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Where to get an orange 3G sim


Guest Prophet99

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Guest Prophet99

Hi

Not sure if this is the correct place, but having got my new unlocked Kaiser I have discovered that my sim is not 3G. Orange (bless them) say that they don't supply 3g sims without a phone. My contract has about 4 months left and I was planning to work it off so to speak before looking elewhere.

In the mean time whats the best way to get a 3G sim here in the UK. The nice woman at Orange said I should try car phone warehouse as they would be able to transfer my existing number??!!

any advice greatfully received.

CC

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Guest dolbe666
Hi

Not sure if this is the correct place, but having got my new unlocked Kaiser I have discovered that my sim is not 3G. Orange (bless them) say that they don't supply 3g sims without a phone. My contract has about 4 months left and I was planning to work it off so to speak before looking elewhere.

In the mean time whats the best way to get a 3G sim here in the UK. The nice woman at Orange said I should try car phone warehouse as they would be able to transfer my existing number??!!

any advice greatfully received.

CC

I got my orange 3G sim from an orange shop. when I told them that orange cusomer services said they dont do pay-n-go 3G sims they looked puzzled as they had plenty in stock. it cost me £5

so my suggestion is go into an orange shop and just ask to buy a 3G sim pack. ;)

Edited by dolbe666
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Guest Prophet99

uumm guys like I said I am on monthly contract, pay as you go won't help me much other than add to the cost .. or can you convert a pay as you go to contract then??

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Guest jimbouk

But you said you still have four months to go. So you cant port your number out anyway (without paying for the rest of the contract...

So all we are doing is trying to get you a cheap 3g sim so you can play.

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Guest Neil5459

You either forget the rest of the contract (but continue the subscription!) and buy an Orange PAYG 3G SIM, or ......... erm, that's it ;)

Orange will not provide a 3G SIM to a contract not linked to a 3G phone- I know, as I've tried a few times!

What's the Three signal like where you are? You can buy a Three PAYG SIM card, then pay £5 per month for up to 2GB data, and calls at 12p per minute. Then reconsider at the end of your Orange contract.

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Guest philg2000
You can buy a Three PAYG SIM card, then pay £5 per month for up to 2GB data, and calls at 12p per minute. Then reconsider at the end of your Orange contract.

Wow! Where do you get a deal like that? That would be ideal for my second, smaller, evening phone, using Mobile Secretary to forward sms's to it...

Cant find £5/month on their website - only £10/1G

Mobile Secretary - http://www.pocketpcfreewares.com/en/index.php?soft=1674

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Guest Mr.Clark
Orange (bless them) say that they don't supply 3g sims without a phone.
That's utterly mad.

Why not program a 3G sim for your account and give (or sell) it to you? You'll have more features which means you'll pay them more money.

I'm pretty sure that when we upgraded to 3G phones Vodafone just sent us a bunch of new SIMs for free.

;)

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Guest Confucious

Are Orange still being that stupid? They wouldn't budge when I got my Universal aand I ended up taking out a new contract with them, but that was before I discovered the Holy Grail that is T-Mobile...

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Guest dazultra2000

Wait...I'm confused.

Orange provide 3G sims with 3G phones, and 2.5G sims with 2.5G phones.

Therefore if you are using the phone they expect you to use, they're hardly losing revenue as there is no point having a sim which has capabilities you can't take advantage of!

Sure sure a lot of people swap their sims about, but that's not recommended by Orange, and so they don't support it, hence why they're not about to provide you with a 3G sim for a 2.5G phone.

If you change to a 3G phone (supplied by Orange), they WILL upgrade your sim, but as far as they're concerned, their system will show you on a 2.5G phone if you have signed up with one.

It's all about keeping their own phones on their own networks. In the long run it's all about advertising.

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Guest Confucious

Yes, which why they lose revenue. I'm actually using a T-Mobile phone on T-mobile but I always buy myh phones off eBay. AFAIK none of the other operators do non 3G SIMs now, it's just nother reason why I am very unlikely to ever go back to Orange - haven't they heard of consumer choice?

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Guest Swampie
Wait...I'm confused.

Orange provide 3G sims with 3G phones, and 2.5G sims with 2.5G phones.

Therefore if you are using the phone they expect you to use, they're hardly losing revenue as there is no point having a sim which has capabilities you can't take advantage of!

Sure sure a lot of people swap their sims about, but that's not recommended by Orange, and so they don't support it, hence why they're not about to provide you with a 3G sim for a 2.5G phone.

If you change to a 3G phone (supplied by Orange), they WILL upgrade your sim, but as far as they're concerned, their system will show you on a 2.5G phone if you have signed up with one.

It's all about keeping their own phones on their own networks. In the long run it's all about advertising.

It's not just the SIM, it's also the enabling of 3G services on your account.

But the stupid thing is:

a.) They'll give out PAYG 3G SIMs

b.) If you upgrade to a 3G hansdet, they'll supply a 3G enabled SIM, 12 months later you 'upgrade' to a 2G handset to flog on eBay, they'll nicely downgrade your service to 2G, even if you're using the previously-supplied-by-Orange 3G handset.

and finally, c.) They send out new 2G or 3G SIMs with upgrade phones (unlike T-Mobile for example), and will kill the old one after a period. So even if you were still 3G enabled, your 3G SIM gets blitzed.

And it's not about keeping their own phones on their own network. It's about stopping non-Orange phones being used on their network.

What they want is for people to purchase a 3G handset from themselves. They want the commission/minimum-term/handset-cost etc to enable the 3G services.

T-Mobile on the other hand is brill. I bought a 2.5G Vario 20 months ago. That same SIM when inserted in (any) 3G device worked perflectly with 3G services, including HSDPA.

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Guest Kaiser Wilhelm II

Is there any way to easily tell if a SIM is 3G capable?

I recently swapped my Orange contract to PAYG and they sent me a new SIM to enable this. Now that I've got a v1615 from Voda I was wondering if I could use the Orange SIM to get 3G services on that network....

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Guest Mr.Clark
Is there any way to easily tell if a SIM is 3G capable?

... I've got a v1615 from Voda ...

Yes - see if you're connecting to GPRS or 3G... the logo at the top will tell you. G or 3G.

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Guest Kaiser Wilhelm II

OK - just swapped the SIM and set the phone to WCDMA in the 'band' dialogue in the Phone Settings control panel..... No luck with the Orange SIM (No signal) whereas the Voda one gives a 3G at the top. The Orange SIM shows regular GPRS available though if I select GSM for the band.

Never mind, I won't be using any 3G (or even GPRS) until I see a decent data offer from Orange or Voda.

Full marks to Vodafone for not locking the handset though. To be perfectly honest, I'm hardly likely to use it for telecoms at all until I have a decent data bolt-on available and most of the time it sits with the phone radio turned off as I didn't port my number when I took out the contract. I prefer to keep my main number on a PAYG SIM in an old 6230 because it's always with me. The Kaiser doesn't get taken out and about unless there is a specific purpose.

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Guest Neil5459
Wow! Where do you get a deal like that? That would be ideal for my second, smaller, evening phone, using Mobile Secretary to forward sms's to it...

Cant find £5/month on their website - only £10/1G

Mobile Secretary - http://www.pocketpcfreewares.com/en/index.php?soft=1674

The Three £5 per month for 2GB data offer is PAYG; the £10 per month 'deal' is copntract (which seems a little odd, that you can get a better, cheaper deal on PAYG ;) )

Details are Here. If you are visiting a Three shop, to buy a PAYG SIM, I'd suggest pronting the page first, because the shop staff know s*d all about what's available, and will insist there is no £5 per month add-on.

Once you convince them the deal is available, they'll then try to convince you that you must use a 3 branded phone- again totally untrue :(

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Guest Kaiser Wilhelm II
Sounds like you should have bought a laptop...

I already have a laptop - hardly ever leaves the house as I just don't fancy hefting it around unless there's a very specific need.

The Kaiser on the other hand is an excellent replacement/upgrade for my ageing PocketPC PDA, povides phone functionality when I'm at work and is going to be extremely handy when travelling as I have 2000 hours of BT Openzone credit courtesy of my broadband contract. It also makes a nifty handheld internet access device at home (using Opera Mini).

On the other hand, I'm not going to want to take it with me when I'm out socialising (read: drinking) so I've kept my old phone and will just forward any calls to my vodafone number, to it.

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