I can affirm the author's opinion, NTL (who's slogan used to be 'Technology, Tamed') have some of the most incompetent minimum-wage fuckwits working for them it has ever been my misfortune to deal with.
When I used their dial up internet service, it would often break, and I would phone them to inform them of such, and be greeted by a wall of ignorance and side-stepping of Oliver Northian proportions:
Me - "Your DNS servers aren't working, please fix them"
NTL Drone - "Please right mouse click on the My Computer icon and select properties, then select Device Manager"
Me - "I run NT4, I don't have a device manager, the problem is with your dead DNS servers"
ND - "Sorry, we don't support NT4, please call back when you are using a supported operating system. (click)"
Or the time they tried to tell me that the constant busy tone on their access numbers was a fault with my modem.
Or the time(s) I repeatidly pointed out one of their routers was so badly configured it was adding 600ms to all traffic going through it, making everything incredibly slow. I was told the problem was because I didn't know how to read traceroute output. That particular drone very nearly got me to hunt him down and kill him like a common pigmy.
When their systems work, NTL's services are really good, their cable modems are relatively trouble free, and their cable TV offering is competative.
Just never, ever, talk to an NTL drone without valium or rum.
PS. Their current slogan is 'The complete communications company'. My irony meter broke at that point.
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