Well I’ve now got Broadband – and only £10 per month (Although thats a 12 month contract so if I move it’s going to be expensive. ) And I’ve gone with NTL.
The reason behind the NTL choice this is simple – the flat I’m renting already has an NTL line in, a BT line would cost around £120 to be installed, and as you might guess, I’m not willing to pay any company to install something of their’s in my house, then charge me a fee per month to keep it there…
Here’s what I had to do to get NTL broadband .
– First I went to their website and signed up online.
– Next they phoned me to arrange an appointment.
– They agreed to come round only five days later – but they couldn’t give a time more precise than “between 12.00pm and 5.30pm” (which then changed in a text message they sent to “between 12.00pm and 6.00pm”) – so I had to waste half a day of my holidays to wait at home.
– They turned up at a 1.00pm (and as it was already installed) they stuck a wire in a box on the wall and attached a modem to it, then left. (So, 15 minutes of my lunch break could have covered this…)
– Now all I had to do was install the software and attach the modem.
Installing the software. So the idea is you install from a cd they provide and plug it when your told to. This I did. several installer screens later I got “Error 204, call 0870 48…”, with no other options than “close” available. So, even though I hate calling any tech help I did, and after a lengthy several minutes of “Hello, welcome to NTL Broadband support…” recorded message I got striaght through to a person and they solved my problem by doing something to the registration their end. I just had to reinstall. Great.
Installing the software again. Run through the installer again, and didn’t get any error (horah) so I could now register my details. Click OK – “Error 602. Call 0870…”. Right something else wrong, Suppose I’ve got no choice where’s that phone again, “Hello, welcome to NTL Broadband support…” (blah blah blah). So I explain the new problem (“It say’s Error 602, and nothing else). Now they want me to open up Internet explorer and go to an IP address (which makes me think I alrady have access…) So I go there and I fill my details in again, this time I can’t have my original login name (it must be taken… probably by me…) so I go through this while the lady stays on the phone, everthing seems OK, then they say “SO, I’ll leave you to finish that off now, all you’ll have to do is keep clicking OK” – now if that’s not the kiss of death I don’t know what is… – anyway I hang up and continue.
Registering. I click OK – Horah, every thing seems OK! , I click OK again – “An error has occured please contact technical support…” – you might guess I’m getting a little annoyed now – So I ring technical support again. “Hello, welcome to NTL Broadband support…” (blah blah blah blah bl**dy blah). Now when I get through the first thing I say is “This is the third time I’ve rung you..”, OK now she wants to put me on hold while she checks what the problem is, so I sit listening to “Lift music + Hi, Your call is important + lift music + We are recieving unusally high… + “if you have access to the internet please go to”… ) She comes back and says OK everything should work now – I ask if she can gurantee this, apparently she can and she’s willing to stay on the line while I fix it… I take the risk of believeing her (as I’m paying way to much for these calls from my mobile – I don’t have a landline)
Re-registering (Login name now different again), click OK, click OK, click OK…. the suspense is killing me… click OK. IT WORKED! Time to go to the pub me thinks…
(And just for the record, I did feel the people on the end of the line were trying to help – they were courteous and plesent, even if they were talking from the other side of the world very late at night. The last girl eveb sounded like I really nice person… but thats a different story)
And if your curious of how long it stayed up for: More storys coming soon… (Anyone care to take a guess?
#flag: NTL, broadband, internet