In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Where?

On the order.

They call it an activation fee.

What length contract are you opting for?

I moved to Origin earlier in the year and have regretted it ever since.
After a nightmare transfer from Plusnet which took about 5 weeks (Plusnet's mess-up), I was eventually connected.
The ADSL sync speed with Origin is almost exactly 50% of what it was with Plusnet but the actual internet speed is often much worse than that. Often the 'single thread' speed measured on thinkbroadband's speed checker goes down to below 1Mbps in the evenings which makes watching video impossible. With Plusnet I consistently got around 12Mbps using the same router etc.
In the past week or so the internet is dropped completely and will not reconnect for hours on end, though the ADSL remeains connected and is never dropped.
My attempts to contact Origin have all had long waits resulting in my abandoning the attempt to get through.
Origin do not have a 'quiet line test' so it's impossible to check whether there is a faulty connection but, if there is, it's at the exchange end.
As with other ISP's I've used Origin claim an upload speed of 'up to' 2Mbps which is utterly impossible as they deliberately limit upload to about 700kbps!!

12 month, if possible, although 18 month seems quite prevalent these days.

Can anone think why we haven't had more reports if Origin are so bad?

I don't know why ISPs can't just give loyal customers the best deals they can, then we wouldn't have to keep changing

It only takes one company to give a retention deal and then everyone has to do it. And once they start doing it then prices of customers not on a deal have to go up to cross subsidise those that are.

It is no different to Sky TV, insurance companies, etc. They will all try and charge the standard price but if you attempt to leave then they will have specials they can offer to try and keep your custom. The only way to stop it would be to regulate the market but generally the government would rather natural competition to regulation.

The result is the people who don't ask end up paying much higher prices than those that do.

If they only have 20,000 to 50,000 customers (guess) then the volume of posts is about right

PlusNet is in the million customer region

Plus of course, given that the main reason anyone posts about their ISP is a problem of some kind, once they have done so and the thread has run its course they go quiet. Only waking up again as in this thread, when the rare enquiry about the ISP comes up.

Mostly though they won't be monitoring these forums anyway so don't see the enquiry. Those of us who do are geeks.

The "question" was a bit "tongue in cheek" really.

Ah, right.

Wasn't thinking that laterally.