Orange Broadband

[MrFrost]

Anyone with them?

Recently switched after reading good reviews.

However, on an evening my speed is horrendous. And i'm downloading at dial up speeds.

I've rung them and they've blamed it on my distance from the exchange which I know is absolute bull. More like they are throttling the bandwith during peak hours.

Whatever, its pretty crap.

[Old Popsider]

Used to be with them a long time ago and they were crap. The helpdesk/service people were useless and my billing was never correct. Went from them to talktalk, had the same problems, left them and went to bt. Fine at first then kept crashing/losing signal to the router. Ditched them and now with sky. Been with them for about a year now and no trouble up to now.

f**king hell, shouldn't have said that should I? Bloody thing will probably die on me tomorrow

[MrFrost]

Sky wanted a ridiculous deposit which is why I never went with them. Id give my right arm for cable to be installed in our area because I have yet to find a decent broadband supplier. BT were ok for general browsing and downloading, but the Homehub was a pile of crap for online gaming which I do alot of, however I never got the lag or anything I get with Orange.

Only 2 month into a sodding 18 month contract aswell.

[GM-MarkB]

I'm with Orange...carried over from my days with Freeserve who were then bought by Wanadoo....who were then bought by Orange. Not particularly worried about speeds as I don't play games on here.

My bill per month is just £5 (as I am a long time valued customer   ) and for that I get 24/7 unlimited everything. I guess it helps being a long time Orange phone customer, but still, £5 a month is nothing.

[Sheepskin Stu]

MrFrost wrote:

Only 2 month into a sodding 18 month contract aswell.

Unlucky Alf strikes again!  

[Redandwhitewhizards]

I've experienced several different broadband providers and the best by far has to be o2. Never had any problems or downtime in over 2 years with them. Great speeds for both downloading and uploading too. Only pay about £7.50 a month as an o2 customer too.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Been with Orange for 4 or 5 years. We have a shite service, being about 5km and 100,000 people from the nearest digital exchange. But at least Orange would give us a Broadband service - BT said that they couldn't provide a service as we lived too far out in the sticks (for which, read, \"1km from centre of Sheffield\").

As I say, the service has always been poor (usually less than 500kBits/s download). But I'm convinced that Orange also tried it on in the early days. For three consecurive years, every April/May, the download speed dropped off a cliff, then we couldn't get a connection at all from 07:00 until the late in the evening. Each time, I had a heated exchange with their technical phone support staff who insisted that the problem was with my PC (only during the hours of daylight apparently). Each time, I threatened to cancel my contract and each time they miraculously found that there was \"maintenance work being done on the line\" which cleared up the next day.

If the service has suddenly dropped off from what it was previously, I suggest you write to them giving them notice that you will cancel your contract and report them to OFCOM unless they restore the service that you previously had.

EDIT: After that, I suggest that you lock yourself in a rubber-lined room and never have anything to do with the modern world again for the rest of your life.

[MrFrost]

BillyStubbsTears wrote:

Been with Orange for 4 or 5 years. We have a shite service, being about 5km and 100,000 people from the nearest digital exchange. But at least Orange would give us a Broadband service - BT said that they couldn't provide a service as we lived too far out in the sticks (for which, read, \"1km from centre of Sheffield\").

As I say, the service has always been poor (usually less than 500kBits/s download). But I'm convinced that Orange also tried it on in the early days. For three consecurive years, every April/May, the download speed dropped off a cliff, then we couldn't get a connection at all from 07:00 until the late in the evening. Each time, I had a heated exchange with their technical phone support staff who insisted that the problem was with my PC (only during the hours of daylight apparently). Each time, I threatened to cancel my contract and each time they miraculously found that there was \"maintenance work being done on the line\" which cleared up the next day.

If the service has suddenly dropped off from what it was previously, I suggest you write to them giving them notice that you will cancel your contract and report them to OFCOM unless they restore the service that you previously had.

EDIT: After that, I suggest that you lock yourself in a rubber-lined room and never have anything to do with the modern world again for the rest of your life.

Its been pretty shite since I joined. Up to about 7pm at night its perfect, and then after that til about midnight its awful. Obviously throttling the badnwith, something they that they do not do.

Further action will be taken!

[Dagenham Rover]

Is there anything in the small print regarding \"Traffic Profiling\" or \"Traffic Shaping\" quite a few isp's use it.
I couldn't really explain it but I'm sure one of the techys on here could, but it basically can mean getting slower speeds while doing some things in peak times while other types of downloading gets priority

[BRMC_rover]

MrFrost wrote:

Anyone with them?

Recently switched after reading good reviews.

However, on an evening my speed is horrendous. And i'm downloading at dial up speeds.

I've rung them and they've blamed it on my distance from the exchange which I know is absolute bull. More like they are throttling the bandwith during peak hours.

Whatever, its pretty crap.

Same problem. Its a right headache. Been playing on Full tilt and have 20 min periods where its fine, followed by 10 mins where its horrendous. Slow playing a monster hand then finding my check raise on the river didnt work as it timed me out due to losing the connection!!!! Not happy! Its been fine all this week until tonight which was why I came to this thread after spotting it yesterday.

[rabjohns]

BT is installing the new fibre network, when it's ready BT's Broadband speed's will be determined by the distance that you are from the cabinet and not the exchange.

There is also the SYDR project,i don't know when that will be ready,although i have   noticed ducting and cabling work being carried out with cabinet's shooting up alongside BT cab's.

[rabjohns]

Forgot to add, many ISP's will try to blame the distance from the exchange as a problem ,at time's because of the state of BT's network it can be,also i would advise use an ISP who have their own equipment in the exchange. I'm not a broadband engineer, just shop talk i have picked up.

[DadsleyRover]

I changed my ISP provider last week from Tesco to TalkTalk and ,after a few problems with the router and its setting up, am getting fantastic download speeds sometimes 6 times the speed I had before. I live in Tickhill about 1 !/2 miles from the exchange. Oh and it costs £6.90.

[Thinwhiteduke]

Our lass' Dad...who has been with Orange Boradband for almost twelve months, has renamed it 'Is shit' as in 'Orange Broadband is shit', carp speed, crap comms if he has a problem...cant wait to get out of his contract in a month or so time.

Ive been with Virgin Media for about 2 months now, after switching from BT, and have to admit Virgin are bloody fantastic.

[RobTheRover]

Sheepskin Stu wrote:

MrFrost wrote:

Only 2 month into a sodding 18 month contract aswell.

Unlucky Alf strikes again!  

\"Bugger!\"

[MrFrost]

Any ideas how I can invoke cancellation without paying a penalty? They insist its my line and distance from the exchange. Funny how its only between 7pm and midnight.

[Dagenham Rover]

Taken from orange terms and conditions


Traffic management is where we sometimes apply restrictions to the amount of network capacity a customer can use, which can affect your throughput speed. We do this to stop a small number of customers who excessively download during peak times (6pm to midnight), as this affects the quality of service we provide to all other customers. It also means that we are able to prioritise certain types of internet traffic on time-sensitive applications, such as our second line phone service or gaming.

We believe we are protecting our customers by doing this and helping to stop a handful of people affecting your service.


in amongst the answers on this page

http://shop.orange.co.uk/broadband/broadband-explained#traffic-management

[MrFrost]

Surely they cannot throttle it to the extent where it becomes un useable. I don't do any downloading, but I do use the net for gaming, something I can't do in the evening, which the only time I can do it!

bas**rds! Should have really read their terms, but they got the most favourable reviews when I was shopping around.

Dagenham.Rover wrote:

Taken from orange terms and conditions


Traffic management is where we sometimes apply restrictions to the amount of network capacity a customer can use, which can affect your throughput speed. We do this to stop a small number of customers who excessively download during peak times (6pm to midnight), as this affects the quality of service we provide to all other customers. It also means that we are able to prioritise certain types of internet traffic on time-sensitive applications, such as our second line phone service or gaming.

We believe we are protecting our customers by doing this and helping to stop a handful of people affecting your service.


in amongst the answers on this page

http://shop.orange.co.uk/broadband/broadband-explained#traffic-management

[DaveDRFC]

I had Orange for ages, with no problems whatsoever, only paid £5 a month for unlimited everything as I was a phone customer. Then one day, all of a sudden, it just stopped working. Rang them countless times, various excuses, in the end after about 2 weeks of nothing I gave up and cancelled. Been with Sky ever since and had no problems at all, always quick and no downtime.

[MrFrost]

We were going to go with Sky, but because we were late with one payment on our TV subscription, they wanted a 90 quid deposit.

I've now got 16 month remianing with Orange. I might just cancel and not bother paying them. My credit history is fecked anyway.

[Dagenham Rover]

Problem is I think they can put  a tag on the exchange end of the line which stops it being transferred to another provider.

I'm not saying the traffic profiling is your problem but it looks that way. Get onto the phone to them see if anything can be sorted