Switching from Orange/EE

poddy1967

Hi-having some issues with Orange router, keeps dropping wifi signal, poor coverage. Looking to switch as we've been with Orange for years and even though they keep sending us supposedly better routers they don't ever appear to be that much better.

Latest call to them they have offered to send new EE Brightbox claiming it's best on market etc. Does anyone have an opinion?

They want £26 for Broadband and anytime calls, plus line rental.

I can get that deal from Sky for £7.50 per month. Router may/may not be as good but I could use range extender to get round wifi problem.

Anyone any experience with Sky Broadband?

sniggings

poddy1967 wrote: »

Hi-having some issues with Orange router, keeps dropping wifi signal, poor coverage. Looking to switch as we've been with Orange for years and even though they keep sending us supposedly better routers they don't ever appear to be that much better.

Latest call to them they have offered to send new EE Brightbox claiming it's best on market etc. Does anyone have an opinion?

They want £26 for Broadband and anytime calls, plus line rental.

I can get that deal from Sky for £7.50 per month. Router may/may not be as good but I could use range extender to get round wifi problem.

Anyone any experience with Sky Broadband?

I have EE and the new brightbox and have no problems.

To be fair you can't get what you quoted you get from EE, from Sky for only £7.50, change if you want but don't fool yourself.

bod1467

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4307345

imsi

poddy1967 wrote: »

Hi-having some issues with Orange router, keeps dropping wifi signal, poor coverage. Looking to switch as we've been with Orange for years and even though they keep sending us supposedly better routers they don't ever appear to be that much better.

Latest call to them they have offered to send new EE Brightbox claiming it's best on market etc. Does anyone have an opinion?

They want £26 for Broadband and anytime calls, plus line rental.

I can get that deal from Sky for £7.50 per month. Router may/may not be as good but I could use range extender to get round wifi problem.

Anyone any experience with Sky Broadband?

I too was having very poor wifi speeds with Orange, particularly at peak periods, less so at 3 am. Also service dropping out several times a day. Switched today to plus.net and am happily surprised to see speeds have increased enormously.
Now maybe my usage was causing Orange to throttle my service and Plus.net will do same in time, but the speeds I'm getting today are double, yes double the best speeds I've ever had at any time with Orange.

virgin11

sniggings loves Orange ee he has made his mind up to join them he praises them all over the place, see what he says 6 months down the line.He was warned EE are rubbish i used them.

sniggings

virgin11 wrote: »

sniggings loves Orange ee he has made his mind up to join them he praises them all over the place, see what he says 6 months down the line.He was warned EE are rubbish i used them.

I'm just saying how I find them, I think £16.50 for landline and unlimited broadband is a great deal, still early days but up to now they have been great, I even got 6 weeks free because my phoneline won't get swapped over from BT untill the 17th (BT's fault not EE), the guy I spoke to today was very helpful, he phoned BT OR and got the exact swap over day and rung me back 5 mins later, I only started getting the service on the 15th so to get 6 weeks free without asking to me is great.

Why not tell people my experience, it may help them get a good deal.

pickoftheday

For anyone having WiFi issues I found that this software helps:

google 'wireless insider'

It tells you which channel your router is set to and which your neighbours' are using. It can affect your wifi signal quality if you and your neighbours are operating on the same channel.

Check it with this and then find out how to change your routers channel in the manual.

AWeakling

Hi Poddy1967,

I have just switched to EE from Sky. Speed is slightly better than Sky as is overall strength of Wi-Fi signal however I have the same problem, the router seems to keep dropping signal however it only went live today and i have my own router to connect which should eliminate that issue unless the problem is with EE themselves.

In regards to your question about Sky I never had an issue with them, Wi-Fi signal was not great, I live in a 2 up 2 down and my little lad often had the signal drop on my phone when he was watching iplayer and he isn't really any distance from the router but I suspect if you use extenders you won't have that issue.

Service was reliable never went down and I was getting a reasonable speed.

What I didn't like were things like paying for a paper bill, I know this is common place now for most companies but is a big bugbear of mine as companies do it in the guise of being "green" but is just an excuse to make more money and I like having a paper bill for my utilities for personal records and also is still a requirement to provide to banks etc.

I didn't like being charged for NOT having Sky TV, yes that's right they charge you for not having one of their services, I believe Virgin do a similar thing but if I paid for all the things I don't have or sign up to in this world I would be even poorer than I am now.

What made me move though was I wanted to be able to use my own router simply because of the increasing number of wireless devices at home and the Sky router not being up to the job. Unfortunately, I couldn't do it I tried using a tool on the web for getting my Username and Password but it didn't work. Sky don't provide this information as it is in their T's and C's that you use their router ONLY and if you put in your own equipment at best they can deny you tech support and at worst declare you in breach of your T's and C's and cut you off (this probably carries some kind of penalty as well) of course using an extender you shouldn't have any issues around this.

So ultimately if I wanted to improve my WiFi at home (and have a gigabyte port for my NAS box) I had to switch providers and EE are one of the only well priced providers that allow unlimited usage (fair usage applies of course) around.

I hope this helps highlight some considerations you might want to take into account before making the move.

Just a thought as well, have you tried a different router with EE to see if the problem is on the line or the router itself?

HappyMJ

If you don't like the router the ISP provides then buy your own high quality router. The ISP's use the cheapest mass market easy to use and configure routers suitable for 95% of the customer base who just want an internet connection and they usually lock down the router so you can't do anything with it.

When a (non techy) friend of mine had Sky I had endless troubles trying to get it to work and stay working so I ended up just replacing it with an old one of mine and the connection worked fine after that.

sniggings

AWeakling wrote: »

EE are one of the only well priced providers that allow unlimited usage (fair usage applies of course) around.

Do you know that for sure or are you guessing? as I read their usage is truly unlimited which means there is no fair usage cap.

AWeakling

sniggings wrote: »

Do you know that for sure or are you guessing? as I read their usage is truly unlimited which means there is no fair usage cap.

Actually, No I don't know about their fair usage policy not looked that hard but just assumed its there there normally is.
All I do know is a lot of providers now have usage limit's and with me online gaming, the missus on a huge number of content rich websites and the lad on iplayer/you tube the only way for me to go is unlimited usage but don't want to pay through the nose for it.