Digital Region South Yorks: Origin Broadband - the future?

Hi team

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)

If it all goes pear shaped in 6 months what will you have lost?

I'd go for it. If people don't sign up today due to the published issues then they're destined to fail.

My main concern is that because it's a completely separate network to BT (everything except the last little bit of copper from the cab to my house is DR) it'll be a hell of a job trying to get my line back if it does go belly-up. Is this an unfounded fear?

With Origin at the moment, signed up in November last year so before all the sign up problems.

Not had any issues apart from the first few weeks when there was some routing issue causing speed problems but once that got sorted things have been fine.

Thinking about upgrading to the Max package just announced but with only recently signing up and costing me £75 for installation compared to just £55 plus not wanting the new hardware i'm not sure. Perhaps if there was some sort of a compromise with a slight reduction maby i'd upgrade.

over i'd have no worries signing up as a new customer if anything happens with Origin or Digital region you won't get cut off in the middle of the night, something will be in place.

i'd say go for it.

A system would be setup to return line just the same as if a full llu provider went under. Even if worst happened i would expect service to continue

We (littlebigone.com) are a Digital Region ISP. You should not have any concerns about the long term availability of service on the Digital Region network, we certainly don't !!

You do however need to choose your ISP on the network. We have been and ISP for 11 years and just launched the UK's first county-wide deployment of 100% IPTV (network TV as we call it), so you can now get a full package of superfast broadband, phone and TV service from one company.

If you have any questions or would like to know more, please visit our site, call us on 0800 652 8288 or email [email protected]

Thanks
littlebigone.com

Hi,

Nice to hear you're considering giving us a chance to show you what we can do. Regards the issues we've had, we can't go into too much detail, but we're back on a strong footing now, and ready to give top speeds to everyone in south yorkshire. As you said, we called you on good friday, we're working round the clock at the minute to get everyone up and running asap. Digital Region isn't going anywhere, there's millions of pounds of fibre under the streets and the more people that give a local company like us a chance, the stronger Digital Region will be. We're the only company that offer 24mb, 40mb and now an unlimited package all with no caps. We're young and passionate and determined to do things differently to the old guard, those who give us a chance will quickly understand that we are a company built by people like you, not profit mongers chasing a nice car.

Hopefully we'll see you soon, and if there's owt we can do to help, just let us know. Viva Yorkshire!

I've been on the DR network via ASK4 for a month now and I haven't had any problems or slow downs.

forgot to login.... I've been on the DR network via ASK4 for a month now and I haven't had any problems or slow downs. My order with ASK4 took about 14 working days from the day of order to being made live

Cheers Origin.

I'm out of town at present for the long weekend - but will someone be around tomorrow when I'm back home to have a chat about how we can proceed?

It does seem like a no-brainer now that my fears about the future viability of the service have been allayed. I'll gi' you a call tomorrow. (Already learning the local language!)