Thinking about changing from Sky to Orange!

Hi, Im currently a Sky LLU Broadband customer, but I recently cancelled my package as it was bad value considering the amount of TV I watch. I've been looking at new broadband suppliers and it pretty much came down to Orange and Talk Talk - especially considering some of the cashbacks you can get on quidco. I'm an Orange mobile customer already, so I called them today to get some more info. They pointed out that they cannot take over a Sky LLU line (though there's ways around it) but fortunately I have 2 other disconnected BT lines from when I ran my business from home. The salesperson was very helpful, and said that Orange broadband was available on one of the old BT lines, and went through the packages. I mentioned that I literally don't use my home phone, and she mentioned I could get the simply broadband package for £10pm, which does not require line rental. I always thought you needed line rental from a provider even if it isn't the same as your BB provider so I asked her to confirm that. She said it came up on the system as being available on one of the lines so it would be fine. My questions are:

Can you really get broadband without having line rental?

It also seems strange that only one of the old BT lines came up as being available. Is there a chance BT has made some kind of mistake and left one of the line active? Or maybe due to being two additional lines they are shared in some way?

How fast is the speed likely to be compared to my Sky BB's package (current info in links at bottom)?

How long does it usually take to be activated? (she gave a back covering answer of 10 working days, but I lose my Sky BB this Friday)

What kind of throttling does Orange apply (if any)? (On average I probably DL around 30-40g pm and quite a bit is from filehosts/torrents).


Heres some info if it helps:

http://www.speedtest.net/result/1340073095.png

http://www.pingtest.net/result/41980280.png

http://img850.imageshack.us/img850/6764/22661657.jpg

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/LCBOL


One note on the speed tests. Despite what they say, when I'm using JDownloader, it fairly consistently says I'm downloading at pretty much 10meg - something that I never get on these speedtest sites!

You don't have to have sky tv, you can just have broadband,or broadband and calls from sky, orange are mis selling if they say that you won't have to pay line rental, regardless of which isp or telco provider you choose, bt will want paying for the upkeep and use of their line , so unless orange are going to give you adsl at a loss who is going to pay bt?
If price is the main factor, then i would of just knocked the sky tv on the head and stayed with sky, as it is your more than likely going to have to pay a connection charge to activate which bt line your going to use if it doesn't have a dial tone. bt normally charge sounds as all orange want is a sale

As for what speed the other lines will support, no way of telling until there is a adsl signal for your router to sync with I'm afraid, plenty of guesstimates thought, like the bt wholesale checker, but they could well give similar to what you have now, but could be not as good as well as better, crystal ball time until the service is up and running

Edited by tommy45 (Tue 14-Jun-11 05:13:41)

Ok it looks like one of the numbers from the old BT lines, has been reissued (I called the number and it rang) which means that is the reason for it showing up as active line on the Orange checking system. This means I've got 2 dead BT lines (No dial tone and not used for 2+ years) and a very soon to be dead Sky LLU line.

Basically I don't wish to remain a Sky customer even if it costs me exactly the same. I cant get Virgin (wouldn't want anyway!) and I hate BT (yes Ive been though them all in the past! ). Really the Orange BB deal looks best, and then I'll either get my line rental off them too, or maybe another company for Phone. What is the cheapest way to get off Skys damn network!?!

You do need to buy line rental from some provider, usually BT. You can either get BT to "Return to Donor" your Sky line if it was originally a BT line, or get BT to reactivate one of your old lines for which they should not charge more than £30 (Special Offer). In either case you will have to pay BT's line rental on an 18-month contract. and you must make at least 10 chargeable or inclusive calls per month to avoid further charges.

Orange will put you on the BT 21CN WBC ADSL2+ platform (they've stopped doing LLU); you should get similar speeds to your Sky ADSL2+ LLU.

I've never known Orange to throttle my connection, but I'm not a heavy user. Orange's FUP is said to be 40 GB pm.

Thanks Ray. I spoke to Orange again today, who said they would sort out getting a BT technician to call me, who would then test the line within 3 days, and apparently it may be possible to just remotely activate and join Orange pretty much straight away (wishful thinking I suspect ). She said it might be free, so I questioned this after what I've read on the net, about BT trying to charge all sorts for "reactivating" lines - apparently I'll be told of any charges beforehand. Hope it does work out free , and she certainly gave the impression that all this is done without signing a BT contract (and again I questioned that after what I've read elsewhere)

Its a pretty good offer on Orange for phone and broadband - £70 cashback though Quidco, 3 months at £11.50 pm then £19pm. Far less than I'm paying with sky, and far less than sky if I just took BB and phone from them. Granted I dont get TV, but anything I watch nowadays I download!

I'll let you know how I get on.

In reply to a post by Spacemanc:

she certainly gave the impression that all this is done without signing a BT contract (and again I questioned that after what I've read elsewhere)

No, you are signing an Orange contract instead (see below).

In reply to a post by Spacemanc:

3 months at £11.50 pm {= line rental} then £19pm.

So, you are paying line rental, to Orange. You have signed up for Broadband & Off Peak Calls incl. line rental.

ok going with orange you will be limited to may be 40gb a month and port blocking ? try be there ?

Hi there, just thought I would throw in my own experiences with moving from Sky to Orange. Sky provided me with a good 4686kbps during off peak times however this dropped to a pathetic 283kbps at peak times. A Sky operator tried to tell me this was ok and normal, I enquired as to which planet he lived on and asked to be escalated, I was promised a call back which never arrived. Needless to say I got a bit sick of this so I emailed the Sky CEO and was contacted by the executive office who nicely agreed that I had been mis-sold my broadband package and agreed that the contention was too high so I was given my MAC code. Upon looking at all the options in my area I opted for Orange, all was well at first until a friend of my wife wanted help looking up car insurance, no problem there you would think except that none of my details were entered into the web form yet I received a phone call the next day stating that I had been looking for car insurance on the previous day (I have never even had a driving lesson), when questioned the caller was able to tell me the time and site that was visited and when further pressed stated that the contact details were supplied to them by the website that my partners friend had visited. The only way that I can see that any details about me could have been discovered was by a back trace on my IP address (No malware on my PC, it is scanned with Malwarebytes, AVG, Spybot S&D etc). I contacted Orange who immediately suggested that my number be changed. All was well for about 2.5 weeks and then my Internet was cut off with no explanation. I called Orange and was told that it was due to my number being changed, I countered that this was utter garbage and asked to speak to a manager. After a brief transfer to India I got back through to the UK and had to relate the whole story again but got a manager this time (the person who HAD took ownership of the previous problem suddenly didn't want to deal with me any more), the Manager then stated that it was nothing to do with Orange and that it was BTs' fault. I countered that I did not care and that I wanted my broadband switched back on and Orange would get this done ASAP as I held a contract with them. It was around this point that the "manager" from Orange decided to start threatening me with legal action from Orange lawyers (yes I had the image of the Tango man in a suit as well). I responded by telling him to bring it on and I would make sure that I mentioned him personally both in any court action and in my email to his boss, The Orange CEO Mr Tom Alexander. After composing a long email I was contacted by The Executive department of Orange, who sent me a new router as a courtesy for the problems I had encountered. A new Netgear DGN1000 duly arrived at my door, all good I hear you think. It was broken. A second new Netgear DGN1000 arrived a couple of days later, the automatic firmware download does not work, the wireless is flaky and yo-yos about and even when hard wired it would drop out and reboot randomly. I found an updated firmware from the Netgear site and applied it myself, things are a bit better but nowhere near what they should be, bear in mind that Orange had this listed as a top of the range wireless N router, this is only a half N router capable of barely more than wireless g (if it actually works). Orange IT then insulted me further by trying to palm me off with a Livebox. I stated that I was not interested in an old and firmware restricted router with only 1 Ethernet port and not to send it to me. Lo and behold 2 days later an Orange Livebox arrives at my door. I opened the package to find a router that had had at least 6 (yes 6) previous users (I inferred this from the number of stickers on the back with different MAC codes and passwords). Orange were contacted again and I was asked to suggest a new router for myself, I am still waiting. Back to the main story, I was reconnected after 24 hours but at greatly reduced speeds (55% drop), I suspect that this is when I was moved to IPStream as it turns out that Orange is giving up LLU and its customers are being moved onto either IPStream or 21CN WBC (allegedly, my exchange is 21CN ready but I am still stuck on IPStream). I was only officially informed that I was being moved in an email from Orange which was sent on 27/05/2011 (around 1.5 months late), I was also informed that I would have to endure another 10 day stabilisation period. After the 10 days my speeds are still all over the place ranging from at least 25% of a drop up to a massive 83.4% and my upload speeds have been cut by 46% to 50%. Orange keep referring me to the skyuser exchange checker which alleges that my line cant handle over 2Mbps. I have proved this to be garbage with the speedtest results from here and results from BT speedtester which show that the max my line can handle is 7150kbps and my IP Profile is 3500kbps (the best I get now is about 2814kbps), I have checked my figures using KITZ and I should have a throughput of around 3993kbps for my line attenuation, meanwhile in the email that I mentioned before it galls me to read that Mr Harry Wilson (Director of Operations) thinks that all of this is an improvement on the service that they offered before, I have asked Mr Wilson to explain how this is an improvement but have yet to receive a response. While at first trying to blame BT for any problems I pointed out that my contract is with Orange and not BT, all Orange now want to do is throw my MAC code at me to make me go away, they are not interested in answering any questions so I have given them 1 last chance to rectify things properly before I start raising complaints with whichever ADR Orange is registered with. I still await a response from Orange......

Hope you feel better now you've got that off your chest.

I'm not a tech genius and don't want to cause offence, but it sounds to me like your wife had to enter a load of details for her friends insurance, and probably didn't know them all - the forms often don't let you continue until they're fully completed, so she probably just banged in your details and thought nothing of it. Would Sky/Orange/BT customer service tell you that? No - they CANT cause offence, and they're not about to blame problems on your wife!

Either way I can assure you that some Insurance company cannot find out your name and phone number, just from your IP when browsing a site. When the Insurance company was telling you exact times etc, those are the details of when someone entered your details into their website to get a quote. If anyone wants to find out the owner of an IP address, it takes a court order - your ISP will not just hand it out - in fact iirc some of them have even refused when given a court order!.

Anyway back to the original topic.....

In reply to a post by phionexex:

ok going with orange you will be limited to may be 40gb a month and port blocking ? try be there ?

Well I remember when my sky was originally limited to 20gb - I often dl'ed double that, though on average it would have been below. I'm pretty sure if I did dl say 60gb one month, there wouldn't be a problem.

One thing I would like to know more about, is port blocking you mention. What do they block exactly? I did ask the very helpful lady at Orange about things like this, and some of the answers were a bit vague (thought to be fair I think it was mainly due to here lack of tech knowledge, rather than being deceitful) She said that although its on BTs network, if does still have things that are only available to Orange customers. She went on about something called Dynamic Line Management I think (Which I said sounded like some kind of throttling to me!) but she said only Orange customers have it on the BT network and it ensures constant speeds and other stuff?

Edited by deleted (Wed 15-Jun-11 07:22:33)

Quite rigt too!

Orange only blocks other ISPs' Port 25 SMTP, like most other ISPs, to combat spam.

BT does use DLM for all ISPs; it monitors your line characteristics to ensure you get an optimum sable speed:

In reference to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Line_Management#Rate_adaptation_and_B...:

dynamic line management (DLM) constantly assesses the performance of the line in order to provide information to the end user's DSL modem to allow it to choose a suitable sync rate with which to connect to the DSLAM, balancing speed against the risk of errors due to changing noise conditions.

Why would you want to move to Orange ? They consistently come bottom in surveys of customer satisfaction.

Nice thought but, I entered the details on the website and they consisted of the friends name, address and postcode and the use of an old mobile number so she was not bothered by any marketing rubbish. It would also serve no purpose to enter my details on a quote for someone else as the quote would not be honoured due to the different addresses. I entered none of my details which is what makes this so strange and disturbing. What also strikes me as strange is that I was plagued by emails addressed to a Gareth on my orange webmail (my name is not Gareth) and plagued by phone calls either for me or for Gareth (the only people to have my phone number were my ISP, my parents and my partners parents) all these calls were from Glasgow based companies and call centres and the Orange data centre which supplied my IP address was in ....Glasgow, don't know if this is just a massive coincidence or what but make of that what you will.

In reply to a post by savamac:

Why would you want to move to Orange ? They consistently come bottom in surveys of customer satisfaction.

Good point - I'm aware that there has been problems with Orange customer service - but a large part of it basically comes down to price.

Orange cost over 18 months : £249 (with discounts etc)

Be cost over 18 months : £569 (with discounts etc)

That is a significant difference!

A couple of other factors - as already mentioned Ive had many different providers over the years, and they've all had problems - usually when you join something goes wrong/gets delayed, so however wrong it is to accept this - I kind of now expect there to be problems in the first couple of weeks. After this initial period, with all the providers, you generally get exactly the same service - a good service. I know some people will say thats not true, and that alot of people have ongoing technical issues - but theres also a massive silent majority who will have zero problems, and will often be getting a better service.

The other factor is that I've got an eye on FTTC, which I know is pretty much BT only atm, but I think that will change over the next couple of years, so I want to be on the BT network (but not a customer of theirs) so that hopefully these services will be an option to me.

I could end up eating my words later in this thread, but that is one of the reasons I came here to ask questions!

In reply to a post by savamac:

Why would you want to move to Orange ? They consistently come bottom in surveys of customer satisfaction.

Much of that was due to their non-LLU IPStream products.

Generally I'd agree Orange will now be no better or worse any other WBC white label service seller, provided your exchange is 21CN. Some claim to nag BT better if you have a problem line, though I'm dubious whether that is a guaranteed benefit to justify higher prices: it's a question of your attitude to risk.

The elephant in the room is the Orange FUP (40gig-ish per month/or if you always have a very heavy (and I mean extraordinary) peak hour usage 18?-00) which if they enforce (and they do sometimes) leaves you with a non-negiotable 0.5Meg download speed for 1 to 2 months. Sky Unlimited seems to be what it says on the tin.

Edited by deleted (Thu 16-Jun-11 10:29:49)

Orange are sending an Engineer around next Tuesday to connect the phone line, and then "7-10 days later" I should get my router and BB. It looks like I will probably be charged a £60 "reconnection" charge, but I kind of expected it, and it is around the cheapest you can get excluding the "free" BT offers which involve an 18 month contract with BT. The cost is also more than covered by my £70 cashback from Quidco.

Fortunately Sky haven't yet got round to disconnecting my phone and BB, so it looks like I'll only have to endure a week maximum without BB. All in all its been pretty painless so far - I hope it stays that way!

In reply to a post by smurf46:

Sky Unlimited seems to be what it says on the tin.

For the service - yes. For the costs? Sky is a very clever money making machine!

Edited by deleted (Thu 23-Jun-11 12:07:47)

Quick update on this.........I happened to be checking Quidco today and they have upped the Orange cashback to £150! I called Orange, planning to cancel my installation, and then reorder it to get the extra £80 cashback, and they said the offer will be based on installation date so I'll be getting the £150 anyway! So that works out at £170 for 18months line rental, unlimited BB, and unlimited evening and weekend calls! I could be wrong, but Im pretty sure that is the best deal you can get anywhere right now.

Let us know how you get on & how speeds compare.

In reply to a post by Spacemanc:

Quick update on this.........I happened to be checking Quidco today and they have upped the Orange cashback to £150! I called Orange, planning to cancel my installation, and then reorder it to get the extra £80 cashback, and they said the offer will be based on installation date so I'll be getting the £150 anyway! So that works out at £170 for 18months line rental, unlimited BB, and unlimited evening and weekend calls! I could be wrong, but Im pretty sure that is the best deal you can get anywhere right now.

I add to the list; FREE landline evening and weekend and anytime phone calls have a maximum call duration of two hours per call, after then, these calls will be charged at standard rates. Not a lot of people know that, and not the one hour per call you get with BT.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

Let us know how you get on & how speeds compare.

Finally my broadband is connected and I've rejoined the modern world. No more mobile phone tethering and online gamers can prepare to be pwned repeatedly once more!

Orange have messed up sending out my router, so I've had to de-branded my Sky router and use that temporarily. The connection has only been up for a couple of hours, but these are my stats so far:

http://www.speedtest.net/result/1373406429.png

http://www.pingtest.net/result/43144620.png

http://img688.imageshack.us/img688/2550/connectionh.jpg

Downstream is around 2meg faster, ping has halved and upload has almost doubled! Obviously DLM is going to do its stuff over the next few days, and most people see a speed increase because of it, but worryingly I now have a small amount of jitter and packet loss, so can I expect my speed to drop slightly?

Also I await to see if I suffer from any contention this evening, and as I have a large amount of downloading to catch up on, I'll have to see if there's any throttling. Overall I'm very happy so far - I just hope that the DLM doesn't do anything too drastic.

So I've had Orange BB and phone now for 6 weeks or so, which means that the DLM should have settled down now.

http://www.speedtest.net/result/1435415608.png

Its settled at around 11mb down and 1mb up which is way faster than I got on Sky LLU. Best of all, Orange didn't charge me for the "new line" and the Quidco cashback offer tracked at £150. Including the 3 months free offer, it means that I am paying £3.65 a month for line rental, off peak calls and unlimited BB for the next 18 months! Quite a result so obviously I'm a very happy. As an added bonus Orange sent me 2 routers by accident, so I put one on ebay and got £20 for it .