Orange Broadband Vs BT Broadband - Pros'n'Cons
Discussion
Ok merry people of the PH collective
Im having trouble with my Orange broadband, not due to their service, but due to their poor equipment.
Im currently using the Livebox on a wireless conncetion and its all well and good when its working, but I had a blazing row with Orange last night when my connection was ceased. Orange said it was down to BT cutting it off and I would have to wait ten working days to be reconnected, BT said it was Orange who had cut me off because someone fouled up an order, Orange sent me back to BT claiming it was on their behalf that the order was ceased and that its their fault, and once again BT send me back to Orange saying that they have done nothing and that Orange have cease markers on my lines....I dread to see the price of the phone bill having to call Oranges rather pathetic service on the 0870 number
Anyway, the connection is back up and running....guess what?
It wasnt a fault via BT, it was a fault with the stupid livebox that for some reason has a habit of shutting itself down internally therefore recquiring what Orange call a "Factory Reset"
If they're supplying this technology to people, surely it shouldnt be happening as much as this??
Anyway, Im cheesed off with their lack of service and have been invited over to BT Wireless and I must admit, I am rather tempted.
Their top of the range connetion is cheaper and faster than Orange, Im uncapped which is a benefit
They also charge £18.99 for 6 months so I technically get £8 per month off for the first 2 quarters
BT will also supply me with their wireless homehub and brand spanking new cordless phones to go with it...sounds good so far, but I dont want to risk jumping ship thinking the grass is greener on t'other side, before Ive consulted with the very knowledgable and seasoned internet veterans that reside within PH Halls
Come on people, whats the pro's and cons of either?
As always, advice and suggestions are always welcomed
Ta muchly
~S~
Im having trouble with my Orange broadband, not due to their service, but due to their poor equipment.
Im currently using the Livebox on a wireless conncetion and its all well and good when its working, but I had a blazing row with Orange last night when my connection was ceased. Orange said it was down to BT cutting it off and I would have to wait ten working days to be reconnected, BT said it was Orange who had cut me off because someone fouled up an order, Orange sent me back to BT claiming it was on their behalf that the order was ceased and that its their fault, and once again BT send me back to Orange saying that they have done nothing and that Orange have cease markers on my lines....I dread to see the price of the phone bill having to call Oranges rather pathetic service on the 0870 number
Anyway, the connection is back up and running....guess what?
It wasnt a fault via BT, it was a fault with the stupid livebox that for some reason has a habit of shutting itself down internally therefore recquiring what Orange call a "Factory Reset"
If they're supplying this technology to people, surely it shouldnt be happening as much as this??
Anyway, Im cheesed off with their lack of service and have been invited over to BT Wireless and I must admit, I am rather tempted.
Their top of the range connetion is cheaper and faster than Orange, Im uncapped which is a benefit
They also charge £18.99 for 6 months so I technically get £8 per month off for the first 2 quarters
BT will also supply me with their wireless homehub and brand spanking new cordless phones to go with it...sounds good so far, but I dont want to risk jumping ship thinking the grass is greener on t'other side, before Ive consulted with the very knowledgable and seasoned internet veterans that reside within PH Halls
Come on people, whats the pro's and cons of either?
As always, advice and suggestions are always welcomed
Ta muchly
~S~
I know this should be in computers, but I wanted to majority of the massive to see if before it gets moved...
Used to have BT Broadband shortly after it first started.. had it for a year or two. Was a bit sketchy at times with service dropping at night and phone calls to customer service took half an hour to be answered.. but then it did settle down and became a lot more reliable. So I'd recommend it.
munky said:
Used to have BT Broadband shortly after it first started.. had it for a year or two. Was a bit sketchy at times with service dropping at night and phone calls to customer service took half an hour to be answered.. but then it did settle down and became a lot more reliable. So I'd recommend it.
Fantastic: Thats one in favour of BT!
Orange = free and works very well thank you since we had BT come and fix their shitty line! Orange tech support were brilliant at identifying the problem and even phoned up afterwards to see what we thought (not marketing call, a real "was the problem fixed and was the experience good call without asking for silly scores". BT support was completely automated and never acknowledged the problem was there's until we collared an engineer who happened to be in our street
Orange 4-0 BT
Orange 4-0 BT
Don't know about either Orange or BT as I have Sky BB and it seems ok.
For future reference though, take a peek at www.saynoto0870.com when trying to save the pennies as far as those pesky call centres are concerned
9 times out of 10 I've found an alternative number.
Paul
For future reference though, take a peek at www.saynoto0870.com when trying to save the pennies as far as those pesky call centres are concerned
9 times out of 10 I've found an alternative number. Paul
I was with BT Broadband for 4 years and never once had a problem connecting or a line issue - except when my credit card went out of date that they were charging me on, i.e. they cut me off rather than phoning or emailing to remind me 
However, switched to SKY about 4 months ago (well for a tenner a month it was a no-brainer) and its truly truly CRAP! Every day I have to reset the router 3-10 times to sustain the connection and SKY have had two complete system failures in 3 weeks as well. Both resulted in 3+ hours off line and when you called them and held on for over half an hour some Scottish munter tells you the system's down. All they had to do was put a message on the IVR and I could have hung up after 20 seconds!
So, the moral of the story is... YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR!
However, switched to SKY about 4 months ago (well for a tenner a month it was a no-brainer) and its truly truly CRAP! Every day I have to reset the router 3-10 times to sustain the connection and SKY have had two complete system failures in 3 weeks as well. Both resulted in 3+ hours off line and when you called them and held on for over half an hour some Scottish munter tells you the system's down. All they had to do was put a message on the IVR and I could have hung up after 20 seconds!
So, the moral of the story is... YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR!
ofcorsa said:
just switched from tiscali to BT, Switch over via mac code was painless and home hub is a doddle to set up
Why did you switch, out of interest?
I ask because I'm now on Tiscali by accident. For a few years I've been with Homechoice, because they offered (at the time) a limit-free 1Mb connection plus digital TV and video & films on demand down the phone line - all for the same price as BT's 0.5Mb service. BT didn't have a TV service at that time.
However Homechoice has just been bought out by Tiscali so I'm interested in what they're like. If they just continue to run Homechoice as a subsidiary without messing around with it too much I'll be happy.. they've already cut the price a little which I'm not complaining about!
Had a BT engineer here last week, and had a chat with him.
He recommended Zen as they have a UK call centre and people you can talk to rather than monkeys reading scripts.
He also said that BT customers do not receive any preferential treatment re faults etc which surprised me.
With BT personally and have no real problems (other than living too far away from excahnge to bet more than a sketcy 512K service)
Oh, he also said the Home Hub wasn't great and was the cause of many problems!
He recommended Zen as they have a UK call centre and people you can talk to rather than monkeys reading scripts.
He also said that BT customers do not receive any preferential treatment re faults etc which surprised me.
With BT personally and have no real problems (other than living too far away from excahnge to bet more than a sketcy 512K service)
Oh, he also said the Home Hub wasn't great and was the cause of many problems!
Smartie said:
Had a BT engineer here last week, and had a chat with him.
He recommended Zen as they have a UK call centre and people you can talk to rather than monkeys reading scripts.
He also said that BT customers do not receive any preferential treatment re faults etc which surprised me.
With BT personally and have no real problems (other than living too far away from excahnge to bet more than a sketcy 512K service)
Oh, he also said the Home Hub wasn't great and was the cause of many problems!
He recommended Zen as they have a UK call centre and people you can talk to rather than monkeys reading scripts.
He also said that BT customers do not receive any preferential treatment re faults etc which surprised me.
With BT personally and have no real problems (other than living too far away from excahnge to bet more than a sketcy 512K service)
Oh, he also said the Home Hub wasn't great and was the cause of many problems!
That is one genuine concern at the moment as I know someone who had problem with the Hub, but I couldnt count on one opinion thats why I aske ye merry petrolheads
The only problem is, I am limited to which server I can go with apparently...something to do with areas and ours not being covered by a lot of servers?? Dunno personally
The BT Broadband service is excellent. I've been with them since their 512kb service first came onto the market, and in all that time there's only been one period of (reasonably) extended downtime when they had a problem with their hardware. It was all up and running again within a matter of hours. Other than that, uptime is excellent.
Just don't need their customer service for anything. That's not quite as good as it could be. For instance, I switched my Domestic account to a Business account a year ago, and still when I ring Business Support they try to tell me I have a Domestic account (and, oddly enough, vice versa). The first 10 minutes of any support call are spent trying to sort out what kind of account I have.
But the actual broadband service itself is tip-top.
Just don't need their customer service for anything. That's not quite as good as it could be. For instance, I switched my Domestic account to a Business account a year ago, and still when I ring Business Support they try to tell me I have a Domestic account (and, oddly enough, vice versa). The first 10 minutes of any support call are spent trying to sort out what kind of account I have.
But the actual broadband service itself is tip-top.
You only really have two flavours of broad-band - Cable or ADSL.
Cable is Telewest/NTL (now that Virgin beardy guy), and everything else is basicly BT over copper wires with different service providers. Two years ago I put a budget asside to investigate and recommend the 'best broad-band deal' for my clients. I spent considerable time and effort reading reports and advice from people that had them. Obviously that survey is not valid now as there are many more providers and all the rates have changed, but the results were interesting.
1) Most of the people that I spoke with said they were not happy with their provider and wanted to change, regardless of who they were with
2) The most popular ADSL was said to be Demon and BT and had the best review for reliability but not for customer service.
3) The worst (at the time) was Bulldog, AOL, and Tiscali, although I they may well have improved since then.
4) Your location plays a big part in the performance you get - and its down to the luck of the draw. It depends how many others are using the same ATM connection (contention ratio). Generally, Cable shares less clients on any given bandwidth than ADSL, but ADSL has better uploading ability so it all evens out. You might want to ask your future supplier's what their contention ratio is i.e. 50:1 or 25:1; 25 or 50 people could be using the same conection at the same time, and what average or typcial d/l speeds can be expected. Either way, broadband deals change like fashion at the moment, and there are plenty of deals to be had.
A couple of links
www.broadbandchoices.co.uk/
www.ukoffer.com/broadband.php?source=adwords&gclid=CIvMrJ31q4sCFR6ZEAodDmFENw
Cable is Telewest/NTL (now that Virgin beardy guy), and everything else is basicly BT over copper wires with different service providers. Two years ago I put a budget asside to investigate and recommend the 'best broad-band deal' for my clients. I spent considerable time and effort reading reports and advice from people that had them. Obviously that survey is not valid now as there are many more providers and all the rates have changed, but the results were interesting.
1) Most of the people that I spoke with said they were not happy with their provider and wanted to change, regardless of who they were with
2) The most popular ADSL was said to be Demon and BT and had the best review for reliability but not for customer service.
3) The worst (at the time) was Bulldog, AOL, and Tiscali, although I they may well have improved since then.
4) Your location plays a big part in the performance you get - and its down to the luck of the draw. It depends how many others are using the same ATM connection (contention ratio). Generally, Cable shares less clients on any given bandwidth than ADSL, but ADSL has better uploading ability so it all evens out. You might want to ask your future supplier's what their contention ratio is i.e. 50:1 or 25:1; 25 or 50 people could be using the same conection at the same time, and what average or typcial d/l speeds can be expected. Either way, broadband deals change like fashion at the moment, and there are plenty of deals to be had.
A couple of links
www.broadbandchoices.co.uk/
www.ukoffer.com/broadband.php?source=adwords&gclid=CIvMrJ31q4sCFR6ZEAodDmFENw
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