I don't believe it!!

[widge]

There are some far reaching results of the internet that are now coming to light. Particularly with regard to young people not developing social skills outside of the online "social media".

For the rest of us, it will soon be impossible to live without internet connectivity, and presumably via a smartphone.

I spent the greater part of two days battling with a chat bot to have a moan about our crap internet. I'm not worried about speed, which I am told is pitiful, but the fact that it keeps cutting out randomly. Any time. Any day. It connects and disconnects as and when it sees fit. I was promised a technician will come tomorrow.
At the end of the conversation once I managed to speak to an actual human, he said he could award me 200 gigawotsits credit on my mobile phone so I can keep access to the internet while I wait for the technician. I informed him that is of no use to me because there is no network signal here. The mobile phone we grudgingly own has to connect through our internet router. When router no workee, phone no workee. I think by the end of the conversation he was thinking of finding another career path.

We have always stuck with orange ( these days sosh which is cheap Orange) because at the end of the day, they managed the network, neighbours who had free or bouygues were always saying, not us it orange at fault and they nolonger allow us to access their lines to fix faults (according to an Orange engineer I spoke to once, the reason it was so bad before was every man and his dog had patched things all over the place).
Anyway about 7 years ago we still had copper and could just about scrape 2mb then it went down to just under 1mb, I spoke to Orange and to be fair they didn't try to fob me off, they held there hands up and said, sorry, basically you are the maximum distance from the exchange, and the lines are ancient, there is a project to get fibre to your nearest town on the main road, but we are talking about 6 to 9 months until it will be up and running.

If it gets particularly bad we will try to tune the lines and see if we can improve it a bit. About 3 or 4 times over the next few months when it got particularly bad, I would ring, and they would have a fiddle to get it back up again.

I didn't mind as it was just about enough speed for us at that time, and they were open and honest about it, after about 9 months we had good reliable speeds of about 16mbs, and now we have over 300mbs, and we are in a little hamlet half way up a mountain.

[Hotrodder]

We also ended up with Sosh/Orange after playing the same game with Free and SFR. The speed went up but the reliability has remained the same, rubbish. But at least they respond to a problem because they have nobody else to blame. I have had to remake the connection where the line reaches the side of the house and added my own cable from there to the router. The old cable was literally a bit of lamp flex that was cracking up due to UV degradation. Their connection box wasn't waterproof by any stretch of the imagination not helped by the total lack of a drip loop. Ask any decent sparkie what that is. We will see what happens later today if the promised techie actually turns up. My guess is a dodgy router. Orange Livebox Play (aka Deadbox). Orange naturally get a contract for the cheapest functional routers they can find so hardly a premium piece of kit.

[ajm]

Following on from my rant about stamps. Just downloaded a Mémo Vehicle Assurance from my insurer. This replaces the vignette and (apparently) necessary in case the plod want confirmation. The vignette was about an inch square opposed to the memo which is on A4. Where's the logic?

[Headers]

Following on from my rant about stamps. Just downloaded a Mémo Vehicle Assurance from my insurer. This replaces the vignette and (apparently) necessary in case the plod want confirmation. The vignette was about an inch square opposed to the memo which is on A4. Where's the logic?

the logic is that YOU have to print it off, there is no coloured paper, no postage, ergo THEY are saving money and YOU are spending money on printing etc.

[ajm]

Still not very environmentally savvy

[MAD87]

This is all very familiar. OH keeps going on about getting fibre, but I keep pointing out the cost (cosy for 1 year, then the hammer falls). We are wish Sosh (thank you forum members who gave me the heads up) but it's Orange, so weekends are sloooow in the extreme due to skeleton shifts. No problem as I can wait until Monday...when they're doing a pont!

[Wilbro]

@MAD87 and
What hammer? We've had fibre for several years now with Orange and the only increase has been 1€ pm which would have applied anyway fibre or not.

[RobertArthur]

Not a very heavy hammer in the Sosh shop (since 2011 daughter of Orange):
< Actuellement, le forfait Boîte Sosh Fibre est proposé à 19,99€/mois pendant 12 mois puis 25,99€/mois Sans engagement (Location Livebox incluse). Il s'agit d'une offre complète offrant une connexion très haut débit, un service de téléphonie et un service de télévision.> Source.

Orange has another price label:
< Just Livebox Fibre : la box fibre Orange sans TV à moins de 20€/mois. 19,99€/mois pendant 6 mois puis 33,99€/mois. L'offre Just Livebox Fibre est l'abonnement le moins cher d'Orange, disponible à partir de 19,99€/mois pendant 6 mois puis 33,99€/mois avec Engagement de 12 mois. > Source.

Orange's offers under the magnifying glass.

[beejay]

the logic is that YOU have to print it off, there is no coloured paper, no postage, ergo THEY are saving money and YOU are spending money on printing etc.

A4 paper @ 1p a page and ink for much less than 1p won't break the bank.

I've just renewed my car insurance over the phone added a driver resulting in £160 off the postal renewal quote. Printed the certificate and requested documents by post. Took less than ten minutes and I'm happy.

[widge]

Not a very heavy hammer in the Sosh shop (since 2011 daughter of Orange):
< Actuellement, le forfait Boîte Sosh Fibre est proposé à 19,99€/mois pendant 12 mois puis 25,99€/mois Sans engagement (Location Livebox incluse). Il s'agit d'une offre complète offrant une connexion très haut débit, un service de téléphonie et un service de télévision.> Source.

Orange has another price label:
< Just Livebox Fibre : la box fibre Orange sans TV à moins de 20€/mois. 19,99€/mois pendant 6 mois puis 33,99€/mois. L'offre Just Livebox Fibre est l'abonnement le moins cher d'Orange, disponible à partir de 19,99€/mois pendant 6 mois puis 33,99€/mois avec Engagement de 12 mois. > Source.

Orange's offers under the magnifying glass.

The key difference is that you get telephone support with orange, with Sosh you have to use the self diagnostics, and the chat line if you have a problem. The two occasions that I have had a major problem, I have rung the Orange helpline, and to there response of sorry you are with sosh you have to use the online support, I have said, I can't as I have no Internet. And they help me anyway.