One thing that has frustrated me is that neighbours are getting upto 6Mb speeds, (new house built 5 years ago and I assume same cables to exchange, which is under 1 mile away !).

"current speed 2Mb, can upgrade to 2.5Mb, cost zero".

Initial thoughts were do I or dont I ? knowing that others had experienced problems when changing speeds, especially as I am lucky and have a stable connection at 2Mb.

Then I spotted the next line :-
"upgrading your speed commits you to a further 12 month contract"

I know the package I am on is supposed to give free speed upgrades, but committing to another 12 months, is this correct ?

I seem to remember that when I signed up to the package, (which is the old upto 8Mb service, before the unlimited one was launched), that it stated that if you could not get 8Mb, they would give you the fastest service available and automatically upgrade your speed whenever your exhange was updated, upto 8Mb.

Because my package is no longer offered, I can not find the T&C's on their web site to check if I am correct.

You'd hope so but where your cable actually goes could be very different.

--Rubbish, the cables WILL be the same and WILL go to the same exhange.

Slightly odd. If you were on LLU it should have put you on that speed originally, but if you were on IPStream then that would be an upgrade onto ADSL Max. Best thing to do would be try and run a speedtest on:
http://speedtester.BT.com/
If it lets you run a speedtest then you're not on an LLU line and the upgrade will be to ADSL Max.

There is always a risk when changing speed up that it can cause problems....NO NO NO, the risk is not the upgrading the speed....the risk is Orange! they are incompitent, i would not trust the indian monkeys to increase the temperature on an oven

This one's a bit sketchy. They did promose that last year when that package was out when speed upgrades on request cost a £20 fee. Now upgrades are usually done on package changes and apply a new contract. Basically if you request it then it'll put you into a new contract and I just don't know if they are still doing the speed upgrades for free as stated back then.

You are on the newer current T&C's. Everyone was contacted over it when the changes went through, failure to decline the changes and therefore cancel means you have accepted them. It's been so long that you have no chance of disputing that if you didn't get the message, think it was around last Novemember/December time it happened, though there were a couple of changes to them last year.

On a side note you may want to post your livebox/router/modem line stats so we can then see what sort of speeds your line may be able to actually get. Sometimes the estimates can be wrong and you'd may be able to get 6meg like your neighbour after all.