Email from Orange re upgrade

We received the following email from Orange this morning entitled "Even faster Orange Broadband - for free":..................

"Hello
Great news. We're making some changes that could mean we can speed up your broadband service - for free!

We're going to complete your upgrade on 04/05/2007 at some point between 8am and 6pm. It'll only take about half an hour, but during that time you won't be able to get online.

If you'd like any info on your broadband service, just go to http://help.orange.co.uk, or give us a call on 0870 010 2462* any time of the day, seven days a week.

Enjoy faster broadband with Orange.

Customer Support"..................

We have not requested an upgrade, so I presume this is a follow-up to the email we received in October 2005 which said that they would be in touch as soon as a faster speed is available in our area.
We are only on 1 Meg at present but it is working fine...so not really looking forward to the upgrade after reading on here of problems people have had with upgrades. I don't know much about this but I presume the upgrade may be to ADSL Max??
I've checked the samknows website and Orange LLU is at present listed as not being available in our area. The site also shows that our line should be capable of 1.5Mbps or greater via ADSL Max.
Has anyone else had this email and if so did the upgrade go okay? I also wondered if it means a new contract but I would hope not as we have never requested any upgrade.

There won't be a new contact, they'd have to ask you to agree.. or say to reply if you didn't agree.

It won't be ADSLMax, it will be their LLU. Samknows.com is just out of date. Orange don't keep Sam upto date on their network roll-out (unfortunately)

You can either cross your fingers and hope for the best or migrate now..

After the problems they've had I assume they must have LLU under control to be sticking more users on there.

Thanks for your reply Bluebean - I was worried about it being LLU ! As I said I don't know too much about it, and sorry to sound ignorant, but would it be possible for you to tell me why it couldn't be ADSL Max, as I read on another forum about someone on Orange possibly being upgraded to that after they had received a similar email to me. I'm pleased to hear that you don't think it will be a new contract, which is what I had hoped. We could get a better deal from Sky Broadband but so far decided not to change as I believe Sky LLU is available in our area, and we didn't want that after having heard on here about all the problems with LLU......

Edited by minkster (Mon 30-Apr-07 18:10:06)

I think Sky only offer the cheap broadband on LLU exchanges so you have to opt for LLU if you want a cheap deal, otherwise it's

Sky/Easynet did have speed issues on their LLU network, but unlike Oranges current situation it wasn't a network wide problem.. just over crowded exchanges. Which can happen to IPStream to, and plagued DataStream.

AFAIK (not that I do!) Easynet/Sky got over that a bit ago..

The reason I think you'll be getting LLU is that an order for a regrade to IPStream Max isn't as organised as your email entails..

IE, telling you the time of the regrade and when to expect to be offline. Check with the friend you mentioned, see if his/her email didn't say more along the lines of "some time in the next ten days"

And please report back, cos I could easily be wrong.

Thanks for explaining about Sky Broadband Notawhizzkid, I hadn't realised that the cheap deals were LLU ! After I posted my last message on here I did in fact start wondering whether all ISP's had problems with LLU, or whether it was only some of them such as Orange.
I think we shall just have to see how it goes during the next week or two after the upgrade. We are at present paying

Thanks for explaining about the timing of regrades Bluebean.The similar email to mine which someone received from Orange was mentioned on another forum, the person said that they had been given a date when their broadband service was to be speeded up...and someone seemed to think that this would be Orange gradually upgrading their customers to ADSL Max which they said had been happening for a while.
If Sky broadband doesn't have problems with LLU now we may be better off changing to them if we are now going to end up with Orange LLU and possible problems...it would at least be cheaper.
Anyway I'll certainly let you know what happens after the upgrade!

Edited by minkster (Mon 30-Apr-07 22:30:57)

Good luck mate - I received the same good news a few months ago - end result, no internet access or voice capability on the line for 10 days. My line can supposedly run at about 6mb downloasd - never seen better than 2.5mb, and even this drops to less than 0.5mb at some times of day.

Thanks Savamac, sorry to hear of your problems...I am expecting that there will be problems after our upgrade too! We have had Orange broadband for about 3 years and have always had our own Belkin router - we have never had a livebox so do not have the talk capability that you have. As I said on my other post we only have 1 Meg broadband at present as that appeared to be the fastest speed our line could support (we originally had 512kbps when we started with Freeserve). However we have always been satisfied with the service - but I have a feeling that is about to change!

Edited by minkster (Tue 01-May-07 11:58:02)