built expandability into this box) and videocard that you will not need)
I'll buy you one (1) top-spec laptop, kitted out with all the latest software for every person you can find in Horwich that can understand that.
Just nick one
Right, Hicksy, hit your It dept. send me names, and I'll split the lappers with you 50-50.
I think a PC's for NOOLers thread may be in order soon.
if you nick one BTW, scrub it, they can call home for help when they go online nowdays.
I was with Telewest, now Virgin. Nothing but good things to say to be honest.
Let me have it 
Took them a few weeks to fix the on demand function on the digibox but its works a treat now.Erm , that's it
Had broadband with em for 3+ years now and not had one problem
But of course i can't watch Sky One , Sky news etc after the fall out between Virgin and Sky.Only prog i was slightly fussed about was Lost but that was just getting silly anyway.
Got my landline with Virgin Media too.The lot for £30 a month
From what I have read, and from what's being said here, it seems that the problem is the infrasctructure that NTL/Telewest/Virgin have inherited from other telco's (as well as their own too), varies wildly accross the country, in some areas it simply buckles under the strain. Their throttling nonsense is obscene tho, if I pay for 2 million bits per second, I want two million bits each and every second. WTF is this, WW2.....imagine your telephone stopped working right between 9 and 5 cos that's when the network is busy, or your power browned out at teatime cos too may cookers were on. Throttling=3rd world internet, expecially since on MOST ISP's they also have a cap that means that two hours of internet tv, or one movie on demand and you can barely check your email for the rest of the month. Actually I worked out that the stanard admin traffic on our machines...mail server checks, DNS updates, googlebots indexing the webserver....would actually pu us over most providers' usage caps....before we use one single byte for downloading or surfing.
Welcome to backward britain yet again.
i got phone and broadband wi em, not the cheapest at £50ppm for both(too lazy to switch) ,but the broadband is superb 
Only prob i had wi em was that i wanted my tinternet connection moved from upstairs to downstairs,they wanted to charge me £75 
for the privelage,so i told em to fook off and moved it misen!
Told em i wasnae happy paying the £75 and that i was gonna fook off to sky,so got half price broadband for the next 12 months!
75 quid to move a modem and cable when all you needed was a longer wire (or wireless).
Unbelievable.
It's REALLY time I started acting as IT advisor to you lot to save you from scheisters and snake oil salesmen.
Jem's the best though....has a degree, will tackle her own walls with complex damp-sorting-out gear, but would buy a new PC to fix her internet connection, and I'm sure would suffer some sort of seizure if I suggested she upgrade her PC herself.
Someone asked me recently how I learned to build PC's (after all, it's not cheap to learn by error), especially given my (exaggerated) phobia of manuals. I replied that if one can handle one of those kid's toys, the red and blue balls full of yellow shapes, you pull it open, take the shapes out and try to get them in through the correctly shaped hole.....you can build a PC, really! The only bits I have bother with, are right at the start, putting the little screwthreaded "risers" into the case for the motherboard to screw into (10 thumbs, 2 left hands, what can I say), and right at the end when it comes to installing windos on it, easy to get a windows on....but getting one on that works and behaves in a grown up fashion is MUCH trickier (the "linux is hard to install" whiners are exclusively persons who bought PC's with windows pre-installed).
Doctor? wrote: From what I have read, and from what's being said here, it seems that the problem is the infrasctructure that NTL/Telewest/Virgin have inherited from other telco's (as well as their own too), varies wildly accross the country, in some areas it simply buckles under the strain. Their throttling nonsense is obscene tho, if I pay for 2 million bits per second, I want two million bits each and every second. WTF is this, WW2.....imagine your telephone stopped working right between 9 and 5 cos that's when the network is busy, or your power browned out at teatime cos too may cookers were on. Throttling=3rd world internet, expecially since on MOST ISP's they also have a cap that means that two hours of internet tv, or one movie on demand and you can barely check your email for the rest of the month. Actually I worked out that the stanard admin traffic on our machines...mail server checks, DNS updates, googlebots indexing the webserver....would actually pu us over most providers' usage caps....before we use one single byte for downloading or surfing.
Welcome to backward britain yet again.
Yeah, i used to work for them and this is pretty much it IMO. You might get great service on all levels, but your mate who lives 5 miles away is in an exchange area that belonged to a different telco before so his is shit. Everything from channels available to engineering practises to network quality (speeds, cabling used and so on)
Thing is, they (NTL) stopped taking over the world years ago (they were pretty much all done by 2001) so bar the merger with Telewest, they have had ages to sort these problems out, but they just seem indifferent/incompetent.
I alos worked for Sky when they launched Digital in 1999 and back then they could barely cope with the enormous increase in demand for installations, poorly tested/rushed out digiboxes, but at least (and i hate the company and everything they stand for) they fixed the problems in time.
Only prob i had wi em was that i wanted my tinternet connection moved from upstairs to downstairs,they wanted to charge me £75
Told em i wasnae happy paying the £75 and that i was gonna fook off to sky,so got half price broadband for the next 12 months!
Id have popped over and done it for £35 - Like Steve says though, it aint rocket science as you found out
Edd wrote:
Yeah, i used to work for them and this is pretty much it IMO. You might get great service on all levels, but your mate who lives 5 miles away is in an exchange area that belonged to a different telco before so his is shit. Everything from channels available to engineering practises to network quality (speeds, cabling used and so on)
Thing is, they (NTL) stopped taking over the world years ago (they were pretty much all done by 2001) so bar the merger with Telewest, they have had ages to sort these problems out, but they just seem indifferent/incompetent.
I alos worked for Sky when they launched Digital in 1999 and back then they could barely cope with the enormous increase in demand for installations, poorly tested/rushed out digiboxes, but at least (and i hate the company and everything they stand for) they fixed the problems in time.
In Belfast, where they had JUST laid fibre to the road (if not quite fibre to the kerb), their internet service was fabulous, fast switching times, good speeds, and the system was installed with a contention ratio in mind that was based on every house in the street being online, so it didn't go wobbly at 6pm. But in Bangor although their dialup was fine, they had no cable and refused to even get involved on local loop unbundling for broadband....doubly odd since they already offered LLU based phone services. Probably this was because BT were playing VERY dirty with LLU providers on dialup (they sent a lot to the wall by simply saying they'd offer the loops on such and such a date, watching all the startups try and operate their service as a loss leader to get a customer base.....and then delaying the release of the lines by almost a year, and billing the startups into extinction). Mind you, I never had any bother with NTL's tech support when I used them, at least not individually, but when major outages hit large areas....headless fucking chicken time.
These days you need to be bloody careful with who you sign up to. All in one packages are never as good as they look, the net's always capped and throttled to death, the phone service might not STILL make 999 calls, and how are you gonna call tech support (4 hours on a mobile?) when the whole connection keels over? Free=shite BTW
My bro and I were looking to upgrade the net a while back, and it took some serious vigilance to spot the "if we choose to arsefuck you, you may NOT request lube and we're feeling randy and you DO have a very cute bum" but in their T+C's. We found one package...... 2Mb/512kb (rare to find 512 up), no throttle, no caps, low contention(how they can promise this when working through a BT exchange I do not know). Four static IP addresses (hurray, no more NAT), a whack of webspace and stupid numbers of email addresss (both unimportant, we have our own web and mail servers), 24 hour support from actual geeks and other wonders. Downside? SEVENTY QUID A FRIGGIN MONTH!
just switched to talk talk, £20 a month for broadband, line rental and phone calls, not sure about limits tho, but i dont do downloads (remember kids"home taping is killing music"), does me fine for emails and browsing ebay for cheap gear, by the way, writing this on the wifes work laptop, dell, and never give us a moments trouble
christ, i've just joined up.
getting connected next tuesday 26/6.
rang them last night, coz the "Welcome Pack" came and eventually got thru to a scotch girl called Marie Clare. she was hopeless. like a dead fish. no spark or enthusiasm in her voice.
I thought, fuck it, i'll just wait ffor that first bill and figure out if i can understand it when it comes. its all dicounts off shit and bonus shit. like a Cambo thread. dead hard to figure out.
So watch out at night times. I'm just around the corner.
old lead foot wrote: just switched to talk talk, £20 a month for broadband, line rental and phone calls, not sure about limits tho, but i dont do downloads (remember kids"home taping is killing music"), does me fine for emails and browsing ebay for cheap gear, by the way, writing this on the wifes work laptop, dell, and never give us a moments trouble
My only beef with Dell is that the replacement for the lapper I bought in January, which came out in April, has TWICE the processor and a ruddy 3d accelerator....not too bloody bad for 3 and a half hundred quid.
AND ever since Michael Dell took over the company again, they're going to start offering Linux pre-installed again, 80 quid off for windows then :D
My Dell Inspiron 1300 is really just my "lazy fucker's desktop", it sits on a stool by my sofa, turned on 24/7, I'm writing this on it. Mainly I use it as a remote control for the two main machines (well mainly the linux box)
On Virgin, but never had any problems except when they took over from NTL my bill seemed to jump up to nearly £100 a month?
The only thing other than that im unhappy with is this having to put your 4 digit pin in constantly when you change film channels etc, a pain in ones arse!
Crap company, crap broadband technical support (which they are just about to increase the price of a call to 25p per minute - it was free)...
They upped my broadband from 2 to 10Mb, but neglected to tell me that the broadband modem couldn't cope with that kind of speed, so sent an engineer round to replace it (this was after 6 months of allegedly having speeds of 10Mb)... 
Problem with changing, however, is that you lose your e-mail address, which I (stupidly) didn't bother purchasing a domain name, and using an e-mail address which isn't tied in with an ISP)...
Ah well...
BT aren't much better and a lot of what you say about Virgin applies to them too. My landline/broadband died last Thursday and it took me a good 30 mins to get through to speak to someone to report the fault who being polite didn't give a f*** about (take ownership of the) problem, kept me on my mobile for 15 minutes and basically had such a bad attitude I was almost at the point of swearing with them. They still haven’t sorted my problem and have to send an engineer to my place so lets say I'll be after a bit of compensation from them for not having my line for the last week!
Cheers!
Doctor? wrote: 75 quid to move a modem and cable when all you needed was a longer wire (or wireless).
Unbelievable.
It's REALLY time I started acting as IT advisor to you lot to save you from scheisters and snake oil salesmen.
quote]
Would have gone for the wireless option but as i'm rfurbing the front bedroom i didnae wanna go down that avenue.
Piece of piss moving the connection,the wire is only coaxial,so a 2 minute job!
While were on cambo,how come every time i switch my comp on a screen full of drivel pops up and i have to press f2 to continue?
Cant work it out cos am a thick northern bastard!
Seem to remember the screen started showing up when i put an extra gig of mem in mi comp,a think!
Doctor? wrote:
These days you need to be bloody careful with who you sign up to. All in one packages are never as good as they look, the net's always capped and throttled to death, the phone service might not STILL make 999 calls, and how are you gonna call tech support (4 hours on a mobile?) when the whole connection keels over? Free=shite BTW
For the internet phone, I've used Vonage for the last 4 years. Never had any problems with it, and when the connection goes down, it automatically tranfers calls to anyother phone you wish. There are way more pluses with broadband phone then minuses....but I definately recommend Vonage over some big conglomerate.....they still are a small company and customer support is ace
Doctor? wrote:
Missy Jem wrote:
buy straight from Dell
i were you, avoid DELL completely, in anyway shape or form. they are crappy pcs.
here is a word of wisdom "you'll get what you paid for"
and you didn't hear it from me:D
Doctor? wrote: 75 quid to move a modem and cable when all you needed was a longer wire (or wireless).
Unbelievable.
It's REALLY time I started acting as IT advisor to you lot to save you from scheisters and snake oil salesmen.
Would have gone for the wireless option but as i'm rfurbing the front bedroom i didnae wanna go down that avenue.
Piece of piss moving the connection,the wire is only coaxial,so a 2 minute job!
While were on cambo,how come every time i switch my comp on a screen full of drivel pops up and i have to press f2 to continue?
Cant work it out cos am a thick northern bastard!
Seem to remember the screen started showing up when i put an extra gig of mem in mi comp,a think!
At a guess, your BIOS (the "sutonomic nervous system of the PC if you like" has got something up it's ass about your RAM. Too much, or too much of a certain speed, or two different speeds clashing (usually not a bother, the faster stick of memory will drop to the same speed as the slower).
Does windows report the correct amount of free RAM? If so, why worry ;)
But if you could maybe write down what it says I can translate.
I have a failing power supply in my linux machine (using an old one as my mate bought a new PC that I built for him, and his power supply was dead on arrival, so I nicked one of my own for him), and it makes me press F1 every time to confirm that I'm happy enough to run the machine in such a state.
One other thing it could be is a failing CMOS battery, your BIOS settings would then get lost and it would whine at you for help every time you switched it on .
PS, a little reluctant to take computer advice from a threadbreaker. I like Dell laptops! their dektops are shite, but only cos ALL prebuilt PC's suck bollox.
Ok, it also comes up with an error when i try to shut down my comp, something like error,blah,blah referenced memory number? could not be read or summink like that.
I'll write it down for your diagnosis good doctor!
Windows does detect the extra ram,i think it could be the bios settings page you said.
i have sky broadband,its fine,they have been fine,but i still cant get this bloody netgear wireless thing to work
banshee wrote: i have sky broadband,its fine,they have been fine,but i still cant get this bloody netgear wireless thing to work
I'll say 50 "our tux's" and 20 "hail linus's" for this later.......
Have you tried the windows wireless setup wizard? It does actually help a wee bit with the security key nonsense.
I feel dirty now.
Doctor? wrote:
banshee wrote: i have sky broadband,its fine,they have been fine,but i still cant get this bloody netgear wireless thing to work
I'll say 50 "our tux's" and 20 "hail linus's" for this later.......
Have you tried the windows wireless setup wizard? It does actually help a wee bit with the security key nonsense.
I feel dirty now.
I had a nightmare with Netgear...........Barney Army sorted it out for me - in real English - Kath is stupid - terminology. It failed sometime after that and bought another one altogether.......
Virgin are my broadband provider - never had a problem - but I know so many people who have gone 'all in' that have had problems - I need my phone without problems - work - tele isn't importamnt to me; but I would prefer it if my kids didn't have the urge to commit suicide.........so I'll leave the rest as it is........
Steve...............if you are so bloody clever.......come over here and tell me why McAfee is doing my head in!
If the wireless you talk about is connected to a wireless router, sometimes these things have internal firewalls. With these sometimes you have to get your ip into the router by actually plugging it in with DSN cable, then once the normal setup is complete and the ip address in the router, then you can setup the with the wireless router (with the cable disconnected of course).
Doctor? wrote:
Overhead one day:
"Errrr John, this bloke says he's not using windows but something called Linux, what do I do" From distance: "whatever he tells you to"
Steve, that quip has just made me spill my tea 
I used to have that with my Mac - just the mere mention of the word 'Mac' used to have them quaking in their shoes
Kath wrote:
Steve...............if you are so bloody clever.......come over here and tell me why McAfee is doing my head in!
your answer is in your question.
I suggest the following....
press the windows key and R Type "control appwiz.cpl" (saves all that fannying around with the start menu). scroll down til you see McAffee click remove
then download AVG-free
Kath wrote:
Steve...............if you are so bloody clever.......come over here and tell me why McAfee is doing my head in!
your answer is in your question.
I suggest the following....
press the windows key and R Type "control appwiz.cpl" (saves all that fannying around with the start menu). scroll down til you see McAffee click remove
then download AVG-free
Hear hear, I was given McAfee to use with my pc. I thanked my friend with a cheery smile and once he'd gone, binned it and downloaded AVG.
Definitely the best antivirus I've used.
Chris Nash wrote: Hear hear, I was given McAfee to use with my pc. I thanked my friend with a cheery smile and once he'd gone, binned it and downloaded AVG. Definitely the best antivirus I've used.
My new fangled dual core all singing all dancing box has no AV at all. I am nehind a real wanker of a Linux firewall and use the web only sparsely in windows, and NEVER receive mail there.
AVG is great, the only niggle I have with it is that the free version can only schedule daily scans or none at all.
Kaspersky is better, but it's pricey and they catch on to fake keys quick nowdays.
I also have the Nvidia firewall on this machine. I have not used it on this box (as I say I am already well walled up), but I built a machine for a mate last year that had it on and I set it up for him. Amazingly powerful system, can firewall by...ip, protocol, domain,application, you name it. AND because it runs in the firmware of the network adapter, you get REAL live firewalling, but with the same donkeyproof "allow/deny" dialogues when something tries to connect.
Oh i dont know, i haven't been charged a penny for the PPV i've watched in the past couple of months... :evil:
I want a refund form Virgin media for the film i watched on pay per view the other day, Children Of Men .What a load of crap that film is
