Origin

Anyone know what they are like? Prices are good, my only niggle is a 18 month contract.

Reviews seems to be mixed.

thanks

Origin have not signed up to the Ofcom Automatic Compensation Scheme.

Due to rise in the number of slammed lines and mistakes made by multiple isp's and Openreach, I myself, would only ever sign up to a new service if they do sign up to the Ofcom Automatic Compensation Scheme.

P.S.

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-interne...

@Adrian

Have you seen this thread https://forums.thinkbroadband.com/unhappiness/t/4636...?

While the initial problem was not of Origin's makings, their systems fell over and they were not notably pro-active in helping the OP. The compensation offered by Origin also seems to be taking its time to get to the OP.

We were with Origin until a couple of years ago so I'm not saying that our situation then now applies to the current operation. However, when we were with them there was a lot of congestion on their backhaul. Our single thread download speed on a connection at the full 80MBps often fell to single figures. It is all written up somewhere on this Forum but I can't find it at the moment.

In reply to a post by mrmarktigger:

Origin have not signed up to the Ofcom Automatic Compensation Scheme.

Due to rise in the number of slammed lines and mistakes made by multiple isp's and Openreach, I myself, would only ever sign up to a new service if they do sign up to the Ofcom Automatic Compensation Scheme.

It looks like most ISPs have not signed up to it including the one i am with now. yes I know they are owned by BT, but i presume it is only the BT branded ISP that have signed up
you are going to be pretty limited if you only go for those that have signed up

In reply to a post by GonePostal:

@Adrian

Have you seen this thread https://forums.thinkbroadband.com/unhappiness/t/4636...?

I did see that thanks and It did make me think. i am thinking of changing to save a bit of money, but to be honest I am running out of places to go. i look at one and think, that looks a good price and then I find something wrong with them or in the case of uno they add V.A.T onto it and they end up being more expensive.

The way it is going, I may as well just take the offer of £29 a month from plusnet and stay where I am.

Thanks for the reply.

Don't do it

i had a horrible experience.

My experience of Vodafone was not that bad. I moved to Plusnet because they were marginally cheaper but I will quite possibly go back to Vodafone if Plusnet hike their prices when the contract comes to an end in 6 months time. You may still be able to leave Vodafone with the 1st month without penalty if the service (through put) is poor. I have used the same Zyxel router for both.

I was with PN for years for ADSL from a 20CN exchange but at some point the retention deals became dire ,didn't help that the exchange wasn't in a low cost area,anyway I migrated away to John Lewis BB which is provided by PN as the first year cost was cheaper than the last retention deal from PN plus I used TCB.
No change in the BB quality etc.other than the local exchange was upgraded 6 months ago so can now get ADSL2+ which improve things even if the exchange is far away.

I have still have not decided what I am doing, as you said the retention deals are not that good.

I will have another look when I have more time.

Hi
I used to be with Pulse8 and I would say they were one of the best value / quality providers I ever used.
K

In reply to a post by keymaster:

Hi
I used to be with Pulse8 and I would say they were one of the best value / quality providers I ever used.
K

More or less the same price I would be paying if I contracted to plusnet, Pulse8 website is awful, looks like something from 10 years ago.
but thanks for the info.

The broadband is almost certainly far superior to Plusnet however, and the CS on the phone was very good when I was asking them questions when thinking of joining.

In the end I only went with the phone, and took the FTTC to AAISP.

You need the website pulse8broadband not its parent Pulse8. The underlying service is TalkTalk Business Broadband, and only 1 month notice required.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

In reply to a post by keymaster:

Hi
I used to be with Pulse8 and I would say they were one of the best value / quality providers I ever used.
K

More or less the same price I would be paying if I contracted to plusnet, Pulse8 website is awful, looks like something from 10 years ago.
but thanks for the info.

Hi
You are welcome, well I was with Origin for 2 yrs before Pulse8 and I can tell you that you could not find two more different companies. I never had any issues with their website but thier service was chalk and cheese compared to the awful service i had at Origin.
K

In reply to a post by keymaster:

Hi
You are welcome, well I was with Origin for 2 yrs before Pulse8 and I can tell you that you could not find two more different companies. I never had any issues with their website but thier service was chalk and cheese compared to the awful service i had at Origin.
K

I have still not decided what I am doing, I need to do something because I am paying more than I should be per month to Plusnet, but I do not want to change to something that I will regret. The problem is Plusnet renewal is for 18 months and I don't really want to go for an 18 month contract.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

The problem is Plusnet renewal is for 18 months and I don't really want to go for an 18 month contract.

By default perhaps but I've renewed my 12 month contract a couple of times now just to ensure that my line rental saver and broadband finish at the same time. Never been a problem.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

The broadband is almost certainly far superior to Plusnet however, and the CS on the phone was very good when I was asking them questions when thinking of joining.

In the end I only went with the phone, and took the FTTC to AAISP.

You need the website pulse8broadband not its parent Pulse8. The underlying service is TalkTalk Business Broadband, and only 1 month notice required.

Plusnet has been pretty good to me, to be honest, the problem i did have, Plusnet got BTOR out a few times to try to sort it out, Plusnet even sent me a different router out. Sadly they could not sort it out, which is why I had to keep the old Huawei modem in line, but then somehow and at some time it got sorted and now I can run the Zyxel router. directly.
I wonder if the old Plusnet home hub will work now.

so Pulse8 uses Talk talk, umm.

TT Business is a very different animal from TT Residential .

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

TT Business is a very different animal from TT Residential .

Maybe, but it still uses the same network.

Indeed it does. Openreach .

I moved from PlusNet to Pulse8 in December 2018 while renting a property for just under a year. The line rental and call charges are low and I had no problems at all with the broadband supplied via Talk Talk Business backhaul, everything just worked as expected. I have since moved house and gone back to PlusNet on a good new customer deal, with no problems with the broadband performance or the dodgy billing system.

Andrews and Arnold use the TalkTalk Business network for a lot of their lines. If it was even a tenth as bad as you seem to think it is they wouldn't touch it with a bargepole. From reading some of the AAISP status posts I get the impression that TT business are more reactive than BT.

Exactly .

Worth noting that as well as A&A, Uno, IDNet and I believe Zen (on exchanges where they don't have their own Fibre point of presence) use TTBw

That covers off arguably the top 4 quality ISPs in the UK.

TTBw is every bit as good as BTw, maybe even better.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Indeed it does. Openreach .

Yes, it still goes via the same old Hybrid fibre system to me, but at the same time, it still uses Talk Talk servers.

In reply to a post by Realalemadrid:

I moved from PlusNet to Pulse8 in December 2018 while renting a property for just under a year. The line rental and call charges are low and I had no problems at all with the broadband supplied via Talk Talk Business backhaul, everything just worked as expected. I have since moved house and gone back to PlusNet on a good new customer deal, with no problems with the broadband performance or the dodgy billing system.

I have never had any problems with billing with Plusnet. To be honest, Plusnet has been good, the only fault I had was not Plusnet fault, but BT hybrid network, parts of it is getting too old or the engineers have no idea what they are doing. Sorted now, I do not know how or when, but it is ok now. Maybe they put the cabinet back on the concrete base, where it should be.

I am not sure if changing is a good idea at the moment, not that they would have to come here to change me over,

In reply to a post by jelv:

Andrews and Arnold use the TalkTalk Business network for a lot of their lines. If it was even a tenth as bad as you seem to think it is they wouldn't touch it with a bargepole. From reading some of the AAISP status posts I get the impression that TT business are more reactive than BT.

Just the idea of having anything to do with Talk Talk puts me off.

Really? Which TalkTalk servers do you think it uses?

In reply to a post by jelv:

Really? Which TalkTalk servers do you think it uses?

Well not servers as such, saying that it still needs to go through DNS servers. I meant their equipment.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

Well not servers as such, saying that it still needs to go through DNS servers. I meant their equipment.

Any provider using TTB just as a wholesale network does not use their DNS infrastructure.

The only equipment you could be directly connected to is when using ADSL, otherwise, it would just be their routers and backhaul, the same as when using BT Wholesale for example.

Matt

In reply to a post by uno:

Any provider using TTB just as a wholesale network does not use their DNS infrastructure.

The only equipment you could be directly connected to is when using ADSL, otherwise, it would just be their routers and backhaul, the same as when using BT Wholesale for example.

Matt

I did mean backhaul, what advantage is there to an ISP using Talk talk backhaul? I presume it is cost since ISPs that offer the service on BT or TT, normally charges less for the TT one.
The problem with Talk Talk is that their networks used to be awful, they could not cope with demand, I hesitate to think about what they are like now with the way things are.
I am not a fan of BT either. but we have to choose something.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

I did mean backhaul, what advantage is there to an ISP using Talk talk backhaul? I presume it is cost since ISPs that offer the service on BT or TT, normally charges less for the TT one.

Cost used to be a bigger factor than it is today now that BT have become a bit more sensible with their pricing.

The problem with Talk Talk is that their networks used to be awful, they could not cope with demand

Maybe on a retail service but their wholesale network has not had any inherent issues with capacity that I can recall in around 10 years. I'd probably say that we've seen more bandwidth issues with BTW and localised congestion than TTB over that time.

Of course, there have been a few network related issues with hardware in the TTB network but in reality, there have been issues with BTW too just in different ways.

Matt

In reply to a post by uno:

Cost used to be a bigger factor than it is today now that BT have become a bit more sensible with their pricing.

So if it is no longer cost, why do ISPs use them?


Maybe on a retail service but their wholesale network has not had any inherent issues with capacity that I can recall in around 10 years. I'd probably say that we've seen more bandwidth issues with BTW and localised congestion than TTB over that time.

Of course, there have been a few network related issues with hardware in the TTB network but in reality, there have been issues with BTW too just in different ways.

Matt


To be honest, I wish the wireless service I used was still going, I did think about 4G with three, but doing tests it seems like the mobile network is struggling to cope more so than fixed-line network because of this lockdown.

I still need to decide what to do as staying as I am with Plusnet is costing me more money than it should. The problem I have is providers seems to be going back to long contracts again.

TalkTalk Retail have to buy backhaul bandwidth from TalkTalk Wholesale (TTW) just the same as any of the other ISPs using TTW; if they don't buy enough there will be issues, but it doesn't mean there is a problem with capacity on the TTW backhaul itself and other ISPs that have bought enough capacity will be fine.

Pulse8 £36 per month 80/20 FTTC 1 month contract
IDNet £48 per month 80/20 FTTC (12 months for £528 if you pay up front)
Matt's ISP, Uno, will do you one month contracts but a bit more pricey.

All excellent ISPs and much better in my view than any of the main stream suppliers.

For FTTC, Pulse8 are TTBw only; IDNet use BTw, TTBw and Zen backhauls; and Uno use both BTw and TTBw backhauls.

I'm with IDNet and I can vouch from personal experience they will move you between backhauls if you have performance issues.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

Anyone know what they are like? Prices are good, my only niggle is a 18 month contract.

Reviews seems to be mixed.

thanks

Hello I realise this post is about a month old but... Do not go with Origin Broadband. Horrendous customer service and abysmal reliability. I was with them maybe... 2/3 years ago now. I had nothing but issue after issue when I was with them at the time.

My IP would randomly drop out throughout the day causing me to not be able to browse the web despite me actually getting a download/upload speed to my router. And when my internet did "work" the speed would fluctuate at random times during the day, according to the router I would be getting 74Mb coming in but trying to load a YouTube video was a very difficult task heck even attempting to load Google took about 30 seconds.

I can't vouch for how they are now as a company but I honestly can't expect they have improved since I was with them.

I will never recommened Origin broadband to anyone, they are the worst. Also they had the cheek to say I still had to pay to leave early even though they were not providing me with the service I was paying for. As soon as I joined my new provider all my issues went when I joined my new provider at said time (I believe it was BT - Yes I know... BT).

You can relax, I have not gone with them I have not moved yet at all, still looking where to go, need to decide soon since I am paying more than I should be staying with plusnet as I am. I thought plusnet would have got in contact with me saying, saying that I am out of contract and would I like to re-contract and give me an offer, but not a word, maybe they do not want my custom.

Still in contract. The minimum term is finished.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

I am out of contract

Nope - having completed the minimum term you are now on a rolling 1 month contract paying the full amount.

Edited by jelv (Tue 28-Apr-20 17:31:51)

In reply to a post by broadband66:

Still in contract. The minimum term is finished.

+1
Which anyone can discover when / if they want to leave, they are held to the 30 day notice term which is written in the contract !

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

but not a word, maybe they do not want my custom.

They do want your custom; they WANT you to pay the higher price. If everyone on all ISPs was paying the min term low price, there is a real risk the services they provide would collapse.

The UK is a strange country, we push for lowest price, and "that will do" levels of service. In mobile this led to the 3G era of £10/month for 1 Gigabyte of data, and calls, and mediocre levels of service. It took a Swiss to notice this, when he ran EE after the merger between Orange and T-Mobile.

We "make do" instead of paying a bit more for a LOT more of service.

In reply to a post by jelv:

Nope - having completed the minimum term you are now on a rolling 1 month contract paying the full amount.

Yeah, i know this, I should have said out of the minimum term

In reply to a post by jchamier:

They do want your custom; they WANT you to pay the higher price. If everyone on all ISPs was paying the min term low price, there is a real risk the services they provide would collapse.

B T is large enough to offer lower prices, their main service is flipping expensive and offers nothing more than what plusnet or their EE service offers.

The UK is a strange country, we push for lowest price, and "that will do" levels of service. In mobile this led to the 3G era of £10/month for 1 Gigabyte of data, and calls, and mediocre levels of service. It took a Swiss to notice this, when he ran EE after the merger between Orange and T-Mobile.

We "make do" instead of paying a bit more for a LOT more of service.

But we don't get good service even with higher prices, BT charged high prices and still their customer service was out sourced to India. BT network is still iffy, with copper cables trying to cope with higher speed and not always doing a good job.

Why pay more if you can get the same thing cheaper? In the 5 years or, so I have been with Plusnet I phoned then 5 times, 3 of them was for the same problem, one was to redo my contract and the other was when I had a problem with the mobile service when I first had it. Compared to BT plusnet customer service is first class or was, I have heard they have gone down a bit, but if they can do it, why can't others like BT, who owns Plusnet?

I do not mind paying a bit more, but some prices are stupid, like with A&A, £45 a month for a 300Gb monthly download? That sort of thing went out years ago, what do they offer for their high prices? Don't't say customer service, because how often do most people contact customer service? Maybe A&A is for a different class of customer or for people that have more money than they know what to do with.


I do not want to go really cheap, but my idea was to save a bit of money, but it looks like that the ones that are a bit cheaper than what i can get are not that great, so I may as well stick with Plusnet, the problem is they want me to re-contract for another 18 months, still it is better than other who want 24 months.