TurboKitty

In your experiences which is better in terms of general coverage, reliability and customer service, O2, or Orange?

I'm on Vodafone at the moment but they are taking the whatsit in terms of what they provide versus what they charge. Both Orange and O2 are doing much better deals, but are they worth considering?

ProperCharlie

i use Orange for personal and business. we have about 40 phones with them. The coverage in populated areas is fine - but if you want to be able to chat half way up some scottish glen in the *rse end of nowhere then look at another network. overall, i find them good enough to carry on using them.

IanW

Over the time working, between company phones and my own phones I have used :-

Vodafone
One2One/T-Mobile
Orange
O2
3

I am currently on 3, and am more than happy with them, plus the coverage that they have if there is no '3G' coverage the phone reverts back to '2G' mode, and uses O2 for the coverage then which has good coverage all over.

[Edited by IanW - 8/31/2003 2:24:24 PM]

TurboKitty

The thing that bothers me about 3 is that (IIRC) the offer of free texts only lasts three months, and after that it's likely to cost me an arm and a leg. Please correct me if I'm wrong though.

paulr

Been on O2 for four years........never had any problems with coverage/reliability/signal etc.
As for customer service,its like a lot of companies today.....minimal.

TurboKitty

O2 are rapidly losing my vote. They were my favoured choice, but I've been trying to get some information about the handset I want.

I'll be buying online as I want an online tariff, so I went, as directed to the help menu. It seems that to get the best of the online help, you need to enter your O2 mobile number. I don't have one of those yet as I am trying to bladdy well buy one, so I clicked the 'I don't have an O2 number' option. This gave me access to a few FAQs, all of which were useless, so I thought I'd e-mail them. On clicking the e-mail link I'm told I need to enter my O2 'phone number to get the e-mail address. Or, it says, if I have a sales enquiry, I should try my point of sale. This is an online order, this is my bloody point of sale!!! So I try the sales 'phone line. I listen to all the pre-recorded guff and the press 1 to be ignored... options and select the option for information. I'm on hold for ages and when I finally get through I speak to a muppet who says he doesn't know anything about 'phones or tariffs, he just processes contracts. I ask if there's anyone I can speak to who does know about 'phones and tariffs and he gives me the 50p/minute help line number. I politely decline to pay 50p per minute for a company to sell me a 'phone and ask if there's anyone else I can speak to, preferably before I call Orange. He gives me another number. This number turns out to be the customer services line for pay as you go customers who already have O2 mobiles. They can't help me. They give me another 2 numbers to try. The first is unobtainable, and the second merrily informs me it's charged at 50p/minute...

I've concluded that O2 are not in the least bit interested in selling me a 'phone.

"Minimal" customer service? I'd say that was overstating the case!

planky

Orange is no good in certain parts of London,yeah you heard right London and when i asked why? they blamed it on a mast problem and would be fixed in 10 days,4 months later it was still not working so that tells you something about Orange

I had to send the phone back in the end cos of the no signal in my part of South London (btw phone was fine it was a orange problem) and i'm not the only one either,my brothers phone on orange had no signal too.

I've had every other network and currently on t mobile and they have all worked perfectly.

Can't help on customer service for O2,never needed to use it but their network was fine when i used it for 3 yrs.

[Edited by planky - 8/31/2003 6:17:14 PM]

Luke

T-Mobile works evrytime for me and costs very little.

Chelspeed

Orange always seem to have loads of signal when you look. Then you dial and halfway through the call it cuts out, you check the signal and there's none, then 10 seconds later loads of signal. Whats going on? And that's UK wide too.

Their adverts say they're building twice as many masts as anyone else. What they don't explain is that they need to as they have so few compared to everyone else. Steer clear of orange. I would but it's a company phone so I have no choice......

Chris L

Interesting that. I've just swapped back to Orange (Company phone and we're part of France Telecom, so we have to use them ). I've experienced the same thing with the signal coming and going from full strength to nothing in a matter of seconds. Often you can sit and watch it do this when not even making a call.

I was all for blaming my phone, but maybe it isn't. I am prepared to give Orange some time to sort this out. I've been with them before and they have always had the best customer service - which is very important.

As regards coverage, every network will have its dead areas. If I go up to Braunston (near Daventry), O2 is non-existant, whereas Orange is 5 bar full strength. Bit iffy in Slough though, where O2 and Vodafone seem to be better. Incidently, I lived in South London and found Orange to be excellent.

Technically speaking Orange have the highest % coverage of the population in the UK - how that translates into actual usable coverage is another story though.

Chris

MooseRacer

When my company phone was on Orange I used to have exactly the same problems.

ProperCharlie

well all I can say is i use my orange phone a helluva lot, mainly in north london/east anglia and the number of dropped calls or areas where i can't get a signal are few. i can't compare it to any other network as i've been with orange for ages. however, if the i was incovenienced by lack of reception then i'd go elsewhere. i did once have a problem with customer service @ orange. i got p*ssed off with the guy and asked him to work out what it would cost to terminate all the unexpired contracts on the 40 odd handsets we have, and then put the bill in the post cos i was going elsewhere. haven't had a problem since then . as for not having any reception in south london - well that seems like a sound business decision to me

S.B.

I find orange signal pretty good plus they credit minutes when the signal drops out 13 minutes last month..

Mossman

Bit of an Orange fan. Been with them for years. T Mobile at work and it's rubbish.
Great customer service with Orange
Mossman

dhorwich

As has been said orange have very very good customer service..

I once had a nokia 8210 and so did my mate, i was on orange he was on vodafone... I called orange about my phone which had the well known screen fault. Orange sent me out a phone 2 days later, however my mate on vodafone had to get his phone taken to be repaired which left him with no phone for 2 weeks...

Dan

planky

Chris L,i'm in St reatham and orange never worked in my house or close by and i would of thought London would be one of the best places for good signals,there seems to be masts everywhere.

GC8

I moved from a contract phone to Virgin a couple of years ago and Ive found them to be excellent; if I dont call anyone it costs me chuff all; if I talk at length for a month it still costs me less than any inclusive deal that Id have considered.

Simon

Chrisgr31

I have 2 contract phones one with Orange and one with Vodafone. I used to have one with Cellent then O2. The O2 network coverage was crap.

Not much between Orange and Vodafone, they both seem to drop the connection without warning.

I think you will find that Orange coverage is poorer and more likely to drop because of the mast system they use. O2 and Vodafone tend to rely on decent sized masts, or those very large telegraph type poles you see dotted around the country. Orange may greater use of micro transmitters which are found in all manner of places, but most notably those that look like lamposts.

I thought I had read somewhere that if you had problems getting Orange coverage at home they would consider installing a base station in your house!