Three vs. Orange

Hi peeps,

I live in far SW england and have had an Orange mobile for a very long time,
and on the whole been very happy with them.....however, they dont seem to be
keeping up with the likes of 3 and T-Mobile on the data side of things.

If i stay with Orange on my next upgrade, then i will have to stick with
4mb/month for a £4 addon tariff....not really ideal.

3 are offering quite considerable more data for my money, i am though
worried about their coverage down here.

I have been offered a glimmer of hope in the fact that 3 now appear to be
using the Orange network as their backup....does this mean that if i buy a
N95 or an E65 that i will be able to MANUALLY select their network?? I know
that it will probably do this automatically, though i would think that it
would almost certainly defer to using 3's network even if it had less signal
strength than Orange in the same place.

Any thoughts or experience of this valhalla of using Oranges network to get
3's better tarrifs would be greatly appreciated

TIA

Lee

Lee wrote:

>
> 3 are offering quite considerable more data for my money, i am though
> worried about their coverage down here.
>


I don't know how far south west you are, but I'm in Redruth and cover
the county through work. In the three and a bit years I've been with 3
I've seldom had a problem with coverage.

In message <OvGdnWH82fCh17fbnZ2dnUVZ8tmhnZ2d@bt.com>, Lee
<nohere@btinternet.com> writes
>Hi peeps,
>
>I live in far SW england and have had an Orange mobile for a very long
>time, and on the whole been very happy with them.....however, they dont
>seem to be keeping up with the likes of 3 and T-Mobile on the data side
>of things.
>
>If i stay with Orange on my next upgrade, then i will have to stick
>with 4mb/month for a £4 addon tariff....not really ideal.
>
>3 are offering quite considerable more data for my money, i am though
>worried about their coverage down here.
>
>I have been offered a glimmer of hope in the fact that 3 now appear to
>be using the Orange network as their backup....does this mean that if i
>buy a N95 or an E65 that i will be able to MANUALLY select their
>network??

The firmware of my SE K800i supplied by 3 does not allow me to manually
select a network.

> I know that it will probably do this automatically, though i would
>think that it would almost certainly defer to using 3's network even if
>it had less signal strength than Orange in the same place.

That's what my phone seems to do - to the detriment of call quality.
>
>Any thoughts or experience of this valhalla of using Oranges network to
>get 3's better tarrifs would be greatly appreciated

Well, the coverage in my home (SE London), (especially the kitchen), was
crap when I was with Orange & it's still crap since I moved to 3 but at
least I get a lot more minutes for my money.

--
dave @ stejonda

nohere@btinternet.com declared for all the world to hear...
> Hi peeps,
>
> I live in far SW england and have had an Orange mobile for a very long time,
> and on the whole been very happy with them.....however, they dont seem to be
> keeping up with the likes of 3 and T-Mobile on the data side of things.
>
> If i stay with Orange on my next upgrade, then i will have to stick with
> 4mb/month for a £4 addon tariff....not really ideal.

You can change your data bundle at any time. Upgrades will not tie you
in to it.

--
Regards
Jon

Thanks for the info peeps.....it's good to know that 3's coverage is getting
better down here but if i cant manually select Orange's network and have to
rely on a weaker 3 signal then i think i will have to stick with orange for
my next 12 month contract.

Jon: I am aware that the add-ons are not tied into the 12 month contract
and that i can opt in and out of them when i choose....it is just that
Oranges' add-on for data is £4 for 4mb (cheapest add-on), which even
according to their own estimates allow you only to view 20 web pages per
month! In this day and age you would expect a communications giant such as
orange to keep up with new demands....Internet usage on-the-go is not just a
gimmick anymore, it is becoming a way of life....hopefully they will see in
the near future that 3, T-mobile and shortly o2 are going in the right
direction with at least 1Gb downloads per month for a reasonable fee.
Oranges good network coverage wont keep them on top for much
longer....others are catching up it would seem.

Thanks again guys

Lee



"Jon" <spam@jonparker.plus.com> wrote in message
news:MPG.20947a6285032f8698a912@text.usenet.plus.n et...
> nohere@btinternet.com declared for all the world to hear...
>> Hi peeps,
>>
>> I live in far SW england and have had an Orange mobile for a very long
>> time,
>> and on the whole been very happy with them.....however, they dont seem to
>> be
>> keeping up with the likes of 3 and T-Mobile on the data side of things.
>>
>> If i stay with Orange on my next upgrade, then i will have to stick with
>> 4mb/month for a £4 addon tariff....not really ideal.
>
> You can change your data bundle at any time. Upgrades will not tie you
> in to it.
>
> --
> Regards
> Jon