b t 1471 robbery service

[big-all]

i just thought i would share this nugget with you


if you dial 1471 its free as usual

if your lazy like me [not any more]

if you press "3" it costs you 5p on top of any call charges

and even worse if you press "3" and dont get an answer

it still costs you 5p

found this out by accident just happend to look

at my account on line 10p charges i dont phone
on bt i use tele2

operator say look at 1471 info[under the headingof free services ironicly]there it is in black and white

from the first of august 5p to use ring back

dodgy gitts

big all

 

[ninebob]

BT is a rip-off anyway and I'm very cynical about all these "one-tel", "talk-talk" and so on.

I have NTL and although I have had customer service gripes with them in the past, they do seem to have pulled themselves together these days and the prices are excellent. Especially the BroadBand - I pay £24.99 per month and have just had the speed increased FOC from 600k to 750k as part of their upgrade programme.

 

[big-all]

all my phone calls are through tele 2 at 3p a unit[minimum charge 3p]
i save about 30% on call charges dont want to give it back to bt
via the back door

big all

 

[AdamW]

I believe the 1471+3 charge has been around as long as 1471, when I got my first BT line I read all the blurb and there it was.

I have BT. The problem with all companies (including ntl and telewest) is that they seem to compared their prices with the most expensive options on BT. I signed up for Skytalk, and since then BT have readjusted their call prices so I don't actually save anything.

Anyway, I worked out that either would cost me the same per month overall. I tried using Sky and ntl round other peoples' houses and found I preferred the Sky interface. Plus I get more channels... not necessarily ones worth watching, mind

The BT website has warnings of telco misselling, apparently there are lots of cases of salespeople making false claims. Like has happened with the utilities companies (happened to me, some goit signed me up for a different electricity company without my permission).

 

[AdamW]

Not to mention I was just looking at the ntl website and it crashed internet exploiter...

 

[breezer]

I have just started as director of a new phone service provider we will be saying


"new, no-tel is cheaper than B T"

so dont delay sign today


___________________________________

yeah right 'course i am (NOT), my point is that i can tell you this is cheaper than that, I can show stats that say mine is cheaper than yours, but as AdamW pointed out it depends on what rate i would be comparing to, which at the time of my presentation i "forget to mention"

IN my opinion bt is still the best, the other companies have "broken the monopoly" and forced BT prices down, but they are none too clever (yes i have had NThell, Mercury (remember them)

 

[AdamW]

A couple of ntl friends of mine have had reliability problems with the ntl service. As the phone and TV signals are travelling over the same wires if this cable is cut then EVERYTHING goes... TV, phone and internet.

You end up having to take a walk in the park or read a book or something

 

[ninebob]

NTL is a difficult thing to discuss, the whole network has been made up as they have bought out smaller cable companies and adopted their technologies. So what is true of one area may not be so in another.

For example, Brighton's NTL used to be Nynex, the cable TV menus are totally different and as far as I know caller display is still not available on the phone. Also, broadband is received through the TV set top box.

Here in Grantham we're in the ex-Diamond Cable area, we have caller display and stand-alone cable modems. As I mentioned earlier, I admit to having had customer service issues in the past but I do enjoy the advantage of now having 750k internet for less than most people pay for 512k.

I don't want to blow their trumpet too much but I do think they're starting to pull their socks up a bit. Remember, a few years ago (when the customer service was really crap) they were still climbing out of their impending bankruptcy.

 

[breezer]

its actually worse that that.

The "local distribution cabinet" is supplied by one fibre optic cable, if that goes down, loads of people loose, phone, tv & internet. dont you just love cable.

Here is one all cable companies dont tell you about, but its 100% true ( i have seen it), also, friend who worked for ntl didnt Know:

You are sitting at home watching, say sky one and you have say NTL cable tv.(could be any "SKY" channel )

Question: "How does that "sky" channel get to the cable that you have?"

Pause for thought before you check for answer











Answer:
The same way all us non cable people get it, it comes via satelite to the cable company (yes your local cable company has a satelite dish, that they told you no one needs with cable. )

They recieve ALL channels, decode them re-incrypt them and send them up their own network as which ever channel number they like.

They also have "remote booster stations" that have a sky dish, lots of decoders etc just to boost the signal, or if they cant get their main cable to an area, thats how they do it

 

[AdamW]

advantage of now having 750k internet for less than most people pay for 512k.

576kbps, I'll have you know

The faster cable modem speeds do look tempting, especially seeing as I can't go above 1mbps in this area on adsl, I'm too far from the exchange. So all the fast packages will have to wait until I live somewhere nearer

Are ntl still capping the daily download limit? It was 1gb a day a while ago, wondering if they have revoked it or not (too many people crying "trading standards laws" at them?)

 

[ninebob]

Answer:
The same way all us non cable people get it, it comes via satelite to the cable company (yes your local cable company has a satelite dish, that they told you no one needs with cable. )

Not entirely correct, breezer. Especially as you make it sound like they have a little minidish on the side of a shed! In many cases it's quite the opposite way round see here: http://www.ntlmediasolutions.com/

 

[ninebob]

576kbps, I'll have you know

That doesn't seem right, I don't see how you can be over speed but I could be wrong! Just out of interest try a direct comparison with me using this checker http://www.adslguide.org.uk/tools/speedtest.asp , I will post my results in a moment.

Are ntl still capping the daily download limit? It was 1gb a day a while ago, wondering if they have revoked it or not (too many people crying "trading standards laws" at them?)

I honestly don't know. I don't think it would affect me anyway, surely to need more than a gig per day you'd have to downloading films and so on which is naughty....?

 

[ninebob]

Ok, I got:

Direction...........Actual Speed.....................True Speed (estimated)
Downstream......695 Kbps (86.9 KB/sec).....750 Kbps (inc. overheads)
Upstream..........118 Kbps (14.8 KB/sec)......127 Kbps (inc. overheads)

Not too impressed with that tonight actually, when the upgrade first happened I ran the same test and got an actual of 712. Still, I guess it fluctuates according to overall traffic.

 

[AdamW]

I'd be interested to find out what those 100 channels are!

I'm surprised that ntl is planning a satellite-to-home service, I would have thought that anti-monopoly rules would forbid this (ironically). There are too many channels now, some of the c**p you find going through the channel list of any digital service (including Freeview!) is unbelievable.

"Half meg" ADSL definitely connects at 576kbps. This is what my router does, as does my parents modem, and two different routers owned by two different friends.

Sounds like an odd number, but 750 isn't a power of 2 either...

Will try the tester too.

 

[AdamW]

Direction............... Actual Speed.................... True Speed (estimated)

Downstream 439 Kbps (54.9 KB/sec).... 474 Kbps (inc. overheads)
Upstream 241 Kbps (30.1 KB/sec).... 260 Kbps (inc. overheads)


I have found that different testers give different results, the zdnet one reckons on a 500kbps downstream. In a real world situation I regularly download at an uncompressed 62kbytes per second, i.e. 496kbps plus overheads.

I have downloaded an "exhaustive" connection tester, will be trying it out in a mo, is apparently quite good.