Orange Broadband www.orange.co.uk/time Review

Overall Rating

They work.

When your kit breaks - they don't work.

I had my livebox setup for around 2 years, but was with the company since freeserve. The service worked okay, no major problems. Then one day my equpment just cooked and died. No more internet, no more xbox live, disaster. I phoned support immediately to have my livebox replaced. The conversation which followed was like a laurel & hardy routine. I'm not exaggerating when I say I've actually had blind, drunken and puking conversations which were more coherent. When you phone orange broadband, just make sure your sense of humour kicks in beforehand, otherwise you'll be screaming in frustration at robots.

After being transferred to a diagnostics dept (which should have never gone that far), I explained my problem 10 times, my main livebox router was dead. Yup my wife took note, I actually had to repeat myself 10 times. It was pretty obvious circuitry had fried after 2 years constant use. Amongst all the muffled mistranslation, I managed to make out their requests. They had me plugging in all manner of lead combinations. They had me pressing pairing buttons on a dead router. Why? I don't know? Following some protocol sheet probably. It felt like that infamous dead parrot scene from monty python. They kept asking if there were any lights on polly (despite my repeated laughing & insistence nothing would make any difference on a dead router). I'm not an electrical engineer but common sense dictates: If theres nothing left receptive of a current, it's not gonna work. Refer you back to poor old polly parrot and monty python "This livebox is dead!!!", "No no it's just sleeping sir, they do that."

Then they tried telling me my common alternative 15 Volt DC mains adapter I used to test the livebox was different than their standard 15 Volt DC supplied by orange / Inventel. I started laughing again at this point. I asked them to explain why, in technical detail: "were the capacitors different? Were the orange box adapters made from magic, in the magic noddy factory?" Of course they couldn't, they declined, the phone went silent for a bit. It's true some products are only designed to work with specific adapters. But I knew the orangebox was an exception because I've used the same adapter before. I said so, but they opted to send me a new one in 3 days despite my protest and pleas. I knew what I wanted, I just needed a new package but oh no they knew better. The entire conversation took ages because we were both like two idiots manically repeating each other. I hate these out sourced support lines and I'm sure everyone else does too.

Two weeks it took. Two weeks with no internet. I plugged my shiney new adapter in, surprise surprise - it didn't work. The rest is history because, unwilling to go through more of this, I asked for My migration code straight away. Thankfully, in my case, they were quick to send my mac within a week. Mercy at last!

Don't go with this company, their customer service was rubbish, their equipment was rubbish, their protocol was a joke, they don't even seem to listen to their customers. Bye bye Orange BB, I'll read about your bankruptcy in the telegraph, (i'll be laughing harder than I was at your support staff).

Members' Comments onGiantElectric's Review

• desertsky on 8th Jul 2009

  I found this review helpful because it duplicates my experience with their "technical" support. These people have NO technical expertice at all and can only follow the cue cards they have. If you ask them a technical question, you will never get a realistic answer.

• chrisbaxter55 on 28th Jul 2009

  I found this review very helpful because it is exactly what happened to me. Even though I had the approved orange adaptor I still had the same trouble, but because they didnt have the option of blaming my power adaptor, they made me do a livebox factory reset about 6-7 times before I had enough and asked them how do they expect the livebox reset to work if I literally saw my livebox flash, pop and emit a small amount of smoke??? I was obviously a liar and should do more factory resets!! I cancelled my subscription straight away!