Well I guess like many I've come here to rant in the hope that my lessons are learn't by anyone foolish enough to consider Orange as a broadband service provider. I suspect that this post will be lost within the years of similar topics but at least I had my say!
I 'upgraded' from my old 17.99 2Meg package from the old days of Wanadoo at the start of this year with the promise of faster speeds, for free! Well, I say free but there was a catch of course, re-subscribing for a year...OK, no problems I though, they've been fairly good and I've never had problems on my 2Meg line. I also took the Livebox option not having the money to fork out £50 odd for a 3rd party wireless router.
After the 'upgrade' I noticed quickly that things were not as good as I expected them to be. Web pages were slower to load, less responsive - so I did a speedtest and found my rate to be nowhere near the 5Meg I thought i'd 'upgraded' to (I'd expect a real world value of around 4Meg, theory is nice but not practical and I know all about this from doing an electronics degree) but was on this day only giving me around 1.5Meg download speed.
I monitored the situation closely over the next few weeks and would have days where the speed would shoot up (mostly during quiet times) and then other times when it would slow to a crawl (mostly at weekends) giving less than 1Meg download speeds. I phoned to complain and each time made a point of having the person at the other end of the phone write on my record what they'd said.
The calls have been going on now for around 3 months, i've jumped hoops for them by changing my filters, flushing my cache and even going to the pointless lengths of cleaning my cookies....gotta laugh at that one.
My defining moment was when I managed to get a tech support guy to admit they had a problem after my BT line check came back fine. The only issue I then had (you wont believe this) was that customer support were not prepared to compensate me for an event that did not have a set time scale...In other words, since the problems had not been resolved yet, they couldn't do anything!!! So...if the problems were to continue forever.....you see how this became annoying?!
To cut a LONG story short I asked to speak with their special provisioning team. This apparently is a team of supervisors assembled to deal with higher level complaints that regular customer support can't fob you off with...err, I mean help with. They did of course try making me jump the usual hoops which I refused to do, having already done them several times and at the point the bloke said he was going to get a line test done I flipped.
I said that if the best he could do was a line test, why was I speaking with him? The regular customer support had already tried this, so what was his job actually? I also added that I would be cancelling my account due to the long term non resolvement of an out standing problem if they could not offer me any kind of compensation.
I got 4 moths free and a refund of £20 for the call charges I'd had to make.
So, my advice to you all is to stick firm, get facts put on record and don't let them fob you off. Thier customer support is appaling, they don't want to get issues solved simply to delay you in making a fuss. They are choking service speeds imo on purpose and it's not acceptable to paying customers to be mislead.
As soon as my year is up I'm without doubt moving ISP.
I think the first thing would be to post your line stats. These will give some indication as to your connection and any potential problems. Secondly run a test at www.speedtester.BT.com and post results back here. Be aware that this particular speedtest sits g can get very busy so be patient.
I think the first thing would be to post your line stats. These will give some indication as to your connection and any potential problems. Secondly run a test at www.speedtester.BT.com and post results back here. Be aware that this particular speedtest sits g can get very busy so be patient.
My speed tests were done over a period of weeks monitoring at several points during the day. I'm not saying the line speed was bad ALL the time, but at other times I'd have to renew my IP address up to 20 times before getting one that wasn't congested below 1Meg speeds.
My point to their customer support is the same....why is the speed bad one minute then good the next with a new IP? I shouldn't have to spend 20 minutes disconnecting and reconneting!
I could post my speedtest results but this would achieve nothing. It would only tell you what I managed to get at that minute of that day. Overall however my research over 3 months left me less than impressed with the service and convinced that they were manually choking my speeds.
I use speedtest.net and always check with two UK locations before averaging my result out. My max line speed due to the exchange is 4.5mbps which is why I consider my good times results of 3900kbps as very acceptable, just a shame that it was let down all too often with ~700kbps results too for no reason.*
* no reason except the 'problem' Orange tech support were aware of, were fixing, were not sure how long it would take to remedy, knew it was affecting "only a small number of customers" and the very same problem that I still suffer from this week.
id ring and ask for your MAC code, if they say you have to pay cancelation fees etc just tell them that you are also under contract to me to provide a service your paying for, therefore your in breach of your contract to me. failing that report them to ofcom, the only reason they offer you free months and cashback isnt because they feel guilty, its becasue its an incentive NOT to ask for your MAC code and leave Orange, think about it,
I could post my speedtest results but this would achieve nothing.
You need to post your line stats from your livebox/router. Completely different from speedtest reports. Line stats will indicate things like the attenustion and noise on your line between your local exchange and house. Also other important info. Don't assume that when Orange are doing what they tell you. Theres enough information on this and other websites to suggest otherwise. You will find a much higher level of technical knowhow on this site and I'm sure many here will be more than happy to provide an opinion on you line condition.
Thats some of the stats. Missing the all important downstream and upstream sync speeds. From the stats that have been posted there appears to be something not quite right. With that attenuation I would expect the attainable to be much higher than 4544. Interleave has also been switched. Normally and indication of stability/connection problems. Also the noise appears a bit on the low side. Could be a problem with internal wiring/equipment. If you have a master socket with the lower removal cover on it, then you could remove this. Once removed you will have isolated all extension wiring and any connected equipment. Plug your router directly into the part of the master still attached to wall. Connect without a filter and run the tests again.
As I said earlier you only posted half your stats and the actual sync rates that you omitted will provide more info. And that speedtest providing your IP Profile is also very helpful in identifying potential problens.
Thanks I'll come back with more later when I finish work and try what you suggested.
The interleave being enabled may be of my own doing. I usually disconnect using the Inventel software option but ocassionally simply pull the plug in annoyance...I gather that either way can flag line issues as suspected disconnections?
I'm not in an 8Meg area btw, most here I think is 4.5Meg but there's not a forum section for it hence why I posted here!
I'm also now capped at 2900kbps as of a couple of nights ago. I'll try plugging the Livebox in directly upstairs where the main line comes into the house but i'm not expecting to find anything that abdicates Orange.
typically the best way to get the best speed is thru your master socket, if you using any extensions this could slow down speeds a little, but in saying that Orange are becoming very slow since its switch over from wannado,
take a speedtest with your livebox plugged into your master socket, and see what sort of speeds u get,
if as you say the max ur line can get or os capable of is 4.5 then 2,9 you seem to be capped at is pretty good speed to be honest as you wont get the full 4.5 speed unless u practically live next door to a BT exchange, if however u could get the full 8mb line then typically u should expect a speed of anything between 5-7 mb download speeds to be considered pretty good,
I'm not in an 8Meg area btw, most here I think is 4.5Meg but there's not a forum section for it hence why I posted here!
You are on the 8meg package but syncing at a lower speed. As I said earkier with your line attenuation I would expect an attainable of around 6meg.
Quote:
I'm also now capped at 2900kbps as of a couple of nights ago. I'll try plugging the Livebox in directly upstairs where the main line comes into the house but i'm not expecting to find anything that abdicates Orange.
Well, untill you have done the test from the master socket its difficult to say whether your capped or not. It not just a matter of plugging the livebox into the master. You must remove the lower cover and plug into the test socket without a filter. This will then completely isolate all internal wiring and equipment and let you know one way or the other whether the problems lie in or outwith your premises.
Type : Interleave
Noise margin (dB) : 8.8
Attenuation (dB) : 44.0
Attainable download rate (kbps) : 4544
Downstream Upstream
Rate (kbps) 3968 448
I'm not in an 8Meg area btw, most here I think is 4.5Meg but there's not a forum section for it hence why I posted here!
I'm also now capped at 2900kbps as of a couple of nights ago. I'll try plugging the Livebox in directly upstairs where the main line comes into the house but i'm not expecting to find anything that abdicates Orange.
Ok a few comments from me on this.
There is one final piece of information missing and that is your current IP Profile, this is found by using the BT Speedtest site. See there's reason to the madness on here.
Ok, you're on an ADSL Max conneciton as shown by the upstream of 448kbps.
Interleaving has been turned on probably due to detected data errors, this in itself shouldn't be a problem.
Noise margin is showing as around the 9 mark, likely indicating the system has pushed it up a level from the optimum of 6 for stability reasons.
Your downstream is lower than the attainable, as you said that's normal as the attainable is the theoretical maximum for those line stats.
It all hangs on the profile you're on. This will dynamically move up and down according to how stable the system thinks your connection is. With a 3968kbps sync speed your maximum profile would be 3 meg. That fits perfectly with your download speed of 2900kbps. So as such that's normal. There does seem to be some minor problems behind the scenes though, and it would be a good idea to try connecting to the test socket in the main phone socket if possible. If you do this the speed is unlikely to immediately change, profile increases take 3 days, but the margin and downstream rates should help indicate if your home wiring is adding to the issue.
On a side note the Specialist Provisions Team are not a complaints team, they are, as the name suggests, there to deal with provision issues. Once a line is activated then they're usually not involved at all.
OK I normally despise installing Jave on my PC but just this once!
Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test: -provides background information.
IP profile for your line is - 3000 kbps
DSL connection rate: 448 kbps(UP-STREAM) 3968 kbps(DOWN-STREAM)
Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 2772 kbps
So as said above, my IP profile seems to be 3mbps and from this my sudden cap at 2900 doesnt seem bad.
But why the sudden cap? At various points over the past few months I have been able to hit 3900kbps (real speedtest results not sync speed or theory anything) when renewing my IP address from a bad one...my equipment didn't change, my Livebox had no config alterations and my PC wasn't restarted. This is what I'm naffed off about, the inexplained variations that took me sometimes 20 tries to get around!
I'll try and get around to the master socket test tomorrow.
@ Elhana - "On a side note the Specialist Provisions Team are not a complaints team, they are, as the name suggests, there to deal with provision issues. Once a line is activated then they're usually not involved at all."
Just passing on what was given to me in an email from Orange customer support. They told me the special provisions team were essentially a team of supervisors who were able to deal with problems on a higher scale...unless you know more than Orange?!
Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test: -provides background information.
IP profile for your line is - 3000 kbps
DSL connection rate: 448 kbps(UP-STREAM) 3968 kbps(DOWN-STREAM)
Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 2772 kbps
So as said above, my IP profile seems to be 3mbps and from this my sudden cap at 2900 doesnt seem bad.
But why the sudden cap? At various points over the past few months I have been able to hit 3900kbps (real speedtest results not sync speed or theory anything) when renewing my IP address from a bad one...my equipment didn't change, my Livebox had no config alterations and my PC wasn't restarted. This is what I'm naffed off about, the inexplained variations that took me sometimes 20 tries to get around!
I'll try and get around to the master socket test tomorrow.
Well there can be variations when you connect as it can get routed differently. Right now though it appears that there's been some sort of line problem that's caused this. Generally connections don't just drop several speed grades like this for no reason. Depending on what the MSR was set to when the line went through it's training period will determine whehter BT will accept this drop as a fault or if it's within tolerances.
Quote:
Just passing on what was given to me in an email from Orange customer support. They told me the special provisions team were essentially a team of supervisors who were able to deal with problems on a higher scale...unless you know more than Orange?!
They probably just mean't the escalations team rather than SPT and got distracted while replying.
I've taken my Livebox upstairs along with my laptop, unscrewed the case and found the master connector. I've had to use a filter to connect as I didn't have the right lead otherwise.
Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test: -provides background information.
IP profile for your line is - 3000 kbps
DSL connection rate: 448 kbps(UP-STREAM) 6752 kbps(DOWN-STREAM)
Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 2754 kbps
SO...i'm still being capped, my extension is without doubt causing some kind of problems and right at this moment it actually looks like Orange is not at fault? About right? Last thing...how do I remove the cap, is this that 3 days thing I've read about on here?
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