To Orange from Plusnet?

I've been with Plusnet (actually Force9) for several years now on their legacy PAYG, 2MB, unthrottled, £15 per month offering but have been offered 'free' broadband from Orange since taking out a mobile pay monthly contract.

The Orange deal is an 18 month, 10GB contract and I need to transfer my calls to them.

I'm reluctant to move due to Force9's very good customer service and the ability to use unlimited email addresses. I also know my way around their service.

Are there any gotchas to stop me saving £15 per month?

Yeah it's orange. read the forums here and then make your mind up

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/isp/compare.html?isp_1...

There has to be a reason for this as well . Maybe it explains the deal being offered.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/4019-orange-conti...

Thanks for the two responses: useful and enlightening!

I don't think it would be the best move of your life.

In reply to a post by digitl:

... and the ability to use unlimited email addresses.

FYI: Orange gives you quasi-unlimited email addys of the form:
[email protected]
but they are all one (shared) mailbox at the server, so there is no real privacy between different users.

However, I find it extremely useful for filtering out spam (at the server) by registering a unique email addy at each site where I open an a/c.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

I don't think it would be the best move of your life.

You could do worse.

Regarding feedback on TBB Forums, I see many more complaints about slow speeds and unreliability on other ISPs; certainly compared with Orange's LLU products.

I'm on an Orange 8 Meg LLU package and get a consistent 8 Meg Sync Speed and 6.6 Meg speedtest download, and I haven't had a break in service (for a few hours) for over a year. I find Orange fast, reliable and very good value-for-money.

The only drawback is their atrocious support (and I've seen similar for many other ISPs), so only go with them if you are self-sufficient.

Regarding them taking over your calls, if you don't want that you can elect for Home Select (8 Meg speed, unlimited usage = FUP) @ £9.79 pm, still less than your Plusnet.

Have you asked Plusnet for a better deal? At the very least they have (AIUI) a loyalty deal for staying on a 12 month contract.

Check also if you are in a Market 3 exchange area.

Meldrew

There is another question. What benefits, specifically cost and speed, might you get from a move elsewhere.

If you are interested tell us your exchange and router stats, see here for help if you need it, then we can see if there is anything.

I'm looking to save money and if I can get a decent 'free' service from Orange then I'll move. From comments ans stats on here it seems that the connection would be slower and the customer service nowhere near as good as that that I am used to from Force9/Plusnet.

Hope the following is the information you asked for:
Exchange: MYGUI (it seems odd that it is not market 3 with all the different ISPs listed)
Downstream Rate: 7616 kbps
Channel: Interleaved
Current Noise Margin: 8.0 dB (Downstream) 15.0 dB (Upstream)
Current Attenuation: 33.0 dB (Downstream) 31.5 dB (Upstream)
Current Output Power: 19.7 dBm (Downstream) 11.9 dBm (Upstream)

If you have an O2 mobile phone, or anyone you know has, (who hasn't got O2 broadband and never will) , then you can get the LLU Standard 8Mbps for £7.34pm. That should give actual download speeds of around 6800kbps 24/7.

Without the O2 mobile it would be £12.23 which is only a small saving so maybe not worth it. I haven't really looked at the O2 email service either re the addresses as I have ISP-independent so migration didn't cause me any pain. (Costs me £1.15pm including my own domain).

Alternatively if the O2 mobile is available you could get the Premium service at £9.79pm giving you something over 12Mbps actual download speed.

Both currently with 2 months free, and £50/£45 cashback via Quidco.

There is a very good cost analysis at the end of MKD's excellent document. (I just checked the link and the costing page has a separate update there as well).

My mobile is with Orange and I wanted to stay there. I found an old unused mobile, got a SIM free from O2, chose the Favourite Place tariff, and top up by £10 once every 3 months.

That gets me the £4.76 discount at a cost of £3.33, 500 free landline minutes from my postcode in month 1, and £11 to use to near-zeroise my BT calls bill - even more so now my free BT Evenings and Weekends plan includes 0845/0870 in the free periods. Win win in my case.

A further thought about my exchange, is it possible to tell from the stats at http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/adslchecker.php whether or not it will go to market 3 in the near future?

It seems OfCom only update the list annually.

If you want a cheaper service from Orange you will find it comes with worse support and poorly performing products.

I moved from Plusnet to Zen which is now giving me better performance for a slightly higher price. You just need to work out what is best for you good service or a low cost option. I used to be with TalkTalk when they first did "free" broadband and it was really poor. With an 18 month contract you will be stuck until 2011

I am just leaving Orange for IDNet (I had considered Plusnet, but don't want the long contract).

I have been with Orange for years and always get blinded by the "we will give you a discount and loads of free minutes if you stay", but they forever muck up my billing on the landline side of things (Mobiles and BB/landline operate as two completely different companies and a lot falls in the grey area when you need a billing problem fixed) and then won't refund it to my in a lump sum (I have to get it debited off my bill as time goes by, which then means I won't leave as they owe me money).

The thing that finally pushed me over the edge was they they gave me loads of free minutes on my mobile to stay 18 months ago (which I said I didn't really need) and now that the 18 months is over, rather than remove the free minutes, they removed the discount, so my bill went up by £10 per month. If I want to drop the bill down to the minimum £15 again I HAVE TO SIGN UP FOR ANOTHER 18 MONTHS. Not what I consider loyalty long time customers!

Finally I bit the bullet and asked for my MAC to move broadband supplier and asked to transfer my mobile to PAYG. The chap transferring my mobile to PAYG didn't complete it correctly so I had to request again (more time hanging on the phone), and the MAC failed to turn up within the OFCOM guidance of 5 working days.

It may seem cheap, but you pay for it in the long run.

Oh, I had a connection to the exchange of 8125 bps, but on a week day evening regularly get 0.6 Mbps download rate! I am not sure that the Orange tarif is cheep if you compare it to a 2 Mbps package, which was more like what I was getting!

I hope this helps

Robbo1