Origin Broadband Reviews

Resold by plus net, owned by Vodafone and now using GNAT means that you don’t have a public IP, when I did two months or so ago.

The service is intermittent and unreliable.

Customer service is hit and miss. The advanced customer service are either brilliant or outright rude. I understand that dealing with the public is not fun but - just be pleasant or transfer the call and have a break.

I'm a longstanding Origin customer, having joined many years ago when they were Plusnet resellers. The Plusnet resold service was flawless as you'd expect, but nowadays Origin's broadband service is delivered via their self-owned network.

I stuck with Origin during their difficult migration period, where they moved us customers from the resold Plusnet service over to their own network (powered by TalkTalk Wholesale tails). The migration itself was wholly unexpected, but only required new PPP auth details to get back online. The perhaps 2-3 weeks that followed were troublesome as Origin found their feet, but I stuck it out.

Fast forward to many months later and I'm a happy Origin customer. Their network is largely problem-free and uncongested (no more or no less problematic than other major ISPs). Calling for support sometimes leads to 20 minute wait times, but it's no better or worse than Plusnet or TalkTalk in this regard. Crucially, customer/tech support gets the problem resolved.

The overall experience is largely faultless with minor quibbles. Nothing that wouldn't be expected from other ISPs. The value is amazing, and you get what you pay for plus much more.

Abysmal customer support, ignores emails, slow as treacle on social media, will answer if you have the patience to wait 3 hours between replies.

Cheap.

For a communications company, they are not very good at communicating.

I joined Origin back in Nov 17. After a short delay in my setup (Due to adverse weather) I was up and running.

I opted to use my own router in conjunction with an Openreach VDSL modem, which their support helped me configure.

My package provides 80 down / 20 up. My most recent speed test gives the following results: 73.5 down / 18.5 up.

Overall I have been very happy with my connection, it has remained very stable, and I'm receiving the speeds I was sold.

My only complaint is that the ISP performs 'Carrier Grade NAT'. This isn't a problem for most people, but it is for those that use services such as Xbox Live. Being on their top package - which they advertise as being suitable for online gaming - I find it slightly misleading as CGNAT prevents getting the full experience as VOIP issues can occur. However, a quick tweet to their support, and they were able to sort me out with a Static IPv4 address which has resolved the NAT issues i've been having. This was all resolved within 24hrs, so I was happy with the outcome.

I would like to see Origin adopt IPv6, as this currently isn't an option. Their support have stated that this will be rolled out in the near future.

To sum up, my experience with Origin has been very positive, in both connection performance, and interactions with their support team.

Paid for a year upfront (a very good deal)
Wasn't sent the router and had to complain to get it.

WiFi password was in a font where it was impossible to distinguish "1" from "I" which did not help.

Origin were always very slow to answer the phone (this seems better recently)

Speed was only 13Mbps where I live very close to the exchange and always had 20Mbps previously (from Sky so on different LLU kit)

ADSL2+ often drops out and reconnects. In these cases the router hijacks DNS to point to a status page; so it often doesn't immediately recover without extra effort (WiFi reconnect seems to flush DNS).

There have been several times when the router was rebooted but the PPP authentication failed for many minutes/hours.

Origin tried to charge for a month of line rental that was prepaid. They were unable to stop the charge so I was told by them to cancel the direct debit. I did cancel it but like other reviewers the direct debit mysteriously came back.

They have provided a cheap service for a year; but I now regret not paying for something better; so perhaps it is not the greatest value for money after all.

As soon as I signed up with these clowns my internet speeds were on the low side and suffering from constant outages. Sometimes outages for hours, a few times a week. At other times 1 or 2 minute outages repeating every 5, 10, 15 minutes or so for hours. On average not more than 2 days would go by without some form of sustained outage or multiple, rapid-fire outages.

When it was working the speeds would frequently be worse than dial-up, page would take ages trying to load and then fail, even after multiple attempts. Between outages I would check my public IP address and ISP details and they would sometimes change. For a while it was in Paris and then eventually ended up in Russia in the latter stages(?).

Contacted them more than once, each time in the middle of sustained outages (one time in the middle of a 20+ hour outage), and of course "everything looks fine" and the "switch your router on and off" spiel. Resorted to trying every combination of 3 different routers and rj cables, no difference. Eventually had BT change the master socket in the house, change the physical line outside the house, and ultimately change something at the exchange regarding where/how we were connected there. No difference. Call customer service during another 12-hour outage, "everthing looks fine to us"...

Eventually cancelled the direct debit well outside of the contract. 3 or 4 months later these crooks somehow got my bank to reinstate the direct debit WITHOUT EITHER MY PERMISSION OR INFORMING ME OF IT HAPPENING, ie. against the direct debit agreement, and actually backdated it 4 months before I happened to notice it one day looking back through my statements.
Needless to say the money was back in my account within 2 or 3 days and then a change of bank was in order. But the nerve of these folk.

One of the strangest things was - checking the available services on the SamKnows availability checker, Origin was and still is listed as unavailable. They had had me on some bogus line and kept periodically bumping me off on to other crappy, dial-up-esque lines throughout the contract. Shysters.

This provider may work for a few lucky customers who never encounter any issues, however, as soon as something goes wrong and you need support you are completely screwed. Be prepared to spend at least an hour on hold before you get through to a first level support person who will then waste your time following the standard questions. Calls to the helpline used to be free, but they changed that quietly to a regular number. The 24/7 technical support is history, too.

Their staff are all very polite, but very rarely actually help you in any way. They often lie when it's convenient. The only team that is rather effective is their sales team. I spoke with a few rather good people in the technical team as well, but they are rare and it's difficult to get through to them.

After a bit over a year I'm completely fed up with them and have decided to switch my line to another provider. They didn't do anything for almost 6 days when I reported a dead land line and lied repeatedly that they'd reported the fault to Openreach. I got it fixed by calling Openreach directly and they were happy to come and repair the damaged cable.

I would never ever go back the them again.

27 April 2018. Rang Origin complaining about poor data rate. They claimed the problem was within my network.

Unplugged and replaced all phone plugs in house. Examined inside of sockets. Note I don't use wi-fi.

Went on holiday

8 May 2018. Tried modem at master socket. Drops out after a couple of minutes. Data rate less than 900kbps. Plenty of crackling at audio frequencies with phone connected at test port.

8 May 2018. Rang Origin. They changed profile, but dropping out still very frequent and audible crackling. They said they would ring back within 24-48 hours

11 May 2018 No change, so I rang Origin. They said they couldn't contact Openreach's equipment. Would call back later.

12 May 2018 Call from Origin on mobile. Origin not able to contact Openreach before 14 May. So no action before then.

18 May 2018 Rang Origin again. This time they said they would phone me back before 10:00 tomorrow with an incident number as supplied by Openreach

20 May 2018 Crackling getting worse. Data rate still less than 900kbps. As no response from Origin and no sign of Openreach personnel, I decided to change ISP.

30 May 2018 No dial tone. Connection to internet still up at less than 900kbps downstream.

5 June 2018 Switchover day to new ISP (Vodafone).

6 June 2018 08:40 Still no dial tone. No internet with new modem. Rang Vodafone on mobile. Vodafone representative said they had contacted Openreach who would investigate the problem, Should get an answer within 48-72 hours. I would not be charged until service starts

6 June 2018 11:05 Two Openreach vans arrived. The technicians installed a new cable between aerial wire (to telephone pole) and a new master socket (type 5C mark 4). The cable between telephone pole and house was not changed. Datarate now 31Mbps down and 9Mbps up. No audible crackling.

6 June 2018 17:00 A third Openreach technician called. I said problem fixed earlier.

2018, january: my mistake being so generous! It is NOT worth persevering; i renewed my contract and I regret it. Billing is chaos, customer service does not answer a complaint 3 months old; endless half hour waits on the phone, and then a week later start again from the beginning as they've taken no notes and not proceeded to do anything to resolve the issues. Beware, if it seems they are starting to improve, it's because your contract is due for renewal and you're through to SALES. But go somewhere else because there really is NO IMPROVEMENT. Appalling customer service, endless loops of frustration, no progress.

THis is a 2017 update to my 2015 review,
After reading another reviewer who stuck with them, and who said that after 2 months it is much better, I did the same, and it worked out. They improved. I am changing my review now to highest rating, because Origin is so much better than the competition. It's all about context. And in the context of this market, they are excellent. Truly unlimited usage, (not like Plusnet) and great speed. Yes there are problems and the first tier technical help is atrocious and you can wait online for 30 minutes, but at the end, you're through to Yorkshire. Grand! And technical always sort the problem out. Good router with package also. Best of the bunch, good price.

this was my 2015 experience, sadly:
disorganized and incompetent
I was eager to try Origin after I read the positive reviews like SmileyMatey: who said he had a seamless transfer, and dedicated person to help through the phone and broadband transition and keep you informed, general excellent service. My experience has not been like that at all.

To start I could not get clear pricing information from the website what the cost of Super Saver line rental would be with Fibre Broadband, so I telephoned. That person on the phone told me to email, they could not answer the question. I emailed, 24 hours later a reply giving me a price for the wrong kind of Fibre. So I phoned again, still wanting to sign up, this other person says the email price was wrong and then it goes back and forth for a few days back and forth to various people on phone and on email no one can give me a clear price on SuperSaver line rental with Fibre broadband: some say VAT is included and some give the same price and say it isn’t. Also they can’t give me a clear price on phone plans, routers, or ISP. Instead of walking away, I decide to give them a chance because they are a small UK company with UK call center, I want to support that, and sign up.



At best I would say they are very inconsistent and disorganized. Real shame.

...the service itself, or the customer service.

Regular drops in connectivity, waiting times on the "customer service" line of an hour and more (and that's *before* actually getting to speak to anyone, to be clear), customer service staff who think nothing of lying to customers or terminating a call (at least three times in my experience), and a complaints department who appear to have no interest in dealing with customer complaints.

Apparently it is also "standard industry practice" to extend your contract if you move house (people in rented accommodation take note!), *and* to charge you a fee for the "privilege" of being locked into using an ISP with the, in my experience, terrible service offered by Origin for another 12 months! I don't care if that is "standard practice", it is a *terrible* practice. In Origin's case, it is probably the only way they have any kind of customer retention.