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	<title>Tom Gidden &#187; three</title>
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		<title>And back again:  Leaving Three for Orange</title>
		<link>http://gidden.net/tom/2010/09/18/and-back-again-leaving-three-for-orange/</link>
		<comments>http://gidden.net/tom/2010/09/18/and-back-again-leaving-three-for-orange/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 18 Sep 2010 13:45:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Tom Gidden</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cellphone]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cellular]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gsm]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[iphone]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[iphone4]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mobile]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mobile-phone]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mobile-phones]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[orange]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[payg]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rant]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[three]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://gidden.net/tom/?p=108</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[After a couple of months with Three PAYG, I've moved to Orange PAYG.
Three was fine, with a good, cheap service.  However, I wasn't totally satisfied with their data rate.  Coverage was good, but data still seemed sluggish. While it was marginally better than O2, and substantially cheaper, I still feel it's not as good as it could be.  There's also something substantial missing from Three's PAYG offering: free WiFi.  The lack of The Cloud or BT Openwhatever on Three is particularly noticeable.  While I barely used it while on O2, there are several occasions where Three's coverage let me down and one of BT's nodes mocked me mercilessly sitting there with a strong signal in my iPhone's WiFi list.

Meanwhile, Orange and T-Mobile are doing the dirty in a new enterprise called "Everything Everywhere".  It looks like the two nets will merge, and so data coverage should be second-to-none.  In my opinion, Orange have always been the most technically competent UK network, and it's just their marketing and customer services I had a problem with.
Back then, I was really just using my phone as a phone, so there wasn't much technical reason to stick about; their poor CS was far more of a problem.  Nowadays, I use my phone much more for data than for phoning, so data coverage and performance is more important: what's the point in having a smartphone to check facts in the pub if the net is so slow that it's closing time before Wikipedia starts to appear.
So, I was eager to give Orange another go.  This time, it would be PAYG.  However, if you remember from my last post on this subject, Orange was stupidly not offering PAYG SIMs to existing iPhone 4 users, even though Apple sold record numbers of unlocked handsets.
They finally got their act together earlier this month, and started selling iPhone 4 PAYG SIMs.  I ordered one over the phone: £25, which was explained as £15 for the SIM, plus £10 top-up credit. A little excessive I feel, and I realised after ordering that I could have just ordered their standard £25/month rolling one-month SIM-only plan and got a better deal, switching to PAYG after the first month.
Anyway, the SIM arrived, and I promptly ordered my PAC code from Three, which arrived soon afterwards by text.  I added £5 of credit just in case, and then called Orange on Monday and gave them the PAC code.  I expected some form of confirmation via text or something, but... nothing.
I called back the next day and it turns out they hadn't submitted it.  Ugh.  This is, apparently, how it's going to go from now one.  So, I gave them the code again. This time, they confirmed the port for Thursday: two days later.  Fine.  Whatever.
Now, credit.  I paid for £10 of credit when I ordered the SIM.  I also was expecting £10 extra for porting my number, and they said something about giving me £10 of extra credit per month if I topped up with £10... I'm not sure about that last bit, though.  I was also, of course, expecting the promised free 250MB mobile data package.  This was all confirmed to me when I gave the PAC code on Tuesday, and I was assured that the data package was on the account and the credit was coming.
Anyway, on Thursday throughout the porting transition, I was checking "Your Account" on Orange.  My number had transferred, and yet my £5 of credit had dwindled to nothing even though I hadn't used it.  It turned out that 900kb of mobile data had used it up!  Hang on a sec... I thought I was getting free data?!  I distinctly remember being told on Tuesday that my account had the 250MB free data package...
A shouty call to Orange, and I was assured this was a mistake. The billing team was notified, but I was told that they could not guarantee I'd be reimbursed for the erroneously-used credit.  Oh well, it's only £5.
However, after this point I couldn't even call Orange because my account didn't have the requisite 25p to call them to tell them about their cock-ups.  As I was expecting at least £20 of credit to appear any moment, I was loathe to top-up... for a start, I think I have to top-up every month to get the promised benefits, so I don't really want to build up excess credit that'll never get used.
I did, however, get a text to say the 250MB package had finally been added.
Friday: still no credit.  A stern email to Orange demanding the £20 I was due plus the £5 their cock-up had wasted.  I was forced to add £10 of credit manually, just so I could make a call.
Saturday: I've just got a text saying I've been credited £20.  Still not right -- where's that £5, plus the 25p's I've been forking out to call Customer Services! -- but I have a feeling that's all I'm going to get out of them.
The problem here is that while the sales blurb says the account "comes with" free credit, free mobile data, etc., it all seems to be applied piecemeal with five-working-day turnarounds.  The number port really confused things too. It's pathetic. They clearly treat their PAYG customers far worse than their Contract customers, especially with this insult of a 25p Customer Services charge, when I'm calling about their mistakes.
Orange CS is very polite, and their agents seem genuinely eager to help.  However, they're stuck in a byzantine system of teams and systems and account details and scripts, and it just means things don't get fixed.  I hark back to the olden days when a single twenty-something in Patchway (or Glasgow?) would be able to sort everything out after spending 30 seconds listening and comprehending the customer's problem.  Now it's effectively a bunch of electronic note- and buck-passing between departments.
...I mean, even the fact that they couldn't offer SIMs to Apple unlocked-iPhone 4 customers on launch day or even for months afterwards shows how clueless they are.  I still maintain that was a massive missed opportunity for the network to steal a slew of affluent but irritated O2 customers.
If it wasn't for the much-vaunted Orange network, I'd hightail straight back to Three right now, and sign up for a proper contract with them.  I'm now going to use Orange for a few weeks and see how I get on.  If it isn't as good as it's supposed to be, I'll be off.  I know this isn't the biggest catastrophe in the world, but this kind of poor customer service just bugs the crap out of me.
A few years ago, I wrote about Orange and how they just weren't as good as they used to be.  I was hoping after a few years in the wilderness, I'd be pleasantly surprised.  I'm not.  Their service seems worse than ever.
...
Anyway. The next thing stuck in my craw is international data.  I'm off on holiday to WDW in November, and try as I may, I just can't find any economic or legit way to get two weeks of data access on either my iPad or my iPhone.  I just want a bit of email and limited web access just so we can organise things.  However, AT&#038;T seem hellbent in NOT offering service to non-residents.
I could just roam with my new Orange account, but apparently that will cost more than the holiday.  If I were paranoid, I'd suspect that the networks are colluding internationally to encourage their customers to give up and just fork out ~£5/MB.]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>4</slash:comments>
	
		<series:name><![CDATA[Leaving mobile phone company "X" for "Y"]]></series:name>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Leaving O2 for... um... Not sure yet. (Updated)</title>
		<link>http://gidden.net/tom/2010/07/01/leaving-o2-for-um-not-sure-yet/</link>
		<comments>http://gidden.net/tom/2010/07/01/leaving-o2-for-um-not-sure-yet/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 01 Jul 2010 18:40:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Tom Gidden</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[giffgaff]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[iphone]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[iphone4]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mobile]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mobile-phones]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[O2]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[orange]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[tariff]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[three]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://gidden.net/tom/?p=95</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It's been almost two years since I wrote the last installment of this epic journey.  I've practically ceased blogging in favour of tweeting, but I do think it's worth an update now. After two years with the iPhone 3G on O2, I'm almost certainly going to switch... but I'm not sure who to go to yet, though.

Overall, I was impressed by O2's service. Their customer service was always very good, and their web interface quite functional. On both counts, I would rate them higher than both Three and Orange.  I'm less impressed with their actual network service quality, both for talk and data... which is a bit of a problem, considering that's the whole point.  Oddly, it's not their coverage I have a problem with, but the infrastructure:  data speed on the iPhone is woefully slow and variable, and I've had more than a few dropped calls.  In fact, one weekend in May, the net was down completely for a few hours.
So, then comes the iPhone 4.
As an iPhone developer (plug: Dingbats for iPhone) it's actually better to have the slowest and crappest, otherwise I wouldn't know if my software runs like a dog -- if at all -- for some of my customers.  As a user, however, I was desperate to get off my two-year-old iPhone 3G and onto something a bit better. It also gives me a chance to bring Dingbats up-to-date and get a combined iPad/iPhone 4 update written (watch this space...)
Anyway, as I never upgraded to the 3GS, I've long since completed my 18-month sentence on O2's tariff, and switched down to Simplicity for iPhone (the lower-rate SIM-only package) back in January, so there's no real reason to stay with O2.  However, the question is, who to go for?  As my previous blog posts show, I've tried Orange and Three (although not with data service, and not recently), but not T-mobile, Vodafone or any of the virtual providers.
By now, we're talking mid-June. O2 have announced some of their tariffs, but notably NOT the handset prices.  Meanwhile, the other networks are still fixed in a "Coming Soon" funk.  So, for the time being I extrapolate the US pricing to gauge whether Apple are going to charge a premium on the iPhone 4 (unlikely at this point), and then assume the UK nets will keep roughly the same pricing, but maybe with a bit of an increase just for the hell of it.
On the morning of June 15th, my long-suffering client successfully puts in a pre-order for me for a SIM-less Apple iPhone 4.  This seems like the best bet, and even if I were to go back to a subsidised contract, we could still sell the unopened SIM-less phone for a profit.
Plugging the numbers, it appeared that the networks add, on average, between £15 and £20 a month onto the tariff to subsidise the phone.  This is borne out when O2 announce that existing customers still under contract can buy out for £20/month of remaining contract.  There's nothing magical about this number: it's just O2 wanting to break even on the phone subsidy.  When the calculations are done, buying the phone outright and getting a SIM-only plan appeared to be the same cost as a contract, but with some added advantages, especially when it comes to upgrading to "iPhone 5" in twelve months' time.  In particular, the O2 12 month Simplicity for iPhone offer seems economically the best deal.  Of course, this is still assuming the pricing stays the same.
This is also about the time the networks start talking about data capping.  A quick calculation based on data from O2's site shows that I use, on average, only 30MB a month, with an all-time high of 60MB one month.  Even more notably, I'm barely touching the inclusive minutes, as I tend to receive calls rather than make them.
However, the data calculation has to be taken with a fairly massive pinch of salt:  I believe I would use the data service more if it wasn't so damn slow.  In addition, the multitasking features of iOS4 give the phone the ability to draw a steady stream of data all the time.  Even so, if I multiply up my predicted data usage by a factor of ten, I'm almost always within the proposed limits.
I also notice a neat little loophole:  existing contracts would remain uncapped, although an upgrade triggers a new contract under the new terms.  However, if the phone is purchased outright via Apple, for example, the existing old contract can be continued.  So, if I were prepared to stump up £600 and remain with O2, I could remain uncapped.  However, O2 still have a less-explicit cap on their data service anyway:  it's so damn slow, I just don't have the patience to use more than 500MB a month anyway!
Finally, the tariffs start trickling out.  O2 are first with their full pricing, followed by Orange and the others.  Three are notably coy about their offering... as it turns out, right up until the morning of the release.
Anyway, it turns out the iPhone 4 hardware is marginally more expensive than the 3GS, and the tariffs are a little more expensive.  This is not wholly unexpected.  However, what is less obvious is that they've altered the balance slightly, and there is now a small benefit to getting the phone under contract rather than SIM-only, but it's still not a huge amount of money.  SIM-only also gives the freedom to change networks when you decide they really do suck too much.
By now, I've also decided that Pay-As-You-Go is by far the most economic deal for me.  This is fairly scary, as I've been on contract with one network or another continuously (and overlapping) with the same number since 1996.  Well, almost the same number:  they inserted a '7' into the area code a while back.  PAYG has always been the less desirable option for me.  However, looking at the tariffs now, I'm looking at a potential decrease of my bills from the £30/month of yesteryear and the £20/month of Simplicity for iPhone, down to something in the region of £5-£10/month on PAYG, no matter which network I go for.
Bugger the contract, then!
Still no idea of which network to go for, though.
Tesco have an interesting deal, but I note they're a virtual net served by O2, so presumably would have the same network quality issues.
T-Mobile and Orange are merging, and by all accounts, their merged 3G network will be epic. However, Orange's tariffs still aren't fully released when it comes to PAYG, and are a cryptic menagerie of combinations. It does look like "Racoon" might be the best choice for me, but I have a lingering feeling that the guy who came up with the "Rabbit" branding for what was to evolve into Orange is still stuck in a basement in Orange HQ somewhere, and has set up these tariff names as a futile call for help.
GiffGaff looks just about perfect for me, but again, they're on the O2 network.  If Orange, T-mobile or Three launched a GiffGaff clone, I'd be extremely interested.
It then occurs to me that it doesn't actually matter!  I've got a SIM-free phone coming, and I'm not under contract!  Apart from the fact that I'll have to make a decision eventually just to choose where to transfer my number, I can get the PAYG SIMs from all the networks and give them a go for a while.
I do make a pact with myself though:  whichever network gets me a micro-SIM sooner gets extra points.
Anyway, on the lead-up to June 24th, things still aren't clear:  the only network that's articulating stuff clearly is O2, and even they're being quite cagey.  Orange have changed their recorded message on the sales line to basically say "If you're calling about iPhone 4, sod off:  we don't know anything more than you do."  In fact, that might have been the exact wording, come to think of it.  Three's blog is still packed with "Coming Soon... honest!" style blogs.  I'm ignoring Vodafone though, as for some reason, I just can't quite cope with the idea of being a Vodafone customer.
What's absolutely shocking is that Apple managed to pre-sell 600,000 SIM-free iPhones in one day to the kind of people willing to lay down £600 on a product they haven't even seen yet, and yet the networks don't seem to be scrambling over each other to get a micro-SIM into these customers' hands!  I mean, if I were running this thing, I'd be lobbying Apple to include a free micro-SIM in every single iPhone box, just on the off-chance that some of these affluent customers would consider switching to my network!
Instead, there's no information; queries are met with silence, or unhelpful robotic responses; and there's no sign of micro-SIMs anywhere.  There's misinformation too:  some customers are allegedly told by Three, for example, that the iPhone 4 doesn't even use micro-SIMs.
Anyway, O2 being the only network to have their shit together to some extent, I figure I should at least get a micro-SIM before launch so my new iPhone 4 isn't an expensive (but shiny) paperweight.  I'm not happy with cutting my existing SIM down to size, as firstly, micro-SIMs aren't actually 100% the same as normal SIMs, as the newer micro-SIMs have some extra features; and secondly, because I want this done properly, damnit.
I contact O2 on the Friday before.  Micro-SIMs are apparently available to SIM-free iPhone orderers from the O2 shops on Monday, as long as they bring ID, confirmation, blah blah blah... still strange that they're not handed out like lollipops, considering we're talking about a £0.20 piece of plastic that represents at least a few hundred pounds of potential revenue.  Anyway, since the nearest O2 store is ten miles away, I ask O2 if one can be sent out.  Apparently not.  Oh well, one more nail in O2's coffin for me.
However, a few days later, on the Sunday before launch, I happen to be going to the Apple Store getting my MacBook Pro fixed, and I walk past the O2 store.  The sales guy says micro-SIMs won't be available until launch, at which point I show him the O2 website.  He pops into the back room to check and comes back with a micro-SIM.  Turns out, he was wrong and they're available from tomorrow, as the website said, but he'd save me a journey back there.  Nice!
So, I've now got a micro-SIM, albeit for the network I don't want to continue with.  Oh well, at least the paperweight scenario isn't going to happen.
Thursday.  Launch day.  My client starts queuing with his son at Bluewater at the crack of dawn.  As he wants an upgrade, he couldn't pre-order.  His son, however, did manage to reserve one at the Apple Store, but Dad missed the boat.  Anyway, his story is quite epic and includes what I believe is the first case of using a FourSquare Mayorship to bully a store manager.  That's another story though.
My phone arrives via UPS around lunchtime, and I instantly start acting like a kid.  O2 micro-SIM goes in, and all is well with the world.
However, I'm still on O2.  So next up is the task of getting the micro-SIMs.
Three update their website the next day, giving the ability to order free micro-SIMs (finally!), so an order goes in with my name on it.  Orange still have no clue.
The following week, the SIM arrives from Three.  It's a full-size SIM, even though the delivery note says "micro".  Oh well, after fighting Three's phone menu tree for about half-an-hour, I have a good bitch about it on their blog, and request a call back.  I wait... time passes.
I get the callback, and get passed to another department.  The guy claims that they're not offering micro-SIMs for PAYG, yet.  I tell him to check the website.  Hold.  Yes, apparently you CAN order them after all.  Order arranged; it'll be in the post.  Next day, I get a response from Three's blog moderators:  they want to help me get my micro-SIM.  I explain it's already happening, but I do point out that others have reported the same problem.  They investigate and find that a few full-size SIMs got sent out.  They'll rectify it tonight and send out new micro-SIMs to those affected.
At this point, I must comment on this turn of events.  The traditional customer service route was quite typical:  a nightmare finding the right person to talk to, followed by an awkward discussion trying to explain what I want, followed by a few minutes on hold, and finally a resolution that's adequate, but leaves me thinking others in the same boat have just decided not to bother.  The experience leaves me with a slightly lower opinion of Three.
In contrast, the social media approach worked a lot better:  although Three don't (yet) have a Twitter feed or a private contact page, their blog operators interceded and had a proper conversation with me.  I pointed out a wider issue, and they investigated it properly.  I'm content in knowing that not only was my problem solved (as far as I can tell at the moment), but the overall systemic problem has been fixed and other customers aided at the same time.  What was a problem has now been turned into an opportunity for Three to show that they can deal with problems competently.  The experience leaves me with a higher opinion of Three.
This goes to show that social media works.  The company gets better intelligence about their customers experiences, problems, and so forth; and the customers feel they're actually being listened to.  It's a win-win.
Anyway, still no possibility of a micro-SIM from Orange.  I called them:  they've not got any idea.
Hey, Orange:  every day you leave this is another day that I'm getting used to the idea of moving to Three permanently.  Right now, Three are winning.  Okay, my piddling little monthly spend is low at the moment, but back when I was in London, you were raking in ~£80/month from me. The return of that scenario is not out of the realm of possibility. I also get asked "which network?" by friends often enough to make sending me a micro-SIM worth at least 20p.  Meanwhile, Three have apparently improved their network significantly since I left them, and if it performs better than O2, then it's going to be Good Enough, and it's also likely to be cheaper.  Their tariffs also make more sense.  I want to buy mobile phone service, not adopt an animal.
So, it's been a week with iPhone 4... the phone is lovely, except for the well-documented antenna issues.  I'm still on O2, but I'm eager to make the call for my PAC code.  I'm expecting a micro-SIM from Three in the next day or so, at which point my O2 SIM will go back in my old Nokia 6680 for a few days to use as my normal phone while I try out the Three data service in the iPhone 4, and if by any slim chance Orange get their act together and give me a micro-SIM, I might even try their service too.
However, Three are currently winning in my little competition.  Let's see how they do.
On the matter of the antenna issue:  I'm right-handed, but apparently left-eared;  I seem to comprehend a conversation better when I'm using the phone in my left hand.  Also, with the phone in my left hand, I can use my dominant right hand to operate it.  Anyway, when I hold the iPhone naturally in my left hand, I get the dreaded signal degradation.  I personally believe that:

It might have something to do with the skin chemistry of the user, with capacitance, resistance, etc. being a function of the user's skin's pH, texture, suppleness, etc.
It sounds like a software fix (for the phone's baseband) might alleviate the issue by changing the criteria by which the phone switches frequency.  I can't wait to see.
The fact that Apple aren't giving out their bumpers for free to fix this fundamental design flaw is shocking.  With this issue, the iPhone is basically Not Fit For Purpose for some users, and for the cost of ~£0.50 of silicone rubber (notwithstanding the ~5000% of retail markup!) for what is basically an oversized LIVESTRONG bracelet, Apple are seriously pissing me off.
This is a good example of the unfortunate hubris of Apple.  I'm usually a huge fan of Apple and Jonathan Ive's designs, but I do believe that form should follow function, and the fact that the bumpers fix the problem show that if Apple had encased the antennas like normal, this would not have been an issue. Apple's a newcomer to mobile comms, and I think that the fact that we've never seen a bare-metal external antenna before is testament to the fact that it's a fairly crap idea.  Looks nice, but that's not good enough.
"Hold it differently"?  I'll hold it the way I've always held a phone, thankyouverymuch.  I wonder what reception would be like with my phone lodged firmly 'up' Steve Jobs.  It's a £600 uninsured gadget made of slippery, fragile glass that's not readily replaceable, so I'll be damned if I'm going to hold it daintily.
Don't talk to me about FaceTime. The keynote acted as if it was the first time we've ever had video calling on a mobile, but I first (and last!) used it in 2003.  Okay, FaceTime's much better quality, but it was (again) hubris to act like it was a new thing.  And it doesn't count unless it works over 3G.  Sorry.

Anyway, if you've read this far, thank you!  I should have edited this blog post down a bit, but once you get going, you know...
Oh, by the way, I typed all that on my iPad.  Fantastic device.  I never thought I'd actually like typing on a software keyboard this much.  I just wish they'd get around to releasing iOS 4 for it.
Actually, on that point:  why haven't any of the networks produced combined iPad/iPhone tariffs? One bill; two SIMs? For a start, both Orange and O2 have proper broadband operations and do try to crossbreed them with discounts given to customers who buy both mobile and home broadband from the same supplier. Why not the iPad too? Why not offer a £5/month Bolt-On package to add an iPad SIM to your existing iPhone tariff, using a shared (but increased) data usage allowance of, say, 1GB?
UPDATED (Friday 2 July 2010): As promised, I got a micro-SIM from Three this morning.  I actually got two: one replacement as a result of the callback I had with Three CS; and a second with a new number as a result of the corrections made yesterday with an enclosed letter apologising for the mess-up.  As I've already loaded up the original SIM with £10 of credit, I've used the replacement instead of the new one.
I've transferred my old O2 SIM to the Nokia (thankfully, I kept the original SIM-to-micro-SIM punchout surround) and have redirected calls to the new Three number temporarily.  There was an annoying "Call Forwarding Active" popup that appeared when I tried to make calls, but by syncing with iTunes and getting the updated carrier settings, that's now gone.
Sitting at my desk, I've got five pips of reception on both Three and O2.  Speed tests via the SpeedTest.Net iPhone app show download/upload/ping for O2 as ~1.5Mbps/~0.2Mbps/~400-9000ms; and for Three as ~2.2Mbps/~1.8Mbps/~200ms, so at first glance, it looks like Three's doing better.  That's just the result of one test, though.  Web browsing definitely feels a lot more responsive with Three than with O2.
The tariff is a little on the weak side, though:  calls are ~25p a minute, which means my £10 of credit which gives me 40 minutes of calls, and data is 150MB per top-up, expiring after 90 days.  So, I might be better off with their £15/month SIM-only 1 month rolling contract, rather than PAYG after all:  it gives 300 minutes and 1GB of internet a month.
Three have also just launched "The One Plan", a tariff that gives 2,000 minutes of calls and 1GB of internet for £25 a month SIM-free on a 12 month contract.  I don't want to be tied into any contract at the moment (as I'm clearly being fickle about networks right now), but I'd seriously consider it just for the 1GB alone.]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>4</slash:comments>
	
		<series:name><![CDATA[Leaving mobile phone company "X" for "Y"]]></series:name>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Leaving Three after a year-and-a-half for iPhone 3G</title>
		<link>http://gidden.net/tom/2008/07/10/leaving-three-after-a-year-and-a-half-for-iphone-3g/</link>
		<comments>http://gidden.net/tom/2008/07/10/leaving-three-after-a-year-and-a-half-for-iphone-3g/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:01:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Tom Gidden</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[apple]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[iphone]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mobile]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mobile-phones]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[O2]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[orange]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pac]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[phones]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[three]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://gidden.net/tom/?p=54</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Back in December 2006, I wrote a post about cancelling my decade-old Orange UK phone contract, in favour of Three.  Now I'm off again.  I finally gave into the lure of iPhone.  As a Mac (power?) user for eight years, and owner (and destroyer) of many of their products, the absence of iPhone in my life is fairly conspicuous.  I always swore that I wouldn't buy the iPhone 2G, though.

On the other hand, I swore I wouldn't buy any iPhone while it was still tied to O2.  I don't like the fact that Apple don't offer an unlocked iPhone, but it looks like it's going to stay that way for the foreseeable future.  I guess my ideal vision would be an Apple MVNO, although I bet tariffs would be sky-high for that, but the paper the bills were printed on would be very crisp (and probably laser-etched aluminium sheets)
The iPhone 3G launch has coincided with the end of the half-price tariff offer I had at Three:  it was basically £15/month for 18 months for 300 minutes of calls.  A month or two ago, it upped to £30, and I had to decide whether to renew or to take the opportunity to switch to iPhone.
My reason for leaving Orange was mainly the fact that I wasn't feeling the love anymore, and I felt my tariff was far too high.  I'm a fairly light mobile user, and sometimes I think I might be better of with a PAYG.
My experience with Three has been fairly good.  Coverage hasn't been quite as good as Orange, but good enough for my purposes.  I've had a couple of dropped calls, and the battery life has been terrible.  I'm fairly sure this is due to the fact that Three is 3G only, and the Nokia 6280 I had really wasn't too good at 3G power consumption.  At least with Orange, I kept it switched to 2G most of the time.
I've never liked the look of O2, and the mess they've made of this launch doesn't fill me with confidence.  The starting tariff for iPhone is double the price that I could otherwise get on Three for a lot more minutes, and I'm not really a fan of smartphones anyway.  I think I might be able to have some fun coding that thing, though.  I've got a history of writing games for web and Palm, and some experience with writing for OS X, I'd be dumb not to have a go with the iPhone.
So, I think my new tariff is going to be the iPhone £30/month one.  It's a reduction to 75 minutes a month, although looking at my past few Three bills, I've only been hitting about 50 minutes a month maximum, so there shouldn't be a problem.  I'm not sure how much I'll use data, but when it comes down to it, £15 extra for 18 months is actually only £300, which I should be able to make back with iPhone-related work.
Decision made.  Unfortunately, getting an iPhone 3G seems not as easy as everyone hoped.  In particular, I have a client who's spitting nails that he's unlikely to get an upgrade to his launch-day iPhone 2G tomorrow morning.  O2 and Apple have monged this launch up pretty badly.  I mean, anyone with any sense will see that the second-most-anticipated mobile phone launch ever (after the iPhone 2G, that is) would be popular.  Secondly, a simultaneous launch in 24 countries?  Free upgrades for existing users?  How could this not end up a fiasco?
I can understand if they can't actually make the damn things quick enough.  However, why no proper pre-order system?  My MacBook Pro took almost a month to arrive after I ordered it, and while I watched the package tracking widget like a hawk for that whole month, at least I knew it was on its way.  O2, on the other hand, say "whilst we are confident that all customers who want iPhone 3G will get one by the end of this summer, initial supply is limited and will be for some weeks.", and then expect you to just check back every so often to see if they've got their shit together yet.
My client spent a lot of this morning on the phone to O2 and Apple Retail.  They're giving conflicting answers on upgrades, with Apple Regent Street almost denying anything's happening tomorrow, while Apple Bluewater are quite happy to talk.  O2 don't seem to have a clue when anyone's going to get a phone.  Meanwhile, I'm not going to trek 10 miles into Bristol at 8.02am just to be told that they don't have any.
So, off to the Carphone Warehouse's website, hoping that they actually might have their act sorted better than O2 and Apple.  Looks like they have them in stock for delivery tomorrow morning.  Fine.
Back to Three for the PAC code, then.  Dial 333 for customer services.  I talked for 20 minutes to a nice chap in India, who called me Mister Jidden, and tried to convince me that the Nokia N95 8-gee-bee is a better phone than the iPhone.  It has a five-gee-pixel camera compared to the iPhone's two-gee-pixel camera, and it comes with a FREE two-five-six-emm-bee memory card!  (I think he's reading from a script here)
Anyway, apparently, the lack of a replaceable battery is the main reason I shouldn't buy an iPhone, according to them.
I explained that I specifically need an iPhone to write software for, and Symbian on the N95 just doesn't cut it.  Would I like to keep the Three contract as a "spare"?   No.   They could offer me a new tariff for £15/month, and it's special!  300 minutes a month, and free voicemail!  ...but that's the same as my current tariff was up until they doubled the price a month ago.
Thanks, but no thanks.  I need an iPhone.
"Well, Mister Jidden, no problem.  You're one of our most special "elite customers", and I can give you an extra offer:  I can reduce that tariff to £12!"
It's not an iPhone though.
How about if someone else in my family wants to take the same offer?  My parents spend about £1.50 on their phones each month, thanks to the Orange Value Promise price-matching Virgin Mobile years ago, so No.
I couldn't really stop the guy... he was on a roll with his script, and I didn't mind letting him go through it.  I needed the PAC number, and the guy was nicer and making more of an effort than Orange did back in 2006.
Got the code by SMS a couple of minutes afterwards, and plugged it into the Carphone Warehouse website.  A short credit check later, and I get a text saying it'll be delivered on my delivery date... tomorrow, presumably.
Oh well.  In conclusion, Three's okay.  I'd actually go as far as to recommend them to others. They're certainly cheaper than Orange and from what I can tell, the other networks too.  I'd be happy to stay with them, especially since my piddlingly small tariff seems to qualify me as "elite", but they don't do iPhones, unfortunately.
I just figured out why I might be "elite", other than spending most of my pre-teen years playing 3D space games on the BBC Micro... I did a couple of "Refer a Friend"s to Three, earning £30 (two months' tariff!) each time.  Either that, or everyone's elite if they're buying an iPhone.]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>3</slash:comments>
	
		<series:name><![CDATA[Leaving mobile phone company "X" for "Y"]]></series:name>
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		<item>
		<title>...and joining Three</title>
		<link>http://gidden.net/tom/2006/12/04/joining-three/</link>
		<comments>http://gidden.net/tom/2006/12/04/joining-three/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 04 Dec 2006 12:58:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Tom Gidden</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[3mail]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[6280]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[6680]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cellular]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mobile]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mobile-phone]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mobile-phones]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[My-3]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nokia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[orange]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Planet-3]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[three]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[uk_telecom]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://gidden.net/tom/2006/12/04/joining-three/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[As noted in my previous posts on the subject, I changed mobile phone providers at the end of last week.  On Saturday, a day after I ordered it, I received my new phone from Three.  It's a refurbished Nokia 6280, and the tariff ain't too shabby.

However, I just noticed that they changed the tariff deal between my finding the deal and actually signing up for it... When I originally noticed it, the deal included double talk and texts for 6 months, meaning I'd have 600 minutes and 2000 texts for a third of the contract.  Now it seems I actually only got 300 minutes.  This is my own fault for not signing up on Thursday when I saw the offer, and not checking the deal in detail when I finally signed up.  I knew that Three was changing their deals (and launching X-Series) on Friday.  I decided to gamble.  Fortunately, the basic deal was kept in place, and it's still easily worth my while.  I'm not particularly upset about losing half my minutes, as according to Orange I only use about 45 minutes a month anyway.
Anyway, I've had it for a couple of days now, and while I haven't really put it through its paces, I think it's worth writing up my first impressions, albeit in a haphazard manner.
The phone itself is fairly non-descript.  It's a very good refurb, as new, with no obvious scratches or defects.  It's a slidey phone, which I'm always slightly suspicious of, and in this case, I think it's well-founded.  The action seems like it should be pleasant.  Unfortunately, there's a certain looseness that's particularly evident when pressing the soft-buttons.  They creak.  The whole phone wobbles.  It's not right.  I'm not sure whether this is the fact that it's refurbished, or whether they all do that.  Anyway, build quality: 2/5.
I've heard that the reason Three's offering these refurbs is because they recalled so many of them due to bad firmware, and they've got truckloads to get rid of.  Right now, this doesn't actually surprise me.
The software is, on the face of it, not too bad.  It's a lot snappier than the supposedly advanced "Series 60" interface on the 6680.  My major criticism of my previous phone was the sluggish reactions of the interface and OS.  It usually felt like I was running Microsoft Windows.
On the other hand, there are a few odd quirks about the 6280's software.  Nothing I can really place my finger on, but it just feels a bit unfinished at times.  I do wish Nokia would get someone smart in to rethink the whole interface.  Historically, the old monochrome dumb phones they made always had the neatest interfaces.  Nowadays, it's all kludgeware, with silly menus on top of menus.
There are two features/flaws/bugs I've found that annoy me slightly.
The first is the fact that you can't record new voice tags, or indeed remove them altogether.  Instead of the traditional mechanism whereby you record your own tags, the Nokia 6280 does it for you with a particularly robotic speech synthesiser.  Mimicking the robotic voice feels really humiliating, and it doesn't seem to get the right ones anyway.  I'd prefer to record tags for just the people I call often enough to make it worthwhile.  Saying that, I never use voice tags anyway, so I'd be happier removing them altogether.
The second it the incredibly annoying "Note: Active Incoming Call Diverts" message that appears for a second every time I make a call.  This happens even when I've cancelled all my diverts, either manually or by using ##02#.  From what I can tell, it's network dependent and fairly normal on other networks.  It's never happened to me on Orange, though.  It's a pointless distracting message that prevents me from seeing the status of the call just when I need to.  It's also astonishingly cryptic.  What does it actually mean?
Regardless, I could probably live with this software, as long as I treat this just like a phone, rather than the all-singing-all-dancing lifestyle device it's meant to be.  As I understand it, there's a new firmware out (5.92, compared to the current 3.81), but I don't expect Three will spend any more time on this lemon of a phone and authorise the new firmware.  If I'm feeling lucky (punk), I might try flashing it myself at one point.
MSN Messenger:  this was the fun toy that attracted me to this deal.  Unfortunately, the software sucks.  Since the 6280 doesn't multitask, Messenger needs to be running full-screen to work properly.  When you "hide" it to go back to normal phone functions, or to lock the keypad, it effectively shuts down, and instead Three act as a proxy.  Incoming messages are then sent as SMS texts, albeit with a single click to start MSN Messenger.  Problem is, Messenger takes a good ten seconds to start.  Worst thing is that more often than not, the incoming message then doesn't actually appear!  A few times I've had to message whoever I know who's online to ask them if they just sent me something.  Bottom line is that, to me, this is unusable as-is.
Anyway, to solve this and other problems, I've asked Orange to unlock my old Nokia 6680 for the bargain price of £20.  As the 6680 is a BB5 phone, a normal third-party unlock won't work.  See comment #1 for more details.
While I'm not particularly thrilled with the 6680, it's going to be my spare in lieu of paying £5/month for insurance I'm unlikely to use.  And, if it works well, I'll probably use it as my primary phone.  Since I flashed it last month with the generic Nokia firmware, it's a bit more stable and a bit snappier than the old, bloated Orange firmware.  Since it's Series 60, I'm also hoping there's a good multitasking MSN client that I can use on Three.
This brings up another idea: if they'd offered it and it was cheap enough, I would have been happy to go with a phoneless tariff.  Since a lot of new customers have existing phones, maybe the networks should offer a cheap tariff and a bill credit equal to the unlocking cost charged by the old network.  That way, they wouldn't need to subsidise the cost of the phone.
Anyway, onto the Three service itself.
One thing I wasn't particularly impressed by was the new customer pack.  After reading the pamphlet, I wasn't much more informed than when I started.  I wasn't sure whether I paid for voicemail calls, how much insurance would be if I wanted it, whether "3Mail" will cost me money or not, how to call Customer Services, etc.  I've found these answers now, but there wasn't *quite* as much handholding as I'd like.
The "My 3" site is basic, but functional.  The most useful feature is an up-to-date "Check my Usage" section, which will be very handy over the next few months as I get a grip on what costs what.  One useful improvement would be up-to-date itemisation.  I'd like to see instantly how much a call costs me.
"Planet 3":  this looks fairly neat on the face of it, although not much different from Vodafone Live! and Orange World.  However, just like Orange World, I'm unlikely to use this service that much.  The only thing I ever really used that kind of thing for was checking the odd phone number, train times, or directions to somewhere when lost in London.  Even with the £5 of included downloads I get on my new tariff, I don't think I'll find anything I particularly want.  The free news and weather videos look neat, though.
It's nice that they're clear about the pricing all through the site: browsing is free, and you're told about the costs of items before you actually buy them.  Okay, that pretty much describes any real-world shop, but it's not obvious on the other networks:  I was never sure how much stuff cost me on Orange, and with the inclusive bundles, it was hard to figure out afterwards.  I'm also convinced that seeing the prices would make me more likely to buy something.  With Orange, I was always afraid of being surprised by a massive bill if I used any of these kinds of features.  With Three, I know up front, and I'm more comfortable spending that money.
"3Mail":  I'm still not exactly sure how much I'd pay for this if I used it. I don't think I ever actually used "gid@orange.net" other than for testing, and I'm not sure I'll use 3Mail either.  It is nice to see that there's a level of integration between the voicemail system and the email system, with voicemails being stored in my inbox as WAV files.  Neat.  Obvious, but neat.  In fact, I think I saw something similar on my sister's cellular service in the States a couple of years ago.
They seem to offer a bunch of different email options... 3Mail, Mobile Mail, Office Mail, etc.  No idea what does what and for how much.  While push email (a la Blackberry) sounds cool, I'm not sure I'd use it that much even if it was free, no matter how addictive it's meant to be.
Overall, the Three service looks a little complicated overall, with a lot of confusing and potentially overlapping product names, and they could probably be rationalised a bit.  I'm sure it'll become clear before too long, though.]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
	
		<series:name><![CDATA[Leaving mobile phone company "X" for "Y"]]></series:name>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Still leaving Orange...</title>
		<link>http://gidden.net/tom/2006/12/04/still-leaving-orange/</link>
		<comments>http://gidden.net/tom/2006/12/04/still-leaving-orange/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 04 Dec 2006 11:51:12 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Tom Gidden</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[07973100194]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cellular]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[customer-services]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mobile]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mobile-phone]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mobile-phones]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[orange]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[three]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[uk_telecom]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://gidden.net/tom/2006/12/04/still-leaving-orange/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Continuing on from my previous post about leaving Orange... I got a call from Orange Customer Relations (07973100194) this morning about the PAC code I ordered on Saturday. The woman calling was very nice and polite, was calling to get me back as I am a "high valued customer".  Once I explained why I was leaving, she got the point that I had made up my mind, and instead asked if I could elucidate so she could pass on my comments as constructive criticism.  We had a long and pleasant chat.

I basically told her all the points in my original post, gave her all the information she needed about the new tariff on Three, and explained what I thought Orange needed to do to become really competitive again.  She didn't argue my assumption that they weren't going to be able to give me a deal as good as the one Three have given me (ten times the minutes for half the price).
In fact, she mentioned that she hadn't heard about the offer I got from Three, and that it was only through conversations like this that Orange really got an idea of what's out there and popular.  Glad to be of help.  (Incidentally, it's this one.)
She was interested that they'd given me a refurbished handset, and I explained that that might be a way of reducing the tariff cost: perhaps even offering an ultra-cheap no-handset tariff, for those with existing phones and those with knowledge of eBay!
She brought up an interesting point when I mentioned that Three's 2G service was going to be moved from O2 to Orange, therefore giving me the coverage I'm used to. She said that I should be careful with that because Orange wasn't going to give them full UK coverage.  I'm not sure exactly what she meant by that, but interesting to know all the same.  We also talked about Three's heritage and how one of their directors was ex-Orange.
My final point was about how I felt that Orange had lost their innovative lead, and that to get me back would require them to start being smart again, rather than being just another network.  Giving their customers features and offers because they should, not just because they *need* to.  I explained that Three was trying a lot harder than Orange seemed to be and that if they got that feeling back, I'd be happy to return to Orange once my new contract expired.
Anyway, I was happy to have this conversation, as I'm always happy to give companies any feedback they need to improve their service.  The woman calling was very pleasant and polite, and incredibly well-trained and informed.  It wasn't the hard sell that I got on Friday morning, which as I said before didn't exactly endear me to the idea of staying with them.
It's a shame I had to leave before they decided to take on my feedback, though.  Orange used to be very big on loyalty.  Nowadays, you've got to leave (or threaten to leave) to get a good deal out of them.  Of course, preferential treatment to new customers makes sense on the balance sheet, but real common-sense says to keep existing customers happy to prevent churn.]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>-2</slash:comments>
	
		<series:name><![CDATA[Leaving mobile phone company "X" for "Y"]]></series:name>
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		<item>
		<title>Leaving Orange after ten years</title>
		<link>http://gidden.net/tom/2006/12/01/leaving-orange/</link>
		<comments>http://gidden.net/tom/2006/12/01/leaving-orange/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 01 Dec 2006 11:46:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Tom Gidden</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[6280]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cellnet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cellular]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[customer-services]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gsm]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mobile]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mobile-phone]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mobile-phones]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nokia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[orange]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rant]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[three]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[vodafone]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[x-series]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://gidden.net/tom/2006/12/01/leaving-orange/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I just called Orange customer relations to request my PAC code after finally deciding to move to "3" or Three as I'll call them from now.  I've been a contract customer with Orange for just over ten years, and I'm just no longer feeling the love.

Orange started off as an innovative company, seemingly unaffected by the failure of the related "Rabbit" CT2 enterprise.  Unlike Cellnet and Vodafone, the more conservative established alternatives at the time, Orange offered a whole slew of innovative features such as Line 2, free voicemail, free Call Waiting, free itemised billing, free insurance, free 0800 calls, inclusive minutes bundles, and most of all: lower prices, even on international calls.
To achieve these features, they worked closely with Nokia.  If I remember correctly, Orange were the ones responsible for getting features like Line 2 and voicemail signalling into the standards.  Rather than just selling a premade product, they wanted to create new and innovative ways of using a mobile phone.
Orange Care was the real killer app for me, though.  I remember trashing my phone on several occasions and getting a free replacement very quickly: once I got a replacement 7110 delivered to me at work two hours after I'd accidentally dropped the old one in the (clean and pine-scented) toilet.  No charge.  This service apparently was the cause of the delayed releases of new handsets, as Orange sent new models back to the drawing board when they didn't live up to the QA standards necessary for the insurance scheme.
This was the old Orange.  This was before Hans Snook left.  This was before Pay-As-You-Go.  This was before they got bought out.
Since then, Orange have seemed to stop innovating, both from a technical and a business perspective.  Customer service quality has plummeted.  It used to take about two rings to get through to a very well-trained CS rep, who would quickly put you through to 3rd Line support if it was clear that you knew what you were talking about. Nowadays it sometimes takes ages just to get through to someone with a script in front of them, and they seemed to be well trained at saying "No", and "We don't offer that", and other disappointing responses.
Orange Care is now £6 a month extra, and includes a whole bunch of exclusions and a rather hefty excess.  In other words, it's the same as everyone else's network.  I haven't actually used Orange Care in about five or six years, but it's something I've paid for diligently anyway, for the peace-of-mind.  I could have bought about five new phones on the money I've spent on Orange Care.
The final straw was a fairly trivial note I just noticed at the bottom of last month's Orange bill:  "...We will be charging £1.50 for itemised billing."  Now, I don't actually care *that* much, as I rarely read my phone bill anyway, but I remember one of those little things that made Orange better than Cellnet and Vodafone was their free itemised billing.  It's the principle.  Yet another sign that they've regressed.
The offers given to new customers are a hell of a lot better than those available to old, loyal customers, but even those offers are far too expensive for what you get. Back when I joined, you got everything for £15 a month.  That's on a 12 month contract, with a free decent phone included.  Now I'm paying almost £30 for pretty much the same deal: 60 minutes of talk time and 30 texts.  I've been paying them anywhere from about £20 to £100 a month for ten years, and usually overpaying them if anything.  I'm only using an average of 42 minutes a month, but they can't offer me a cheaper tariff.
So, here comes Three.  Dumb name, and one that makes it difficult to Google, but their attitude seems strangely familiar.
Looking a bit deeper, I find out that Three's full name is "Hutchison 3G UK Limited".  Not too different from the "Hutchison Telecommunications UK Limited" that launched Orange back in 1994.  Back then, "Orange" was a pretty odd name for a mobile phone network, just as Three is an odd name now.  Back then, Orange were the only ones risking running on a solely 2G phone network, while Cellnet and Vodafone's relied on 1G.  Not too dissimilar from Three rolling out a 3G network so quickly, and handing off the 2G fallback to O2 (and soon to Orange, fortunately).
In so many ways, Three reminds me of what Orange used to be.
Three is the new Orange.
And today, they've launched "X-Series"... flat-fee mobile broadband with free Skype-to-Skype calls.  £5 a month.  This thing could kickstart the stagnant mobile internet market.  It's the kind of industry-wrenching, business-plan-defying fantastic lunacy we used to expect from Orange.  Exactly the kind of thing that makes their less insightful competitors poo-pooh it, and their more insightful competitors poo-poo themselves.  It's what the consumers want, and it's going to happen.  Everyone else is on catch-up now.
Considering the way I currently use my mobile, I'm not going to go for "X-Series" for now.  I can't justify the expense considering how much I actually use my mobile, and I also don't want the Nokia N73 I'd have to use to get it:  I'm sick of "smartphones", which I think are more suitably named "slow-and-crashy-phones".  I've been using a Nokia 6680 for about a year, and it's just slow and crap.  My friend Steve has an N70, which is similarly slow and crap.  I had a 7650 before then, as a result of the Orange video trial I participated in, and it's just slow and crap.  I wouldn't mind having a Blackberry or something like that, but right now, I'd just be happier with a small phone that works well, as long as it's got Bluetooth.  I could even do without a camera.
Anyway, as far as I can tell, Orange are just yet another network now.  Very full of themselves, knowing full well they've got market share, and they just do not care about customer churn.  They know they've got a good network, so why try harder?  France Telecom seems content to just sit on the cash-cow.  After talking to Orange CR for a few minutes to get my PAC code, I don't think they (or their computer) cares if I leave or not.  If anything, the girl on the phone just got slightly snippy and argumentative with me, before giving up.
So, I've signed up to Three.  £15 a month for 18 months, and then up to £30 a month, although I'll probably renegotiate at that point and perhaps move somewhere else.  I get a Nokia 6280 refurb, which should do the trick.  It's got iSync compatibility, and it's not a "smartphone", so it has a chance of actually working smoothly.  I'll get 600 minutes a month for six months and then 300 minutes after that.  2000 texts a month for six months, and then down to 1000 texts, which is still about 30 times what I actually need.  It also includes MSN Messenger "free for life", which could be fun.
On paper, this looks like the right move.  I have no idea it'll actually play out, but I must say I can't wait for my new phone to arrive tomorrow(!)
I'm going to transfer my number over to Three, but I'll get an Orange PAYG SIM just for fun (and for Orange Wednesdays), and I'll probably get my phone unlocked so I've got a spare.  Otherwise, I'm no longer a loyal Orange customer.
Sort it out, Orange.  You suck.  I'm Three's bitch now.
Three, please don't disappoint me now.]]></description>
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