Originbroadband

Just done a search for and only found one thread for Origin.

Anyone have any views on this ISP/reseller please?

Have got to payment and they only seem to offer debit rather than credit card payment, which seems odd.

Seen the offers for ADSL and they look to be quite impressive (ie. cheap), but a good proportion of the reviews seem to suggest that their customer service is terrible. While plusnet isn't great, they do at least accept faults occur and send out an OR engineer, but not sure that Origin would be quite so helpful.....

At the end of a long phoneline here which seems to pick up faults quite often. Switching to Origin would save at least £14/month (unlimited ADSL & anytime calls vs Plusnet's 10GB & anytime calls).

Current offer seems to be £17 per month for line rental with free ADSL + a few extra quid a month for anytime calls.

Is the offer simply too good to be true - seems that once you are committed (after the 14 days cooling off period) there is no escape without a hefty charge....

I've recently just switched to Origin. I've had no problems with the broadband itself, no slowdowns during peak times etc... Router isn't to bad either as in its tweakable, poor wifi though.

However, their customer service is very slow. You could be expecting wait times of 40 mins using their live chat and around 20 mins wait time with the phone. Though I've had no problem with their tech team changing things that needed changed like my path mode for instance. They seem to know what they're talking about.

This was for ADSL. No clue what their fibre service is like.

I'm pretty sure they use plusnets equipment also, according to the guy i asked.

Good luck.

When i say recently i mean 3 months.

Edited by deleted (Fri 18-Nov-16 20:37:58)

In reply to a post by mbames:

While plusnet isn't great, they do at least accept faults occur and send out an OR engineer, but not sure that Origin would be quite so helpful.....

I'd happily stick with Plusnet but they don't seem interested in quoting for a new contract.

Phone them and you ever get cut off or put in an unacceptably long queue. Their web chat just sits there loading and no one ever reads what is typed into their website question system.

Origin did at least answer questions raised on their web chat and I'm waiting for an answer to an email to them.

In reply to a post by woodmass14:

I've recently just switched to Origin. I've had no problems with the broadband itself, no slowdowns during peak times etc...

Good to know.

I can't see wait times being any worse than Plusnet.

Edited by hk11 (Fri 18-Nov-16 20:35:32)

Hi
I am no fanboy as they truelly sucked in first month or two but 24/7 uk support for that price takes some beating - see my previous posting below.
K

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/which_isp/t/4515231...

In reply to a post by keymaster:

see my previous posting below.

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/which_isp/t/4515231...

Interesting: thanks. I obviously should have widened my search.

I have yet to find a very good ISP. I think they all have some issues, but perhaps we expect too much?

I think we do. For £18 a month for unlimited broadband upto "17 mbps". I say that's a pretty good deal. You want premium support you got to pay the premium price.

If you do go with them i'll be interested to hear your experience with them. Might help others looking to join them make a decision also.

I was making the query on behalf on my parents who live in Somerset at the end of a long line. Performance of the line has been very variable, but after numerous OR engineers is seems stable, so fingers crossed (plusnet were very good in this respect, I doubt a cheaper ISP will be half as good at raising a line fault). Syncs at 2.1, and has an IP profile around 1.5 (not bad for line which is miles and miles long!)

My Dad started the sign up process last night, but his computer rebooted (windows patches) before he had filled in the DD details so we assumed the order hadn't completed, but it seems that Origin have signed him up a customer now (email arrived this morning).... no going back, as I think they have clobbered his Visa card for the full payment upfront....

Edited by mbames (Sat 19-Nov-16 12:56:56)

In reply to a post by woodmass14:

If you do go with them i'll be interested to hear your experience with them. Might help others looking to join them make a decision also.

g
I'll report back as/when/if I get an answer to my email.

They answered my question about line saver and I had to start the application all over again, but they said they would send my comments to the developers.

In reply to a post by mbames:

I think they have clobbered his Visa card for the full payment upfront....

I take it that is debit not credit card? There seemed to be no credit card option, which along with the no install date option with line saver, is why I had to resort to email.

In reply to a post by woodmass14:

I think we do. For £18 a month for unlimited broadband upto "17 mbps". I say that's a pretty good deal. You want premium support you got to pay the premium price.

If you do go with them i'll be interested to hear your experience with them. Might help others looking to join them make a decision also.

Hi
I been with them 20 months and happy to answer any questions you may have. I am not biased and if I could find better for the money I would move.
I have 2 lines here, one with Zen and one with Origin - the Zen one is better but £100 a year more expensive - and not with 24/7 support.
Key

Oh i'm already with Origin, 3 months without a problem. Lets hope it keeps.

I was just interested to hear others opinions on them. And to keep other folks updated interested in joining them.

In reply to a post by hk11:

I take it that is debit not credit card? There seemed to be no credit card option, which along with the no install date option with line saver, is why I had to resort to email.

The sign up process takes Credit Card details, and then next page it wanted your Direct Debit details. Upon further investigation, they have already billed him for a month of line rental, but done nothing!!

In reply to a post by mbames:

The sign up process takes Credit Card details, and then next page it wanted your Direct Debit details.

Ah right; so another difference in the sign up process depending on where you start from then.

I have been with Origin for around 4 months now and had no issues. The switch from BT went smoothly without any problems. Had a couple of queries via email and they have responded pretty quickly(during the weekend).

The connection has been fine since then so I would recommend them.

Umm - found this :-

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/review/products/799.html

Knew I'd heard of them before. LOL :-

http://stargate.wikia.com/wiki/Origin

I read that before.... as I'll be configuring the router for my Dad I hoped that this wouldn't be too much of a problem, but virtually every suggests their customer service staff are overworked, or just don't exist!!

Ah well, that's disappointing: no answer to Friday's email asking if I could start my service on 6th December 2016.

Looks like I shall be signing up with Sky: £190 for 12 months plus a £75 credit card.

Well with the service due to be activated tomorrow (6th) there was no sign of the router, so after 18 minutes on hold I was given the logon details. The on-hold times were certainly no worse than PlusNet. Router reconfigured with new details (WAN1), while an external vigor 120 is currently handling the connection to plusnet (WAN2). Should be a nice simple switch over - move the phone cable!

No emails from origin though since the initial sign up / money taking emails. Still as long as the service works, that is the main thing.

I gave up in the end and signed up with Sky. I hope I don't regret it.

I was with them years ago when they provided services on the old Digital Region network in South Yorkshire. I remember it being a decent connection at 40/10, but I also remember it taking literally months to get connected and technical support being poor - the few times I called, it took ages to get an answer and the person at the other end of the phone sounded most irritated at being interrupted. They may well have been an 'apprentice' on £2-odd an hour, which was one of the company's regular wheezes.

Of course, the current incarnation of Origin is on a totally different network - but the same people are presumably still in charge.

These companies change so often it is difficult to know who is in charge.

Line now connected, and appears to be going through plusnet, and seemingly with a static IP (although that option wasn't selected at signup).

Sync speed on the line has dropped from 2.2 to 1.92, but as long as it remains stable that is the key thing, SNR remains at 7. Long line, over the Mendips where it is foggy and damp this morning, so that may well affect things.


C:\Users\matth>tracert 80.229.yyy.xxx

Tracing route to origincxxxxx.pndsl.co.uk [80.229.yyy.xxx]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.100.254
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 9 ms 9 ms 11 ms be443.pr3.hobir.isp.sky.com [2.120.10.36]
4 9 ms 8 ms 8 ms 195.66.224.185
5 10 ms 18 ms 7 ms 213.121.193.206
6 8 ms 8 ms 8 ms be11.psb-ir01.plusnet.bt.net [195.99.125.135]
7 8 ms 8 ms 8 ms 195.166.129.208
8 8 ms 9 ms 8 ms 411.ae0.central10.pcn-bng03.plus.net [84.93.253.82]
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 * * * Request timed out.
11 * * ^C

Still no sign of the router they were meant to supply, so not ideal for "first time broadband users".

I am currently with BT Infinity 2 and it's generally reliable, but feels expensive and BT are a pain if there is a problem.

I was looking at Origin and contacted them earlier via their chat service, but they say they cannot guarantee I would be able to keep my phone number if moving from BT. Does anybody else know anything about this? I just tried calling, but gave up after almost 30 minutes of listening to loud music without managing to speak with somebody. The other option is Vodafone, but I have a nagging doubt about their customer service.