Orange Flat Rate data - the official announcement

[Guest conan_troutman]

you know I have never been with orange ( and thanks to you lot never will) I hear you all knocking them for just catching up with T-mobile for there data plans but there still ahead of O2 who don't do any data plan for PAYG fullstop.

so I am stuck with a great PAYG plan with one minor problem lack of tinternet. how jealous am I?

Edited May 17, 2007 by conan_troutman

[Guest Shaunfarris]

Hi All,

Just spoken to a guy at Orange..............and he surprised me by telling me that yes the new data packages will be available on the 1st June.

I asked him to confirm the £8 monthly unlimited (fair play), he said nothing's on their system yet however they have just had training on the packages.

And guess what no F##**#* unlimited package that they know of.

The only £8 one that they have been informed of is for 30Mb per month, then another capped at £1.50 a day, and the existing £5 evenings and weekends.

Anyone else got any better info, or have Orange backed down totally

[Guest chucky.egg]

Yeah, that was how I understood their announcement - the £8/month deal is capped at 30Mb and not unlimited at all. The Anytime refers to day/night not the amount of data

[Guest pd.ryder]

**Whoa** -- stands back in complete shock and amazement!!

Why does this not surprise me? 30Mb, eh? That'd put the kybosh on me streaming radio and TV headlines into my VII now wouldn't it?

[Guest Shaunfarris]

Yeah, that was how I understood their announcement - the £8/month deal is capped at 30Mb and not unlimited at all. The Anytime refers to day/night not the amount of data

I took it to be 30MB cap per day for pay as you go.

But the way I was told by the CS staff the £8 monthly anytime tariff was capped to 30MB per month, dunno if this mean you can also add the evenings and weekend package as well, giving you 30MB daytime and 1GB evenings and weekends.

Either way it seems Orange have failed to provide what anyone really wants and they have made it as confusing as they possibly can

Edited May 30, 2007 by Shaunfarris

[Guest Monolithix (MVP)]

I don't think its really that confusing...

£5/month unlimited evening and weekend browsing

or

£8/month 30mb bundle for anytime browsing

...

[Guest Confucious]

I regulary use over 400Mb in a month - £8 for 30Mb is very expensive! some people actually have OWU which is unlimited (FUP of 1Gb) for £8/month which is what most people thought this was.

Looks like Orange are still stiffing their customers!

[Guest chucky.egg]

Who knows, maybe the high data charges are the only reason France Telecom haven't sold Orange UK yet

[Guest Monolithix (MVP)]

Don't get me wrong, billing 30MB as unlimited is total rubbish. But as i posted above, the tarrifs aren't really confusing :rolleyes:

[Guest chucky.egg]

AFAIK they never touted it as "unlimited" they just said things like "Flat Rate"

Disappointing though - I was just pointing some customers to O for Vox's on an unlimited plan. No it'll be SIM-free Vox's on T-Mobile.

Their loss

[Guest Paul (MVP)]

30MB cap is ridiculous... I wonder how they came up with that number? :rolleyes:

P

[Guest Shaunfarris]

The Quote from O in Pauls starter message:

"Monthly Anytime browsing for £8 (for seasoned surfers who demand great value for all their mobile browsing)"

Obviously goes to prove O have totally lost the plot if they honestly believe that £8 for 30MB represents great value to seasoned surfers for mobile browsing.

[Guest Shaunfarris]

Just spoken to O again, well it's always worth phoning back as you get someone completely different every time.

Anyway, I told the guy I wanted something that would give me about 20 - 30mb a day, he said the best option with the new tariffs would be:

Get the £8 for 30 MB / month and add to it the £5 Evening and Weekend 1GB ie £13 / month.

I told him I was dissapointed that Orange have failed to come up with anything competive with the other networks.

His answer was unfortunately any user using more than 1 - 2mb per day should really be using a data card and not a mobile phone as its not practicable to use that much.

For obvious reason I laughed at him, and tolf him I was using their 3G M5000, only to be told....... ahhh yes the exception, unfortunately Orange dont have anything to cater for heavy usage, its all aimed at a quick peek at something on the web, not proper surfing or email.

[Guest conan_troutman]

off topic I know but i just had to.....MMMMM KYLIE.....thanks.....oh again of topic I know but do you think O2 might be looking at a data service for payandgo customers....I now have around one hundred pounds calling crdit as I don't get to surf the web on PAYG since moving to O2 and I do not know how esle to spend it.....and again a lil off topic I know but....MMMMMM KYLIE....

[Guest UndeadDevil]

I have never looked back from leaving orange 2 months ago. Enough was enough after being with them for 2 years, Unreliable GPRS (Literally Kicks you off every 3-5 mins), hardly ever got 3G but when I did that worked ok, peaked at 20kb/s with full signal.

Credit was just disappering randomly, calls costing 40p a min to any UK network or landline, text messages would fail to send alot which ended up getting very annonying. Customer Services where useless, phoned up to get my Content Block removed which was blocking my own website! Was told she couldn't do it and I had to go to the nearest Orange Shop with either a Passport or Driving Licence. Whats wrong with my Debit card or ID Card?? Ended up hacking the Content Block, again proving how stupid they are, its easy, just disable there proxy!

Also when I got a new phone about a year ago that had 3G I got told there was no way of getting the 3G to work unless I bought a new phone from them. I asked why I could just buy the USIM and they couldn't answere me. Ended up finding someone on ebay that sells them. (I'm guessing a Orange Employe)

For obvious reason I laughed at him, and tolf him I was using their 3G M5000, only to be told....... ahhh yes the exception, unfortunately Orange dont have anything to cater for heavy usage, its all aimed at a quick peek at something on the web, not proper surfing or email.

You what? You mean Orange who are also a ISP don't have enough bandwidth to offer more than 30mb a month. Well I guess that explains why there the worst UK ISP as well (Verified at http://www.dslzoneuk.net/)

To be honest I was happy with Orange before they became Orange Broadband, since then its just been going downhill.

My advice to anyone still on Orange, look around and get that PAC code. Any UK network will be better than Orange.

And Confucious, your a Idiot (Sorry it had to be said, no one else said it :rolleyes:) Maybe you should learn how to use your Phone as a Modem before dialing some 0845 number through it. Hint: *99#1# for normal phones, *99# for a PocketPC

Ok thats my rant over, and I feel sorry for any of you on Orange, espically those stuck in contract that are unhappy.

Edited May 31, 2007 by UndeadDevil

[Guest Confucious]

I have been using *99# on phones (not sure what the 1# bit is) Since I had my Ericsson T68 (before they were SE) - my mate used to work for Ericsson and one of the guys he was working with used *99# to test Vodafone's GPRS system when they were first trialing it - it was never actually meant to be used but seems to have become a worldwide standard! I don't think i have ever dialed anm 0845 number from a mobile....

[Guest conan_troutman]

just lots of 0898 eh :rolleyes: kidding

[Guest pd.ryder]

Ok - prob gonna look a little foolish (and slightly off topic) - but *99# ? What's all that about.

Go on -- educate me :rolleyes:

[Guest UndeadDevil]

I have been using *99# on phones (not sure what the 1# bit is) Since I had my Ericsson T68 (before they were SE) - my mate used to work for Ericsson and one of the guys he was working with used *99# to test Vodafone's GPRS system when they were first trialing it - it was never actually meant to be used but seems to have become a worldwide standard! I don't think i have ever dialed anm 0845 number from a mobile....

T68i will not connect using *99#, it needs the Connection ID (GPRS Profile Number) which will usually be 1. I miss my old T68i :rolleyes: I sware its still the smallest and lightest phone ever made lol.

Otherwise theres not really anyway your Operator could have told the difference between your Phone and a PC to charge you just for the PC, you either get charged for GPRS/3G or you dont. Enough said.

[Guest Confucious]

I had a T68 not a T68i (although I did have T68i ROM on it). I never used mine with my PC - just my PPC (I think by then it would have been my Cassiopeia e740?) and I used *99# - I never knew it needed a GPRS ID so never used it - I must have been imagining browsing on my PPC as I obviously can't have been connected....

@pd.ryder - *99# is what you need to dial to connect to a GPRS (probably 3G as well) network instead of a phone number. I can't remember the last time I had to use it so it's fairly irrelivent now.

[Guest pd.ryder]

I had a T68 not a T68i (although I did have T68i ROM on it). I never used mine with my PC - just my PPC (I think by then it would have been my Cassiopeia e740?) and I used *99# - I never knew it needed a GPRS ID so never used it - I must have been imagining browsing on my PPC as I obviously can't have been connected....

@pd.ryder - *99# is what you need to dial to connect to a GPRS (probably 3G as well) network instead of a phone number. I can't remember the last time I had to use it so it's fairly irrelivent now.

Ah-ha, thanks. I must have used it without realising cus I used to sync my Palm V over GPRS via my Nok 7110's IRdA. It always impressed my mates when the Palm would dial out all on its own via the Nokia :rolleyes:

:P

[Guest Shaunfarris]

Well, I've been on the phone to Orange........amazingly got through straight away no waiting.

However it went downhill from there.

My question to them was:

"I'm looking to put a decent data bundle on to my M5000 to be able to use the internet and Orange World, what can you offer me"

His reply:

"We do 3 pricings.

1: Evenings and weekends at £5 unlimited

2. £1 per day unlimited

3. £8 for 30 Mb per month"

Thats it nothing else.

What utter rubbish.

Im hoping some of you guys and girls, have got somewhere better and if so let us all know, cos the muppet I spoke was adamant that there was no other information............................despite the fact I told him the info I had read was that Orange World usage was free, it was only Internet usage that was chargeable, but he still insisted that was it.

[Guest john newhouse]

this is really annoying me. i have just (this weekend) signed up to an 18 month contract extension with orange, which i was not going to do until i heard about £8 gprs usage anytime.

now i hear it is just 30mb!

sod that, its getting cancelled and i am off to web&walk

[Guest Shaunfarris]

The £8 for 30MB is crap and to make it worse outside of 30MB its charged at £3 per meg.

Also the Evenings and Weekends is charged at £3 per Mb outside of the bundle

[Guest john newhouse]

i just dont see how this will be of a benefit to their customers???

it limits me to just activating gprs after a certain time (and it being dead to me the rest of the time), or go with the anytime bundle and still worry about a limit, which is easily reachable in under a month.

didnt they introduce this to get the people that were worried about the cost of this magical service, that their pda's would just use whenever it wanted to.

its completely worthless to me

:rolleyes: