The Letter Confirms It!!!!!

[Guest mattbrown]

recived the letter from orange today confirming that the GPRS bundle comes to an end at the end on my june bill date. :cry:

[Guest Simon Desser]

Me too :)

One interesting bit is that if you don't use up all your 2mb (not likely I know) there will be a "one-month roll over period" so any balance can be used next month.

[Guest Pol]

I got mine as well, no suprises then. I'm gutted and look forward to cancelling it. I hope we are well up for a mass cancellation.

Power to the people!

[Guest florin_m]

I allready did cancel it! I'm no paying 4 £ for 2 meg me no crazy :)

[Guest fozzie]

Got my letter too. I'll probably move onto the Bundle 7. Here's to an extra £10 a month on the 'O' Bill :( But then I am on legacy tariffs (Talk 60 Line 1 for £10 & ED50 Line 2 for £10) so I'll probably be on about a par with the 'modern' tariffs - and I'll have 7Mb of GPRS data thrown in too :)

[Guest mike-oh]

2 measely Mb, that was lot for say 1985 when your average PC has a 60Mb hard disk and floppy discs were state of the art. Honestly what good is 2Mb to anyone especially at those prices!

[Guest Sculli]

Bizarre thing is - the letter which tells you the "All You Can Eat" offer is coming to an end is titled....

"We've extended your promotional GPRS bundle"

[Guest mike-oh]

That's the letter. Since when has it been called "all you can eat"?

[Guest mattbrown]

Here is a copy of the ltter for those who havent had the pleasure of receiving it yet

Picture.jpg

[Guest b1uepower]

Yeah i got that letter too

[Guest skanna]

I too recieved the letter and I was just wondering if it is possible to use a dial up internet conection instead of GPRS in the future? Otherwise I'm sure I wont be using GPRS much anymore :) . I hardly use it now and it still come to about 5 MB a month. The functionality of the phone will be partly lost and I hope that O will come out with a new offer soon. GPRS is too expensive for the domestic user. I suppose we have all been lucky to be able to kane the GPRS to our hearts content. But now its use will almost be non existant, with most domestic users waiting till they get to there PC's instead of running up a horrendous bill.

[Guest pisquee]

I too got the letter this morning, but I am not on the promo SPV GPRS paskage as I spend so much time out of the country I didn't see it as worth it. Wish I had stayed on, as the times I have been in the UK my chares have been way high ... I did at one point try to resubscribe but was told i wasn't allowed. So, now orange are moving me from having no GPRS bundle to the 2meg one - well saves me a phone call as i was thinking of doing that anyway - seems a bit cheeky of them though.

[Guest skimask]

Goodbye mobile MoDaCo,reading news on the train,checking traintimes,getting snake highscore lists,Orange tv listings....:) Suddenly the future doesn't look quite so bright

[Guest Hax]

recived  the letter from orange today confirming that the GPRS bundle comes to an end at the end on my june bill date. :cry:

hate to say this guys, but my letter states that the GPRS offer "will now finish on your June bill date" - implying to me that it is *not* the end of the June billing preiod i.e. I get my net bill on 15th June, therefore, "all you can eat" GPRS will finish on that date.....

Looks like a mass walkout if it is going to happen will need to be pulled forward a month :)

Hax

[Guest martin]

We could have a poll with the following ?

Confirm your new and accepted GPRS arrangements with Orange.

Cancelled

Pay as you use

Bundle1

Bundle2

Bundle4

Bundle7

Bundle15

Bundle30

Certainly would be fun to watch.

[Guest Brody]

Anyone can start polls now i believe so go for it! :wink:

[Guest Big Ron - No Longer a Mem]

Now would seem like a VERY good time to review how you use your SPV. Take into consideration that TIME and SIZE now have to be balanced carefully. I used to explain it to technophobic 156-callers in the simplest possible terms - "It's like buying spuds from Sainsburys. We can charge you either by the kilo, OR by how long it's going to take you to buy them. If you're buying a LOT of spuds QUICKLY, then it's smartest to pay 'by the second', on the other hand if you just want a couple of baking potatoes, and intend to linger and check out the shelves, your best bet is to pay by the kilo." (Amusingly, this got overheard and picked up by some of my colleagues!) The same advice remains true. Anything text-based, (and therefore SMALL) or that you're likely to want to look at for a while is probably best addressed via GPRS. That includes email, MSN, things like timetables...

I spent more time explaining this to people using their Nokias as modems than SPV users - a simple yet cost effective method of saving money for them was to increase the cache size of their web browser. That way, if you go to bbc.co.uk, follow the link to "news", then to a particular story, then back to "news" to pick up a different story, you don't need to download the "news" page again (and to pay for the privelege) because it's already stored in the cache. Alas, I don't recall there being any way to increase the size of cache on an SPV. The bigger the cache, the more pages you store, and the fewer you need to re-download as they're "pushed off the far end of the conveyor belt." But as a rule of thumb, Orange suggests that the average web-page is 1/20th of a megabyte. Only YOU know how long you're likely to spend looking at it.

Switching back and forth between GPRS and CSD can save you money. Signing up for the GPRS WAP access pack can also save money. Now that GPRS costs more, the balance has shifted... that's all.

[Guest joelj]

Mmm.

When I bought the SPV back in November, they said when the GPRS Promo bundle was finished it would be replaced by something "equal or better".

It would appear that they meant "better for Orange".

We were paying £6 for 10mb (if we accept the fair use policy, which is contentious enough). (BTW - how can 10 mb be "unlimited" on a phone designed for STREAMING VIDEO? ARE THEY HIGH?.)

I use my 10mb every month. I use ActivSync to a Mobile Information Server syncing every 30 mins.

Now we're being asked to pay £4 for 2mb and £3 thereafter, which comes to £28 for 10mb. That's £28 EVERY MONTH.

The letter we all got anouncing the change was signed "David Taylor, Commercial Director" of the "Customer Relations Department".

I suggest we all speak to David Taylor. Remember - that's signed by the man himself. Even if it is a mailshot, HE SIGNED IT. It's FROM HIM. Don't take any crap about him not being "customer facing".

I phoned him this morning. Firstly by 150 - this was pointless, they hate customers, and "don't have a contact number" for David Taylor. I then called through the Orange UK Switchboard. This was more productive.

Apparently he and his PA are out of the office until June 2.

The Orange UK Switchboard number is 01454 624600. You can ask to speak to David Taylor, you'll get his PA "Marie Clare". As they are both "out", you'll get her answering machine, which will give you the name of the guy deputising for David Taylor - "Niel O'Keaf", and his PA "Francesca de Carlo".

The answering machine gives out her mobile number as 07779 240911. I rang her number this morning.

After speaking with Ms de Carlo, I am currently waiting for a return call, which should happen in the next two days.

We can't let this pass.

joel

[Guest Pagemakers]

Good luck

[Guest]

Mmm.

When I bought the SPV back in November, they said when the GPRS Promo bundle was finished it would be replaced by something "equal or better".

It would appear that they meant "better for Orange".

The "equal / better" misconception has been discussed in a previous thread http://smartphone.modaco.com/viewtopic.php?t=62524&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=45>here.

To save you reading a very long thread, I quote from Orange's website:

http://shop.orange.co.uk/spv_pack_popup.html>"At the end of the promotional period you will automatically be changed onto an equal or lower priced GPRS bundle with a megabyte cap" (my italics).

[Guest mattat]

I suppose it's just about possible to argue that equal or lower priced means that the same thing that you were getting would be equal or lower in price, to explain imagine that you are buying, say eggs, from a supermarket. One week you buy 12 for £10 (ok, I know ridiculous figures). If they then claimed next week to be selling eggs at a lower price, you wouldn't accept them selling 6 eggs for £9 to be lower priced (when you couldn't get the 12 anymore) because the cost to get the same as before is now £18.

In the same way I suppose you could say that before we were entitled to 10MB per month for 6 pounds, and any equal or lower price would have to be compared to £10. So according to this argument, the worse bundle they could offer is £6 for 10MB, instead of nigh on £30 at the moment. (Another way to look at it is the fact that it is completely natural to say that the price has increased by 500%, and that this is clearly not "equal or lower price")

That said personally I think the T&C's are ambiguous enough to allow Orange to wiggle out of it, though perhaps they should simply have said "at the end of the promotion you will be moved to another bundle and notified of the price before this occurs."

If speaking to the relevant person at Orange doesn't work, then consider speaking to Watchdog or some consumer rights program like that, it means that while the legal positon may be marginally in Oranges favour, some publicity showing how the price of mobile phones has increased 500% might just put enough pressure on Orange.

[Guest]

I am going to keep this short, because most of my views on this topic have been expressed in the other thread, and also because I don't wish to repeat myself ad nausem.

Orange said (and I quote again) "equal or lower priced GPRS bundle with a megabyte cap". That means the price of the new package will be equal to £6 or lower than £6. Also, this new package will have a megabyte cap; and will therefore not be unlimited.

This statement has no implication of value. Yes, the new GPRS bundles are worse value than the £6 deal, but Orange didn't say that the new bundles would be of an 'equal value'.

That means that they will move you to a GPRS bundle that either costs the same as £6 or less than £6. Orange do not say how many megabytes you will get in the new GPRS bundle.

Can that be made any clearer?

I admit, there is an arguement to be made about the general high cost of GPRS use (across all networks), but will people please stop trotting out the arguement that Orange has shafted us by stopping the £6 deal.

By all means complain about the high price, but you won't get far with Orange / Watchdog / the Consumer Assoc / whoever, by claiming that Orange promised to give us a similar deal.

They didn't.

(That should stir things up a bit! :wink: )

[Guest Bazz]

Yawn. Bored of all this now...

[Guest hotphil]

<<< reaches for his SPV to use up his rollover texts and ask Ms De Carlo asking her not to kill the SPV's worth to anyone who doesn't get their boss to pay their bills....

[Guest mattat]

Mattkirby:

I agree with you actually - I don't think that Orange have at all shafted us, I was merely offering a possible argument that could be used when/if JoelJ complains. I know it hinges on a very tenuous distinction (between a price, and the rate that something is priced at), but then that's probably something to do with my law finals which I'm sitting at the moment.

The way I see it, if something comes of this and we get cheaper GPRS use then fantastic and I'm willing to help come up with possible arguments to achieve this, if not then that's that.

The reference to Watchdog etc, was based on a seperate (and I think valid for many people) argument; Orange cynically offered unlimited useage at a very very low price in order to establish habits and dependencies in the customer base and then proceeded to increase the price for that very same habit of useage by 500%. I agree that we all walked into this with our eyes open, just that the marketing tactics of Orange to get people used to using the service, combined with the very very large price difference might not be seen as entirely in the interests of the consumer, especially as some people may have bought the phone on the basis of GPRS useage as a key feature.

Please take these as they were intended - merely possible arguments; I do not intend that they be taken as representative of my own views.