On the 17th of June, our existing phone provider, Telnet Residential, decided it was time to close the book on us and ceased providing the service. Evidently they weren't making any money. We signed our phone over to them in the early stages when they were offering completely free internet calls off-peak through Greatxscape.
When we received Telnet's notice of termination, I thought there would be loads of similar offers out there.I was surprised to find there aren't. We signed our line back over to BT - not too happy about this !

Having done a bit of research, NTL were my best option, but we don't have cable in our area, so I had to opt for the box. You pay £10 for the box, and then to get the free internet calls you need to spend at least $15 a month on phone calls, then pay line rental to BT. I first phoned NTL about a month before we were due to finish with Telnet, and was told that they couldn't sign me up in advance. The next day I phoned again to double check - the rep signed me up there and then !

We got the box a week later, and installed that no problem, thinking the software for the internet part of it wouldn't be far
behind. Well, more than two months later I am still waiting. NTL have advised that the software can take up to 28 days to get to me (some drivel about providing a quality service to their customers - now haven't we heard THAT before !?), but COULD take 90 days..!

In the meantime, to save some money on the internet calls, we have taken advantage of BT's Anytime 30 day trial (another long story....you would think that a trial offer would provide quality service to impress potential customers - 20 minutes to get a connection every night - not very impressive!)
So, we are waiting for our NTL sign-up CD in anticipation. Will let you know when it arrives...

***UPDATE**** - I called Customer Services on Saturday to check on the progress of my disc - the rep informed
me I was not listed for one.....here we go again ! Could take anything from 28 to 90 days....

***Update 2!*** - Our disc arrived in the post this morning - it's only taken 6 working days since my last phone call to customer services, so if they had done what they were supposed to do in the first place, I wouldn't have had to wait so long and go through all this hassle. Anyway, better late than never ! I'll be installing and getting down to some serious surfing this evening !!