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.