Hadn't heard about this but could explain why it sometimes takes forever to download MMS messages

Must be location-specific I suspect - I've never had any problems at all with GPRS (well, none since the initial activation was sorted out)

Here here

Indeed! Gagging to leave three, as I want a pocket PC phone with a decent camera, but don't want to go anywhere near Orange.

If the Vario 2 doesn't hurry up, I may have to work out getting the M600 on a T-Mobile tarriff.

Am about to switch away from Orange in a couple of weeks.

Being a "heavy" user, I got Orange Premier as a pat-on-the-back, so Orange CS has been pretty decent.

But... I still have 6 months left of my contract, and I will be making the difference up in a couple of months if I switch to T-Mobile. They seem to be considerably cheaper + WiFi on the MDA beats no-WiFi on the C600.

The lack of Wifi really pissed me off, especially after I was introduced to the Orb.com.

I made the switch today, and I'm incredibly happy with it so far.
Made one call to CS so far, and the lady was 200% more friendly and efficient than any of the Orange CSRs I've worked with.

I am in a similar situation to dearsina, if I had jumped when the 25% discount was still available I would have made the money I lost by buying out 9 months of an O contract in 3 months with T-Mob. Only haven't jumped yet because of the dated phone lineup on T.

I almost switched to T Mobile from Orange after 10 years, but after visiting my local T mobile store and speaking to the 3 assistants, I decide their support was diabolical.
Orange STILL cannot be beaten for customer support.

Vodafone are far and away the most unhelpfull
O2 data is pathetic
T Mobile despite what they say their unlimited data certainly is'nt, there are so many restrictions on use, that all you can do is view web pages and nothing else.............you'd be hard pushed to use £7.5o of data on Orange is you ONLY viewed pages.

And finally their 3G is S H one T no coverage unless you are in the major cities.
Orange 3G hardly ever drops out.

All in all stick with Orange you wont get better, despite their initial offers

You've obviously got through to different Orange staff to me then. Some of the worst customer service I've had in recent years came from them, and that's why I left.

3 on the other hand, have been brilliant so far!

The only real restrictions on data are VOIP (which is fair enough), and media streaming (which is also fair enought to an extent, we would be the first to complete if we had no data services because the infrastructure was being crippled)...T also seem to be fairly relaxed on this policy, and if they believe your usage to be unfair, they will tell you, and why...rather than just cutting you off.

Its also been said by many people that the coverage map on T-Mobile is out of date. I can verify this, I have had a 3G signal wherever I have been, including in my house, where I struggled to get an orange signal at all. Coverage on T has progressed in leaps and bounds over the last year.


EDIT: Look on the T coverage map, and search for West Moors. I live in the road literally just below the white patch, and am enjoying 3 bars of signal and 3G coverage. This is with an M5000, which are notoriously crap for reception

All I can say is that it has been an absolute joy, and I can't wait till I can afford to buy out my orange contract and upgrade my price plan to flext 35!!!!

I agree with you on that one Cathy, being with tmobile has been most pleasant - and looking forward to next 17 months of no hassle

Made the switch to T-mobile as well. But only because of Flext 35.

Relly wanted to stay with orange but they couldn't offer me anything. Still, got my C600 unlocked and its working ok so far.

Don't know about T-Mobile service though. Called up to give them my PAC number, went through the automated messages and after selecting my problem was told that they were busy and got cut off automatically. Would never happen on Orange. Even better, called them at night, and they were shut! Its like going back in time with no Sunday shopping.

Still the price is right. And if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

I had that too.

Not happy at the time, but I was only after non-critical info so I wasn't too bothered.

Not sure how happy I'd be if my phone was dead, but then TBH there was never much point in calling Orange about that sort of thing anyway - their answer was (understandably perhaps) always to do a Hard Reset.

I moved to T-Mobile partly for the Vario but mainly due to the Flext35 having £20 extra value per month offering me around 1000 mins for £35 rather than a pathetic 600 on my Orange Premier tariff which cost me £55 a month.

Better add me to the list of Orange users looking for a new home.

I've just had a long angry argument with some CSR that hardly spoke a word of english (Indian I think).

My Wife deals with the bills, but I happened to notice an Orange bill lying around that had another account on it that I was paying for. It turns out that it was last years contract that was cancelled in August'05.

They have cancelled it again, but refuse to pay the money back as "It's my fault that it was not cancelled".

I'm taking the matter further, but in the mean time, my contract runs out in August, and I'll be outa there.

We have 2 phones here, a SPV M500 for me, and Wifey has a little Nokia thing. We hardly use the phones, but each month our bill is something like £80 for just the 2 phones (not including the extra they have been charging me). This is the lowest tarrif they do (Talk 50 I believe). With a mortgage and 2 kids etc, this is just waaaaay to much to be paying each month, so perhaps we might just go PAYG unless we can get a tarrif with someone for £40 a month for both phones.

I've been with Orange for 7 years and have seen the costs go up and up, but the level of customer support go down the toilet - so long Orange :finger:

After more then 10 years with Orange (yes I joined when they first started over here, and had to pay £100 for the Motorola MR1) I decided to leave after they decided not to release the SPV M3000 (HTC Wizard) in the UK. "Theres no market for it" they advised. Hmmm.

Then I was able to get that handset on T-Mobile with CoPilot & Web&Walk all at 25% discount for life. I think they may have done me a favour by not releasing it.

Did they really say that?

I know the T-Mobile deal had a big effect, but the Wizard must surely be one of the fastest selling PPCPE devices ever!

That's why the Wizard (Vario incarnation anyway) was as rare as rocking-horse-poo not so long ago, and I guess it'll be the same with the Hermes (eventually)

Started with Virgin 7 years ago, still cheaper than everybody else (yes, even easymobile) for what I use.

On PAYG I normally use about £40-60 a year.

All I use is texts and around 20 calls a year to the wife when I'm away from home.
Apart from that its incoming calls and WMA player.
Don't see any need for net access, thats what the PC is for (and I am never more than 30min from one).

The current offer of free texts between virgin phones is definately a bonus.

All I need now is some way to delete all the shortcuts off the start menu that I don't use.



ps: Easy mobile are charging £3 per mb for net.