Great experience with quality services.

–
Aidan

I am with this company since 1 1/2 years. My experiences are between somehow relieved they got the issues sorted and disgusted by the way they treat their customers.

I had 2 months of daily failure, a couple of times when it went down and since 2 days the service is gone again. If you try to call customer support you have to plan in at least half an hour waiting. When you get through you get unsatisfying to no answers.

Sending an email – they will call you back straight onto your mailbox. No chance to answert the call except you ask for this in the email. If you have the chance to talk to someone: Always keep in mind what they say might not be true. I have talked to about 7 different people and they all tell me different things about the problem with the line.

All together down time in 1 1/2 years: over 2 Months
Technicians coming in: 6
Hours spent on phone with them: Far too many.
Refunds promised: 1
Refunds received: 0

Make your own choice…

I am writing regarding the most inadequate, substandard, incompetent service that I had to endure from Chorus. It takes on average 20 to 40 minutes to get your call answered and when you eventually get to speak to someone you clearly get an inadequate response. I had problems with both my telephone service and television service on a continuous basis and they were never adequately rectified. It would take approximately two weeks to send a technician out who would tell you there was no major problem.

I requested to suspend my service due to travel and it took them over two weeks to respond to my e-mail and then charge me a penalty of 100 euro, combined with the fact that the service was suspended for over three weeks after the date I requested. Following that they sent. I complained but was ignored in all my correspondence to Chorus and subsequently received threats if the amount was not paid that I would be on a debtors list. For my own name and reputation I paid this BUT I find it unacceptable that they send me such threats when they have been more than obnoxious in dismissing me as a customer and failed to communicate with me.

I would urge anyone who is contemplating Chorus to think carefully as the experience is horrific and there is a constant breakdown of service which has cost me my time and significant inconvenience. In light of the current economic climate when companies are struggling, it is a disgrace to think that companies like Chorus are surviving.

I have been with ntl upc for almost 2 years .Beside the fact that the speed is crap some times,.. i got a lether saying i have gone over the fair limit wich is 250gb about 7 monts ago. So i started monitoring my trafic .A few days ago i get my huge bill saying that i have been upgraded for the extreme user because i have used 390gb in the mont of march only.Wich is a lot of crap!!!!! the bigest scam!!!! .Because i monitored my usage and because i only download 2,3 movies per week and because i changed my wap key with a very long one after receiveing my first leather ….only one option is standing…..They are a bunch of greedy tiefs!!!!!!!!!!

got 15mb no real notable problems epc2425 is the wireless router had a firmware issue for a few weeks but now it works all day constant speed of 14.93mb and 1.43 upload which is what i payed for great for gaming xbox live never lag
Try and workout how close you are to your node which is like a telephone exchange there boxes located on footpaths not hard to miss see how close you are to it closer means better connection just like dsl

I moved from Eircom to UPC one year ago and I cannot fault it – I have not been offline since. I get 15mb download speed and I pay for 15mb. Nice One. TV service needs improvement and is not recommended although it is improving.

I’ve been with them for years in Kilkenny, both broadband and television. Not phone, because I use only VOIP and mobile now, which means I don’t need to have Eircom in my life at all. While there are occasional issues, these have become far less common of late and the service has definitely improved quite a bit. Looking forward to better speeds in the future.

Best Broadband for Kilkenny ,best speed ,uptime ,download speed ,customer service has got better in recent years

PIRATE BAY 4EVEr!!!!!!!!!TORRENTS 4EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!
CHORUS??????????……………FK CHORUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

I have set up an account for an apartment last year, the bill was completely incorrect, finally they admitted this and made a mess of every bill there after, so i had to monitor my bills to make sure they werent over charging me ( they never seemed to send incorrect bills under charging me).
I have just set up a new account and they have done the same thing!! Im blue in the face wasting my time trying to get billed correctly, they quote € 70 for a fibre web package, (tv broadband) buying each separately seems to cost less? They also quote there services, residential services ex VAT? This in my view is misleading, this is a residential service, I wont be claiming VAT back! We have been charged installation fee twice this bill also????

Upgraded to 30mb broadband, often get 1-5mb, rerely over 10. I once found it up at 21 but it never reached the speeds promised, even when plugged in using ethernet and testing speed on their own server. Too many times ive called and waited, then complained and been promised a call back, but nothing. Extremely poor reliability. We also have tv from chorus, the tuner box is shit, the menu is shit, the service is shit and the customer support is shit. DONT GET UPC. If i could give them 0 stars for customer service and reliability i would. The ONLY positive thing i have to say about them is that they dont charge line rental, but id prefer to pay that and have a reliable connection, than the crock of shit im paying for now. I should not have changed from Imagine.

After signing up to 10MB and getting that speed, for all of 2 months now I am stuck with a 0.8mb download and page timeouts…. on hold for 3 consecutive nights for 30 mins plus the one night I persevered I got through to a lady who told me shou would have to get me a call back in 24-48 hours from a broadband tech rep…. who had I waited 30 mins to speak to? after option 2, option 2 option 2 option 2, my blood type and stool sample? I would love to see what course of action they are going to take or excuse I get fobbed off with.

With Chorus/Ntl broadband now for three weeks. Paying for 15 mb and Im continiously getting speeds of 15mb every day. Havent needed to phone customer service yet and to be honest Im happy as I was with Eircom and was paying the same for 1mb and worse telephone bundle deal

I would stay and give them a chance you always have problems at the start just keep on the phone to them and you will get it sorted. If they have put two splitters on to your pipe wire take one off you only need one. One guy put two on my pipe wire was having trouble then another guy came out and could not understand why they do this so give that a try because it effects everything. Hope it works out ok so far they have been very helpful . I have a few family members moved over so they don’t have to pay eircom 25 euro line rental.

Hello I have been with UPC/NTL since the 20th Feb 2010 using wireless braodband at 22€ per month when you have a TV service with UPC. All was fine for the first week with the broadband. Suddenly the TV and broadband failed and in the past few weeks we are having loads of problems. We have no internet connection however it will work for a short period. The story is so long I wont go in to it hot yesterday evening we spent from 6.35 pm untill 10 pm trying to solve the problem whilst on the phone to UPC Technical support but no luck as my wifes mobile lost connection at approx 8pm. After 8 pm the internet connected for about 15 mins. I have sent UPC an email that one A4 page long. They continue to haress me to get piad thier invoice. I was with Vodafone and I had no problems but I changed to same money as I didnt need the landline at a total cost of approx 48 per mth. I am now sorry I changed to UPC. Do I try and stay with UPC and things might get sorted or what?

Hello I have been with UPC/NTL since the 20th Feb 2010 using wireless braodband at 22€ per month when you have a TV service with UPC. All was fine for the first week with the broadband. Suddenly the TV and broadband failed and in the past few weeks we are having loads of problems. We have no internet connection however it will work for a short period. The story is so long I wont go in to it hot yesterday evening we spent from 6.35 pm untill 10 pm trying to solve the problem whilst on the phone to UPC Technical support but no luck as my wifes mobile lost connection at approx 8pm. After 8 pm the internet connected for about 15 mins. I have sent UPC an email that one A4 page long. They continue to haress me to get piad thier invoice. I was with Vodafone and I had no problems but I changed to same money as I didnt need the landline at a total cost of approx 48 per mth. I am now sorry I changed to UPC. Do I try and stay with UPC and things might get sorted or what?

CRAP CRAP CRAP

Have been with upc over the last couple of months .I have had a few early problems with there help from there staff got them sorted. customer service staff are good had to wait but unlike smart telecom ringing upc is free so don’t mind waiting am happy with the way I can access my account details online. easy to sort out problem lets hope they don’t start messing people around.

@ Ryan in a previous comment

“its worth it when you have 3 people in the house who torrent like its going out of fashion. For the last 3 months in a row we have been clocking up well in excess of 1TB a month (no bull)”

Really? stealing copyrighted works ? who gives you the devine right to STEAL peoples property? I trust the bad Karma from doing this will be interesting …

Your arrogance is pathetic

Hi
I use broadband for home and business.
Working in the Entertainment world I need a reliable connection to the internet which unfortunately NTL Chorus / UPC ( or whatever they call themselves now) have been unable to supply as contracted.

I live in Howth Dublin and every day the internet will be unavailable for up to three hours intermittent. Looking at their website which has been “upgraded” from their previous yellow pack version or if you like “My first website” standard, You can see what the problem is :contempt for the customer and respect for the bottomline.

Chorus NTL Ireland is absolutely the worst service provider I have ever had the misfortune to use.

I am looking at alternative options

Granted, their customer and tech support agents are possibly the most usless people you can ever speak to, their product does speak for itself. Where i am living now we have a 30down/5up connection, with true unlimited down/uploads. Granted this does cost us 100e a month, its worth it when you have 3 people in the house who torrent like its going out of fashion. For the last 3 months in a row we have been clocking up well in excess of 1TB a month (no bull) But like clockwork the connection will drop every night every few mins to hours between 5-10pm (Peak times) and its not a ip change as we have a static IP. But any other time its fantastic. No ports blocked at all. If you are like me and only download BR movies and FLAC lossless music then this is the company for you. They are by no means great, but are the best of a bad bunch.

IF YOU WANT BROADBAND DO NOT EXPECT IT FROM THESE COWBOYS!
IF YOU WANT A MODEM THAT FLASHES ITS LIGHTS AND DOES NOTHING ELSE THEN SIGN UP!

A JOKE COMPLETE AND UTTER JOKE THEY SHOULD ADVERTISE ON THAT GAME SHOW ON TV3 AT MIDNIGHT

Last week I signed for Fibre Power Broadband 5Mb order was confirmed by NTL.
A few days later I received the followinf information “Thank you for your online order. Unfortunately the Fibre Power Broadband service is currently not available at your address. When your area is upgraded to Fibre Power Broadband you will receive written notification from us.”

Today I received a call from NTL saying, for the moment they have no modems available, but they can install TV, (service that I did not order) and my answer was NO, I don’t watch TV I have no TV why I have to pay for something I don’t want, Idon’t use and I didn’t asked. No business with this kind of companies.Don’t trust the service they advertise.

there are a lot of negative comments about UPC on here and I don’t doubt that a lot of them are justified, but although I have been burned by both ntl (twice) and chorus in the past, I’ve found UPC to be pretty good overall since i signed up at the end of 2008.

It’s not been totally hassle free, but for the most part I am a lot happier with them than with my previous ISP (BT Ireland).

Yes, they impose a FUP of 250gb on their top product, but for €40 per month for a 30mbps connection, it’s a lot cheaper than paying for TWO eircom or other 24mbps DSL connections that wouldn’t normally give you half that speed.

I’m paying UPC for 30mbps and off-peak I usually get almost exactly that and although I do sometimes lose about half of that during peak times, it’s still much better than I would ever get on DSL.

Come August, that 30mbps will become 60mbps (or 120mbps if you have deep enough pockets) and there isn’t a DSL connection in the country that can come even close to that, even under the ideal theoretical conditions that nobody will ever get.

Since I arrived in Ireland a few years ago, very very few of the many ISPs I have used have ever compared to the service I’ve received in other countries, quite frankly the Irish are being ripped-off by the “service” providers here. There are very few if any ISPs I could recommend here either for their service or customer care.
However UPC (chorus/NTL) is – or was – one of the best I’ve used here. I’ve used UPC in Cork for 3 years now and until the last year or so all was well.

In the last year the connection speed has steadily declined and ping times have massively increased. As well as this, contacting customer care queue times have jumped enormously. Just today I spent 1 hour and 30 minutes in queue on the phone (I have a hands-free phone fortunately). Only to be disconnected twice and queue again for another 15-30 mins.

These days, at least in Cork, connection speeds with UPC are generally less than half of what you pay for and that’s just on a good day. I hear they are upgrading the network but that excuse has been going on now for a year.

If you are moving to Cork I would not recommend using UPC for the time being. When they finally get around to finishing their perpetual upgrade works in the area then perhaps.

Good broadband product. TERRIBLE customer service. They are guarenteed to screw up everything you ask them to do, without fail. They will promise to call you back over and over but never actually do it. Very unplesant to deal with. It took two rgistered letters, three non-registered letters and 10 calls to get my account closed in my last address.

I live in Lucan and am amazed by all of the comments on this page. I’m on the 10mb package and find it great. Great for online gaming – PC and Xbox live, general browsing and bigger downloads. The only negative thing that I have to say about Chorus-NTL is that the customer service is nothing short of apalling. I had to contact them once and the response time was insulting. I wrote to them to complain about that, but heard nothing back.

Customer service Bad, Product Good!

CONGESTION ISSUES PLAGUE THE NETWORK IN CORK AT THE MOMENT, MONTHS OF WORK TO BE DONE, MY ADVICE WAIT AND MAKE SURE THE UPGRADE TO FIBRE-OPTIC IS FULLY COMPLETE AND THEN DEFINITELY GET CHORUS BROADBAND, TERRIBLE SERVICE FOR LAST FEW MONTHS IN MY AREA CLOSE TO UCC AND FRIDAY-SUNDAY SPEED IS OK/GOOD BUT SUNDAY EVENING AND MIDWEEK EVENINGS THE SPEED IS ALL OVER THE PLACE, I CAN ONLY COME TO THE CONCLUSION THAT CHORUS SOLD A LOAD OF NEW CONTRACTS IN MY AREA AND STUDENTS ARE PLUGGIN IN ALL ROUND SAME TIME, AS FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE ITS FULL OF LYING INCOMPETENT WASTERS WHO DONT WANT TO BE THERE SO JUST WAIT A FEW MONTHS AND HOPEFULLY THE SERVICE WILL BE TOP AGAIN COZ ITS RUBBISH NOW TRUST ME!!!!

If You are considering online gaming avoid these like the plague….I have the 10mb Broadband and Value Pack TV from them…For a week after installation I still hadn’t received the 1 High Def Channel I was paying an extra 2.50pm for.They sent out 2 different engineers…The 2nd one told me that HD wasn’t even available in my area even though it was sold to me….On my 2nd bill I was charged 10 euro for downgrading from HD pack…(I’m Guessing They Don’t Recruit From MENSA Databases)..
Regarding the broadband itself,its not a problem for regular PC stuff. But using xbox live is disastrous,Ping is way too high for gaming….Done a Speedtest recently : 24mbs down 1mbs up and still lagging across the screen on xbox with those speeds. Oh yeah If You Nag Them Enough They Will Boost More Juice Down Your Line( I Regularly Get More Than 20mbs For The Price Of 10)

the speeds are half of what you pay, they trans fare you to a premium line (1 EURO A MINUTE) when you contact customer support, the “support team” are the most patronising idiots who dont know what the fuck they are talking about. just unbelievably BAD

Dreadful ISP.

A so-called “Unlimited” service but they have a “Fair Usage Policy” which allows them to set your combined upload and download to whatever they wish. I exceeded this arbitrary limit and received a warning letter. They should be open about these limits and not claim to have an “Unlimited” service.

I was with NTL for the last 3 years. Their service was usually good and it was good value for money. Lately the quality of service is getting worse and worse.

For the last 3 month I was getting package losses of up to 20% in the evening. I guess they have sold too many new connections in my area and can’t cope with the contention anymore. 7-9p.m. 20MBit gives me a speed of 200kb/s. Ping is constant above 200ms to google.ie.

Not worth 40 Euro, I am moving to a different ISP.

Chorus NTL is Completely Crap!

I have been happy with this ISP. They even upgraded me up to 10mb for free from 3mb. But lately my internet speeds have been dropping horrendously to sometimes below 0.5mb download speed and my ping gets up to about 200. But apparently this is the best of a bad bunch. As soon as a better ISP comes to Ireland I will be straight on it.

Would have been better if they did not have customer service at all, to save our nerves, time and money. Worst ISP in this country..

At ‘10 Mb’ speed, I spend about 4 hours streaming a 40-minute tv-show… This has to be illegal in a developed country! And NTL are meant to be the best provider?! What are the rest of them like?

OK THIS IS A MESSAGE TO ALL NEW COMERS, IF YOU WANT SERVICE FORM THIS COMANY THINK AGAIN.
PLEASE
PLEASE DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY. YOU WILL PAY TOO MUCH FOR SO LITTLE.

YOU MAY THINK PAYING €32 SOUNDS QUITE GOOD FOR 10MB SERVICE BUT INFACT YOU WILL PAY MORE MONEY IN THE LONG RUN.

ALSO WHY DO THEY HAVE TO PENALIZE YOU FOR DOWNGRADING?????

CLICK, CLICK, CLICK AND YOUR DOWN GRADED…. SO WHY DO THEY PAY €10 DOWNGRADE??? ILL TELL YOU WHY ITS THEIR WAY OF PUNISHING YOU.

THESE PEOPLE ARE NO DIFFERENT THAN THE BULLIES, PIMPS AND CORNER DRUG PUSHERS YOU SEE AROUND THE STREETS.
I WOULD RATHER GET SHAFTED BY SADDAM AND g BUSH jr

so for those of you out there start writing complaints and hopefully those horse holes will get their act together (but i dought it)

i have found chorus service appauling from start to finish i would not even rate them.with its constant signal problems it felt like we spent more time without channels than with.And not to mention their absolutly crap customer service i think their staff must be ashamed to work for them they must only employ assholes!Even now that iv cancelled paying what was outstanding on my bill they are continuing to bill me crazy money saying that the address on the back of the bill is actualy the wrong address for cancelations which i think is supplying customers with misleading information.i hate them and would hope anyone considering getting them would think twice!

When it works it works great, although lately i have been dropping signal a lot.I think UPC are really the best of a very bad bunch.Heard nothing but horror stories about Eircom etc.

The technicians are cowboys and the customer service is horrendous although the waiting times on the phone have reduced.

If i were you reading this go outside and do something productive,its now 04:12am and i`m still here sitting in front of this screen.

I`m going to bed

I am lovin this broadband just got the 10mb package today and i am very happy with it. if my speed drops all i have to do is restart the router and off i go!

What a joke, this company really needs to pull its thumb out. When calling customer services to report a problem with digi+ box, I was forced to listen to a barrage of advertising about how NTL, have won this award and that award. Well, it would answer them better to concentrate on their customers, who are left holding on for an unncessary amount of time. NTL, have the potential to be a great company, if they would only clean up their act.

Getting pissed off with them now. Been with them over year and for the first couple of months the service was great, but as they’re consumer base has grown they’ve started making cutbacks, in terms of what speeds i get throughout the day, and ping times are absolutely embarrassing.

Costumer service then is pretty non-existent too with seemingly no-one knowing what on earth their job is meant to be.

Cowboys. And i’ll be switching the moment some actual competition for them enters the market. Won’t hold ,my breath on that one. What a hole of a country we live in.

Worst broadband i have ever had. Ping time goes up and down every second so i cant use my connection for gaming, various download speed, depend on time of the day.

I dont recommen Chorus NTL

Signed up to the 20Mb package a month ago for €42, double the price of the 3Mb. And yet my download speed have rarely gone above 1.5Mb – what the hell am I paying €42 for? After phoning to make sure to had me switched over and complaining I was told a technician would call me back. Which never happened. I complained again. Same thing. I was then asked by one service guy what I was downloading and why I needed such speed anyway. I asked him why I was paying for a service I wasn’t receiving and to just drop me back top the 3Mb package as I’m not even even getting a 3Mb speed. He told me there would be a charge for this. So I have to pay to downgrade from a service I’m paying for and never received. Absolute bullshit.

Absoloutely disgusting.. WORST ISP in Ireland.. horrible service.. and the connection is desperate. Ping time is horrible. I use my connection for gaming.. and at the moment… I cannot even stream videos normally. Absolutely disgusted with their service, and regretted moving from my previous provider, as I assumed moving to their 20MB connection was better than my previous 7MB. Little did I know I would be getting a few KB when it gets busy.

I wouldnt recommend Chorus NTL even to people I hate, as even they dont deserve such horrific service.

I had ntl/chorus when I lived in Dublin for the duration of my 12 month contract I made 2 phone calls per week and sent 3 emails per week regarding a lack of service on my t.v.
I do have to say the internet speed is very good but overall the service is extremely un-reliable.
Customer service is a nightmare right up the chain of command , they dont do call backs staff and supervisors can get nothing done no matter how much they say they can.
I would say that if there service was reliable and you didnt ever need to contact customer care they would score alot higher but due to the lack of proffessionalism or honesty in there customer care department they score as low as possible.
If you have any other option take it but if you dont then consider a life whithout internet/t.v or phone as life is to short for the hard ship of dealing with this company.

This is easily the worst broadband service i have ever encountered. All these reviews that attempt to make NTL out to be a good ISP and have qualified customer care agents are a joke. They’re customer care could’nt possibly be in worse condition from my point of view. I had 5 “engineers” to my house within 3 weeks, and they could’nt improve my internet problems at all(Engineers in quotes because they’re not really engineers from what i can see but, an average joe who could’nt tell his right hand from left). I was told by the last one that there was to much contention on the line, and yet they have done nothing to fix this. I know for a fact that I am not the only person in my area with the problems of LOW INTERNET SPEEDS, LAGG IN GAMES, DOWNLOAD SPEED VARIES FROM DAY OF THE WEEK AND TIME….., EXTREMELY POOR CUSTOMER SERVICES, ETC!! I mean haveing had a bad experience with eircom before I must say that the ISP’s here(in Ireland) are atrocious. If you have any alternative to this shoddy, undignified, unqualified ISP, then use it. Its is not worth wasting your time and money on.

Hello!
IM reading for while now and thinking like most here…. UPC is very poor and rest are worse. I dont know what to do.. Why I complain is speed 20Mb what promised… I do not see it yet, not even morning where maximum is 10Mbit …. Very far from 20Mb. I have very good tester… LINK 4 you as well…www.speedtest.net FANTASTIC thing… saving all data as well. Anyway, I asked cust.service do you know what means MB and Mb… She was confused when I told you speed is 0.05MB No one called me back,like they promised, but I do make noise. This kind of cheating is unforgivable.

Please write more here about this NTL CHORUS…. Im not happy at all.
In my country, Estonia, we will have 100Mb ready 2011. This what world needs.

Best regards,
NAAS area…

Extremely poor customer service from NTL. The staff appear to be very poorly trained; unable to respond properly to emailed queries, unable to follow-up on anything as agreed, unsure of how to explain your bills etc. The technical staff appear to only know how to carry out a ‘ping’ test and then book a call-out (which might or might not happen as you had been told).

If you have options, consider carefully!

I have the 10MB package in D7 and it’s great for online gaming and downloading large files such as 1GB the wireless router works perfectly with my Mac and my PS3.The speed vary from time to time usually 6MB highest I have noted was 9,3MB lowest was 4,6MB (week end)

Coustomer Service is not the best but they answered all my emails I sent in a period of a week and the next emails I had sent have never been answered.

Well it started on a Friday, NTL to call between 9 and 1pm. After many calls from me to them (zero from them to me) engineers eventually arrived at 4:30 ! After drilling a hole through my wall (with permission) all the lights didn’t show on the modem which meant the maintenance crew needed to get involved. The lads from Carlow got in their van and left and told me the maintenance crew would be around over the weekend. I called on Tuesday and was told that the next guys would out on Thirsday PM to “finish it off” between 1 and 5PM. So at 4:50 I called the number in Carlow and eventually found out that the engineer was running late and would be between 6 and 7 before the engineer got here. Arrived at 7:20 and at 21:10 left and till no NTL broadband ! He worked hard and made every attempt even lifting manhole covers but no joy. e did his best and seemed let down by the Others. So now I have no clue whats next. Take my advice, even if this is the best BB in toe world, for this type of service, it is not worth it !

Chorus ntl is a joke. It is text book example of bad business and service!
Customer service is non- existent. They have mastered unauthorised ways of
debiting customer’s account. I just recovered nearly a thousand euros!
I have been without cable tv or broadband for several weeks..again!!. To my amazement,
I was asked to check if my neighbour had the same problem!!!
There is no real alternative in my area, but thank goodness I will be moving out soon.

POOR SERVICE. CUSTOMER CARE STAFF IN THE JOB TOO LONG. WORST CUSTOMER CARE AND THE LADS WHO INSTALL YOUR TV AND BROADBAND COWBOYS.

horrible horrible horrible….

twice a day the i.net just drops….
dl speeds are faster on my mobile phone and their customer support…. well…
suffice to say i am looking for a new ISP.

I’ve been a Chorus NTL subscriber for 7 months (since I moved to Dublin). First 4 months were great, TV service was fine, and my 10MB connection was lightning fast and rock solid. After those 4 months though, things have gone downhill considerably. I went through a period of about 6 weeks were I either had no TV, no broadband, or nothing at all (and occasionally TV, but achingly slow broadband). Customer service was useless – I was told repeatedly it was a problem with the equipment in my area (D8), had an engineer sent out, and told it was fixed numerous times. In the past 2 months it has improved, with no problems on the TV front. My broadband connection still suffers from bouts of awful speeds, with no apparent solution.

If I weren’t stuck in a 12 month contract I’d have left a few months ago. Awful – avoid at all costs for broadband.

While not a technocrat, I have had problems with NTL (ok UPC) for several years, with my broadband recently surpassing my digital service for frustration.

The refusal to take any responsibility for the wireless router they sold me (as they won’t service it) is incredibly unreasonable. Our signal works so run away is not a great message.

Can you give minus starts for customer service? 6 months of the service dropping every other day both TV and Broadband. Next to impossible to speak with anyone who seemed to have any idea what day of the week it was let alone how to organize for an engineer to call out to look at the problem. It took them 4 months to get the name and address correct on my account. Moving in a few months so will be over the moon to move away from this dreadful company.

Very Reliable so far. Good value for money but oh my God the Customer Service is so bad I just cant talk about it without breaking into tears…

I’ve been a broadband/TV customer of NTL (UPC now) for the last three years, and, I can say with certainty, that there is probably no other company operating in Ireland (more specifically the greater Dublin area), that I would consider purchasing a broadband service from with the exceptions of possibly Magnet and Smart Telecom.
At the risk of sounding somewhat hubristic, I am not simply a discerning customer, but someone who has worked in the telecommunications industry for a good number of years and for two big players in the sector, so I have a good deal of inside knowledge and technical understanding which influence my views of course.
Ultimately, the most important thing to remember about choosing an ISP is, that no matter how good a reputation the company has, essentially broadband is a technical service which may or may not work well for a number of reasons, and can be limited by various physical factors, so it’s important to understand these and to exercise a serious dose of caveat emptor when making your selection, because ISP’s are generally reluctant to admit their limitations.
So, why do I recommend UPC (NTL)? Well first of all, you have to appreciate what system infrastructure is most conducive to a high standard of broadband operability, and, without doubt, I can tell you that fibre-optic cabling has no rival whatsoever when it comes to consistently fast and reliable data transmission. Which ISP makes more extensive use of fibre optics than any other? Correct, UPC(NTL). I’ve had my subscription for nearly three years and I do not remember a single outage. Service is consistent, fast and uninterrupted
So let’s consider the major rival technologies, (or substitutes really because fibre optic technology has no proper rival): telephone network cabling (DSL or ADSL), wireless transmission and satellite transfer.
Okay, telephone network cabling first. We’re all aware that Eircom, and formerly Telecom Eireann (as a public entity) was responsible for the management and maintenance of the entire telephone cabling network of Ireland, and were tasked by the government (and incentivised with a number of grants and commercial concessions) to upgrade this network and oll out broadband to at least 50% of the population by the year 2000. As we all know, after an IPO, two privitisation debacles, and having changed hands several times, Eircom dithered and has put little or nothing into infrastructural investment. All the talk of portals and information age towns (Ennis) 10 years agao is now an embarrassing and distant memory. This presents a big problem for broadband customers. As mentioned, Eircom is a private concern, yet it has a legally defined social obligation, a Universal Services Obligation in fact, which states that it must, within reason, endeavour to provide a telephone (not necessarily broadband) service to the entire Irish population. As a private concern, this presents some serious financial problems (that’s why line rental is so high, Irish population density per mile of telephone cable is one of the lowest in Europe), as the costs of maintenance are high. Add to this the fact that Eircom is a split entity between wholesale and retail, the wholesale arm sells to its retail arm’s competitors. So, in short, the network, which consists of some very old, twisted pair copper cabling, is in very poor shape, making Eircom’s service patchy and unreliable, AND that of all of the resellers. You might get a better deal from BT, or better customer service from Pelico, but, ultimately, they’re both just reselling on Eircom’s network, making the service they provide severely limited, also they have to liaise with Eicom on their customers’ behalves whenever there s a fult, or if service needs to be done, which can take weeks, or even months. Apart from this you can take it from me, Eircom is a company rotten to the core, it’s staff are split between inefficient, unionised and adversarial life-long staff who are completely disinintersted, and have a disdainful public sector mentality, and contractors (Capita since 2005) who are paid very poorly, and have little or no training or expertise despite their best efforts. Add to this the fact that an Australian bank owns the majority stockholding, you’ve got a stuation where a company cannot improve its service and be efficient, because the owners view it as a cash cow and extract as much money from the business as possible. This means NO retained investment for infrastructural upgade: very bad news for Ireland and Irish broadband customers.
Okay, now let’s look at wireless transmission. The obvious major player here is Irish Broadband. I have some inside knowledge of this company, and I can tell you that this company is having very serious problems with its service. It is technically flawed, and the company is perhaps being a little overzealous in its selling techniques, and is not being entirely honest with customers. Wireless broadband works by radio signal transmission. This kind of transmission is very much limited by environmental factors, quite literally the weather. On top of this, electromagnetic interference can cause major problems with the quality of data transfer. Of all the internet technologies, this is the least reliable. Other companies who offer this service are the mobile operators, and also Eircom (really expensive).
Satelite transfer is relatively rare and generally expensive. As used for GPS systems, it was originally developed for use on ships etc, but has been adapted as a consumer product. The system is more reliable than wireless, however it is also subject to meteorological interference, especially from water droplets causing “rain damening”.
Overall, I would say that UPC (NTL) is your best bet, if you can get it. It is the fastest (I think magnet might have a similar speed top package), most reliable service, and by far the best value for money. They also have the most generous download allowances (unlimited after from 10MB speed upwards), and even if you do exceed your allowance on the lesser packages (which I routinely did, by A LOT), instead of charging you exorbitant rates per MB like the other operators, they simply give you a polite phonecall, remind you of their fair usage policy and ask you if you would be interested in upgrading. UPC get a lot of stick on the customer services front, which is why I ranked them a 3 here (I’ve only had to deal with a phone operator once and he was actually very helpful), based on other reports and consumer satisfaction indices, but BELIEVE ME, you do not want to get on the wrong side of Eircom’s credit management department (or a number of the other operators), they are highly aggressive and legalistic. NTL might be hard to get through to, but in my opinion, the greatest indicator of a company’s customer service, is not how friendly, polite and helpful they are when you ring them, but how often they give you CAUSE to ring them, and as I said, 1 phonecall in 3 years initiated by me – that’s pretty good customer service in my book.
If you can’t get NTL and you have to use DSL, I would stongly recommend Magnet or Smart, both because they are developing infrastructures themselves. All of the other DSL players are essentially resellers of Eircom’s service, making you an indirect customer of Eircom, and therefore subjecting you to the same disgraceful service (or worse) that you would get if you were a direct customer. No matter how polite, friendly and helpfl your ISP is, they’re still essentially just and intermediary who is completely hamstrung and made impotent by Eircom. As for the Wireless option, steer clear unless nothing else is available, and make sure you test it very well in the first month before you sign any contract, run speed tests etc.
P.s. an excellent resource for comparing and choosing ISP’s is Comreg’s callcosts.ie site. I would highly resommend using this site as an impartial, objective evaluator of all ISP’s, theie respective services and pricing.

After a very glitchy start which was probably due to being in a new development with 250 or so new connections, it’s been pretty much rock-solid for the last two years. Recently upgraded to the 10Mb/s line which seems to be solid at between 9.5 and 10 Mb/s most of the time. Upload speeds are good, but could be faster, as with most ISP’s apart from Irish Broadband which I’ve used before and had a symmetrical upload/download speed of 3Mb/s.

Fairly good value for money too, but I think pretty much all ISP’s (especially in Ireland) are rip-off merchants.

Fairly reliable (goes down for a few minutes around midnight every several days or so) and very speedy (I am on the Ultra package, freely upgraded recently to the 20mb rate.) Installation was easy enough though the chap who did it unplugged my Sky cable and I had to tell him to plug it back in (a competitive practice?)

My one gripe is their call-out customer service is poor. A cable came loose and the broadband stopped working. I phoned them and they said it would take 3 weeks for a technician to come out and have a look. 3 weeks of no broadband was not an option and I was lucky I figured out how to fix the cabling.

Unreliable, glitchy broadband.

Most people who call NTL’s support desk are in even worse humour after they have spent 20-30 mins listening to a broken piece of music that looped endlessly every 8 seconds. I was usually ready to kill by the time I got through to someone.

The broadband signal would drop frequently, necessitating a reboot of the router, a solution that only worked 50% of the time. Multiple outages – however, rarely lasting more then 6 – 8 hours (unlike Eircom).

I was delighted to get away from NTL finally, but even that wasn’t easy. They require 30 days notice, and their billing systems will take the full value of any direct debits during that time, leaving them owing you money. This overpayment is not refunded automatically upon account closure, you will need to contact them and chase them for it. It will finally be provided in the form of a cheque (even though you paid them electronically!)

If you are cancelling your Chorus/NTL account, then do yourself a favour and also cancel your Direct Debits at your bank at the same time. Make them send you a final invoice and pay them in cents!

AH, Chorus NTL have my heart broken.
Current problem:
Every time you use the net or click on a link it interferes with the TV signal! I kid you not. We thought it might have been the wireless router, but a bit of testing (i.e. plugging the cable straight into the computer) proved that not to be the case.

Waiting for AGES on the customer service line (the agent sounded pretty incredulous and disbelieving of our problem), and still haven’t managed to get a suitable time slot for someone to come and fix it (we both work so their time slots [ie. Tues, 9am-12pm] are completely impractical).

The one day the boyfriend did take the time off work, the NTL guy didn’t show up within the allotted time slot. We have now resorted to asking my sister to apartment sit for the day.

Really fed up with having to choose between the TV or the internet as we pay for both, but really haven’t been given any glowing recommendation for another isp.

Lightning fast in the mornings and afternoons (download speeds of 1.8mb per sec) but slows considerably in the evenings due to contention, I imagine.

Upload speed is very fast. So far it’s been reliable. Good value in a bundle with TV. Customer service is awful though. Not so much the people who answer the phone but the time it takes to get to talk to someone

Chorus were a rubbish tv supplier, so when they merged with NTL i wasnt happy about it. However NTL for both the tv and the broadband are great, they have no problem when we upgrade or downgrade to any of their packages, and the service itself is reliable and fast. I didnt see the point of upgrading from 6MB to 10MB as the 6MB is fast enough for family use.

Fair play to NTL/UPC they have a good thing going with the broadband. I have a 10Mbit connection speed with a low contention rate meaning my speed is usually rock steady at 9.5Mbit. This is great I think, easily the best I’ve had.
I’ve been with Eircom and I’ll never ever have anything to do with them ever again – they are just the worst company I’ve ever dealt with. Their head of customer service actually hung up on me when I was making a complaint! BT were good but expensive I thought and had a higher contention ratio. So when NTL/UPC offered me digital tv, a digital PVR and a 10Mbit broadband for €65 a month I said Yes Please. Generally a very good service though they do of course have technical problems once in a while.
Their customer service though is awful – impossible to get through to someone without an eternity listening to incredibly poor quality Mozart. Then IF you get through, their technicians only work at times that are INconvenient to you. Having to take a day’s unpaid leave just so you can wait all morning for the cable guy to arrive is NOT customer service. It’s appalling and should be totally and completely changed.
As an ISP however NTL are the best I’ve experienced; the broadband itself is great. It’s getting it in the first place is the problem.

I’ve found NTL’s broadband excellent especially after my last experience with eircom. 10MB Broadband and no line rental as part of my digital tv package for €58 a month