Orange Broadband

[Michael]

Morning all,

I've been an Orange broadband customer for years, but the service lately has been getting worse. Has anyone else noticed this? I am based in the midlands area and I use my own router and not the supplied Live Box which is limited in various functions.

I've lost connection now for about 12 hours and calling Orange they confirm there is a problem, or as they refer to it, many customers receiving "this page cannot be displayed" message. I've even tried changing DNS servers and still nothing. My router displays its IP configuration correctly but there's just nothing come down the line. I'm considering leaving them when my contract is up. The same thing happened a matter of months ago! What are your thoughts and experiences with Orange Broadband?

[SYSMAN_MK]

Same issue here as of 12:30ish last night - Livebox says all is well, MSN works fine but internet doesn't work. Took 10 mins to bring up google wihout any images. Very poor!

[laserblazer]

It's taken me 2 hours to get a connection!

[beeswax]

About 2 years ago my Orange broadband started going offline at 18:30 to 23:00 most weekdays. I was told it was just me, but as my daughter was then attending the local secondary school across the road she found out that quite a few people in the area were suffering the same problem. I put it down to throttling. I decided to go with Sky as we already had the TV package. The transfer proceeded smoothly and everything was well for about 2 months when my broadband connection failed altogether. To cut a long story short it turns out that Orange had claimed the unbundled line back and it took about a week to sort it out. As I'm doing an online degree you can imagine my panic at all this.
I was still getting letters from Orange up to 18 months after all this took place saying they were going to cut me off if I didn't pay my outstanding line rental for the previous 18 months and send in the bailiffs despite being a Sky customer for that period and that they (Orange) sent me an email at the beginning of all this giving me the mac number for the transfer and thanking me for my business and expressing they were sad to see me go.
Our network manager had a similar problem. My experience of Orange is that they are not a connected company.

[Michael]

I remember the Freeserve days were great, but then since Wanadoo and now Orange things have gone down hill. It's reassuring that it's not just me. Exactly as you describe SYSMAN_MK, my router displayed everything you'd expect, but no browsing was possible. A little strange. All is well now, but I wonder for how long? We shall see...

[beeswax]

BBC NEWS | Technology | Orange restores broadband service

[Michael]

Maybe Orange have never heard of redundancy? The way the article is written it makes it sound like there's a single bunch of cables which brought the whole Orange network down.

[Galway]

It suprises me any of you are still with them.

[localzuk]

I'm with BT and apart from a few minor glitches now and then, no major issues. I think in broadband supplying world it is that you get what you pay for. Orange is cheap for a reason.

[Michael]

It suprises me any of you are still with them.

Orange's primary selling product is mobile phones/contracts and they offer broadband either free or for a small amount. Likewise with Sky, their primary selling product is television and they also offer broadband free. It makes sense instead of paying for a dedicated ISP which could be considerably more!

[crc-ict]

Orange's primary selling product is mobile phones/contracts and they offer broadband either free or for a small amount. Likewise with Sky, their primary selling product is television and they also offer broadband free. It makes sense instead of paying for a dedicated ISP which could be considerably more!

Having said that, it's the same with O2, but I have had their broadband for over a year now and it's been excellent - only one glitch when the box they provided broke, but swapped for a decent Netgear router and it's all been plain sailing

[DrPerceptron]

That all depends on if you can get O2 in your area...

BT Wholesale is the only provider at my exchange...

an i-plate made my line quicker and damn size more stable than it had been the last several weeks... Orange's tech support is just a complete waste of time and money...

a side note - Orange is the only company I can think of to have its own dedicated (and occasionally viewed by orange staff) complaints site - Orange Problems - Index - Orange Broadband, Orange Email, Orange Mobile Phones - OrangeProblems.co.uk