We are signed up to an 18 month Internet Everywhere contract with Orange. We have been unable to achieve a proper connection to 3G and have been forced to use GPRS Orange which is much slower than dial up. We continually lose the 3G connection and get constant error messages when trying to reconnect. We have spent hours on the phone with the Orange technical team who have been unable to fix the problem and are now putting it down to "the mast near our house has warning signals" but they don't know why and cannot tell us when this will be fixed. This has been going on since mid January and they won't allow us out of the contract because they say we have a connection even if it lasts for 10secs they will still not accept responsibility for the problem. We are paying £15 a month for the slowest connection ever. Has anyone any advice on what our options are?We are considering making contact with CISAS not sure if that will help though.
it drops, it's so slow it's worse than dial up. I got it so I could work while travelling, but it's pointless even trying to download mail.
I wait sometimes ten minutes for google to fire up.
I want to cancel my direct debit.
I'm going to email every customer service email address I can find.....
Joined: 13 Nov 2009Posts: 408Location: South East Essex
You need to be very careful about cancelling long contracts. I think you must get them to agree first that you can cancel & the route there is through the ISPA.
As I pointed out in your other thread DO NOT cancel the DD. Before you know it you'll have debt collection agencies after you & potentially a bad credit rating. This may only rarely happen but it has happened so be warned.
You're right to an extent ThomasA, but wireless signals don't like walls or windows and have a tendancy to bounce off buildings and create dead spots, even within a masts range
Coverage can only really be gauranteed outdoors unless the building you are in has its own pico cell or similar.
Taken into account your above post, it could be argued its not accurately labelled or it is even being falsely advertised and no wonder people are confused.
Not everyone is a technician to automatically be aware of such technical limitations. The end consumer just wants something to work as its advertised and be usable.
Just who is the marketing being targeted at?
As Orange cant accurately provide information where these dead spots are and guarantee a usable signal, some sort of cooling of period or such in the contract might be appropriate. Particularly a get out clause, when Orange equipment is at fault and they cant fix it as the OP suggests.
Also, maybe it should be made clearer in Orange advertising its not truly 'mobile' and there are such limitations as you suggest. But then again this doesn't make good marketing and tie people into unusable contracts
This has been the same story for as long as I can remember, sadly the majority of companies dumb down their technical explanations or don't provide any at all.
I completely agree that there should be some sort of cooling off period, or at the very least a clear overview of the technologies limitations.
I have the same problems with Internet Everywhere - a few minutes, then it locks and I get nothing. When I originally signed up to the Internet Nowhere dongle I explained I wanted it for home use for emails and my OU course. The salesman told me it would be perfect for that, 0.5gb a month would be sufficient and to bear in mind connection may sometimes be a little slower - 5 mins per page, or endless spinning followed by the message "this site is taking too long to respond". The mb usage counter doesn't always work, so I have no idea how much I have used. It is only with Orange - I visit a friend's and log on via their system - works perfectly.
Equally irritating, the previous times I have tried to look at the Orangeproblems site, Orange have blocked it! I was surprised it was "allowed" today.
Last night, completely fed up, I called Orange - and was told my complaint was very unusual, they get hardly any calls about Internet Everywhere. The person I spoke to took my details, provided no solution and then cut me off - and I hadn't even started getting mildly acerbic let alone a full on tantrum, I was still in reasonable mode. I did point out to her that there are internet sites devoted to Orange problems.
Ironically this post is probably the limit of today's reasonable service. I will call back the customer service. NW4 (nearest mast) should hardly be a poor reception area. I think I have been mis-sold a service. It doesn't work everywhere, it clearly isn't suitable for home use. Also why do they need to know where you are? Isn't the clue in the name? EVERYWHERE?
Yesterday Orange Technical Help person told me i had to change the APN and talked me through it, and advised I had to switch from 'automatic setting' to 3G only. Page location etc much quicker, but it only goes for a few minutes at a time, then disconnects. He also said that it isn't really suitable for home use (despite the salesman assuring me it was).
However if I take out Orange Broadband, once I have had that for a few weeks, they will consider cancelling my internet everywhere contract. You can't say fairer than that can you?
Volkswagen should take it up - buy a Polo. If it doesn't work properly, buy a Passat, and if that works, then after a while they might refund some of the money you paid for the Polo.
You do realise you have purchased a mobile product which like a mobile phone relies on a signal, signal being a variable thing varies greatly upon amount of users, time of day, whether indoors or out, whether hills in the way or tall buildings in the way.
If you want something for home use buy normal broadband.
I get sick and tired of people complaining that 'it doesn't work' or 'the speeds are slow' It is meant to be used while on the move, and also meant to be used, to be able to access things while travelling such as emails, or checking ebay/facebook.
People seem to think that mobile broadband is going to be useable as a home broadband, IT ISN'T! I have an Orange dongle, works a treat, running Internet Everywhere. The reason it works is because.....I use it while on the move, and dont expect it to perform like real broadband.
If people are having issues then report the problem within the stated time constraints by law, 7 days trial period, no questions asked returns, and then upto 28 days for 'signal' issues. Dont go complaining after months of usage that it doesnt work.
Mobile companies can see how much usage someone has had and will only consider terminations late into contract if there has been no use since purchase, or very little use since purchase due to signal issues.
People really wind me up when they complain about mobile broadband being slow and like 'dial up' thats because it is dial up!!!
There certainly ARE problems on the 3G networks - certainly in Bristol where I am, but also it appears around the country.
I signed up to Mobile Broadband (1month rolling contract, 10GB usage per month) at the end of May 2010 and only in the last week have I begun to get reasonable service - Orange have acknowledged this and yesterday refunded me around £37.50 for the poor service I'd been paying for.
It is true that you should be getting a regular broadband service for regular home use - the reason I've got the mobile broadband was due to moving office temporarily - I'm only in this office for 2 or 3 months before moving to a permanent place where I will certainly get regular broadband. Mobile Broadband appeared to be the ideal temporary solution so that I could get large data allowance but without a long contract.
The problems that I and many others seem to have (check the phone forums too!) is that 3G shows a decent signal (3 to 5 bars out of 5) but connectivity is sporadic - often with no connection possible or data only flowing for a short while. Having phoned Orange numerous times and speaking to a variety of people (some very helpful, some totally unhelpful) the consensus was that they were very sorry but there wasn't much they could do. I was told that service MAY improve and that if it did I could seek refunds for the time when I was receiving poor service. Last week they finally DID seem to do something that made things better and now I do get reasonable service.
I, of course, would not expect Mobile Broadband to match regular broadband service, but the situation is more complex than that due to poor 3G service. It does seem that Millie has been quite badly informed for the service she has signed up to.
Overall Orange's service has been pretty lame though there have been some very helpful people along the way. I've still not received a reply to a letter written to them one month ago.
Another point to keep in mind is that voice calls take priority over everything else, meaning your data channel may well be reassigned if there are not enough timeslots on the particular base station you're connected to.
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