Anyone on Orange High Speed Data Tariff?

[Guest mattscholey]

Hi,

I've just phoned up Orange, asking to change my tariff from Your Plan 30, to their High Speed Data Tariff.

The High Speed Data Tariff, has less line rental than any other tariff (except OVP Virgin where line rental is free), at £10/month. There are no free minutes, but call charges are cheap, at 20p/min for all calls, except Orange to Orange calls which are 15p/min.

To me this sounded like the perfect option, as to change to OVP Virgin would require a big one-off payment (£200). But to my dismay the assistant at OCS told me that he couldn't put me on the tariff as I don't have a High Speed Data phone (the SPV doesn't have HSCSD). He understood why I wanted to change to the tariff, but he said the computer system wouldn't allow him to make the change.

I wanted to see if anyone has their SPV on this tariff, and if so, how did you get onto it?

Thanks,

Matt

[Guest statscat]

HSCSD (high speed circuit switched data) is a different technology to GPRS (general packet radio services)

it differ in how the data is sent, GPRS is more similar to the interent in that each data packet is tagged with an origin and destination address and may take a different path through the network on route to the receiver, Instead of maintaining a permanent link as with circuit switched technology.

It seems the MS smartphones don't support HSCSD this is in part because its a trickier technology to handle given that one potential technical difficulty with High Speed Circuit Switched Data (HSCSD) arises because in a multi-timeslot environment, dynamic call transfer between different cells on a mobile network (called “handover”) is complicated unless the same slots are available end-to-end throughout the duration of the Circuit Switched Data call.

HSCSD is also not offered by all operators whereas GPRS is I guess MS made the decision not to support HSCSD which seems to be a mainly nokia technology.

Its a shame the MS smartphone doesn't support this technology where you pay for connection time rather than amount downloaded as you can get far faster rates than GPRS and you get the same rates up and down stream (its's symetric).

I think Orange are the only operator offering HSCSD in the UK and I don't know if any other operators offer it to be honest.

MS are unlikely to support it in the future given that they will be focusing on UTMS support in preparation for the 3g network launches.

Its a shame you can't get hscsd, but its also *good* that the system realised that your phone was not comaptible and didn't allow them to switch it on on your account.

GPRS bundles are available as is the "orange world" tariff which is free for the first month for the moment, for now thats pretty much the only "data" package on teh ms smartphones.

[Guest Emad]

Erm. Just get T-Mobile 750 - £4 extra a month, but 750 minutes and 50 text messages.. Any time call charges are a bit more expensive tho, it must be said :-/

[Guest mattscholey]

Thanks statscat for your reply. I had been wondering why the SPV didn't support HSCSD, as it would make streaming video and audio affordable and give reasonable quality.

I don't think you quite understand what the High Speed Data Tariff is though. It's basically an option for your free minutes element of the tariff, except it's only £10/month, but doesn't include any free minutes (although it's call rates are very competitive). You can then add text message/gprs/orange world bundles to this tariff, like you could any Your Plan tariff. I wanted to switch to this tariff not to use HSCSD, but to take advantage of the cheaper line rental (as I'm not using any of my free minutes).

If anyone else has any advice on how I could save a bit on my phone bill, it would be greatfully appreciated. I'll look into Freetime 750.

Thanks,

Matt

[Guest stevewright]

OVP T-Mobile Everyone 25 (http://www.orange.co.uk/cgi-bin/ovp/tariff.pl?network=T-Mobile&tariff=TM_001_Everyone_25)

£14.50 a month, 25mins (x-net anytime) then 10p / min to landlines or Orange, and 25p x-net. 10p a text. Free voicemail.

[Guest mattscholey]

Thanks, but it's only 50p cheaper than my current deal, and I'll lose my 30 free texts and free open access (square deal).

Thanks anyway, but I really need something below £13/month to make it worth changing.

Matt

[Guest Croccy22]

The reason you are having problems is that orange do not like putting poeple on this contract because it is too cheap. If you phone up and ask for the cheapest contract they will tell you it is the talk 20 package which i believe is around £16 a month.

Just phone them up and say you want to be put onto the 'DATA TARIFF' It does exist, i am on it. it is £10 a month. no free minutes and 20p call charges. I went onto this so icould take out a second contract to get an e200.

it does exist, and don't let them tell you otherwise. If you have no luck, just hang up and phone them again.

If it helps I spoke to Customer Relations Billing department. Can't rememebr the exact sequence of numbers to get to it.

Good luck and may the force be with you.

Matt

Croccy22

[Guest mattscholey]

Thanks Croccy22.

I phoned up 152 (orange billing helpline), and they changed me over fine.

Saved me a bit of cash that did :lol:

Thanks for all you help,

Matt