
I moved to the South Yorkshire area way back at the end of 2011 and was really pleased to find out about Digital Region FTTC broadband, and doubly chuffed to realise I have a DR cabinet right outside my front door (literally <5m), so max speeds all the way.
I promptly got myself set up with a BT phone line and placed an order with Origin Broadband, a local Digital Region supplier. Things went okay, until I received a telephone call from Origin back in February with my proposed setup date - 2 April. By this point, I'd already been waiting nearly a month, and would have had another six weeks or more without broadband, an untenable situation since I require the connection for work and had been spending considerable sums on 3G data access.
Origin told me the hold-up was due to the closure of another Digital Region supplier, Ripwire, whose demise is documented elsewhere on this forum, although I'm not sure why this would affect another ISP. Anyway, I informed them that I couldn't wait this long, put my order on hold, and signed up with a straight LLU provider, ADSL24, on a month-by-month basis, so I had some connectivity until Origin got their act together.
Origin phoned me yesterday (Good Friday!), basically to ask whether I wanted to continue with my order or bin it, as they've apparently now resolved some of their issues from previously and are connecting their backlog of customers.
I'm in a quandary about the whole thing, which is where you lovely people come in! Origin would mean an increase from my current 12Mb to 40Mb, but the fact that they've had such desperate issues fulfilling orders recently, and the apparent parlous financial state of the DR project as a whole (my local council, Barnsley, has just put another load of money in to stop it going under) makes me think twice. I have visions of waking up one morning to find either Origin or DR closed down and no internet connection or phone line! ADSL24 has been an excellent connection in the couple of months I've had it, but the speed increase is so tempting...
Is anyone else here with Origin, or any other DR provider? What do you think the future holds for this scheme as a whole? Will I make a huge mistake transferring across, or is it likely to survive?
Edited by DearneRanger (Sat 07-Apr-12 21:55:30)