Orange Home Starter Broadband Bundle

Orange Broadband Review | Review of Orange Broadband Home Starter

STOP PRESS 1! Get this package for FREE if you take an Orange pay monthly mobile phone contract (starting at £15 per month)

STOP PRESS 2! You can now combine this package with an Orange mobile broadband deal and get them both for £20 a month. (The mobile broadband includes 3GB monthly usage)

AS a basic broadband starter package, this Broadband Starter from Orange ticks about all the right boxes: it is well priced, packed with some excellent features and serves as a fantastic starting block for broadband access.

Get it for even less

What's more, you can get it for FREE if you are a new or existing Orange mobile customer and take one of their pay monthly mobile phone plans.

This Orange Home Starter package promises speeds of up to 8Mbps with a newly increased download limit of 10GB.

Even reasonably heavy users will find that 10GB is more than ample for everyday web surfing needs, but heavier users may want to look at either one of Orange's other broadband packages, or shift to another provider altogether.

Free off-peak home phone calls

Incredibly for the price, the Orange Home Starter broadband package also includes free evening and weekend calls to all UK landlines.

You will still have to pay line rental to BT though (only the Orange Home Max package includes line rental).

The one downside to this is that Orange will perform a credit check on you to ensure you're not going to be a liability to them. This check takes around 10 days, on top of the approximate 10 days to get the broadband up and running.

If you know you have a bad credit rating, it is probably not worth applying for this package.

The only Orange broadband package that doesn't require a credit check is the Orange Home Select, as this doesn't include home phone calls.

Now with free setup

While all Orange packages used to include a £30 setup and activation, a recent change has seen Orange drop this, making set up absolutely free.

On the downside, Orange has introduced a £2 levy on all payment methods other than Direct Debit. So if you were planning to pay in buttons, you'll need to factor in an extra £2 to the monthly fee.

Not the livebox, but wireless modem nonetheless

Orange are generous enough to include a free wireless modem with this broadband package.

Unfortunately this is not the cool Orange 'LiveBox' which not only operates as a wireless router but also acts as a second phone line (you'd need to take out the Orange Home Select or the Orange Home Max to get that).

Expensive telephone support

In terms of support, we feel that despite the Indian call centres (which are surprisingly good in this case), Orange have done well to provide excellent free online support but they are losing lots of fans with their expensive and, frankly, unfair telephone technical support for this package.

Standard customer support is charged at 5p per minute and is open from 7am to 11pm, but try asking them a technical question and you'll be kindly asked to call a 50p a minute line. Not good, Mr Orange.

(Note that this charge only applies to Home Starter customers. Users of the Home Select and Home Max packages get technical support at 5p per minute)

Excellent protection

Putting a glaze back on the package though is Orange's free inclusive McAfee Privacy Service software which is great for checking and removing unwanted spyware as well as protecting the personal data on your PC.

Orange also offer 20% off McAfee Internet Security Suite.

In a nutshell, Orange has created a robust and ample starter broadband package with plenty to recommend it. Let's just see them sort out that expensive support!

	Orange Home Starter is currently offering Free for Orange pay monthly mobile phone customers.

A little more detail

Broadband

			Special Note..	Any good?
Package Name:		Starter	-
Connection Type:		ADSL	-
Max Speed:		8Mb	-
Usage Limit:		10GB	-
Hardware:		Wireless Router	-
Anti-virus Protection:		No	McAfee Internet Security Suite available to buy for £39.99 (saving of £10)
Firewall:		No	-
E-mail Account:		Yes	1 email address
Webspace Provided:		Yes	5 batches of 30MB webspace
Domain Included:		No	-
Backup Dialup:		Yes	-
Consoles Supported:		All major consoles supported	-

Home Phone

Package Name:		Evening & Weekend
UK Weekend Tariff:		Free to UK landlines
UK Evening Tariff:		Free to UK landlines
UK Peak Tariff:		2.50p per minute
International Tariff:		From 4p per minute

Payment, Installation and Contract

Payment Method(s):		Direct Debit (all other payment methods incur a £2 per month surcharge)
Activation Fee:		Free
Installation:		Free
Minimum Contract:		18 months
Line Rental:		BT Line Rental required
Support:		Customer support at 5p per minute (7am - 11pm). Expert technical support 50p per minute.

Actual User Ratings

At a Glance

Our Rating
Max Speed	8Mb
Usage Limit	10GB
Monthly Price	£10.00
Set Up Cost	Free
Min. Contract	18 months

	Bundle details:
	Phone: Unlimited evening and weekend calls to UK landlines using your home phone
	TV: Not included
	Mobile: Not included

	It is best suited for:
	Families, first time broadband users and Orange mobile customers (all with good credit ratings) who want a reasonably low-cost broadband connection.

Customer Reviews

Add your own review of Orange broadband...

Remember, the customer reviews below are subjective (and are not the opinions of ChooseISP.co.uk).

Herman from Glasgow writes... 01/03/2008

"Orange has to be the worst phone/internet provider I have ever signed up for. It's very slow,the connection drops on a regular basis and there the phone line is dead nearly every weekend.If you have any problems you have to call Orange on a premium call rate which will cost you up to £5 every time. The only useful feature is calls to overseas land line numbers which I use when my phone is actually working.Spend the extra few pound and get something decent!"

Mark Wood from London writes... 21/02/2008

"Orange have been failing to provide me with broadband for the last 9 months but are still trying to hold me to the 18 month contract! The "expert" techincal support service operates from overseas on very poor quality lines is VERY expensive and no more useful than asking my 70 year old neighbour"

Chris from Forest Of Dean writes... 22/10/2007

"Dreadful performance from Orange. Very slow at peak times (dial-up performance) and not a lot better at off-peak. Consistently drops out even though I have replaced the router with a decent Draytek Vigor. Line length and exchange capability mean I can only expect maximum of 2.5Mb but my old AOL 1Mb line was far superior to this Orange Home Max. Can't wait for my 1 yr contract to end so I can jump ship."

Chris from Glasgow writes... 15/08/2007

"I've found my Livebox to be very unreliable, and has limited features. The broadband connection drops on a regular basis, though reverting back to an old 'hard-wired' USB modem is fine. I'd spend some extra cash and buy a decent wireless router."