Orange broadband help please!

Suematthews

I foolishly signed a contract to allow Orange to charge me for the privilege of providing me with WiFi. To date I (and my son) have spent hours on the phone to outposts of the Empire trying, in vain, to ensure that Orange fulfils its part of the contract. Today I have just spent another 45 minutes of futile diagnostics with the delightful Sunitra who ultimately said that she was unable to connect me (incidentally as did a man last week!) and that she would send me another router (as that was the problem apparently) - this will be my FOURTH router from Orange!
When I ring to withdraw from my contract - I am threatened with the prospect of charges being levied as APPARENTLY I AM THE ONE WHO IS NOT FULFILLING MY CONRACT!!!!
I am 61 years old, a teacher who has a very high volume of marking but apparently (according to the 12 year olds who run Oranges laughingly named help lines) I should ring India (sorry their diagnostic team!) at least twice a week for a month (and spend wasted time being "helped") if I want to cancel my contract without being charged.
I try to tell them that I want a life and that I refuse to spend so much time either in front of a laptop screen or with a mobile phone attached to my ear!! I have a life away from this virtual world that patently isn't working for me!
HELP!!!

jo444_2

Hi Sue - I'm having similar problems with Sky broadband - no service from mid dec till after Christmas - first it was problem with line, then router needs an update and then it didn't and we needed a new power adapter, which has got it working but yesterday the amber light was back for a whil I'm talking to whaqt sounds like peoples in Ireland and sometimes Scotland but the reply is basically the same as you i.e. it is my fault. If I want a new router I need to pay for it and due to T&C's I am not allowed to use any other router than the one they supply. Was thinking of going over to Orange and it would be lots cheaper although not sure after seeing you post! Keep posting to as what happens

macman

Orange may contract to supply you with a wirelss router, but they are not responsible for the connection (or lack of it) between your router and your PC/laptop-that is down to you, so it is not a valid reason to void your contract.
The Orange Livebox is indeed rubbish, but if you are on your fourth one then it is far more likley that the fault lies elsewhere-have you done the basic diagnostics to check whre the fault lies?
You are more likely to get it sorted on here than by relying on Horange's dire TS, so if you post the problem in more detail, you may get some help.

spike7451

jo444 wrote: »

Hi Sue - I'm having similar problems with Sky broadband - no service from mid dec till after Christmas - first it was problem with line, then router needs an update and then it didn't and we needed a new power adapter, which has got it working but yesterday the amber light was back for a whil I'm talking to whaqt sounds like peoples in Ireland and sometimes Scotland but the reply is basically the same as you i.e. it is my fault. If I want a new router I need to pay for it and due to T&C's I am not allowed to use any other router than the one they supply. Was thinking of going over to Orange and it would be lots cheaper although not sure after seeing you post! Keep posting to as what happens

They're in Belfast,where I used to work.Have you connected the router into the test socket on the NTE5 to rule out an internal wiring issue?..if it's still not working connected there,then they need to book an openreach engineer.Are all the phone sockets in use filtered & the filter plugged into the phone point that the router is connected into before any phone splitters?..And have you changed the filters?..Appreciate you've probably done that in the past but you'd be supprised how those can affect bband.
You can use a third party router however Sky won't support it,same as all the other ISP's...
As for Horange...my advice is stay away...I worked in their tech support when they changed to BT WBC last year & the existing tech support,based in India,is dire...

jo444_2

Hi spike 7451, yes have even changed the micro filters around the house, disconnected all other phones and sky boxes, taken the front plate off and connected to the hidden socket and ran that for a few days like that (apart from having the home phone plugged into the same micro filter) and it didn't make any difference to performance (which when running is .5 meg which is awful when we are just outside the M25 and thus not 'the back of beyond'!) - I presume that if the socket looks like above then that is the main socket in the building - our house was built 10 years ago.

It will suddenly just drop out at any time of day. Sky said they were gonna get the profile of the line checked and had a message left saying it had been done and corrected, but that was mid December when this all started!

Have gone onto SamKnows and it says that O2 and TalkTalk are enabled at our exchange and the FTTC is to be rolled out 1/3/2012! So would it be best to go over to O2 or Talktalk (whose reputation of past was totally useless) or wait till 1st March. Also whilst the FTTC is in exchange will we get this at that date - I believe we are 1.8km from exchange as crow flies and in the village next door.

Oh at mo on BT for calls because Sky engineer who first installed broadband (we left BT as we could not get on at weekends) said stay with them incase have problems with cable - which I understand originally went in a wide loop of 6km (goodness know where it went) but they cut a big chunk out and thus we got broadband!

Any advise gratefully received

macman

If the fault is on the local loop, then switching ISP will make no difference whatsoever.
Post your router stats:
http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/frogstats.php#34

jo444_2

ROUTER STATISTICS

System Up Time: 34:45:49
Port Status TxPkts RxPkts Collisions Tx B/s Rx B/s Up Time
WAN PPPoA 439156 580337 0 320 11840 15:17:20
LAN 160 0 0 0 0 34:45:49
WLAN 823075 619673 0 12320 432 34:45:24
ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 1440 kbps 448 kbps
Line Attenuation 55.0 db 29.0 db
Noise Margin 5.8 db 17.0 db
Poll Interval: (secs)

Hope this means something!

bod1467

55dB attenuation means you have a long line. But you should still be able to get up to 3meg download sync - you have 1.44meg at the moment. This PDF file may be worth a read to increase your current speed.

As regards getting any significant increase, FTTC is probably your only real route. O2/TT LLU won't give much if any increase with such a long line. (Maybe 1meg more at best)

spike7451

jo444 wrote: »

Hi spike 7451, yes have even changed the micro filters around the house, disconnected all other phones and sky boxes, taken the front plate off and connected to the hidden socket and ran that for a few days like that (apart from having the home phone plugged into the same micro filter) and it didn't make any difference to performance (which when running is .5 meg which is awful when we are just outside the M25 and thus not 'the back of beyond'!) - I presume that if the socket looks like above then that is the main socket in the building - our house was built 10 years ago.

It will suddenly just drop out at any time of day. Sky said they were gonna get the profile of the line checked and had a message left saying it had been done and corrected, but that was mid December when this all started!

Have gone onto SamKnows and it says that O2 and TalkTalk are enabled at our exchange and the FTTC is to be rolled out 1/3/2012! So would it be best to go over to O2 or Talktalk (whose reputation of past was totally useless) or wait till 1st March. Also whilst the FTTC is in exchange will we get this at that date - I believe we are 1.8km from exchange as crow flies and in the village next door.

Oh at mo on BT for calls because Sky engineer who first installed broadband (we left BT as we could not get on at weekends) said stay with them incase have problems with cable - which I understand originally went in a wide loop of 6km (goodness know where it went) but they cut a big chunk out and thus we got broadband!

Any advise gratefully received

Hi,

Yup,that's the main socket in the home.
Put your phone number into the link below & it'll tell you exactly what speeds your phoneline can handle for the various DSL phone services you can get.

https://www.btwholesale.com/pages/static/Community/Broadband_Community/Coverage/ADSL_Availibility_Checker.html

I'm pretty sure the Sky engineer is talking complete b:mad:ks as it's BT Openreach that do any work on the phoneline,the only Sky engineer you'd see would be a installer who's main job is installing TV.Their knowledge of phonelines & broadband can be wrote on the back of a stamp.
Sky in Belfast have the facility to remotely log into the exchange & adjust the speeds (or the did when I was there doing it on a daily basis)
Incidentally,what Sky broadband are you on.I'm still friends with the manager & a couple of lads who work there in the Belfast office (mostly via facebook now) & I might be able to get them to look into it for you.

bod1467

448 upload suggests their ADSLMax product - i.e. BT IPStream.

jo444_2

Hiya
Followed you link and got this
'Your exchange is ADSL enabled, and our initial test on your line indicates that your line should be able to have an ADSL broadband service that provides a fixed line speed up to 512Kbps. However, due to the length of your line, an engineer visit may be required, who will, where possible, supply the broadband service.

Our test also indicates that your line currently supports an estimated ADSL Max broadband line speed of 500Kbps; typically the line speed would range between 250Kbps and 1.5Mbps.

Our test also indicates that your line currently supports an estimated ADSL2+ broadband line speed of 1Mbps; typically the line speed would range between 1Mbps and 3.5Mbps.

The actual stable line speed supportable will be determined during the first 10 days of use. This speed may change over time, to ensure line stability is maintained.

On checking the exchange it says that FTTC is to be enabled on 1/3/2012 - I have sent a query to openreach asking if any of my line is above ground where there benefits are lost (have googled this and found that this would mean lose any benefits of the FTTC). Also will be interesting to see what providers will go in especially as have only talktalk and O2 at mo!

Im on Sky Broadband Connect the £17 per month! Maybe you can you Sky mates if they are going into the exchange after FTTC comes in - can I pm you the details of the exchange please?

Many thanks for your help :j