The future is definitely NOT Orange

I expect you thought this was going to be my advanced warning to the LibDems about their election chances next year, right?

Well it can be about that too.

But really it is about my Internet Service Provider (ISP)

I am with Freeserve, they were taken over a year or two ago by Wanadoo and now they too have been taken over by Orange.

I have had my Freeserve email address for 7 years next month and my new "Liverpool" Wanadoo address for a year, running them side by side.

I had an email telling me that the whole outfit was now Orange but that it would not affect me. Only guess what? It does!

When I moved to Liverpool it took nearly two months to get online because our house has a Telewest phone and Freeserve, or Wanadoo as they had become, did not like anything other than BT. However eventually I got onto a "Pay as you go" account which would work with Telewest, although it cost me an arm and a leg each month in phone calls.

It is true though that as long as I connected reasonably regularly using this method, for the rest of the time I could access my emails through the web, using other connections, like at work for instance.

However, now that Orange has taken over they have taken a much harder line.

You cannot even be a pay as you go user unless you have a BT line.

They have not stated this categorically but they have said you can now only connect to the new Orange using an 08440 number and Telewest dont connect to 08440 numbers, so it is a fait accompli.

Of course the Orange helpline have denied all this and said that somehow I am being mislead by Telewest and that, quote, "lots of other Telewest users are getting online okay"

This is patently not true and I expect there is already a big fuss going on, they just dont want to face it head on nor accept it publicly, you heard it here first though.

So very soon, it will be curtains for my Freeserve account and my Wanadoo account because if I dont connect online using a BT number quite soon I will be cut off without a second thought and I wont even be able to access using a web based mail.

Fortunately Liverpool City Council are talking about installing a BT line here at home for me that is broadband enabled so that I can finally access my council email, and at that time I can go back to connecting to my other accounts.

Always assuming it ever happens, you will have read my earlier outbursts on the subject of the poor support we get....

So I dont know what is going to happen now, in the meantime I may have to cart my own laptop round to various mates' houses so that I can connect using their BT line, always assuming they have a BT line and dont mind my running up their phone bills.

Now is that a bright future for Orange?

I dont think so