Dolphin Package - a clever option? (Orange Tariffs)

Member Name: k-bizzle

Product:	Orange Tariffs
Date:	08/10/09 (320 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Free texts, free internet, orange wednesdays, works out cheaper than other networks

Disadvantages: Poor customer service, lack of signal

The Orange tariff I am reviewing is the "Dolphin Package" on Pay as You Go. With this package, you get free texts and free internet (for Facebook, Bebo and Myspace), as long as you top up £10 each month. As an Orange customer, you also get Orange Wednesdays (two-for-one cinema tickets on a Wednesday). For me, the Dolphin package on PAYG is cheaper and meets more of my needs than having a contract, or changing networks.

The amount of free texts (to any network in the UK) you get depends on the amount you top up. You get 300 free texts if you top up £10, 600 if you top up £20 and "unlimited" texts if you top up £30 or more. These are similar amounts of texts as you would get on other networks for topping up the same amount. Of course, like everything else, unlimited isn't actually unlimited: it's subject to a fair usage policy, and Orange are very sketchy on the actual limit of free texts you are allowed to send! I think for Orange, unlimited is 3000 (basically 100 texts a day), which the average person would have to try very hard to go over!

If you don't get the "unlimited" texts, but get the 300 or 600 instead, then run out of texts, the cost is 10p per text, which is average. However, then you can phone 450 and buy an "extra" - so that texts cost less (for example, 5p each).

The free access to Facebook, Bebo and Myspace is very handy, and is actually just free internet access. Other networks don't really offer free internet on PAYG, making Dolphin a good deal! However, the data usage on Dolphin is capped at 50 megabytes per month, after which it will get very expensive! So you need to be very careful not to go over it. Although, if you do go over it and it starts charging you, you can always buy an extra for internet access.

However, recently I have experienced problems with Orange, and the customer service I received was far from satisfactory! One problem was I didn't receive the rewards when I was supposed to (300 free texts and free internet), so I phoned customer services only to be told they would "phone me back", which of course they didn't - wasting 25p of my quickly decreasing credit. When it became clear I had been lied to, I phoned them up again, only to be hung up on - wasting another 25p! Even when I went into the Orange shop, they weren't much help and denied I had topped up, even though I definitely had, meaning I had to top up another £10!

Just a couple of days later, I had similar problems when I received one text saying "congratulations - you have Magic Numbers for one month", followed, the next day by "sorry - you have not got Magic Numbers this month", so I am now considering changing to a different network!

To conclude, the PAYG Dolphin package is good and suits my needs. Many networks offer free texts with their packages, but Dolphin also gives you free internet, meaning that Orange Dolphin is better value and works out cheaper. However, the network, Orange, consistently fails to provide satisfactory customer service (usually by hanging up on you). Plus, the signal on Orange is often very poor, and there is no point having rewards if you can't use them as you have no reception! Good package, poor network!

Summary: A good package on a poor network.