GPRS Problems

[Guest Big Ron - No Longer a Mem]

My "mole" within Orange advises me that they're currently beleagured with calls related to GPRS problems. They can't work out the cause, and 156 is instructed to pass problems relating to GPRS (by internal automated 1-way email!) to Tech Support. In plain language, that means you are NOT going to get a stright answer from 156, because they're not allowed to give you one. Instead, they have to load up the Diagnostics suite, fill out a form, and send it off (called an "action") They have no way to "chase it up", and a response may take three or four days to get back. And the response MAY be "you didn't tick the box which said whther it was raining or not when the problem occurred."

Conclusion... there ARE GPRS problems within the network, Orange are struggling to work out what's causing them, and ringing 156 with a "GPRS isn't working" problem for the next week or so is going to be a waste of time. They ain't gonna deal with it - just pass it on to someone else.

How this will impact billing I am not in a position to speculate :wink:

But if they're charging you for something that they cannot reliably deliver, there may be a question of refunds...? Why should I care, I don't use GPRS!!! :twisted:

[Guest drblow]

Big Ron -

My "mole"within Orange advises me that 156 is about as much use as fork in a soup drinking contest!!

He's a shop manager, and when he consulted 156 last week about a customer having problems sending sms, they told him that it was just because it was very cloudy that day!! :) :(

You are right about them being inundated with GPRS problems - my mole reckons that's why the promotion pack was extended & why nobody knows whats going on - Orange are delaying coz they don't really know if anyone will actually pay their current rates for GPRS once they've had experience of it.

He also reckons that O are regretting the promo big time because of all these problems with it. Users over the last 6 months(ish) have been exposed to the low quality of their gprs service, before being tied into a contracted package at the current rates - which means we are all less likely to pay $3 per Mb or whatever.

All sounds good to me! I love to hear of big companies sweating it out for a while!! Especially if there is a potential winner in it for myself! Cheap gprs here we come! :D

Therefore- I propose that instead of NOT phoning 156, we should all phone about 3 times a day saying that we are having gprs problems and that we're not prepared to put up with this service if we are expected to be put onto these ridiculously overpriced tariffs - then get the "tech" team totally overwhelmed with "actions"!!! :twisted:

Then we tell 'em we'll back off if they keep our promo deal the same!! 8)

[Guest Pol]

I have been having problems with my GPRS also and can confirm that 156 are as much use as a chocolate watch but i must say that bombarding this number with complaints is a great idea. The longer we keep the special offer going is a good thing because paying through the nose for this service could kill the SPV on Orange and that can only be bad news for everyone. A quick tip that seems to work sometimes when the GPRS stops working, turn the Radio off and let your phone register again this seems to work half the time.

Cheers

[Guest barncourt]

Generally, my experience with GPRS has been pretty good. A few outages have occurred, but nothing significant. I wonder if a lot of the problems are down to network congestion. I live on the south coast (Hastings)... I wonder if a lot of these GPRS problems occur more in the large towns and cities where the density of users will be higher.

Also had a weird problem using the beta copy of IA Style Caller ID. Installed it on the phone, my GPRS stopped working. Uninstalled it, and hey presto it came back again. Just to double check I re-installed it and GPRS stopped working again. Needless to say I have now removed the beta and will wait for the final version to come out. Weird!

[Guest Monolithix [MVP]]

The GPRS bug in IA Caller ID has now been fixed in Beta 3.

[Guest glynton]

Thing is.. this morning, I'd just left to go to a morning meeting... but forgot to check my Email before i left... so i thought i'd do it on the way... had full signal... but GPRS just would not connect... later i found out that the meeting had been cancelled and i'd made the journey for nothing. I dont use GPRS often... but if i'm paying for it, then i'd like it to be there for when i do use it :evil:

[Guest tt5th]

From my own internal mole - 156 are not useless, they are in fact one of the highest trained teams in Orange with reference to tech querys. I have had lots of great advice from them in the past and I really cannot believe anyone of them would have told them it was because of clouds unless they were taking the mick out of the dealer for whatever reason. They are at loss with regards to this problem because you cannot give 300+ people access to your network to figure out the problem. Tech Support will collate and investigate as much as they can and upon finding the issue/solution will communicate it to the rest of the business. With this being a hugely commercially sensitive issue you can see why the information must be tightly controlled.

GPRS, along with SMS and MMS are all suceptible to failures, you must take into account that a network is essentially a huge PC and every now and then bits go down and need repairing. This effects a minimum of 12million plus subscribers on Orange.

I am aware that GPRS has a tempremental problem where it simply won't connect but with no identifiable cause. I assume this is the problem this thread is relating to. If so they are looking into it but all I can say is that generally if it ain't working trying turning off and on (sometimes works) or waiting an hour (this is allegedly how often the network refreshes your GPRS details).

I think this is simply a case of teething troubles of new services. Give it a year and we'll all be winging about how the 3G network isn't what it was cracked up to be.

Unfortunately till these GPRS bugs get ironed we are just going to have to live with it. I will keep you informed if I come across anything new.

[Guest drblow]

From my own internal mole - 156 are not useless, they are in fact one of the highest trained teams in Orange with reference to tech querys...

GPRS, along with SMS and MMS are all suceptible to failures, you must take into account that a network is essentially a huge PC and every now and then bits go down and need repairing. This effects a minimum of 12million plus subscribers on Orange...

I think this is simply a case of teething troubles of new services. Give it a year and we'll all be winging about how the 3G network isn't what it was cracked up to be.

Unfortunately till these GPRS bugs get ironed we are just going to have to live with it. quote]

Well m8 ... if you want to just 'live with it' then more power to ye! :wink:

I think tho the point that comes through in every GPRS thread is that it is a very inefficient service, with a distinct lack of support from Orange. We all understand that networks are very big & are susceptible to failures - but that doesn't mean we shouldn't complain about the ridiculous prices they expect us to pay for crap service!!

Lets be realistic - at the proposed $3 per mb tariffs, to get what the promo gives us now would be $30 (even tho it is meant to be unlimited) - which will get you a months unlimited supply of broadband internet access at home! So compare 10mb with xxxxx mb !! Surely I don't have to do the sums here!! :?

At present I assume most users are thinking that they can live with GPRS problems while it is $6 for "unlimited" use - but if the tariffs were to be switched to the current non-promo rates - I can't imagine anyone being in any way happy with the quality of what they are paying for!!

Obviously not everybody feels this way - but I sure as hell do!! :twisted:

[Guest glynton]

i was just about to write a similar reply. I've had dodgy GPRS for ages now... nearly Months. It's just so temporamental and unnacceptable.

Glynton

[Guest glynton]

Also... how is MS gonna release a product like Mobile MSN which requires a lot of GPRS connecting when Orange can't keep the infrastructure up.

Glynton

[Guest tt5th]

Very good point drblow, for some reason the ridiculous charge increase completely slipped my mind. £3 per meg is absolute nonsense.. especially for a service that as we have been discussing does not work properly.

You are right I am on my £6 all in tariff, till next month anyway. But the measely 4 megs of surfing I did last month (nothing special just a little surf in tab breaks) will now cost me £12. Hmmm.

I suppose because I have been an Orange customer for so long I kind of expected it not to work properly for the first year!

[Guest martin]

I am aware that GPRS has a tempremental problem where it simply won't connect but with no identifiable cause. I assume this is the problem this thread is relating to. If so they are looking into it but all I can say is that generally if it ain't working trying turning off and on (sometimes works) or waiting an hour (this is allegedly how often the network refreshes your GPRS details).

If you were disconnected from the GSM network during an MSC restart then your phone would automatically attempt a GSM IMSI attach when the MSC/VLR recovers (all is well).

If you were disconnected from the GPRS network during a restart of your GPRS serving node, then afterwards you must physically switch the phone off and back on again to initiate a GPRS IMSI attach. This is why people are reporting radio on/off and power cycles are curing their problem. Anbody want to create a program that does a radio off/on using a shortcut ?

If you were to continually get 'unable to connect' then reset your phone, if the centre G fails to re-appear then you are not communicating with the serving GPRS node. This could be caused by the node itself (especially late at night for obvious reasons) or the GPRS channels could be blocked for your cell and need resetting.

If you get intermittent connection failures and pages not found (and very slow data rates) then this could be due to receiving a low signal or poor quality signal.

Orange are now making a push for GPRS (especially WAP) and I think they will have to address many of the performance issues that are being raised. £3 per meg is a lot of money to some of us, especially with the frustrations of non connection.

My "mole"within Orange advises me that 156 is about as much use as fork in a soup drinking contest!!  

He's a shop manager, and when he consulted 156 last week about a customer having problems sending sms, they told him that it was just because it was very cloudy that day!!

Maybe it was the wrong type of clouds ? :?

To be honest, I'm not sure who 156 are but I'm sure they try their best. :)

[Guest RS]

While for some, GPRS has problems, things are improving. I did have terrible connection, but the last 2 months have been fine (this reply was done on my SPV over GPRS). Nothing is perfect, not even the holy grail of mobile life known as 3g.

The 3 network in the uk is our first 3g service here, but it's not as good as it seems. The 'internet' connection is limited to 3's closed network, not the internet proper, so imagine the trouble the other networks will be exposed to making 3g fully internet compatable! (A 'friend' of mine informed me that o2 can't get 3g working at all)

There will always be teathing problems, losing your temper or flooding helpdesks with calls will not usually speed things up, there are people at the other end and they get stressed too. Best thing to do is relax, life is too short as it is.

[Guest Big Ron - No Longer a Mem]

"From my own internal mole - 156 are not useless, they are in fact one of the highest trained teams in Orange with reference to tech querys. I have had lots of great advice from them in the past and I really cannot believe anyone of them would have told them it was because of clouds unless they were taking the mick out of the dealer for whatever reason."

You phone up about a GPRS problem, and as of a week or so, it's nowofficial policy for 156 to have to load up the "ISAAC" diagnostics package on their terminal. The implication of whaich anyone who has WORKED for Orange will immediately understand is that this means that the decision making process has been snatched from their hands - ISAAC will make the decisions. And it won't do a damned thing until the fields containing codes for the nearest THREE transmitters have been looked up (in the slowest piece of software that 156 uses, called "Comms"!) AND the field for "weather conditions", time of day, and if the call was made inside or outside of a building. Empty field? The software won't move on until it's filled. When ALL of the relevant information has been entered - and them summarised (because it's sent on to people who ONLY read the summary) in longhand, the terminal automatically sends the result to a secretive department called "Tech support". If you thought filling the form out took forever... it routinely takes two or three DAYS to get a reply from Tech Support. (The automated transmission to them is called an "action" by the way.) So, if you feel the need to ring 156 "several times a day"... be prepared for a LONG call each time.

Orange tech support are, in general, as good as Orange permits them to be. Their job is to pass on to customers information that Orange has given to them, and ONLY that information. Playing silly games to waste 156's time is NOT going to get cheap GPRS extened. But it IS going to make sure that when you really HAVE got a problem, a call to 156 will get you into a LONG queue - waiting for some other silly bugger to stop clogging the system with pointless calls.

[Guest Pol]

I think that "bombarding 156" was meant as a joke, as we all know from past efforts that this is a long process just to be told they are looking into it. If GPRS is a new technology and we should expect problems then they should advertise it as this, not as an always on data connection. It's a product aimed at business users so i would have thought that Orange would be paying a great deal of attention to this problem. Hopefully it will get sorted soon.

Thanks for all the info on this problem as it has settled me down now i can understand it better. If only Orange could explain so clearly.

Chow for now.