Orange (Orange Network)

Member Name: joannabelle88

Product:	Orange Network
Date:	05/09/09 (63 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: orange wednesdays, one of the major networks

Disadvantages: no longer competitve

Having been with orange for almost 3 years now on contract, and for 2 more years on pay as you go, I've never had a problem with them up until this year.

Signal Coverage:
One of the main things that attracted me to orange, particularly in the early years of mobile technology, was the amount of signal coverage they seemed to have compared to other networks. However, this lead has gone down recently as most of the major networks now have pretty impressive coverage in most areas.

Reliability:
Again I have often found Orange reliable, giving good signal consistantly, and rarely seeming to go down, unlike o2 for example. However, recently, their signal has started to waive a bit in some areas, going from being strong to non-existant in less than a minute, without me moving- and I live in a suburb of a major city.

Customer Service:
Now that a lot of call centres are based abroad, I try not to phone Customer services, however, everytime that I have I have spoken to an English souding person, on a clear line, who could understand me, and I could understand them- which is a huge bonus. However, the customer service that you get with Orange does vary enormously on who you get on the phone, and on many occasion I have ended up thanking the representative, and then redialling in the hope that I get someone more knowledgable. Most representatives though, although not always able to help, seem to be polite and courteous.

Prices:
Orange won themselves my custom on a contract when they started their animal tariffs about 3 years ago, offering unlimited texts- a huge plus for me. However, in the last 18months, they seem to have become less competitive on price, and the likes of 3 and tmobile, often seem to be much cheaper.

Choice of Phones:
Like all major networks, Orange tend to have a wide variety of phones available, and many stores in which you can play around with them to try them out.

Problems:
As I've said, Orange have always seemed to me to be a very good, reliable network, and up untill march I was happy enough to be with them. However, they then started taking direct debits early, even though the date on the bill would clearly say on or after, and many times they refused to acknowledge that they were at fault. This inconvenience, combined with the increasingly unreliable signal has left me wondering whether I will continue my contract with them when its up next month.

Summary: not as good as they used to be