Orange for Broadband and Home Phone

Fairzo

Been with Orange (previously Freeserve / Wanadoo) for years for Broadband, currently paying £10.20 / month. With BT for phone, mainly just for line rental as majority of calls made by mobile.

Had a call from Orange offering Broadband and phone for £17.75 month and seems to be everything we're getting from BT at the moment, with a saving of £7-8 / month.

Anything I should be wary of with home phone from Orange?

Thanks

macman

If you can put up with their dire broadband, then you'll probably be OK with their phone too. Does the price they quoted include line rental and the same call package though?

munchpot

Hi Fairzo
We signed up to the Home Max Service some time ago. At that time they paid the BT line rental, Unltd Broadband, second phone line with Free UK landline numbers 24/7 and free international calls to 30 companies and Free UK landline calls on main phone between 7pm and 7am and all day weekends.

Had a really good service with them. A couple of times we've had phone and broadband issues but they've always been handled really well. Much better than we ever got from BT

Fairzo

macman wrote: »

If you can put up with their dire broadband, then you'll probably be OK with their phone too. Does the price they quoted include line rental and the same call package though?

Depends what the definition of "dire" is I suppose. It does what we need it to do for a tenner a month. The package includes line rental, evening and weekend calls (only have weekend with BT), free Caller Display and 1571.

macman

'Dire' as in Orange being consistently rated at or near the bottom of every consumer broadband survey, along with TT and BT.

Carl31

munchpot wrote: »

Hi Fairzo
We signed up to the Home Max Service some time ago. At that time they paid the BT line rental, Unltd Broadband, second phone line with Free UK landline numbers 24/7 and free international calls to 30 companies and Free UK landline calls on main phone between 7pm and 7am and all day weekends.

Had a really good service with them. A couple of times we've had phone and broadband issues but they've always been handled really well. Much better than we ever got from BT

I have this, but all calls inclusive apart from premium rates

Never had a problem, the only issue i have had is it sometimes slopws down a fair bit, but i dont think anyone gets super high speeds in out area

I pay £21 a month for 20 meg, all calls and line rental, thats with an orange mobile contract

Fairzo

macman wrote: »

'Dire' as in Orange being consistently rated at or near the bottom of every consumer broadband survey, along with TT and BT.

Isn't the Orange service regarded as improved over recent times, although admittedly it started at a pretty low base? Download and upload speeds seem reasonable.

I have talked myself out of this deal though. I probably suffer from familiarity insofar that I have never used another ISP so don't know what I might be missing. Decided though that I didn't want to commit to another contract so that I can keep my options open. One of the main reasons for that is the dreadful Netgear router which appears to have an infinitesimally short wireless range but seems to be the extent of the technology that Orange offer.

macman

It's cheap-I can think of no other reason for choosing them.
Why not just use your own router-you're not required to use the cheap tat that they supply.

Fairzo

macman wrote: »

It's cheap-I can think of no other reason for choosing them.
Why not just use your own router-you're not required to use the cheap tat that they supply.

Correct me if I'm wrong but you're not a fan of Orange are you? As I've mentioned I've no other ISP to compare so what are typical Orange-related problems and I can see whether I've experienced it (but probably just thought it was normal).

What ISP would you recommend for use that doesn't include online gaming, movie downloads or similar? I was considering moving to O2 last summer but was bribed into staying with Orange for 4 months free and a "better" router.

Thanks

macman

Orange have effectively abandoned ADSL broadband and are no longer offering new LLU services, so they're no more than a BT reseller now.
Their CS and TS are the worst I've ever encountered.
Plenty of customer feedback on here if you do a search for it.
If you want alternatives, then do an exchange search on samknows and look for your LLU options.

OldGreyFox

munchpot wrote: »

A couple of times we've had phone and broadband issues but they've always been handled really well. Much better than we ever got from BT

It is BT rebranded

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/broadband/357307/orange-abandons-broadband-network-for-bt