View Poll Results: Which One To Go For?
Sky
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24
85.71%
NTL
![](https://www.scoobynet.com/images/polls/bar3-l.gif)
![](https://www.scoobynet.com/images/polls/bar3.gif)
![](https://www.scoobynet.com/images/polls/bar3-r.gif)
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4
14.29%
Voters: 28. You may not vote on this poll
Sky/NTL etc...
#1
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Following on from http://bbs.scoobynet.co.uk/showthread.php?t=454592
I am hopefully moving into a house soon and have assumed I will get Sky but after reading the above I'm not so sure![Confused](https://www.scoobynet.com/images/smilies/confused.gif)
My girlfriends parents have NTL and it always seems to be freezing recently and going off for long periods of time (irrelevant of weather)![Frown](https://www.scoobynet.com/images/smilies/frown.gif)
What do people have then and good/bad info will be useful![Smile](https://www.scoobynet.com/images/smilies/smile.gif)
TIA
Matt
I am hopefully moving into a house soon and have assumed I will get Sky but after reading the above I'm not so sure
![Confused](https://www.scoobynet.com/images/smilies/confused.gif)
My girlfriends parents have NTL and it always seems to be freezing recently and going off for long periods of time (irrelevant of weather)
![Frown](https://www.scoobynet.com/images/smilies/frown.gif)
What do people have then and good/bad info will be useful
![Smile](https://www.scoobynet.com/images/smilies/smile.gif)
TIA
Matt
![Big Grin](https://www.scoobynet.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif)
#2
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I've had both, personally I'd go for Sky unless you want the full TV, Phone, Broadband package. NTL lacks features in comparison to Sky, although I expect they will offer similar services in due course.
Sky can be adversely affected by weather and trees etc blocking your line of sight.
Sky can be adversely affected by weather and trees etc blocking your line of sight.
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I guess it depends how much you want to spend and what's available. We went for Sky+ with the Sports Channels package for all the motorsport, I pay around £33 a month ![Smile](https://www.scoobynet.com/images/smilies/smile.gif)
Initially the Sky+ box failed to record a couple of GP's and then wouldn't work at all for the Touring Cars so I spent a while on the phone to a very helpful chap, the result of which was an engineer came out and replaced the LNB in the dish and, touch wood it's been fine ever since. We occasionally get the odd freeze but it sorts itself out within a second or two. Other than that I've been really pleased with Sky+![Smile](https://www.scoobynet.com/images/smilies/smile.gif)
Bet the bugger goes wrong now I've said that ^![Roll Eyes (Sarcastic)](https://www.scoobynet.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif)
My dad's Sky+ box threw a wobbly last weekend and decided it's hard drive was full when in fact it wasn't so none of the programmes he'd set to recored were actually recorded. He phoned Sky and they went through a series of button presses with him which cleared his Sky+ box and restored it to 100% empty disc space. It seems to be ok now, touch wood
We *think* the problem may have been that my mum and my sister were left in control of the Sky+ remote control whilst we were all away at Rally Germany
![Smile](https://www.scoobynet.com/images/smilies/smile.gif)
Initially the Sky+ box failed to record a couple of GP's and then wouldn't work at all for the Touring Cars so I spent a while on the phone to a very helpful chap, the result of which was an engineer came out and replaced the LNB in the dish and, touch wood it's been fine ever since. We occasionally get the odd freeze but it sorts itself out within a second or two. Other than that I've been really pleased with Sky+
![Smile](https://www.scoobynet.com/images/smilies/smile.gif)
Bet the bugger goes wrong now I've said that ^
![Roll Eyes (Sarcastic)](https://www.scoobynet.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif)
My dad's Sky+ box threw a wobbly last weekend and decided it's hard drive was full when in fact it wasn't so none of the programmes he'd set to recored were actually recorded. He phoned Sky and they went through a series of button presses with him which cleared his Sky+ box and restored it to 100% empty disc space. It seems to be ok now, touch wood
![Wink](https://www.scoobynet.com/images/smilies/wink.gif)
![EEK!](https://www.scoobynet.com/images/smilies/eek.gif)
![Big Grin](https://www.scoobynet.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif)
#4
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Originally Posted by scoobychick
My dad's Sky+ box threw a wobbly last weekend and decided it's hard drive was full when in fact it wasn't so none of the programmes he'd set to recored were actually recorded. He phoned Sky and they went through a series of button presses with him which cleared his Sky+ box and restored it to 100% empty disc space. It seems to be ok now, touch wood
![Wink](https://www.scoobynet.com/images/smilies/wink.gif)
![EEK!](https://www.scoobynet.com/images/smilies/eek.gif)
![Big Grin](https://www.scoobynet.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif)
#7
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Had both
Sky wins hands down
NTL customer service is much worse (In the terraced street where I used to live I spent a fantastically amusing Saturday morning seeing the abuse that the NTL installation guy got from all the housewives whose NTL wasnt working that week...nothing he could do, but just showed how unhappy everyone was with their service. I have spent over an hour on the phone to their customer services dept before, had orders lost, misplaced, wrongly billed etc etc etc
I'm not saying Sky are fabulous, but in a direct comparison......
Sky wins hands down
NTL customer service is much worse (In the terraced street where I used to live I spent a fantastically amusing Saturday morning seeing the abuse that the NTL installation guy got from all the housewives whose NTL wasnt working that week...nothing he could do, but just showed how unhappy everyone was with their service. I have spent over an hour on the phone to their customer services dept before, had orders lost, misplaced, wrongly billed etc etc etc
I'm not saying Sky are fabulous, but in a direct comparison......
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In the name of god don't get NTL!!!!
I've had both and would never go back to NTL even if they paid me (which they frequently had to in a desperate bid to try and keep my business).
They are by far and away the most god awful organisation i have ever had the displeasure of dealing with. There used to be a website dedicated to how crap they were (www.nthell.co.uk).
All that and the fact that since the software upgrade to their menu system just over a year ago - you have to re-start the box about twice a day as it regularly freezes!!
Complete Sh1te!
I've had both and would never go back to NTL even if they paid me (which they frequently had to in a desperate bid to try and keep my business).
They are by far and away the most god awful organisation i have ever had the displeasure of dealing with. There used to be a website dedicated to how crap they were (www.nthell.co.uk).
All that and the fact that since the software upgrade to their menu system just over a year ago - you have to re-start the box about twice a day as it regularly freezes!!
Complete Sh1te!
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On Telewest myself. Supreme TV package (most channels except Sky Sports, Movies, and other premium stuff), telephone and 1Mbps (soon to be 4Mbps) uncapped broadband.
As I live in a flat I don't have the option of Sky so it was Telewest or BT+Freeview.
Telewest's Internet services are very good.
TV is okay, not as many channels as Sky and no Sky+ type thing yet though I've heard one is in the pipeline. The set top box can lock up on odd occasions and require a reboot. The interactive stuff (red button) is slow and doesn't work very well, only really supported for a few channels, BBCi, ITV and Channel4 IIRC.
Always found their customer service good, if I have a problem they can often get someone out the next day, and are also quite happy to come at weekends.
It will do me until I get a house of my own. Then with the option of having a dish I'm not sure what I'll do.
As I live in a flat I don't have the option of Sky so it was Telewest or BT+Freeview.
Telewest's Internet services are very good.
TV is okay, not as many channels as Sky and no Sky+ type thing yet though I've heard one is in the pipeline. The set top box can lock up on odd occasions and require a reboot. The interactive stuff (red button) is slow and doesn't work very well, only really supported for a few channels, BBCi, ITV and Channel4 IIRC.
Always found their customer service good, if I have a problem they can often get someone out the next day, and are also quite happy to come at weekends.
It will do me until I get a house of my own. Then with the option of having a dish I'm not sure what I'll do.
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i'm with Telewest for phone/TV/broadband - can't fault the service
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#18
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I know it's been posted before but this will help swing you in favour of Sky ![Wink](https://www.scoobynet.com/images/smilies/wink.gif)
![Wink](https://www.scoobynet.com/images/smilies/wink.gif)
Complaint Letter of the Year. The British do have a way with words.... A real-life customer complaint letter sent to NTL (to their complaints
dept....)
Dear Cretins,
I have been an NTL customer since 9th July 2001, when I signed up for your 3-in-one deal for cable TV, cable modem, and telephone. During this three-month period I have encountered inadequacy of service which I had not previously considered possible, as well as ignorance and stupidity of monolithic proportions. Please allow me to provide specific details, so that you can either pursue your professional prerogative, and seek to rectify these difficulties - or more likely (I suspect) so that you can have some entertaining reading material as you while away the working day smoking B&H and drinking vendor-coffee on the bog in your office:
My initial installation was cancelled without warning, resulting in my spending an entire Saturday sitting on my fat **** waiting for your technician to arrive. When he did not arrive, I spent a further 57 minutes listening to your infuriating hold music, and the even more annoying Scottish robot woman telling me to look at your helpful website....HOW?
I alleviated the boredom by playing with my ********* for a few minutes - an activity at which you are no-doubt both familiar and highly adept. The rescheduled installation then took place some two weeks later, although the technician did forget to bring a number of vital tools - such as a drill-bit, and his cerebrum. Two weeks later, my cable modem had still not arrived. After 15 telephone calls over 4 weeks my modem arrived... six weeks after I had requested it, and begun to pay for it.
I estimate your internet server's downtime is roughly 35%... hours between about 6pm -midnight, Mon-Fri, and most of the weekend. I am still waiting for my telephone connection. I have made 9 calls on my mobile to your no-help line, and have been unhelpfully transferred to a variety of disinterested individuals, who are it seems also highly skilled bollock jugglers.
I have been informed that a telephone line is available (and someone will call me back); that no telephone line is available (and someone will call me back); that I will be transferred to someone who knows whether or not a telephone line is available (and then been cut off); that I will be transferred to someone (and then been redirected to an answer machine informing me that your office is closed); that I will be transferred to someone and then been redirected to the irritating Scottish robot woman...and several other variations on this theme.
Doubtless you are no longer reading this letter, as you have at least a thousand other dissatisfied customers to ignore, and also another one of those crucially important ********-moments to attend to. Frankly I don't care, it's far more satisfying as a customer to voice my frustration's in print than to shout them at your unending hold music. Forgive me, therefore, if I continue.
I thought BT were ****, that they had attained the holy ****-pot of god-awful customer relations, that no-one, anywhere, ever, could be more disinterested, less helpful or more obstructive to delivering service to their customers. That's why I chose NTL, and because, well, there isn't anyone else is there? How surprised I therefore was, when I discovered to my considerable dissatisfaction and disappointment what a useless shower of *******s you truly are. You are sputum-filled pieces of distended rectum incompetents of the highest order.
British Telecom - ******* though they are - shine like brilliant beacons of success, in the filthy puss-filled mire of your seemingly limitless inadequacy. Suffice to say that I have now given up on my futile and foolhardy quest to receive any kind of service from you. I suggest that you cease any potential future attempts to extort payment from me for the services which you have so pointedly and catastrophically failed to deliver
- any such activity will be greeted initially with hilarity and disbelief quickly be replaced by derision, and even perhaps bemused rage. I enclose two small deposits, selected with great care from my cats litter tray, as an expression of my utter and complete contempt for both you and your pointless company. I sincerely hope that they have not become desiccated during transit - they were satisfyingly moist at the time of posting, and I would feel considerable disappointment if you did not experience both their rich aroma and delicate texture. Consider them the very embodiment of my feelings towards NTL, and its worthless employees.
Have a nice day - may it be the last in you miserable short life, you irritatingly incompetent and infuriatingly unhelpful bunch of *****.
dept....)
Dear Cretins,
I have been an NTL customer since 9th July 2001, when I signed up for your 3-in-one deal for cable TV, cable modem, and telephone. During this three-month period I have encountered inadequacy of service which I had not previously considered possible, as well as ignorance and stupidity of monolithic proportions. Please allow me to provide specific details, so that you can either pursue your professional prerogative, and seek to rectify these difficulties - or more likely (I suspect) so that you can have some entertaining reading material as you while away the working day smoking B&H and drinking vendor-coffee on the bog in your office:
My initial installation was cancelled without warning, resulting in my spending an entire Saturday sitting on my fat **** waiting for your technician to arrive. When he did not arrive, I spent a further 57 minutes listening to your infuriating hold music, and the even more annoying Scottish robot woman telling me to look at your helpful website....HOW?
I alleviated the boredom by playing with my ********* for a few minutes - an activity at which you are no-doubt both familiar and highly adept. The rescheduled installation then took place some two weeks later, although the technician did forget to bring a number of vital tools - such as a drill-bit, and his cerebrum. Two weeks later, my cable modem had still not arrived. After 15 telephone calls over 4 weeks my modem arrived... six weeks after I had requested it, and begun to pay for it.
I estimate your internet server's downtime is roughly 35%... hours between about 6pm -midnight, Mon-Fri, and most of the weekend. I am still waiting for my telephone connection. I have made 9 calls on my mobile to your no-help line, and have been unhelpfully transferred to a variety of disinterested individuals, who are it seems also highly skilled bollock jugglers.
I have been informed that a telephone line is available (and someone will call me back); that no telephone line is available (and someone will call me back); that I will be transferred to someone who knows whether or not a telephone line is available (and then been cut off); that I will be transferred to someone (and then been redirected to an answer machine informing me that your office is closed); that I will be transferred to someone and then been redirected to the irritating Scottish robot woman...and several other variations on this theme.
Doubtless you are no longer reading this letter, as you have at least a thousand other dissatisfied customers to ignore, and also another one of those crucially important ********-moments to attend to. Frankly I don't care, it's far more satisfying as a customer to voice my frustration's in print than to shout them at your unending hold music. Forgive me, therefore, if I continue.
I thought BT were ****, that they had attained the holy ****-pot of god-awful customer relations, that no-one, anywhere, ever, could be more disinterested, less helpful or more obstructive to delivering service to their customers. That's why I chose NTL, and because, well, there isn't anyone else is there? How surprised I therefore was, when I discovered to my considerable dissatisfaction and disappointment what a useless shower of *******s you truly are. You are sputum-filled pieces of distended rectum incompetents of the highest order.
British Telecom - ******* though they are - shine like brilliant beacons of success, in the filthy puss-filled mire of your seemingly limitless inadequacy. Suffice to say that I have now given up on my futile and foolhardy quest to receive any kind of service from you. I suggest that you cease any potential future attempts to extort payment from me for the services which you have so pointedly and catastrophically failed to deliver
- any such activity will be greeted initially with hilarity and disbelief quickly be replaced by derision, and even perhaps bemused rage. I enclose two small deposits, selected with great care from my cats litter tray, as an expression of my utter and complete contempt for both you and your pointless company. I sincerely hope that they have not become desiccated during transit - they were satisfyingly moist at the time of posting, and I would feel considerable disappointment if you did not experience both their rich aroma and delicate texture. Consider them the very embodiment of my feelings towards NTL, and its worthless employees.
Have a nice day - may it be the last in you miserable short life, you irritatingly incompetent and infuriatingly unhelpful bunch of *****.
#20
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Definitely Sky, I've only bothered to phone NTL once (after they cut my connection off at their end, so there was nothing I could do to fix it) and spent something like 10 hours trying to speak to someone. Never again - if I end up in that situation again I'll simply cancel the direct debit, stick the lot in a carrier bag and set it out the front for them to collect.
Prior to getting NTL I'd only ever experienced Sky, and didn't realise just how bad a TV service could be. Only reason I still have NTL is because I can't get Freeview in the center of Glasgow
and the analogue signal is rubbish.
Prior to getting NTL I'd only ever experienced Sky, and didn't realise just how bad a TV service could be. Only reason I still have NTL is because I can't get Freeview in the center of Glasgow
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