Orange Broadband Speed Issues

24th November 2011...

I'm happy to report that after 3 months of painfully slow broadband speed, our issues have finally been resolved. Unfortunately it's not known exactly what the problem was that caused it in the first place. We either suspect a rogue radio controlled toy in the toy box (which we have now moved away from our router), or a change by BT or Orange at the Epsom exchange perhaps, although BT wholesale swear blind they haven't changed anything this week to make that be the case.

Anyway, should you be an Orange customer, then there really is only one person you should deal with for resolving your broadband issues. His name is Daniel Flint ( on ext 34045 ). If calling from your orange mobile then just use 150, 1, 2, 2, 2 then ask to be transferred to the Broadband Fault Management team, and then onto him. If you're calling in the afternoon after 4pm then deal with Craig Coleman (on ext 32383). After approximately 40 (yes forty calls to Orange), these were the only two people that actually cared about our case, and were the only ones to ring back when they said they would.


----

Further to my original post about PPP server down with Orange live box issues I was having back in 2006 I have found some notes on a web site about how you can fix your router speed issues these days.
After 32 calls to Orange technical help this month, we're finally hopeful that the 4th BT engineer saying that it is our BRAS profile that has been set incorrectly for our 7mb sync speed, and our SNR noise margin being 3.3db where it should be 6db, is probably what is wrong. More about this here - http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/lowSNR.htm
P.S. Worth knowing that if you do contact Orange broadband customer service, then you should ask to be put through to the Fault management team in South Yorkshire directly to speak to someone English that actually has the authority to arrange a BT Special Fault Investigation Engineer to be sent to your property.
Doing this on my Orange Livebox appeared to give me a better speed connection.
You will need your username and password.
1.     Switch off your PC
2.     Switch power off to Router for 3 minutes then switch back on
3.     Wait 5 minutes to allow Router time to stabilise
4.     Switch PC back on
5.     Open internet browser
6.     If still unable to access the internet follow steps below:
7.     Log into Router home page
for BT Business supplied equipment type the following in the address line:
BT Business Hub 192.168.1.254
for non BT equipment please refer to your supplier
8.     Click on settings tab
9.     Click on Broadband
10.     Click on link configuration
11.     You will now be able to see your username and password fields
12.     Please change the username details that appear before the @ symbol as follows:
bt_test_user @XXXXXXXXXX  (you must insert underscore _ in the name as shown)
13.     Please leave password field blank unless prompted in which case enter ADSL (upper case)
14.     Scroll to bottom of page and click on save
15.     If prompted for Router password please input if not known click on "forgot password" link
16.     This will connect the router on test details and the internet light will change to green
17.     Repeat from step 7 above and change user name and password back to your own details.

Appendix A - Good speed test sites

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/diagnostics#results - starting to like this one best now.
http://speedtest.net/ - my most used one
http://speedtester.bt.com/ - this is the official one that BT will recognise you have a fault from.
http://www.uswitch.com/broadband/speedtest/streetstats/ - Find stats from other houses on your street here as well

Appendix B - Good line testing sites

http://tools.ssl128bit.net/Whoosh/LLU.aspx?telephone=0123456789

Appendix C - Useful contacts

08448 738 586 (called from your home land line) to Orange Fault management team in the UK (South Yorkshire) - use these guys to get your BBEU number and progress it with BT Wholelsale (see next contact number)...
https://www.btwholesale.com/ - Faults team on 0800 085 3608 (option 3 wait a long time for phone to be answered though!). You will require your BBEU number (or CBUK number or VPMS number) to get through to them. Also eChat to them available here - https://btwholesale.com/pages/static/echat.html - select the IP/DATA/WBC products link on the right to chat to someone directly.
bring.your.broadband@everythingeverywhere.com - email address for South Yorkshire team that manages Orange broadband

Appendix D - Checking what speed you should be getting

Find your SNR noise margin and your attenuation stats off your broadband router. Type your attenuation into this calculator, http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/max_speed_calc.php,  to see what speed you should be entitled to get (on a wired connection to your router that is).
Your SNR margin should be above 6db at least as well, so worth checking that. If it isn't complain to your ISP as they should be able to fix this.

Appendix E - Connecting to BT OpenZone account

Have also discovered that for Orange customers you can connect to the BT OpenZone Wifi network using your orange email username and password.