Orange are now saying that because I moved they have no commitment to provide me with the 20mb service I originally signed up for. They Are saying that exchanges will be upgraded all at once and they can't just do mine. How true is this ?

They are also saying if I was a new customer I would be put straight on to 20mb as " that's the way it works "

I gOt through to retentions who told me if I cancelled they would remove the credit I had been given as an apology for poor service, I pay a cancellation fee and if I sign up for broadband again they would not guarantee I would be on WBC.

How can they get away with this arrogance ? How can I sign up for a product without knowing whether I'll get eight or twenty mug , seems crazy . I have been defeated, have no energy any more . Paying for cancellation, going with bt , it's expensive but they guarantee my speed.

Simples,in my view - Orange merely sell the broadband that BT (in their various guises), who own and control the infrastructure, choose to provide. It's up to BT when they regrade your line (if at all) - so patience has to be the order of the day. I don't think Orange, to be fair to them, have any say in the matter - and are probably paying BT's wholesale arm as little as they can get away with. As always you gets the service you pay for, so they're not BT's highest priority.

The exception is infrastructure faults (hardware or software) when they're accepted by BT, but "my exchange may have been upgraded and I'm not getting higher speeds" isn't one of them. All Orange's packages (with the exception possibly of some legacy customers) are "up to 20Meg" for what it's worth, so I don't see an Orange package change would have helped, its just a change of package name for the broadband element - and would invoke the early termination provisions anyway where they apply. That's Orange. I always found it helpful to think of them as French bureaucrats (but doubtless some will say I'm prejudiced). I suspect the posters with good speeds tend to credit Orange with more praise than is their due!

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

They Are saying that exchanges will be upgraded all at once and they can't just do mine. How true is this ?

It seems absurd for Orange to say that exchanges will be upgraded all at once - this is surely down to BT's roll-out plan.
The Dawley exchange has definitely been upgraded to 21CN WBC, so I see no reason why you shouldn't be getting the faster speeds.
What results do you get when you use BT's speedtester?

Wagstaff

Post deleted by smurf46

What's More absurd is that in 2011, in a country like the uk, I have but two choices for my broadband. BT , and talk talk. Whatever happened to increased competition and free Market ?!?

BT own the local loop.

How many do you have in the USA, or anywhere else?

How many countries have the same or higher percentage of the population able to get broadband?

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

What's More absurd is that in 2011, in a country like the uk, I have but two choices for my broadband. BT , and talk talk. Whatever happened to increased competition and free Market ?!?

But BT are a wholesale provider and therefore you can get the hundred's of ISPs that use BT wholesale. It is no different for gas/electric/etc - they all sell another suppliers wholesale product over someone else's infrastructure - otherwise everyone would have to put their own infrastructure in place. In fact at the ultimate cable level there is only 1 supplier in most of the country - BT. [EDIT - Not entirely accurate on 2nd read as Virgin are available to over 50% of the country as well]

At the wholesale level, as I say, there are hundreds that buy from BT. At the exchange level there may be up to about 10 who do LLU.

Compared to many countries even on an exchange with "only" BT Wholesale there is far more competition than is the case in most countries (especially when compared to the USA where I believe the cable companies don't normally wholesale their infrastructure.

Edited by ian72 (Wed 31-Aug-11 10:02:35)