Stan,
Really feel frustrated for the problems you have had!
I have been on NTL BB for about 9 months now in Bishops Stortford, and have had great quality of service. However a couple of times the service has dropped off for an hour or two, but I have just called their 0800 number and been told that x,y, and z areas had problems that were being worked on.
I feel you were probably just unlucky to have two faults close to home, and it certainly seems that cable srvice is a bit more sensitive to irregularities than analog lines.
Wish you all the best for continued great service. As an idea... I downgraded to the 128kb £15 service a few months ago, and find it almost as fast for pprune and the like.