Heamoraging money to NTL: Switching Advice Please

hurrah

telecomsavings wrote:

BT uses too many indian call centres

BT have 33 call centres i believe and only 3 of them are in India.

JeffMinter

This is a bit off topic, but I've a concern of my own about switching. My parents are spending £10 a month + calls (mostly to mobiles) on the basic 3-2-1 ntl phone package, which amounts to £15-£25 a month. Given that they are retired, the budget is restricted and want to know what the cheapest way out of ntl is; if at all - I do feel guilty, as I was the one who persuaded them to switch in the first place (in the days of digital tv being a novelty).

Before ntl, we had a bog standard BT phone line, and as I remember it we only had to pay every quarter year, and the calls were really cheap (if you can imagine calls accumulated over 3 months, it only amounted to £5 max!). What's the best course of action for the cheapest line rental possible?

hurrah

JeffMinter wrote:

This is a bit off topic, but I've a concern of my own about switching. My parents are spending £10 a month + calls (mostly to mobiles) on the basic 3-2-1 ntl phone package, which amounts to £15-£25 a month. Given that they are retired, the budget is restricted and want to know what the cheapest way out of ntl is; if at all - I do feel guilty, as I was the one who persuaded them to switch in the first place (in the days of digital tv being a novelty).

Before ntl, we had a bog standard BT phone line, and as I remember it we only had to pay every quarter year, and the calls were really cheap (if you can imagine calls accumulated over 3 months, it only amounted to £5 max!). What's the best course of action for the cheapest line rental possible?

If they register with 18185 they could use freephone access number and reduce their mobile charges and stay where they are ,as £10 a month line rental is pretty good,shame about other prices.

http://www.18185.co.uk/mobilerates.php

4p connection. 6p a min peak/evenings 2p weekends.(Any UK network!!!)

bbb_uk

telecomsavings wrote:

BT uses too many indian call centres and the customer services is slightly worse than NTL.

BT do not have the best customer services (very few actually do) but going by what I've read on this forum and other sites and that is more people have bad words against NTL more so than BT. Don't NTL have several sites setup by former/current angry customers (ntlhell or something) and get constant complaints especially about billing issues, etc.

BT can raise that £1 admin fee if they want as this is not covered by Ofcom's conditions. Ofcom only regulates line rental,usage prices,competition,marketing of BT,openreach and a few others.

It's my understanding that BT have an agreement with Ofcom that the non-direct debit fee stays low as well as BT have to keep their LUS (Light User Scheme) and In-Contact Plus tariffs which are actually loss-makers for BT. Don't get me wrong, I do believe that if BT had the complete freedom that NTL/TW have (compared to BT) then the non-direct debit surcharge would definitely increase.

If NTL/TW were forced to open their networks to other providers then that would force NTL/TW to rethink their expensive telephony package and would probably make them more competitive instead of keeping their general telephony prices above BT's which is stupid if you ask me.

Furthermore, Ofcom has proven to be useless...

No argument from me whatsoever.

I assume due to you lack of comment to my previous post pointing out that NTL are more expensive that you now agree that NTL/TW are in most cases (except call conveniences packs) expensive than BT. Always remember that with a BT line, there are many, many other cheaper suppliers (for calls anyhow) than BT.

telecomsavings

I do agree that they are a bit expensive, but for what I've experienced, the service has been excellent compared to how it was when I was with BT.

Furthermore, we can't really use short dial codes and have all different bills as someone elderly lives here and they will get really confused!

And i'm happy that there is one bill for all three services, quite a few companies charge around £1 for not paying by direct debit anyway, so if you use seperate providers, you could be paying up to £4 per month for not paying by direct debit anyway. Whatsmore, don't 40% of NTL customers pay by direct deibt ? So its only a handful of customers who actually pay this amount.

With regards to the 3-2-1 tariff, you could add the Mobile caller ad-on which costs around £2 per month and offers discounted calls to mobiles. I think NTL will also launch Talk Anywhere which offers inclusive minutes to call mobiles,landlines,0845&0870 numbers, Telewest already does this.

bbb_uk

telecomsavings wrote:

I do agree that they are a bit expensive, but for what I've experienced, the service has been excellent compared to how it was when I was with BT.

I wouldn't really use the word 'a bit expensive' as its not just a penny or two but in most cases a lot more especially their Anytime plan which costs £14 (compared to BT's £9) is not 'a bit expensive' but a lot if you ask me.

TW customer services is better than NTL's if you ask me. I'm actually a TW customer for broadband as cable broadband (via TW anyhow) is better with a more constant speed and you don't have any of the troubles that ADSL broadband has. Oh and it's unlimited which is rare these days.

Do NTL still have limitations on their broadband of somekind as TW don't?

We were on TW telephone and moved to BT and haven't looked back since then as our bills are practically nothing (except for linerental) compared with how much we were paying TW for the exact same service. Even TW rententions couldn't match the prices available via BT and they tried everything to get us to stay and I said we would if they could match or near-enough match the prices available to us via a BT line. Obviously in the end they couldn't.

With regards to the 3-2-1 tariff, you could add the Mobile caller ad-on which costs around £2 per month and offers discounted calls to mobiles.

I'm sure BT has something similar.

gowhiz

hi peeps i just rung ntl up for my mac code to switch broadband suppliers
i was gonna go to pipex but ntl matched the price and have increased my connection speed so i am gonna stay put
they gave me the cost difference in the form of a credit to my account so for the next couple of months i will be on freetime
its worth a try anyone good luck