On the other hand the bigger ones need to lock people in for longer because of the huge overheads they incur in staying big. Advertising in particular.


I think your argument to justify lock-ins subject to high penalties would hold true if a leaving customer was not replaced (which incidentally has probably been true for Orange!!). But for most decent ISPs churn would surely replace, or more than replace, lost customers (perhaps until fibre services take off and assuming the big ISPs decide not to play catch-up)?

Whilst I understand all these points, my main issues lie with the following :

1 . Orange are saying that even if I leave, and return to them with a new contract , they cannot guarantee what technology ( max or 21cn WBC ) I'll be on until AFTER I have signed up for a contract , and the bt engineer has been. Surely this is not fair? In what other situation would you be expected to sign up for a payment commitment without knowing what you are going to be paying for ??

2. Orange are also saying that it is not their fault that I was placed on an inferior package when I moved house despite the technology being available. Why are they allowed to do this without telling me ?

As I mentioned, my main concern here is upload speed and stability of connection. That's why i want to be moved to 21cn for higher upload speed. As for other countries, I just returned from Armenia, a small developing ex soviet nation that has declared IT as a priority. In my house there I get : 8 mb fibre to the home broadband symmetric upload and download, IP television with time shift that is stored on remote servers ( no pvr required !) , a landline , free equipment , and one month contract at 20 pounds a month . The company has also stated it will double speeds in November for free! Granted 8mb isn't twenty but neither is oranges , or bts, or anyone's really and it's a far more stable , and most importantly, correctly sold service.



My point is that we really are not ahead of the game here.

I don't believe anyone has said the UK is ahead of the game. What has been said is that we aren't significantly behind the game. We are probably somewhere in the middle - high coverage but not necessarily high speeds (as was stated by MrS earlier).

We aren't bleeding edge and that is largely to do with the massive investment made over the last 100 years whereas countries that have had more unfortunate histories have the benefit that as they are only now rolling out major infrastructure they can do it with current tech. But when compared to other similar countries as far as tech history goes we are not behind the curve and are indeed ahead of some.

In the end it is a league table that has many different factors and in some we will be ahead and in others we will be behind. To say we are behind when comparing to one country does not give an accurate or balanced view.

The difference it is a developing country that is spending to play catch up and may not have suffered so much in the recent recession...

Also other factors such as local costs, like salaries may make it cheaper to roll-out fibre

Over how much of Armenia was that available, as sounds very like Virgin media with the PVR stuff (VM PVR has a 10Mbps IP link dedicated to the VoD service, on top of the cable tv bandwidth)

I was an Orange home broadband customer for over 4 years (until last month). Regrettably over that time their customer service failed almost consistently to give any sensible explanation of problems afflicting my line (and could be downright misleading). They were a poor ISP in this regard (remember their main business is as a mobile operator). There has been some suggestion that their current support is provided by BT Wholesale, but this is not verified as far as I am aware. In my view the best guide to broadband in this country is that you get what you pay for, particularly at the cheaper end of the market inhabited by Orange. When others say we have good competiition: that is on price, and on up to speeds (which can mean anything) not on the quality of your individual connection. That probably satisfies most people. WBC is a service sold to the ISP, not to the consumer which for Orange is anything up to 20Meg.

I can't remember whether TT LLU is available at your exchange, if so why not consider a TT reseller, if you want on some point of principle to avoid TT as a mass market operator, though it won't help if you've a poor line quality or are a long way from the exchange: but these things could be checked out through analysis of your router settings. If there's no LLU then short term contracts are available but are more expensive, but probably a fair price for obvious reasons.

To get the best deal on any utility service in this country you have to shop around and chop and change. It's the way our national regulation works, and a consequence of our privatisations - other countries do it differently. It's why I have this "bee in the bonnet" about lock-ins and high penalites - because they inhibit our chosen market system working as it should! But as others have pointed out ADSL is a mess, it's technology bolted on to an aging voice telephony tranmission system working beyond its design capability, and which is repaired ad hoc. Why? less cost and cheaper services, and for most people it gives an acceptable level of service most of the time, and there are phased improvements both to the exchange equipment, and an expanding replacement with fibre serving local cabinets. But, as I say, more or less ad hoc i.e. commercially led not part of a national plan. That is the British interpretation of a market economy. The result at worst is your particular service can be a lottery, which is what you are finding.

EDIT: If you think you've been treated unfairly (not necessarily a breach of contract) by Orange then why not avail yourself of their complaints procedure (write in not phone) - see the Home Broadband help and support pages on their website and then use a complaint through ISPA's website if unresolved (which you can take to arbitration). You won't get anywhere with Orange if you don't avail yourself of those opportunities. Make your complaint clear and simple but comprehensive on the facts, and tell them what you want them to do: their comprehension is not good, and a bland complaint will get a bland reply.

Edited by deleted (Thu 01-Sep-11 13:53:40)