Re: Orange v T-Mobile (Virgin) GPRS abroad inc USA?
Coverage is pretty solid! I am based in the US. I used to have both
sims, but now only have Virgin. Orange can roam on Cingular or tmobile,
but Virgin only roams on Tmobile. If your phone only has the 900 band,
you will mostly be roaming on tmobile regardless of the sim in it. If
it is not, make sure you manually choose tmobile as the network.
Because tmobile is a 1900 ONLY carrier, while Cingular uses 850/1900.
If your phone is EDGE capable, it's also a good thing since they both
have EDGE deployed.
BTW, GSM is now widely used here. I think cingular is the #1 carrier
here and they are obviously GSM.
Peter wrote:
> I am looking at PAYG, very sporadic data usage.
>
> Orange seem to be £8/MB whether UK or roaming:
>
> http://www1.orange.co.uk/service_pla...ices_costs.pdf
>
> (page 20)
>
> whereas Virgin (T-Mobile) are £5/MB according to their price guide
> which comes with the SIM card.
>
> How would the coverage compare between the two?
>
> I was in Albania recently and Orange (my personal phone) had no
> coverage whatsoever. They also frequently have a poor signal in the
> UK. Vodafone worked but no GPRS. Perhaps Albania is a special case but
> what are these providers like for Europe generally and USA?
>
> T-Mobile seem to be everywhere but not sure about the USA... T-Mobile
> run a lot of Starbucks wifi access points out there but that's isn't
> GSM which is still not widely used in the USA.
>
> I know for sure Voda GPRS works in the USA, at a high speed, but it's
> about £20/MB.
Re: Orange v T-Mobile (Virgin) GPRS abroad inc USA?
On 2006-09-28, Peter <nowhere@anon.com> wrote:
> "Bossman" <bosunbello@gmail.com> wrote:
>>BTW, GSM is now widely used here. I think cingular is the #1 carrier
>>here and they are obviously GSM.
>
> Yes, I've never had problems making GSM phone calls. It's data I was
> concerned about. Voda was solid and fast for data (is that what EDGE
> is?).
EDGE is a half-way-to-3G thing. It is significantly higher speed than
GPRS, but runs in the existing frequency bands.
I'm not sure anyone supports that in the UK. In the US the GSM
companies have had to provide it to compete with the CDMA companies
since the latter have an easier time of supporting higher speed data on
their existing networks, and the US has no actual 3G deployment yet.
Re: Orange v T-Mobile (Virgin) GPRS abroad inc USA?
On 28 Sep 2006 07:00:00 -0700, Bossman <bosunbello@gmail.com> wrote:
>Coverage is pretty solid! I am based in the US. I used to have both
>sims, but now only have Virgin. Orange can roam on Cingular or tmobile,
>but Virgin only roams on Tmobile. If your phone only has the 900 band,
>you will mostly be roaming on tmobile regardless of the sim in it. If
>it is not, make sure you manually choose tmobile as the network.
>Because tmobile is a 1900 ONLY carrier, while Cingular uses 850/1900.
>If your phone is EDGE capable, it's also a good thing since they both
>have EDGE deployed.
>
>BTW, GSM is now widely used here. I think cingular is the #1 carrier
>here and they are obviously GSM.
Is your Virgin SIM a prepay one or a direct debit one? I'm pretty sure
that makes a difference with roaming carriers. Also, mine is a DD one, and
I have roamed on Cingular with it (in N & S Carolina).
--
-- Michael "Soruk" McConnell
Eridani Star System
Peter wrote:
> "Bossman" <bosunbello@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >Coverage is pretty solid! I am based in the US. I used to have both
> >sims, but now only have Virgin. Orange can roam on Cingular or tmobile,
> >but Virgin only roams on Tmobile. If your phone only has the 900 band,
> >you will mostly be roaming on tmobile regardless of the sim in it. If
> >it is not, make sure you manually choose tmobile as the network.
> >Because tmobile is a 1900 ONLY carrier, while Cingular uses 850/1900.
> >If your phone is EDGE capable, it's also a good thing since they both
> >have EDGE deployed.
>
> In the USA I was successfully using a Nokia 6310i which is tri-band
> which is 900/1800/1900 I think.
>
> I have just spent hours with the Virgin SIM in the laptop (Sierra 750
> GPRS PCMCIA card) and have decided to go back to Voda for data stuff;
> Virgin (who use T-Mobile as their carrier) appears to be blocking the
> Windows PPTP VPN ports.
>
> I will keep the Virgin SIM for my personal phone (currently on Orange
> but I will get rid of them) and keep it as a cheaper data backup for
> Voda.
>
> I don't know why these people block ports. They charge per/MB so the
> more traffic goes through the more money they make...
>
> >BTW, GSM is now widely used here. I think cingular is the #1 carrier
> >here and they are obviously GSM.
>
> Yes, I've never had problems making GSM phone calls. It's data I was
> concerned about. Voda was solid and fast for data (is that what EDGE
> is?).
Re: Orange v T-Mobile (Virgin) GPRS abroad inc USA?
On Fri, 29 Sep 2006 10:04:20 +0100, Peter <nowhere@anon.com> wrote:
>
> soruk@bitbucket.eridani.co.uk (Soruk) wrote:
>
>>Is your Virgin SIM a prepay one or a direct debit one? I'm pretty sure
>>that makes a difference with roaming carriers. Also, mine is a DD one, and
>>I have roamed on Cingular with it (in N & S Carolina).
>
>I am on prepay. The data usage is sporadic; a lot over 1 or 2 2-week
>periods, then some 2-3-day periods, through the year. A contract would
>be a waste of money.
>
>Unfortunately it appears that either Virgin or their network
>(T-mobile) are blocking the Windows PPTP VPN ports, so while Virgin is
>OK for simple usage I can't do all of what I want to do.
I've never understood why networks do this. They don't have to actively
"support" such usage, but if they were to at least permit it, they'd find
themselves actually making money, from the extra traffic generated.
>It's a shame the networks do these weird things to differentiate the
>prepay products from contract products.
In this case it would be a billing issue, most likely Cingular don't have
the mechanism in place with Virgin to handle real-time billing (as would
be needed for a prepaid connection), whereas a monthly billed
(contract-style) connection this is not nearly so much an issue.
--
-- Michael "Soruk" McConnell
Eridani Star System
Re: Orange v T-Mobile (Virgin) GPRS abroad inc USA?
Thus spaketh Peter:
> soruk@bitbucket.eridani.co.uk (Soruk) wrote:
>
>> Is your Virgin SIM a prepay one or a direct debit one? I'm pretty
>> sure that makes a difference with roaming carriers. Also, mine is a
>> DD one, and I have roamed on Cingular with it (in N & S Carolina).
>
> I am on prepay. The data usage is sporadic; a lot over 1 or 2 2-week
> periods, then some 2-3-day periods, through the year. A contract would
> be a waste of money.
You don't need a contract, you just stay on the PAYG tariff but instead
of paying as you go (topping up) you get a bill every 3 months, just
like PAYG if you make no phone calls you pay no money.
The benefit of paying for the same tariff by DD is that you have more
roaming partners and the cost of roaming is cheaper.
Even though you are paying by DD, you can still use a top up voucher if
you so wished.
>
> Unfortunately it appears that either Virgin or their network
> (T-mobile) are blocking the Windows PPTP VPN ports, so while Virgin is
> OK for simple usage I can't do all of what I want to do.
>
> It's a shame the networks do these weird things to differentiate the
> prepay products from contract products.
>
> I have never had a problem roaming for plain GSM voice/fax usage -
> only in Albania did I find Orange to be totally dead.
Re: Orange v T-Mobile (Virgin) GPRS abroad inc USA?
Thus spaketh {{{{{Welcome}}}}}:
> Thus spaketh Peter:
>> soruk@bitbucket.eridani.co.uk (Soruk) wrote:
>>
>>> Is your Virgin SIM a prepay one or a direct debit one? I'm pretty
>>> sure that makes a difference with roaming carriers. Also, mine is a
>>> DD one, and I have roamed on Cingular with it (in N & S Carolina).
>>
>> I am on prepay. The data usage is sporadic; a lot over 1 or 2 2-week
>> periods, then some 2-3-day periods, through the year. A contract
>> would be a waste of money.
>
>
> You don't need a contract, you just stay on the PAYG tariff but
> instead of paying as you go (topping up) you get a bill every 3
> months, just like PAYG if you make no phone calls you pay no money.
>
> The benefit of paying for the same tariff by DD is that you have more
> roaming partners and the cost of roaming is cheaper.
>
> Even though you are paying by DD, you can still use a top up voucher
> if you so wished.
>
>
>
>>
>> Unfortunately it appears that either Virgin or their network
>> (T-mobile) are blocking the Windows PPTP VPN ports, so while Virgin
>> is OK for simple usage I can't do all of what I want to do.
>>
>> It's a shame the networks do these weird things to differentiate the
>> prepay products from contract products.
>>
>> I have never had a problem roaming for plain GSM voice/fax usage -
>> only in Albania did I find Orange to be totally dead.
Re: Orange v T-Mobile (Virgin) GPRS abroad inc USA?
"Dennis Ferguson" <dcferguson@pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:slrnehntic.98.dcferguson@dennispc.local...
>
> EDGE is a half-way-to-3G thing. It is significantly higher speed than
> GPRS, but runs in the existing frequency bands.
>
> I'm not sure anyone supports that in the UK. In the US the GSM
>
Enhanced Data for GSM Evolution (EDGE) bridges the gap between GPRS and 3G
technologies. It provides download and browsing speeds up to three times
faster than GPRS. Orange are the only UK operator to offer EDGE.
Re: Orange v T-Mobile (Virgin) GPRS abroad inc USA? 
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