The phone is great but .... (Telewest)

Member Name: SusanLesley

Product:	Telewest
Date:	28/11/01 (578 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent installation procedure, Good phone connection, Good price

Disadvantages: Trying to get a link to Blue Yonder!

Last month I received a flyer from Telewest advertising their telephone service at £25 per month and it prompted me to do a bit of research. It looked as though it would save me some money and you know what I?m like when there?s a good deal involved!

You see - since I have stopped full time working I tend to ring my mom during the day for a bit of a chat. Well, if you?re anything like me, the words 'telephone call'; 'mom' and 'short' NEVER appear in the same sentence so my telephone bill has been between £80 and £85 per quarter at best for some time now.

Anyway I got all the information about the Telewest telephone service and realised that for the £25 per month I would get the following:-

Unlimited local and national telephone calls - excluding calls to mobile numbers, Internet connections and international calls.

A Smartbox fitted to the television through which we would be able to receive digital TV including the five terrestrial channels, plus 12 further core channels such as News 24, BBC Choice, ITV2 etc.

Until 1st January 2002 we would also receive 14 extra channels free of charge. If we chose to keep these, the cost will rise from £25 per month to £33 per month.

There would also be a one off connection charge of £30.

This opinion is specifically about the telephone service and I shall do further opinions about the Interactive TV and the ISP when I have used them for a while.

We gave it some thought and decided that it would be worth our while changing. I can even save mom a bit of money by ringing her back whenever she rings me!

I rang the free phone number and asked a few questions, such as can I keep my existing telephone number (the answer was yes by the way) and I was impressed with the efficiency of the service.

So, after a discussion with Dave, I rang back to order our cable connection.

Again the service was very good, and my connec
tion was booked in for the morning of 13th November 2001. I was told that they would cancel my BT account when they set up the Telewest account so I did not need to do anything.

During the following two weeks I received various letters from Telewest including the contract for me to sign, a cancellation document if it was needed, direct debit information and a note of the initial charges for my information. I also received a letter from BT acknowledging the transfer of my telephone number to Telewest.

I received a courtesy call from Telewest the day before the work was due to be carried out to check that the timing was still OK for me, which it was.

The two workmen arrived at about 9am on the morning of 13th November and began by introducing themselves and clearly showing me their identification badges.

They then removed their muddy shoes before entering the house, which impressed me, as I hadn?t asked them to do this. I?m not a Hyacinth Bucket sort of person at all!!

We discussed where the various boxes would be situated and they were very efficient in making sure that the work would be as unobtrusive as possible. In fact the only thing that looks any different in the lounge is the presence of the Smartbox.

There is a small box behind the TV where the wiring for that enters the house and a small telephone connection box, which is hidden behind the curtain. There is a further small box on the outside of the house with a short piece of wire running underneath the window from the TV to the telephone.

The only really visible sign that they were here is the stripe along the lawn where the grass was moved to accommodate the wiring from the footpath to the front of the house, but that will soon disappear.

The work took about one and a half hours and that included brief instructions on how to use the Interactive TV.

As far as the telephone is concerned I have been very impressed with the servi
ce from start to finish UNTIL I tried to connect to the Internet via tfi which is the ISP I have been using for the last eighteen months. Nothing happened.

I have now discovered that tfi does not accept customers with cable telephone lines so I have had to cancel the subscription to tfi and request a pro rata refund, to which they have told me I am entitled. I have now ordered Telewest Blue Yonder surf unlimited package for a further £10 per month, which is not much more expensive than tfi at £90 per annum.

There?ll be an opinion coming on the ISP when I eventually get it all sorted out, but I am having problems with the customer service at the moment.

So, in conclusion, the installation was brilliant, the telephone line is great, the TV is fine, BUT I am still waiting for my keyboard and my software to connect to Blue Yonder, so the next opinion will be somewhat more damming than this one I can tell you!

Summary: