Thread

Okay,

Methinks it’s time for a rant!!

We’ve been with Orange internet for the past 4 months or so now and have had nothing but problems with them since we opened the account. We weren’t told when the account went live so we were under the impression that we were still with our existing provider. We just tried out the new settings one day as nothing was working and found that we were live. No-one told us a thing!! We were being charged for a service we knew nothing of.

Next up and more importantly speed issues. Ever since we have had this connection I can safely say that I could probably walk to London and back and get the data myself quicker than with the connection we have. I have actually been considering plugging in an old 28K modem that I still have as I know it would be quicker than that of what we are getting now.

To top it all off after a couple of weeks of to-ing and fro-ing with the idiots in tech support at Orange who always promise to ring back with results of line-checks and never do we have now got the truth out of them. BT Wholesale admitted to them that there was a problem on the line, something we have known for ages but they (Orange) always try and put us through to their expensive Mac help-line trying to tell us there is a problem with our computer!! We have now found out that BT have placed a cap on our line of just 0.5Mb!!

We aren’t even getting anything near that speed but the fact that they did this and no-one told us anything of what they were doing is just unbelievable. Today my Wife had the idiots at Orange telling her that it is an Up To 8Mb service though!

Who do they think they are kidding!! If our line has been capped at 0.5 then it’s pretty unlikely that we are ever going to get anything more than that so we are paying for a service that we have absolutely no way of getting!!

She (the admin support) didn’t quite understand this though!! They really are a complete and utter bunch of numpties!!

They have promised us that this is going through to their escalations department for them to get BT Wholesale to perform a line check - WHAAAATTTTT another one!!! They already did that and decided to cap our line and all of this without anyone informing us!!

If this isn’t fixed this time then next week I am on to the ISPA and CISAS as this just has to stop. No-one should have to go through this wretched service ever again. We are tied in for a year with Orange but if this isn’t fixed I am going to take this all the way that I have to just to get out of the service with them as everything they have done in my mind was totally immoral and illegal.

Rant over, back to the slow world of 80s style internet!!!

Mark

Sorry to hear about your problems Mark, have heard a fair few grumbles about that particular company before.

I use this company and have been very happy with the service, both speed and reliability wise. This site is pretty good for researching all the various ISPs out there (in the UK). Hope this helps..

Hiya,

Thanks for the links. Actually we have been with just about everyone now in the UK, the only people we haven’t tried are Virgin who I have heard quite good things about.

They all have their problems though and I really wish there was a bit more legislation over this type of thing. I know that the Government do want to have a bit more control over providers but I personally think that might be a while off yet.

All quite ridiculous really. I just wish we could get some sort of flag on our account that proves we know what we’re talking about when it comes to technology so that we don’t get put through to complete dim-wits every time!!

Best wishes,

Mark

Mark,

I have always been wary of Mobile providers that provide landline services, especially those offering “free” broadband services. TalkTalk, Orange they are all the same, promise the earth and provide exactly a bucket full of dirt. The one exception to this rule (fingers crossed) is O2 which as owners of BeThere.co.uk have been very impressive for the 6 weeks I’ve been using them.

As for Virgin broadband (not their Cable service) the words, ‘touch’, ‘do not’ and ‘bargepole’ can be formed into a sentence that sums up my experiences with them.

If you are on an Intel based Mac I have found the easiest way to circumvent the scripted “it is the mac at fault not our service” stupidity is to boot into Windows partition or virtual image and play along with the script monkeys until they admit that the problem lies with them.

Mark,

I have always been wary of Mobile providers that provide landline services, especially those offering “free” broadband services. TalkTalk, Orange they are all the same, promise the earth and provide exactly a bucket full of dirt. The one exception to this rule (fingers crossed) is O2 which as owners of BeThere.co.uk have been very impressive for the 6 weeks I’ve been using them.

As for Virgin broadband (not their Cable service) the words, ‘touch’, ‘do not’ and ‘bargepole’ can be formed into a sentence that sums up my experiences with them.

If you are on an Intel based Mac I have found the easiest way to circumvent the scripted “it is the mac at fault not our service” stupidity is to boot into Windows partition or virtual image and play along with the script monkeys until they admit that the problem lies with them.

Hiya,

First of all you have to post to this thread that I started 😉

What does your screen-name mean?

Ah so Virgin aren’t that good after all? Hmm I had actually heard more good about them than bad so don’t know what to do now. I know that all hosts are a complete load of twods but it really does seem like things in this country are going from bad to exceptionally bad!!

With the Windows problem I think now we have got through to them, after lots of shouting, that as they keep on admitting to the problem being on their end and more specifically the line that they pretty much give in now with that tack. Takes a lot of arguing with them each time though. Why oh why can’t they just write on our details that we know what we’re doing and every single time it is a line fault?!!! Plonkers!!

The fact that they capped our internet without even telling us in my eyes is fraud as we are paying for a service that we have absolutely no way of receiving. I am definitely not going to be letting this one go that easy though. Next week I will be in touch with the ISPA and CISAS and see if we can get some real money back on this one as it has been a living hell ever since we have been with them.

As if things aren’t hard enough in this country anyway. I am probably going to be made redundant fairly soon so will have to go full time into web-design, if I can find the clients of course 😉 and with the prices of everything over here at the moment things really are looking a bit grim.

I will grin and bear it though. We always pull through some way or another, just wish it didn’t all have to be so darned annoying.

Best wishes,

Mark

I was on Virgin Cable broadband for years and never had any major problems with them. Recently moved to a new apartment complex where Sky and BT got their fingers in first so no Virgin Cable… But I still had _months_ left on my contract so stuck with them and did “Beyond Cable” their ADSL service. Apart from it taking nearly a month for BT to admit that we existed and that they had come to the flat to wire it with telephone cables and then finally charging us £125 to flip a switch at their depot, we then had masses of problems with virgin, firstly not putting our order through so instead of a week wait for equipment it was a two week wait, there was then a authentication issue which even though I kept ringing back asking for help with it dragged on for weeks and weeks before they rang me and said try it now. I did. it worked, they said they hadn’t even started troubleshooting yet they just wanted to check. Me not a happy camper!

So if you’re in a cable area go for it. it’s much much better than adsl. if you’re stuck with adsl, I feel we’re all in the same shit hole until BT sort out the cabling and move us into the 21st century.

Well we might just give Virgin a go. Can’t be any worse than we are getting at the moment!

I heard that BT are actually testing new lines in certain parts of the country that should in the first instance (around 2010) enable people to get up to 40Mb speeds. After that they have said that they should be able to get it up to around 100Mb or something like that.

Only time will tell on that one though I guess.

Best wishes,

Mark

Hi Mark,

Really, Don’t even think Virgin Broadband unless you are in a Cable (TV) enabled area.

Take a look at http://www.samknows.com/broadband/search.php and see who are available at your local exchange.

21CN is being rolled out (its available in my area of Edinburgh now, but restricted for some reason).

It may be that the line between your exchange and your home / office is at fault.

I definitely think that, well know that our line is damaged somewhere. They have admitted this to us many times now but just don’t seem to do anything about it. Capping us to a low data rate and without telling us is simply ridiculous though. I find it hard to believe that BT Wholesale would just do this anyway unless Orange had said that it was okay to do so and for Orange to say this is okay then surely they should ask us first!!

Bloomin’ idiots the lot of ‘em. If I had my way I’d……………

You can fill in the blanks for yourselves if you like!!!

Best wishes,

Mark