Dumping NTL

zenmaster

I have been with NTL for a number of years but am getting fed up with their ridicuously high charges:

Family Pack £30.50
4M Broadband £24.99
Talk Unlimited 24 £13.99
Call Barring £ 1.75

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Total £71.73

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On this months (typical) bill I have £6.09 itemised calls and £23.66 non itemised, Total £29.75. The Talk Unlimited and Call Barring was supposed to remove these, but it doesn't seem to work very well.

In addition to this I pay a £20 month mobile bill with Tmobile, end of contract next month. So excluding calls (for the moment) I'm paying around£92/month or £1100/yr.

What I am thinking of doing is

Back to BT phone Line £11
Virgin mobile with broadband £15
Sky (with quidco cashback) £ 8
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Total £34 = £408/yr

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I was going to go for Freeview but reception round here is dubious, to say the least, and would probably involve a new aerial, so I don't reckon Sky will be that much dearer.

There's no guarantee that the calls made would be any cheaper so I am intending to get an Orchid dialler to do my own call barring, LC routing etc.

My initial question is, is this a good plan or is there a better way? Have I missed something blindingly obvious?

Secondly, should I cancel NTL first and risk being without phone/BB for a period or take out the new contracts first and risk having to pay both for a month?

Opinions and suggestions welcome.

Thanks very much.

chilli_dog

Have you called NTL to disconnect?

If you look around on this forum you'll find some people are getting good deals to stay with NTL

If your dead set on leaving then think about routing your calls through primus when you go back to BT.

Im sure someone will give you some better advise soon

Tallymanjohn

Yeah, I'm sure ntl are offering a better deal at the moment for combined TV/phone/BB - you seem to have them all as separate packages. You won't get down to the £34/month (well I don't think you will, but it is late on a Sunday evening) but it's worth giving them a call 1st....

Anon

As noted above, check the other threads - for example, I have Family pack 1/2 price for 6 months (advertised on their website for existing customers), 10MB BB £9.99 and Phone/TU24 for £10.49 - therefore around £30 all in. Call retentions, not the normal customer service - information is on the other thread (open MOnday to Friday 9-5) - say that you are conscious that you seem to be paying a lot for what you get and ask them to price match Talk Talk and also ask for the Family Pack offer. May be other offers as well.

Good Luck

Anon

asot

I don't think NTL is great but I would consider a few things before you left.

Firstly with regard to broadband I would make you aware that the Virgin product is capped at just 6gb - if this is all you are downloading then maybe downgrade to NTL 1mbit (soon to be 2) broadband because there is little benefit in having fast broadband for light users. If not then you are going to be running into trouble with Virgin and you should consider NTL/elsewhere. Also check to see what broadband speed is available on a BT line in your area.

Is there a BT line in your property already? If not it will cost around £125 to get one installed by BT.

Now with regards to phone calls I would suggest using a provider such as https://www.call18185.co.uk or checking on the MSE call checker for the cheapest providers. Get the dialler from https://www.orchid-electronics.com which will automatically dial the cheapest providers (as selected by you). This dialler will also allow you to bar calls. Now consider if Talk Unlimited is worthwhile anymore, my guess is probably not but you might make a lot of calls I guess.

I would look into a value pack (see http://www.home.ntl.com/icat/valuepacks). Even if you kept the same services you would pay only £49.99/month and with the dialler could save £20 on calls (estimate - could be even better). If broadband isn't important then you could get a cheaper pack say £39.99 for 1(soon to be 2) mbit broadband.

Also call NTL disconnections they will definately find you a package deal and save you some money. I'm not sure whether it would be best to do it before or after downgrading - maybe ring them first and see what discounts they are willing to do. They might keep your existing services and give you a much better price.

Finally thinking on the topic of Sky, the deal is only for the first year and things could soon work out so that they aren't so attractive. Of course you can always switch but when there are holes being drilled in my house and dishes being attached etc. I would want it to be for the long term.

littleange

I'd definately give ntl a call, they have been known to match offers to keep people.

You can get a new tv aerial from maplin for around £13-£30, we got the £13 one and it works well with freeview even in the loft, you could look for one that says its for a weak signal area, but I guess it still depends where you are.

The other alternative would be to look into VOIP for telephone, you can get adapters that connect to your router so you can use a normal phone. We just have 10mb broadband with NTL and managed to get it half price for a year by calling them at £17.50, £2ish a month for VOIP and freeview for TV.