Orange Roaming (NOT!)

I've recently returned from a trip to the Republic of Ireland, before
I went I checked my Orange PAYG mobile was enabled for roaming via
their website & purchased £20 of credit.

In Ireland I found the service was totally useless, the phone would
not register to any network initially, on using the manual search it
listed three networks; Meteor, Vodaphone & O2, but would only register
with O2, but with an almost non existent service, All my calls to
Irish numbers failed, although I could connect to my wife's mobile,
she could not phone me, I suspect that any other incoming calls would
also be similarly blocked.

Calls to Orange CS just had me going around in their pre-recorded
messages loop & cut me off before I could speak to a human being.
Calls to the Orange number to check credit elicited a text message
response.

Luckily, my wife's Vodafone PAYG worked flawlessly otherwise the
holiday would have been totally spoilt as we needed the mobile to book
Hotels, Guest Houses& Restaurants.

An email to Orange CS when we returned just elicited a reply to say
they weren't responsible for local conditions & no other explanation.

Anyone else have problems? Where did I go wrong?(Apart from using
Orange!)

Chris

"Skokiaan" <caliban51-nospamfakeaddress@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:c348ebaf-264b-40c4-834a-65ff5899a8f0@s50g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
I've recently returned from a trip to the Republic of Ireland, before
I went I checked my Orange PAYG mobile was enabled for roaming via
their website & purchased £20 of credit.

In Ireland I found the service was totally useless, the phone would
not register to any network initially, on using the manual search it
listed three networks; Meteor, Vodaphone & O2, but would only register
with O2, but with an almost non existent service, All my calls to
Irish numbers failed, although I could connect to my wife's mobile,
she could not phone me, I suspect that any other incoming calls would
also be similarly blocked.

Calls to Orange CS just had me going around in their pre-recorded
messages loop & cut me off before I could speak to a human being.
Calls to the Orange number to check credit elicited a text message
response.

Luckily, my wife's Vodafone PAYG worked flawlessly otherwise the
holiday would have been totally spoilt as we needed the mobile to book
Hotels, Guest Houses& Restaurants.

An email to Orange CS when we returned just elicited a reply to say
they weren't responsible for local conditions & no other explanation.

Anyone else have problems? Where did I go wrong?(Apart from using
Orange!)

Chris

I have been to Dublin a few times with an Orange phone the only thing I
found is O2 needed +44 and Meteor IIRC needed 0044 to dial back to the UK
That took a bit of thought when I had changed all numbers in the memory to
+44!!

Des

"Skokiaan" <caliban51-nospamfakeaddress@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:c348ebaf-264b-40c4-834a-65ff5899a8f0@s50g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
>I've recently returned from a trip to the Republic of Ireland, before
>I went I checked my Orange PAYG mobile was enabled for roaming via
>their website & purchased £20 of credit.
>
>In Ireland I found the service was totally useless, the phone would
>not register to any network initially, on using the manual search it
>listed three networks; Meteor, Vodaphone & O2, but would only register
>with O2, but with an almost non existent service, All my calls to
>Irish numbers failed, although I could connect to my wife's mobile,
>she could not phone me, I suspect that any other incoming calls would
>also be similarly blocked.
>
>
I wouldn't recommend any UK PAYG sim for roaming, if you can't use
a local sim, or one of the recent international roaming PAYG sims?

I would go for a UK Virgin Mobile sim and have Direct Debit added to it,
turning it into a zero monthly contract sim, with full contract roaming
privileges, like manual selection of roaming networks.

Steve Terry