Orange speed problems - time to jump ship??

Since being moved onto WBC from LLU I have been having nothing but issues with my D/L speeds and my internet dropping for no reason. I have lost count on the amount of times I have been on the phone to Tech Support but no resolution has been found.

Anyway since last Thursday I have been having problems where my speed has been taking a nosedive from anywhere after 2.30pm until after 11pm at night. I have phoned Tech Support over 10 times to report the problem, done over 20 speed tests and informed them of the results but they don't have a clue what's going on. The BT Speedtester has several times found a fault and advised me to log the fault with my ISP but Orange won't flag it up as a fault with BT, instead asking me to do MORE speed tests. I've changed all cables and filters, connected to the Master Test Socket, removed the bell wire, you name it. Orange have even told me at one point that my line is only capable of 2Mb and said I was lying when I said I can get 14Mb on a good day!

My current stats at present are:

From the router (Netgear)
Connection Speed D/L 17132kbps U/L 1148kbps
Atten D/L 23.4db U/L 11.6db
Noise D/L 6.2db U/L 6.1db

BT Speedtest
D/L speed 5844kbps
U/L speed 944kbps



I'm getting to the end of my tether with Orange and now have just about had enough. I've been with them since the Freeserve dial-up days and only really started having problems when I was moved over onto WBC by Orange/BT.

Does anyone think it's time to jump ship or stay with Orange until they manage to sort the speed issues out? I was thinking it could be congestion problems but since my problems start in the middle of the afternoon, I think that idea can be thrown out of the window.

Today has been slow for me too. FYI, I just carried out a speed check and registered 4Meg download & 0.6Meg upload. At low usage times I can get 14Meg d/load & 0.8Meg upload.

Orange have even told me at one point that my line is only capable of 2Mb and said I was lying when I said I can get 14Mb on a good day!

Which doesn't seem to tie in very closely with Connection Speed D/L 17132kbps U/L 1148kbps .

I think it might be time to jump. If you give us the link to what samnknows says about the exchange somebody will suggest an alternative.

How much do you pay, and how much allowance?

Well I've just done another speedtest



But I'm betting my speeds will drop again within the next few hours

According to my router log I've already had 2 x LCP Down this afternoon. It's also showing

Connection Speed D/L 18552kbps U/L 1155kbps
Atten D/L 23.3db U/L 11.5bd
Noise D/L 5.8db U/L 6.6db

I can't do a BT Speedtest as it keeps coming up with errors.

This is the link to the Samknows exchange info
http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/EMBOSTO

According to Samknows, both Sky and Talk Talk are LLU'd at my exchange. I don't want to go with Talk Talk due to the horror stories I've heard and from personal experience regarding a business account with them at my last place of work. I would like to be with an ISP that doesn't traffic shape at peak hours and preferably away from the BT network. I was originally thinking of PlusNet but am tending to sway towards Sky.

I pay £17.36p/m for Home Max 20mb and phone line at the mo. It's cheaper as I also have a mobile contract with Orange.

Just been onto Customer Services just to double check I'm not being capped and they confirm I'm not. They said due to the package I'm on it's unlimited (But I know several times I've gone over their FUP - oops!). I was aked why I'm asking whether I've been capped and explained the issues I've been having regarding my speed over the last week and how Tech Support have been absolutely useless and have been considering asking for my MAC code.

I was then put through to some Level 3 team (this chap had a good strong Yorkshire accent for a change!) who checked my stats and line and confirmed it shows there are faults that need escalating to BT. I told him I was aware of possible faults as they had been picked up by BT Speedtester but when I tried to log them with Tech Support they didn't want to know but wanted me to do more speed tests. I also told him I have latency issues. He's assured me he will log the fault with BT who will check my connection from the exchange etc and will get back to me in the morning to let me know if I need an engineer to come to my home and check from here.

Why should it take the threat of leaving before anything significant is done????? Grrr
Here's hoping something finally gets sorted out.

A bit of progress. Good luck, and keep us in the loop.

I knew it would drop!

I would suggest asking them to check your VP I had a similar issue previous and they found that it was running as hot so they did a tpm (tie pair mod) the next day which sorted and speeds become consistent

I'm hoping that a lift n shift will fix it. Don't fancy them doing a TPM again. I was offline for over a week when they last did that to me when I was on the 1mb service ages ago. Mind you, they also had to dig a big hole in the middle of the cross roads at the top of my street to replace some cables as they'd found that a lot of people on my estate were also having problems at that time!

thats the only problem with tpm's as they say according to BT guidelines 1-3 days but it takes so much longer most if the time as they forget to re-map lines