Orange
Orange is a great option for your broadband needs if you are already an Orange customer (e.g. mobile phone) as you get discounts for being an existing customer. All packages come with a free wireless router, security software and web space / web mail.
- Up to 20meg speeds
- From £10 per month
- Free easy setup wireless router
- Discounts if you are an existing Orange customer
- Unlimited usage
Orange online shop
I am sharing an email that I sent to the CEO of Orange in a list ditch attempt to get my broadband problems sorted out. I won’t hold my breath about it being resolved….
*******
Dear Mr Ale****er
I am writing to you in the hope that you can intervene and sort out my broadband problem as when I telephone your technical support team we go round and round in circles and I hear the same information every time I phone. This has not yet resolved my problem and I am still without a broadband service so the information is clearly not helping!
1/ I have been a loyal Orange broadband customer for many years now and my loyalty is now severely dented and I would not be recommending the service to friends/family/colleagues/peers
2/ The problem has been ongoing for three weeks now. Apparently due to a catrostrophic incident my broadband service was cut off. Sometimes the technical support team tell me that my landline service was also cut off – it wasn’t and I have to keep reitterating that point – why do they get the information wrong?
3/ Is it a co-incidence that in the past few weeks I agreed for Orange to take over my BT landline and thus I have both landline/line rental and broadband within one Orange package. I severely regret this now.
4/ I was told that the broadband service had to be re-ordered as if I were a new customer and that it would take up to ten working days to resume but probably less. The ten days has now passed and the broadband service has not been resumed! When I phoned at the end of the 10 days on Friday morning, I was promised the service to be up and running by 5-6pm that day – it wasn’t and still isn’t.
5/ The broadband service was not re-ordered immediately I reported the problem so every time I telphoned the technical team I was told to push various buttons etc on my Livebox and it was obvious that this was a fob off exercise without the technical support advisers even know what they were doing, like it was a standard routine to make it look like they were helping customers when they clearly weren’t.
6/ Why as a loyal customer of many years would it take the same time to re-order my broadband as it would for a completely new customer?
7/ I am paying for this non-service and countless very long expensive telephone calls to your 0844 telephone number. I require a good level of compensation for both time/phone calls and non-service.
I am hoping that you can sort this issue out for me as quickly as possible as I am now completely at the end of my tether and extremely cross and frustrated with the whole incident and with Orange as a brand.
In early May I received an email telling me that Orange were improving their service. Since then it has become dire! Connections come and go minute by minute. I regret having renewed my contract with useless provider.
Terrible. Slow and intermittent sometimes with no service at all. Over 20 calls to customer services and still no resolve. I know my line can carry a constant 2Mbps because it has before.
Rip off merchants. Avoid at all costs.
I’ve also been with Orange for 5 months and it’s been a joke. I thought I was going getting value for my money but I’ve only experienced problems so far.
As others have said my connection drops like hell and is extremely slow (living in London it shouldn’t be a problem.) I have also had problems with the phone line, which upsets the internet connection and vice versa. So I can’t make a call without a screeching background noise.
When I spoke to them they said there was nothing wrong with the line and that it would’ve cost me £100 if an engineer had come round and found a fault with the line.
I think it was a mistake to sign up a contract with them, I’d like to cancel it however I imagine it will be very difficult unless I pay upfront the remainder of my contract..
to be able to get good speeds we have to keep phoning them up and complaining as the most regular speed we get is 135k and it goes back up for a couple of weeks then back down again they seem incapable of sorting problems out
I joined Orange Broadband/Telephone in April 2010. Everything was fine at my download speed of 3 meg, until December 2010. My speed came down to less than half a meg. After dozens of phone calls, emails and a few letters I was basically told that less than half a meg was “Within Parameters”. What a pile of bull….
After reading elsewhere that every now and then Orange deliberately slow your connection for 1 month at a time it seemed to be the only explanation. Sure enough I bit my tongue with steam coming out of my ears for 1 WHOLE month whilst my neighbour on dial-up enjoyed faster speeds. Then miraculously after 1 MONTH my internet was back to just OVER 3 meg! Proof enough of Orange‘s complete “don’t give a stuff” about their customers attitude.
Unfortunately, I was/am still in an 18 Month contract with these shysters. Fortunately though, Of com has new regulations where the crap internet provider can no longer charge the full monthly fee for cancelling earlier.
Just as I am calming down, just yesterday (08/03/2011) this scum bag of a company has done it again to me (less than a quarter of a meg). My dial-up is actually faster!
So, just got off the phone telling them I will write a honest review on every single broadband review site on the internet! This was after requesting my MAC code! Surprisingly I have had my MAC code very quickly (within 30 minutes!) – which of course leads me to suspect it will be a false/wrong code – but we will see. Just used it to sign to another provider.
In summary, this company are the lowest of the low, even beating Talk Talk and that takes some doing. They will NEVER admit to slowing your connection – only blame YOU for either lying or your equipment suddenly becomes useless. They even blamed BT saying it may be a line problem, yet I rent my line from Orange! Orange are responsible, NOT BT.
My advice, stay well below Orange‘s radar – don’t even contemplate joining this farce of a company unless you love slow speeds whenever Orange feel like it, and then even slower customer service (Indian of course). Honestly, this company is not worth the stress and by writing this review if can save one person (even my worst enemy!) from going through the problems this ass of a company will cause you, it will be worth the effort.
We were receiving speeds of 8+ meg when we were with Sky, we swapped because we were cancelling our sky subscription and, as existing Orange customers, it seemed like the best value for money and – when they did a line check – the “up to 20 meg” came out at 14 meg, which seemed great.
From the day we swapped across our speeds have never been more than 1 meg and, generally, are less than 500kb – I know that another reviewer has said that it’s dependent on the quality of the line etc but there can be no coincidence that we’ve had totally sporadic access (endlessly getting booted off/crashing etc) and ridiculously low speeds.
Customer service has been a joke; the one time we finally got through the “have you tried switching off and on again” 15 minute fiasco we face every time we phone up and actually looked like we were *finally* going to get through to someone who could do something (instead of being fobbed off with “wait 10 working days to stabilise” etc) I was then told that hte computers were down in that department (obviously they don’t have much luck with their own technology either!) and that I’d be called back. It never happened. We then got through to another department, a few days later, who promised an engineer would be doing a remote line check and we’d hear back from them – we didn’t… and so it goes on.
I’ve given up – total rubbish and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone for any price. Look elsewhere!!!
It took more than 2 months to activate a phone line & they cancelled it all. Initially I was told an engineer will need to come down and I will have to pay £85 for it to which I refused as I was well aware that this is not required. When I was at the verge of cancelling it, I was told an engineer is not required and it can be activated sooner. The phone was activated and after couple of days while activating the broadband, they deactivated the phone itself which they didn’t have a clue about why it happened and finally it went to some call centre in India or somewhere and some technical guy advices it was a credit check failure for which they weren’t able to provide any details and not letting me offer another card or payment options. AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE. ORANGE IS ROTTEN.
In a previous reveiw I complained Orange had not sent me
the phone thay promised. I have to say they now have honoured their
ad and I have the phone. With regard to speed I am getting 5 which
is all I ever got with my previous provider as I have an obselete
exchange, it also seems reliable with no problems. I am quite
satisfied.
Orange has good prices especially if you have a mobile
phone offering £19 for line rental, calls and broadband or £24 for
non mobile phone customers. From the Reviews I have read it is very
clear to me that many people do NOT understand that speed is
dependant on the quality of the lines in your area and the exchange
in the area, and no matter what provider a person is with
(excluding fibre optic) the speed will be the same, yes customer
support is not fantastic with orange, which mainly is the most
wanted (tech support) the prices and speed are mainly good, now if
a person is in a rural area then they should be expected to suffer
from out of area prices and speeds which are not fantastic. The
people who have made the previous reviews obviously have no idea
for the reasons of low speed and high prices. Oh and by the way the
reason your speed may have decreased year by year is because of
more people using the network in your area. Common sense
really…