i've been with Orange for years, but I'm likely to move soon, too - it's an OK service at an OK price, but recently all the changes have been negative - for instance, removing the possibility to use the "free" web space via FTP. The Orange Livebox never worked because we've still got a Freeserve username, which it won't accept. No big deal, as I only wanted to use it for the phone option anyway - but they've now pulled that too because we didn't use it - because it didn't work - and their emails on both these subjects were flagged up as spam by, er, Orange, so I didn't actually get to see them until too late. The only thing that's stopped me so far is the belief that all ISPs are fundamentally crap...

Orange nee Wanadoo nee Freeserve. Say no more.

...it may also have something to do with the shocking price. Until this month Orange charged a compulsory £30 connection fee. If you don't have a monthly contract with them you pay what is basically a really high price for a really poor service.

...And then, you've got the £7 extra or so per month if you're not "in an orange broadband area" (hah). Yet still customers buy it! I'm with Sky broadband, and I'm happy to admit the speeds are disappointing and the uptime is poor. But I'm paying £5/month for basically unlimited downloads. I can't complain!

ISP's its a case of cost cutting in the wrong areas resulting in an complete failure to deliver any sort of coherent service.

I think what you mean is that all *cheap* ISPs are crap [1], and most (all?) mass market ISPs are crap. ISPs from AAISP to Zen and a few others in between may be generally unheard of but they generally also have a good proportion of happy punters (though as they are reliant on BTwholesale for connectivity, that may vary). They also tend to be unaffordable for mickeytakers, which can only help both customer and ISP.

Tune of the day for this article: Todd Rundgren's "I Hate My ISP".

[1] Metronet, prior to being bought by Plusnet, were the exception that proved the rule.

I've been with them for 18 months and found them to be pretty good.

Livebox works fine.

Great download speeds (700k)

It's unlimited (or I haven't fallen foul of their fair use policy at least)

Always reliable.

Customer care seems good - I sent them a change of bill-payer letter and I got call back just to say they'd received the letter. Spot on!

I'm in the centre of Manchester admittedly, but I've got no complaints.

...in my experience.

Their 3G coverage sucks!

Their Broadband/ADSL service sucks! (It stopped working completely in the evenings.)

Their Customer Service sucks! - and when you can get through to complain all you get is apologies and broken promises.

I'm with Talktalk for home phone and broadband now. They're cheap and it works all the time. Not only does it work but they rang me up out of the blue last week to see how I was getting on with their service - Yes! THEY RANG ME!

I told them the phone was fine but the broadband was a little slow (650kb/s at 3 miles from the exchange) and they said they'd get an engineer to check. Ten minutes later they ring back and I've now got 1.3mb/s free, gratis and for nothing.

I'm with 3 for my mobile phone now - it works great - coverage everywhere I go, its cheaper than Orange and I could get 3mb/s data (capped at 3GB/month) if I wanted it, for just £5 extra per month.

Orange, as a company will be dead soon. Lets hope the other ISPs learn their lesson.

"I'm with Sky broadband, and I'm happy to admit the speeds are disappointing and the uptime is poor. But I'm paying £5/month for basically unlimited downloads. I can't complain!"

Likewise with TalkTalk. Connection speed can be a bit variable at peak times, but generally, outages are very rare, 40GB/month download limit - and it's free with a TalkTalk landline which works out cheaper than BT (OK, it's by about 2p/month cheaper, but it's still cheaper...)

I wouldn't want to rely on it for business, but for general home use with email, surfing, downloading and online gaming, it's fine.

And compared to Orange (my sis was with Freeserve, which became Orange via Wanadoo and has always been too lazy to shift) - TalkTalk is a True Consumer Champion. Now there's a scary sentence...!

Orange. Dead as the proverbial avian nailed to its perch and pining for the fjords. Beautiful plumage...

I used to get 2.4megs out of the 8meg I was paying for, due to my position relative to the exchange. Rubbish but not their fault I suppose, as the neighbours on different ISPs get the same.

In February I upgrded to 'MAX' broadband (sounds really, really fast), AND took out 2 mobiles (on £35pm Dolphin contracts). I also get free calls via my BT line and a second line on my LiveBox including free international calls. I get all this for a not-very-grand total £56pm after some haggling and part-exchanging an old phone. That's cheap.

Did I mention I can't get any faster than 0.4meg ever since? Cheap, in every sense of the word is what it is.

Emails to technical support recommended basic things I've already done. Now they've then pointed me to a call centre in India, which is only 5p a minute.

That's quite cheap, don't you think?.

Orange, formly known as Wanadoo formerly known as Freeserve.

Renaming shit as cake doesnt make it any better, it's still shit!

After 2 years of appalling service and many, many chances for them to sort out their stuff I left Orange, I only hope that the rest do so quickly too, for their own sanity.