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| Orange experiences 'major' outage | Orange experiences 'major' outage |
| (10 minutes later) | |
| The broadband service run by mobile firm Orange is experiencing a "major" national outage. | The broadband service run by mobile firm Orange is experiencing a "major" national outage. |
| Several users have complained that they have been unable to use their connection since Monday afternoon. | Several users have complained that they have been unable to use their connection since Monday afternoon. |
| A spokesperson for the company said the fault on the service, formerly known as Wanadoo, was caused by a "network equipment failure". | A spokesperson for the company said the fault on the service, formerly known as Wanadoo, was caused by a "network equipment failure". |
| Orange said they were working to fix the problem but there is no indication when a normal service will resume. | Orange said they were working to fix the problem but there is no indication when a normal service will resume. |
| The BBC news website was alerted to the fault by a reader who had been unable to connect to the internet for the last two days. | The BBC news website was alerted to the fault by a reader who had been unable to connect to the internet for the last two days. |
| Local failures | Local failures |
| Orange confirmed that there had been broadband network outage that started at approximately 16:00 yesterday. | Orange confirmed that there had been broadband network outage that started at approximately 16:00 yesterday. |
| The company said the problem only affected customers within their Local Loop Unbundled (LLU) network. | The company said the problem only affected customers within their Local Loop Unbundled (LLU) network. |
| This is not the first time this has happened yet orange seem happy to take my £25 a month for a shoddy service and not offer any apologies or compensation for loss of service. Lelee, London Send us your comments | |
| LLUs use equipment installed in a telephone exchange by a third party company, such as Orange, instead of BT. | LLUs use equipment installed in a telephone exchange by a third party company, such as Orange, instead of BT. |
| Orange have 2 million internet subscribers, one million of which use the company's broadband service. Not all of its broadband users are on an LLU network. | |
| There is no indication of how many people are affected by the outage. | |
| The company said engineers working over night restored connections to 20% of affected customers overnight. | |
| "We are working to restore normal service to all customers as quickly as possible," said an Orange spokesperson. "We apologise to those customers affected." | "We are working to restore normal service to all customers as quickly as possible," said an Orange spokesperson. "We apologise to those customers affected." |
| The latest broadband service status report on the Orange website said the service was "up and running at the moment," but the report was dated August 2006. | The latest broadband service status report on the Orange website said the service was "up and running at the moment," but the report was dated August 2006. |
| Orange started offering broadband earlier this year after the company absorbed internet service provider Wanadoo - also owned by Orange's parent, France Telecom. | Orange started offering broadband earlier this year after the company absorbed internet service provider Wanadoo - also owned by Orange's parent, France Telecom. |
| Orange offers a "triple play" package to its customers which bundles mobile phone, landline and broadband services as an all-in-one deal. | Orange offers a "triple play" package to its customers which bundles mobile phone, landline and broadband services as an all-in-one deal. |
| Have you been affected by the Orange outage or do you use a different broadband supplier experiencing the same problems? Send your comments to the BBC News website using the form below | Have you been affected by the Orange outage or do you use a different broadband supplier experiencing the same problems? Send your comments to the BBC News website using the form below |
| I've not been able to use my broadband for two days, this is not the first time this has happened yet orange seem happy to take my £25 a month for a shoddy service and not offer any apologies or compensation for loss of service. very unhappy with orange!Lelee, London | |
| Since the change from Wanadoo to Orange, their service has been abysmal and the technical support is of a standard that can only be described as 'amateur'. | |
| I'm glad I got out of my contract when I did as it seems they haven't much of a clue of how to handle their customers.Dave_1927, Cardiff | |
| It went down about 8:45 on Monday for us, and appeared to start working again, until about 3:45pm.. That's it. We are an old freeserve customer, and the diagnostic program just keeps repeating it self, Authenticating ........Philip , London | |
| As an Orange broadband subscriber all I can say is it is still working here today (Tuesday 10:54am) and hasn't given any problems.Dave McKinlay, Tadcaster, North Yorkshire | |
| Have not been able to logon since yesterday, are we going to be compensated?Ron Durrant, Sutton UK | |
| I have not been able to connect to my BT Broadband Service for almost two weeks. My neighbours also lost their connection at the same time. We have all been trying to get a BT engineer to check the line/exchange but I am still waiting for a call to confirm this. I have been phoning the technical helpdesk almost every other day for the past two weeks but they are being very evasive. My neighbours have been told that it may be due to a massive outage and that apparently engineers have been working around the clock at our exchange. I'm still waiting to get a callback....sonya kearns, Bromsgrove, UK | |
| I've had the same problem. My server at home lost connectivity around 3pm yesterday, and my broadband connection still wasn't working this morning. | |
| I think it's outrageous that Orange haven't provided information on their web site. For some customers at least Orange's technical support line is a premium rate number, so they must be making huge amounts of cash from their customers calling to find out what's happening.Chris G, Epsom, UK | |
| The service from Orange has always been terrible, its very difficult to understand many of their tech support people because they are all in India. | |
| I've been unable to connect for the last two days and Orange appears to be in denial about the problem! I'm now seriously considering switching to Sky broadband (since I already have Sky tv), but to be honest Im not sure the service will be any better.George Smith, UK | |
| Mine started yesterday afternoon, saying that there was no dial tone. Ashley, Barry, S Wales | |
| I have been an Orange customer for 3 years, and will strongly claim their customer care is the best for any company. However, since coming to their broadband, the internet customer care has been appalling, and now I too am unable to connect as of yesterday afternoon. I am not sure but I feel Orange are using Wanadoo staff and they are just not on par with the Orange customer care levels. I hope this problem and the customer care problems get sorted soon, so Orange can once again be the best all round.Niaz Hussain, London, UK | |
| I've been unable to connect since yesterday morning. Thought it was a problem with my computer at first, but obviously not!Ben Allon, Manchester, UK | |
| Have Wanadoo broadband service. Or at least did have until yesterday afternoon when, upon getting home from work, it decided it didn't like me anymore and stopped. Something about a conflicting i.p. apparently. Quite annoying indeed.Matt, London | |
| I'm with Orange and my Internet has been working fine!MJ, North London | |
| This time around I have been lucky and it is not affecting me, however, last time it was quite a different story! Despite many calls to their expensive 'helpline' I had no stable connection for over a week without a refund or an apology!Ben James, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom | |
| This seems to be a trend with the new mobile companies wanting to expand into the broadband arena. They should get things sorted fully before offering customers the service, only for them to be let down by standards such as this. We all heard about the Carphone warehouse (talk talk) problemsGary, Bradford, UK | |
| I have been having exactly the same problems with Orange, has been going on for about 12 days, and every time i ring them they tell me to ring them back in 48 hours, after speaking to a tech person from orange yesterday he admitted that he thinks it could take months before the service would be available again. In the end i cancelled my service with Orange as i need broadband for work and just waiting indefinitely for a fix wasn't acceptable for me. Not happy and now have the fun job of finding a new broadband service!Cameron Smith, Cardiff, Wales | |
| I changed from Orange to BT last month because the service was abysmal. I wrote twice to the Orange Service Manager about the quality of the service and did not receive a reply. I suspect they have expanded too quickly and cannot cope with the volume of traffic. I am not surprised that their system has collapsed, I am surprised that they are trying to blame a third party.Stephen Doyle, Forres, Scotland | |
| Maybe I'm lucky but I have not had any problems since the initial debacle of my connection.James, Rushden, Northants | |
| I cannot access the internet via my home computer either. I use orange/wanadoo. Not for much longer though. I believe they could be more proactive in advising me of a better tariff/plan according to my usage pattern.Brian Wickes, Welling, England | |
| I use Orange Broadband as part of the "triple" package - I get free 8Mb broadband due to being on a high-end mobile package, and I have not had any problems at all since I started with them 3 months ago, and the past few days has been fine - so far, a flawless service from Orange - keep it up guys!Ian havelock, Chorley, Lancashire | |
| Have suspected this for some weeks now despite the denials from Orange. I've wasted over one hundred pounds on equipment checks and a new router. Wonder whether they'll credit us for the days we're unable to access the service. Some chance!D.Arnold, Ipswich , U.K | |
| As soon as Wanadoo became Orange I began experiencing problems (intermittent connection etc.), and had no joy talking to their Indian call centres (which are basically an audible computer-read-out). I am still being connected at a less-than-optimum speed. My advice is to avoid Orange broadband all together.Tom, Kingston, UK | |
| We use Orange and have tried calling their helpline at 50p per minute. They are unable to provide any information or advice. However they do redirect you to another (cheaper) number and the call was answered quickly and politely, although no real answers can be provided. Orange often has technical problems and have taken several days to rectify faults in the past. All the while we pay for this 'service' but are never offered refunds for loss of this service. There have to better ISPs out there - anyone got any recommendations?gt, Birmingham, england | |
| Am Orange by default having been originally, freeserve, then Wanadoo. Couldn't connect to Wanadoo lst night and then suddenly could this morning. What a relief - as I am working from home today.bigfoot, London | |
| I've been affected by this since yesterday afternoon. The Orange web site is useless and says that service is normal, we are paying for this and there has been no communication from Orange. Customer service has never been the strength of either Wanadoo or Orange. I'll probably move to a cable provider after this.Andrew , Bradford England | |
| I haven't been able to connect to the internet for two days - fair enough as it seems a serious problem and these things happen. But Orange make it clear on their website it's no good calling their call centres, because they will just refer to out of date information on their websites, and refuse to give any indication when the problem will be solved. Unbelievably frustrating! Robert Capel, London | |
| Its a terrible shame about the broadband outage for Orange Customers. However, I subscribed for their sevice on 1st September and aside from numerous unreturned calls, promises of service being connected in the next couple of days and appalling customer service, I've received nothing from them whatsover, so I am hardly surprised at this latest failure.Chris Riley, London | |
| Now we can see just how poor Orange customer service is. They obviously don't have the infrastructure to deal with the increased amount of customers. If this carries on I'll be requesting they cancel my contract as they are not supplying the service described. | |
| Orange are a prime example of a company jumping on the bandwagon when they clearly do not have the expertise, infrastructure or knowledge to supply the package offered.Andy Parr, Cardiff | |