cheapest deal in my area, however connection and speed are nothing short of appalling. When watching videos it keeps buffering particularly on BBC iplayer. Sometimes it lags at crucial moments such as when you are making online payments and you can't refresh the page. Only up sides are the price and the fact that EE (Orange) report to the credit rating agencies, thus improving your credit.

I was promised M & S vouchers as an incentive for having home broadband installed, which nearly a year later I have not received. Have been overcharged on several occasions, although I have found Orange good at rectifying such errors. Importantly, I have found the 150 technical help to be run by a bunch of complete amateurs. I have spent many wasted hours with this department, and have come to the conclusion I can probably do better myself. Overall, improvement is required all round.

I have been complaining about the unreliability of my Orange broadband for weeks now but so far they have been unable to rectify the problem and I am plagued by constantly dropping out. The call centre staff are polite and helpful but are often very difficult to understand and although they read the previous notes they still continue with the same repeat remedies which have previously failed to improve the position. I have now made a formal complaint about their inability to correct the fault but do not feel very optimistic that this will achieve anything. I have been told on 7 or 8 occasions that their latest 'tweak'...I have no idea if they are actually doing anything at all in the background, will cure the fault but so far it has not worked and I am now ready to just leave and sign up with another provider. I have better things to do than spend hours on the phone to call centre staff who don't appear to have any real idea why the fault exists and how to remedy it.

Exactly the same experience as other reviewers - minor faults with the line that rapidly grow into major problems because of the tech support team's inability/unwillingness to deal with them. Process now follow standard form - I call to report slow broadband, take 15 mins explaining the problem to someone, then the call drops. No one rings back, so I start again & find there's no record of the previous call so have to go through the same procedure. This can happen five times in a row, & each time the advice & procedure is entirely different. Eventually called disconnections to ask how much to pay to get out of it & asked why I couldn't get any response from anyone, chap said they got a lot of feedback & couldn't deal with it all. Really, just don't go there.

After years with Orange I decided to move the phone from BT to Orange as well. What a mistake, dreadful service, bills from both as orange had neglected to take the line over. They said I could keep the phone number, that did not happen. Cut off all over Christmas and again in January. Openreach arrived out of the blue to reconnect phone and broadband and give me a new number. Orange said now they had to raise an order for the broadband as they had issued a new number. That has made my business cards obsolete. Enough is enough. The call centre is awful, none of these problems were ever resolved. The only thing Orange excel at is billing, I only got a reaction when I cancelled the direct debit. I have sent the livebox back now and signed up with BT. I will never attempt to contact Orange ever again. They will not get another penny from me. My advice, never bother with Orange, its all trouble and strife with them....

I have been with Orange Broadband for 3 years now and have just decided to cancel, something I should have done a long time ago! My reasons being, just like everyone else on here, I found the 'technical' support absolute rubbish and felt like I was talking to an automated human being. My livebox suffered a failure due to a surge on the phoneline following an electrical storm. After an hour and a half telling the person on the other end that I saw my livebox flash, pop, and emit a small amount of smoke. I was still being told to carry out a factory reset!! I gave up and asked to be put through to cancellations, got through straight away to a polite, english speaking operator who sounded geniunely upset I was leaving Orange! Boohoo!! My advice, O2 customer service is infinitely better.

I have been happy with orange since they took over from wanadoo, I have both broadband and phone with them, however, was paying £23 a month for both then out of the blue I received a letter saying the package i am on is no longer available increasing my contract to £32 a rise of nearly £10 which is ridiculous. When i rang they didnt even care said if i want to leave I have 30 days to do it, and that there prices are rising because they have to pay a company thats on my exchange blaa blaa, intrigued i checked my local exchange and Orange are actually on it, therefore, they are putting the price up for their benefit not for anyone else. Not impressed!

As many others here have said, Orange Broadband's technical support team read from a checkcard, they are useless. If you want to get answers and action done on your request folliow these simple rules.

1. Doint call the tech support team call this number instead. 0844 8738586. broadband option, go for option 4 "Your thinking of leaving Orange" Be polite, youll get a lot further.

2. Give them what they require i.e name, password etc

3. Ask to speak to a manager, as your issue isnt being resolved.

4. Explain the situation etc, youll be surprised at the result

I got new filters, a new router and 4 months FREE broadband, by keeping my cool.

Further to my previous review, I have accessed Orange website from another computer (not my home PC obviously) and printed off loads of pages of help. I have now been able to access the internet (I am using my home PC to write this review) by sorting it out myself. This might help some of you connect without having to contact Orange on your land line, which as we all know is time consuming, stressful and costly. I don't know anything about computers and managed to follow the instructions and sort myself out (for now anyway). Go to the Orange home page and click on the tab called 'help and support'. On the left side of the screen is a list of 'get help with' topics. I have also written a formal letter of complaint to Orange after going to the Watchdog website for advice. I don't hold out much hope that it will work for long, but I do feel much better now I am doing something constructive about it.

One problem after the other, goods not turning up when ordered, u have to keep chasing them. order processing problems where they were unable to process payments! Worst than that connection problems! have made several calls during the last 6 weeks (when I changed to a wireless package). since I changed, I have had a total of 12 hours wireless connection in 6 weeks! It is very stressful and emotionally draining dealing with this company by telephone. They are dealing with cutting edge technology for goodness sake!!!!

It's ok but the problems I have had are not worth going through, as I say I'm sick of being put through to people I can not understand. It's bad enough having constant problems without having to explain to someone who does not understand you.

Overall, I have no complaints about the Orange Internet service, but they are now telling people, that from the 12th of December 2006, you must give 30 days notice, £1 per month - paying by credit or debit card, and a fine of £12 to leave and to get your MAC code!!

I was a Wanadoo Customer for years. In early October 2006 I noticed constant cut-offs of service around 8pm in the evening. Just imagine if you were about to buy a bargain online holiday with Thomas Cook or someone, and you were about to press that pay button! Or maybe you were halfway through some music you'd just bought off iTunes. I phoned Orange to report this bad service on October 14th. The Engineer I spoke to was memorable for his silence to my questions. On October 16th the whole lot went down for over 24 hours in Cheshire. I lost over £200 worth of business. The service came back online on the 17th. Is there an apology e-mail to all Customers? Do cows fly?. I immediately cancelled my Direct Debit and requested a migration code.

I've had a relatively (to other people on this review site) good experience with them, after 4 - 5 years with BT with no problems, changing for a cheaper package to Wanadoo for the last 2 years, except for a £20 charge to upgrade to 4Mb, which was then automatically upgraded to 8Mb with no charge; then Orange and their offer of free broadband with a Mobile package, the offer of free VoIP calls as well, halved my monthly bill.

The broadband service, possibly because I'm in London, hasn't been off air to my knowledge.

My Livebox works, apart from the Talk part of it, something to do with the MAC address and serial numbers not being compatible, and now they are sending another box, but only after 5 calls to the Customer Service and Technical Support. I'm getting the same feeling about the staff in the call centres, wherever they are, that they are lacking in knowledge about anything. In fact the more that I telephone the more they learn.

I'd noticed that the Talk part of the Livebox hadn't activated like it said in the literature after 24 hours of plugging the Livebox in. Then calling the Customer Service team and have them try to activate it, only to be told they couldn't with the information I'd given them, then told that they would escalate the issue and I would be contacted within 2 days. I called the Technical Service team, about 5 days later, who could see that the Talk service was activated, but hadn't had the number allocated, so I should contact the Customer Service Team. Several days passed as I couldn't get through to anyone as "they were dealing with a lot of calls" so the recording said, or "their computer was down call again in an hour". I called again and spoke to someone on the following day, only to be asked the same things again, I told them what Technical Support had said but it didn't seem to make any headway with the situation. It seems they don't make any note of your call, even though they say they are putting notes on the account, then I was eventually passed through to a supervisor who at first seemed to have no knowledge of why I was put through to him about. Anyhow, the culmination of the conversation was the offer of another Livebox.

Things I have learned from this:
- After putting the WEP key in, re-boot your PC or PDA system as it doesn't seem to 'pair' without this happening. (This is what I mean about Absent detail in the literature). Maybe this is taken as read so they don't put it in the literature.
- Call the Customer Service Team on 0870 010 2462 option 1 then 4, don't opt for Technical Queries on 5 as this will take you through to India. Doesn't seem to matter how many times you call, they don't know about the previous calls.
- You will probably have to have another Livebox sent to you.
- Persevere with the system, it does work, eventually.

I'm fairly pleased with the broadband service. I perceive that it isn't as fast through the Livebox as it was through my Netgear box. The Customer Service Team aren't really prepared for the calls they are getting, but they do try to be as helpful as they can.