Orange has agreed to solve the case of a user that was forced onto dialup by the ISP after an upgrade to her broadband router crippled the device. Not too difficult to solve, right? Not unless you're Orange:

The saga began in May when the customer was knocked offline during the roll-out of a firmware update to her Livebox router. Following countless calls to Orange's national rate helpline, the customer was finally sent a rescue CD but instructed not to use it until she could talk to someone in upper-tier support.

After a week without internet access and no luck getting through to Orange's techies, the customer threatened to switch to a different provider. But Orange ruled this out, saying a MAC (Migration Authorisation Code) could not be provided as the customer was locked in to a contract until November.

Compromise from Orange came in the form of downgrading the customer to dial-up. She was offered one free month, a somewhat hollow gesture as she was still expected to pay the more expensive monthly broadband fee.

The Register notes that more than just one user had been hit by the glitch (believed to be under 100) and has promised to resolve the remaining issue, including a two-month refund.

However, on the subject of migration code refusal, Orange did not appear to deem being without Internet access for such a long period to be "extreme" enough to warrant it! That'll be another fault in Ofcom's optional policy then.