Orange winds everyone up with it’s shite ‘unlimited-but-sort-of-not’ data rubbish
So, to all the people reading who emailed me saying ‘Right, but that Orange flat rate data plan will be a pile of shite’, I say this: You were right.
Me? I was erring on the side of positivity. I was hoping that by saying ‘unlimited browsing’ they meant unlimited data — which is what Three often say. Three regularly use the word ‘browsing’ because it’s a good consumer-friendly term. But they give you an open pipe.
Orange, on the other hand… Well, have a wee read…
Orange has introduced flat-rate mobile data bundles for the first time.
The mobile operator’s contract customers will be able to sign up for a bundle allowing them unlimited surfing for £8 per month. A bundle for evening and weekend browsing is priced at £5 per month. Alternatively, customers can opt for a daily cap of £1 per day.
Sounds good, right?
…
Now read…
An Orange spokesperson said: “The bundled prices won’t include VoIP or IM. We advise against using [those services] as yet.”
Bag o shite.
I don’t care so much about VoIP as it’s to be expected. But IM? I mean, we are talking INSTANT MESSAGING here, right? That’s data. Ahh. Which, one must assumes, means that any data service — for example, uploading a photo to Flickr via ShoZu is billable and not included in the flat rate deal. Rubbish.
Total arse. Who the hell wants to pay 8 quid a month to be able to arse around on their mobile browser? That is a limited experience at best. RUBBBBBBBBBASSSH.
If you’re a data user, just use Three or T-Mobile. Don’t arse around with anyone else.
I’m not even going to bother checking the pathetic Orange website either.
No, hold on. Actually I will. Whenever I go to Orange.co.uk I can hardly ever find anything I need. I keep on being presented with pictures of Keira Knightley and news feeds.
Let me see if I can find ANYTHING about their mobile data offer…
Nah. Nothing immediately visible.
Bag o shite.
hang on a tick - T-Mobile only allow you to use VoIP ( and maybe IM) on their £45 pcm unlimited* (read 30 Gbyte tariff) - three only allow you 154 Mbytes of roaming data (remember when you use 2G you’re roaming with 3) - IMHO all the offerings from all the operators are currently flawed.
All the Operators are papping themselves desperatly trying to make back the 3G licensing money from us poor early adopters before they are forced to offer proper flat rate pricing across the board. (Ironic as orange pioneered bundled tariffs which were seen as such a threat to their revenue base by Cellnet & Vodafone way back when)
You really can’t blame a telephone operator for trying to minimise the erosion of their traditional revenues whilst they frantically think of ways to make money in the new climate
Posted by alasdair on May 9th, 2007 at 8:41 am.this phrase is very disingenuos : An Orange spokesperson said: “The bundled prices won’t include VoIP or IM. We advise against using [those services] as yet.â€
‘we advise against’ actually means we’ll do everything in our power to prevent you circumventing our revenue model.
I hate this kind of thing - companies must start to treat their customers and potential customers like adults ffs
Posted by alasdair on May 9th, 2007 at 8:45 am.I’m not blaming anyone alasdair — I’m just saying it’s absolutely ridiculous behaviour.
I’ve seen genuine panic in the eyes of some operator executives when pondering the ‘we will have to move to flat rate at some point’ discussion. That’s where the expectation lies. However, if they’d handled their pricing strategy in a different way, for example, £3 for the first meg, £2 for the next 9 meg, then £0.15 for every subsequent meg, I think I’d have signed up for it. That way the operators would have have retained a degree of step-up revenue.
Posted by ewan on May 9th, 2007 at 9:46 am.I found this comment on zdnet:
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/talkback/0,1000001161,39286970-39001101c-20085043o,00.htm
Quote:
“if users want to use VoIP and IM they can do so” (!), but the operator is discouraging them from doing so due to the usual “customer experience” malarkey.
So do that mean that if I use the java gmail app, shozu etc I will be flat rate then?
Posted by Zahid on May 14th, 2007 at 3:28 pm.Hi
Btw Orange have a better service than shozu to upload to flickr for only £4 a month, on my N95 unlimited upload, and i upload about 300 pics a month using a 5 MP camera
Tim
Posted by Tim on May 31st, 2007 at 8:49 pm.