Cheapest way to browse the internet

[Guest mattscholey]

Hi,

I'm on Orange Pay Monthly, which means GPRS costs me £2 (in bundle) or £3 (out of bundle) per megabyte. This is ok if your doing something with a low data consumption, like email or messenger, but I want to start to use my phone to browse the web, and according to oranges guidelines, it will cost me on average 10p-15p, per page downloaded (20 pages/MB). This will mean an average web browsing session, will quickly take me out of my 2MB bundle, and it's just not worth spending more than that.

What I want to know is, is there a cheaper way of connecting to the internet? I understand that the alternative is using dial-up, which is slower but billed per minute, not per megabyte. Do I have to connect to an Orange dial-up server, or can I use Internet ISP's (like Freeserve, etc) and dial-up to them?

How do you browse the internet? Do you use GPRS or dial-up, and if so who do you dial-up to, and how much does it cost? Will it be included in my free minutes (I'm on Orange Your Plan 30). Also do you have any advice about keeping the cost of which ever option you use down?

Many thanks,

Matt

[Guest cpt_andy]

while you can connect to the internet using dial-up, know as CSD (Circuit switched data), which is billed per minute, it is much slower than GPRS, and is only really usable for WAP. If you were to use it for web access, you would be dialled up for a long time waiting for pages to download. Although i havn't used csd, i think it would probably end up costing more, for both wap and web access.

So i think gprs is probably your best option.

Cpt. Andy

[Guest mattscholey]

According to a very helpful person on 156 (Orange Wirefree Customer Service) I can dialup to freeserve, at 9.6kbps or 14.4kbps for 10p per minute, and I can get it at 28kbps for 25p (or some figures very close to that).

Doesn't sound too bad, considering as two average webpages I looked at were 1) 36KB, 2) 13.3KB. I've got no idea how many kbps per KB or how many KB's in a MB or whatever so, does anyone know:

At £3/MB how much did those two page downloads cost me?

And how long would they have taken to download at 14.4kbps (I assume once the page was downloaded completely I could hang up to read it).

And are there any other views on which is better, GPRS or dial-up (for web surfing)?

Matt

[Guest davidjtaylor]

HI i am new to these pages but have found some info concerning your query, dont know if it helps but here goes...

I have just upgraded my phone to the orange SPV E100 - on oranges website it says you can have UNLIMITED BROWSING (suject to fair useage policy!!) for a fixed price of £4 pound a month.

it says "You can take time to have fun with all of these services because the first 3 months are free with Open Access. After that Open Access only costs £4 a month for unlimited* use. "

here is the link:

http://www.orange.co.uk/multimedia/openaccess.html

djt :)

[Guest awarner [MVP]]

david welcome to the site ;)

1, no need to shout :)

2, unfortunately this offer is for WAP over GPRS and WAP only not internet browsing.

[Guest davidjtaylor]

hi sorry for shouting (must remember net etiquet -is that how you spell it?) i just wanted to enphasize a point - sorry!

however i only ask because i have just signed up to an open access promotion which allows me to surf the net on my spv free (and unlimited) for 3 months - after that i can cancel or pay a monthly fee.

apparently the offer has been extended - it was supposed to end on the 31st of august 03, i just wondered if this was what was refered to in the link i posted? £4 per month, unlimted surfing (after initial free 3 month trial)

djt :) :?:

[Guest ajb3000]

The open access promotion only gives free access to the WAP access point, the SPV uses the Internet access point for which you will get still be charged £4 per MB.

Also HSCSD (the method of connection used for dialling up at 28.8kbps) is not available on the SPV, you can only connect at 9.6kbps with the SPV.

[Guest awarner [MVP]]

Yep sorry David but you are another Orange customer who has been sold the

wrong information :roll:

As ajb says if you do surf the internet you will be charged, it took me 6 attempts to get the correct information out of Orange when this offer was available.

[Guest mark.h.ellis]

I agree, just got my 1st orange bill and found £3 on there for data charges. I had not been told that it was only WAP access that was covered under the three month free trial. As a result I was charged for 0.88mb of data. Luckily I had only played around looking at a few web pages, but heaven forbid if I had spent ages on there. I would be looking at a fortune.

Had to phone orange a couple of times and asked them to enable WAP settings on my phone, which they sent a sim update. This installed something called OrangeGPRSreset in my connections options. Not sure what this does? but still can't connect to WAP. In favourites I assume it is the orange multimedia that is the wap page?

Just one question, how does one dial into WAP services on the SPV as the G symbol still appears while dialling, surely this means I will get billed for data calls again.

[Guest simonbratt99]

hi,

i also just signed up for 3 months free wap. and orange instisted on different occasions that weather i used wap or gprs it was free within the 3 months. if this is incorrect im gonna be one unhappy bunny, and i dont roll over easy.

so, im thinking, if i set my data connections to WAP as opposed to automatic or gprs then will this ensure i only use wap services?

thanks.

[Guest simonbratt99]

ignore this, just wanted to set 'notify me' on

[Guest mark.h.ellis]

Ok, heres the deal I spoke to an Orange representative lady who was extremely helpful. She phoned be back on another line and walked me through the settings etc.

The three month deal only covers connection to the wap pages whether connecting with GPRS or the other method which is slower.

It does not however cover connection to normal internet pages and this will be billed as data charges.

I managed to connect to orange multimedia which is a wsp:/ site (stands for wap I believe).

If you are one of the many just merrily browsing the internet with your free 3 month deal then you had better stop or your phone bill's gonna go thru the roof.

Cheers Hope this irons out any problems

[Guest simonbratt99]

thanks for that, i can confirm this after just getting off the phone. oh man are they gonna get a lot of unhappy people with big bills. luckly im over caucious, and have only done an hours surfing in total. but still god nose how much ive spent, if i left it on one web page for an hour thats hardly no cost. you just dont know.... and thats MAD and irrisponsible in oranges behalf. (that we cant monitor it)

[Guest davidjtaylor]

hi david again,

just got my bill from orange, i now owe £28 (on top of my monthly charge) for gprs internet charges. rang orange shop as i had been told that i could use the "internet" for 3 months unlimited.

The guy at orange was helpful and said that i would be refunded the charges on my next bill, but said i should stop browsing until then. when my new 3 month period will start - which i will not be using!!!

i have had a very lucky escape - moral of the story double check what you are told by orange.

bye :wink: