Orange Broadband

[chindl]

Hello folks - is anyone registered for the Orange Broadband offer out there at the moment of free broadband up to 8mB when on a £30+ contract with Orange Mobile. Be interested to see what this is like, it was formerly Wanadoo apparently.
I have an Orange contract and am looking at taking this up instead of my Pipex account.
Thoughts would be welcomed.
Chris

 

[dsn]

Combined price is good, but read these for comparisons and reviews:

http://www.adslguide.org.uk/
http://www.ispreview.co.uk/
http://paler.com/

I was with freeserve/wanadoo/orange for many years, but reliability fell apart earlier this year when they upgraded to 8Mb and did LLU (whatever that is). Judging by pages of v. negative BB threads on the above links I'm not alone. After 2-3months getting nowhere with their Indian customer service dept. I have now transferred to Zen on the basis of reviews and ratings. Not the cheapest, but I need reliability. Early days, but connection fine and the customer service is v. proactive and helpful.

 

[chindl]

Cheers for that - LLU seem to be where the bandwidth is shared among the ISP's judging by the threads. May be wrong. The reason I am considering this is because it will be free with my phone. Quite a conundrum really. Will look at the T's & C's and see whether that gives any leeway should I wish to cancel and move providers if not satisfied.
Chris

 

[Directional]

i think LLU stands for Local Loop Unbundling

its where BT have to give other providers access to their "localised" exchanges to provide competing services

 

[charliechan]

i too have been with wanadoo/freeserve etc for a few years now.

i must have had about 3 down days in total. no issues at all. customer service has been ok - but i havent needed to use it much. maybe the number of problems you get are to do with where you live?

remember these retail lines wont get much use during normal work/market hours - its when folk come home i guess - but im usually done by then anyways.

 

[chindl]

Thanks Charliechan - problem for me is, the folk come home as I do, I trade morning session for the Dow in the office, so long as I'm meeting free from 3 - 5pm and then come home and do the afternoon session there from 6-30 - 8-30.
I think I'll give it a whirl, if it doesn't work out then I'll change to a more reliable provider. It's saves me £24 pm if it works out, so worth a whirl to save £300pa..
Chris

 

[charliechan]

im going to revise my opinion BIG STYLE!

orange are crap. probably the worst isp ther is.

my service was fine with wanadoo, but since orange has taken over, ive just had delay after delay, slow connections if i can get any connection at all.

the customer phone line has a recorded message saying call volumes are very high because of known issues on the network, yet when you get through, they deny there are any problems, despite - oh **** it! you get my drift - they are a bunch of morons, and liars. what do you expect from a frog company?

stay away. im off. ive had 3 down days this month alone.

im off to find another isp. any recommendations?

 

[chindl]

Pipex.... Never had an issue with them. I'm with Orange now, but only because of the fact it is free. If I do get the issues you referred to then I will do one and go back to Pipex. Not a problem was had in two years, not once was the network down and it wasn't my fault, i.e. forgot to plug in the splitter on the phone line before connecting (need to connect in different rooms for my work laptop you see).

 

[anley]

I'm a firm believer that you really get what you pay for with Broadband, so free basically means crap.

I've got a BT Business broadband account which costs £30 a month + VAT, and it's only at 2mb. However, in the 4 years I've had it I have had no more than 2 problems which were both sorted out in under 1 hour. I also can't remember the last time it went down.

I'm really happy with the service, not the cheapest or fastest but as solid as a rock.

My other advice is as dsn says use the http://www.adslguide.org.uk/ website to really check out what other people are saying about the service/speed/relibility etc. Many of these deals come with a minimum 18 month contract and that's a long time to be in something which might give you lots of bother.

 

[timaru69]

I'm a firm believer that you really get what you pay for with Broadband, so free basically means crap.

I've got a BT Business broadband account which costs £30 a month + VAT, and it's only at 2mb. However, in the 4 years I've had it I have had no more than 2 problems which were both sorted out in under 1 hour. I also can't remember the last time it went down.

I'm really happy with the service, not the cheapest or fastest but as solid as a rock.

My other advice is as dsn says use the http://www.adslguide.org.uk/ website to really check out what other people are saying about the service/speed/relibility etc. Many of these deals come with a minimum 18 month contract and that's a long time to be in something which might give you lots of bother.

Hi all

I have recently upgraded to an 8mb from 2mb connection with BT. My advise to current BT 2mb users is not to do it. I have had nothing but trouble with it ever since I upgraded. Tonight my ultrafast connection slowed to a crawl and I had to shut down and restart. Not much fun when in the middle of a trade, just as well i had stops on.

After 6 weeks of getting nowhere I rang the HO and askedt to speak to the CEO for BT retail. Was put through to a manager and now have a bod calling me every day advising me what the progress is on the fix with a promise to reinstate my previous connection if this doesn't work.

This "manager" said that the 8 mb broadband roll out has been a disaster for BT and over 40% of his complaints are from customers who have upgraded.

Stick with the 2mb imho.

Cheers

 

[marky]

Hi timaru69, Totally agree with what you say, Dont upgrade, I did and have had nothing but trouble ever since, several calls to BT and slowly its back on track.
Regards Mark

 

[anley]

Tim

Thanks for the tip. I would have upgraded already but I live too far from the exchange so 2mb is the maximum.

To tell you the truth though I was really happy with 1mb, upgrading to 2mb never really did anything for me. Is 8mb (when it's working) that much of a difference to 2mb or does the computer/internet only run as fast as the slowest bottleneck?

Of course, the other trouble with these super fast internet connections is the download speed never really changes and that's something I just cannot understand.

 

[timaru69]

Tim

Thanks for the tip. I would have upgraded already but I live too far from the exchange so 2mb is the maximum.

To tell you the truth though I was really happy with 1mb, upgrading to 2mb never really did anything for me. Is 8mb (when it's working) that much of a difference to 2mb or does the computer/internet only run as fast as the slowest bottleneck?

Of course, the other trouble with these super fast internet connections is the download speed never really changes and that's something I just cannot understand.

Hi Anley

My current 8mb is slower than the 2mb , personally i don't think exchange or lines can handle it.

I suspect that I will be going back to my old 2mb connection this week, although only after talking to their head office, when I rang their ordering department to downgrade I was told that they wouldn''t do it. When i said that I would leave BT if they didn't they said OK , sorry to lose the business................the muppets

 

[Jack o'Clubs]

Another anecdote about BT Broadband - when I phoned to get my MAC (transfer) code to switch to the free TalkTalk offer they put me through to their 'Customer Retention' team who tried what they could to keep me with them, before releasing the code. Particularly alarming was when they asked if broadband was important for me (er, yes, rather), and then told me that TalkTalk were taking around two months to re-connect customers after disconnecting them from BT. Was I sure I wanted to switch?

Very concerned, I called TalkTalk to ask about this and they told me the average time was 20 minutes... As it happened it took a couple of hours, but I'm amazed BT can get away with telling complete lies to try and keep business. I'm considering reporting it to OfCom.

 

[anley]

Remember I'm not with BT Broadband but BT Business Broadband and I think there's a big difference.

 

[roguetrader]

For those with Sky TV,or pehaps prospective customers of Sky, as it may turn out to be a "Brand new customers only" deal, they have announced plans last week to muscle in on the free broadband thing also.

 

[Jack o'Clubs]

For those with Sky TV,or pehaps prospective customers of Sky, as it may turn out to be a "Brand new customers only" deal, they have announced plans last week to muscle in on the free broadband thing also.

No, it's for current customers too - it's a way for Sky to control churn. The only catch I can see is that the free version only allows 2GB monthly usage, for a fiver this goes up to 40GB. Also it's only a 12 month contract (I've signed for 18 months with TalkTalk) and it includes a wireless router and security software - looks a pretty good deal.

 

[roguetrader]

No, it's for current customers too - it's a way for Sky to control churn. The only catch I can see is that the free version only allows 2GB monthly usage, for a fiver this goes up to 40GB. Also it's only a 12 month contract (I've signed for 18 months with TalkTalk) and it includes a wireless router and security software - looks a pretty good deal.

Thanx for that J o C that is interesting info, although the 40GB for an extra fiver actually puts me off, just as I avoid uncapped networks, they attract all the power users with the p2p setups constantly running and those who download movies and watch streaming content. My usage for trading and occaisional browsing is about 4GB a month, I like my network to be expensive for anything over that.

Anley, thanx for the info on BT business, will likely be moving house next year and will look at that, the cost not that much of an issue, tax deductable anyways, and 2 MB well fast enough for trading.

 

[anley]

Rogue, yep - really happy with BT Business, I'd consider it if I were you.

 

[charliechan]

Jack-o-clubs - how long does it take to get switched over to talk talk? i had a look at the web site, but it said if i signed up today, i wouldnt get the broadband until september. thats too long for me. otherwise i'd sign up today.

as for 8mb v 2mb, i dont see the need. 2mb will be fine for most trading purposes. i think most data feeds only need 2k, so 2mb is already overkill and a half. i guess if you also want to download movies etc its useful though if u use yr pc for non trading stuff.

JUST STAY AWAY FROM ORANGE! now they keep cold calling me saying as i pay £20 pcm for broadband, if i pay another £10 pcm, i can get a free mobile + xyz package - inother words sign up for the phone and get free bb. no thanks orange. the future makes you see red, not orange!