Problem with Orange coverage and contract issue

benjitheman

Hello, I hope someone can help before I go nuts!

I have been with Orange for the past 5 or 6 years, my current contract is a 24 month, iPhone 3gs contract which began in January 2010. I had no issues with the contract or the coverage I received until around November 2010.

I moved to a different part of the country in October and initially everything was fine. However, in November, the odd text message would take hours to come through, the odd phone call would drop out, nothing major at first, I ignored it and thought no more of it. Around February time, this issue became more and more common, on average each call I tried to make would take 2 or 3 attempts before it connected, text messages would come through in "clumps" sometimes hours after they were sent to me and texts I tried to send would fail. In early March I first contacted Orange and explained the situation, I also mentioned that I hardly ever received a 3g signal, I was told this is because I live in a signal "black hole" for 3g, however my 2g signal should be strong. I went through some tests on the phone, lasting around 40 minutes, I turned off my 3g signal, reset network settings, entered various codes at the request of the support team, tried test calls and texts and in the end, they told me that my area is covered by 10 signalling masts, 8 of which were down, meaning the coverage was harder to come by due to the congestion. I was told it'd be fixed in the next couple of weeks and my coverage would improve. I was quite happy with this advice and decided to wait it out. My phone has never lost its signal, I always have a fairly strong signal (never below 3 bars, but never 3g).

The 2 weeks past and still I was experiencing the same problems, I called the support team again and went through the same help suggestions before the same message was told to me about the signalling masts, I explained that I wasn't happy as I am paying a lot of money for a service that I don't believe I am being provided, however, agreed to wait for the masts to be repaired.

To cut a long story short(er)*, I am still having these issues and have since made a further 7 phonecalls to the iPhone support team, totalling in over 4 hours of them trying to offer various steps to improve my service, all to no avail. I even took a day off work to wait for a replacement simcard that never arrived, I have since received it and this has not helped either. I have now become so frustrated that I just want out of the contract as I have lost all trust in them being able to provide me the service that I am paying for. A manager called me back a month ago and told me he'd be happy to give me a discount on my bill and explained again the problems with the signalling masts in my area being down or eroded I think the term was they used. I appreciate the reasons why I am not receiving the service I should be, but it has been a long time of me paying £40 a month for a phone that I no longer trust. I have now had to go out and purchase another PAYG phone to ensure that I am contactable by my pregnant wife should she need me. Incidently, my wife was on PAYG with Orange and experienced exactly the same issues and has since left them for Tesco Mobile and had no issues since.

This is not an issue of just wanting to leave a mobile phone contract due to it costing too much etc. To be perfectly honest, I am happy with the terms of the contract and could do without the hassle of trying to find a new one (lazy I know), I just don't appreciate that I am not received a service I believe I am entitled to.

I have done some research through consumer direct and I think I am entitled to complain to CISAS due to my complaint being over 8 weeks old. The last time I spoke to a manager at Orange, I was told to wait 30 days and call back, the 30 days is up tomorrow and I am going to tell them I am going to pursue a complaint with CISAS should I not be offered a suitable solution tomorrow.

Could anyone offer me any advice on what I may be entitled to, what I should be aiming to receive and just any advice in general on anything else I can do. As I said previously, please do not think this is a case of someone just wanting to get out of a phone contract they do not want to be in anymore, it's a case of someone not trusting their coverage and being unhappy at having to pay £40 a month for a device that is only good for playing Angry Birds!

Many thanks for reading.

*Not strictly short...!

gjchester

benjitheman wrote: »

I moved to a different part of the country in October and initially everything was fine. However, in November, the odd text message would take hours to come through, the odd phone call would drop out, nothing major at first, I ignored it and thought no more of it.

Could anyone offer me any advice on what I may be entitled to, what I should be aiming to receive and just any advice in general on anything else I can do.

First you chose to move, so Orange can't be held responsible if you move to a poor signal area, however as it worked to start with then went bad that probably isn't relelvent.

Text messaging has never had a time element to it, they are delivered when there is capacity, usually they are near instant but if they take days theres no case to answer. Think new years Eve, everyone texts people and they get delayed, just the way the system works.

Since the Orange/Tmobile merger they have been turning off masts where they believe they have duplication. Tesco use 02 hence why there are no problems.

All you can do is ask to be released, but theres no rights for you to do so. In the end your contract states that the phone is a radio device and coverage cannot be guaranteed everywhere, and that there will be times when the system is unavailable due to no radio coverage or maintainance reasons, but to go on for this long is a bit excessive. Orange will have masts fail, and they may need a while to repair them, but your best answer may be to search for the email for the Orange Executive office on here and email them. Some people have reported they have been released from contracts others have been told they can't be.

You can also use Ofcoms SiteFinder to locate what masts are near you, 10 masts near you seems high.

Ultimatly this is going to be more common whist many people thought the merger would mean better coverage for O/TM custoimers not many peoiple though of the downside that long term masts would be decommisioned where there is duplication. There will be some spare capacity in most masts but probably not enough to cover everyone.

donnap83

I had the same problem. I've been with Orange for about 6 years, with no problems, then in November i started having trouble making/recieving calls, and text messages weren't being sent/recieved. It stedily got worse, it would take anything up to 10 attepmts to call out. I rang Orange numerous times, firstly I was fobbed off saying it was something I must be doing, or it was the handset.
After some major complaining I was eventually told that there were 4 masts in the area, but only one was working, so everyone was using the one mast, hence the problems (this was before T-mobile) They gave me the dates of when the masts would each become operational, so I left it to see what happened. The service slowly improved after Xmas/new year.

Fast forward to the start of April. Phone no longer works. Again.
I only had 3 months left so I called up and cancelled the remainder of my contract. Even that was a battle.

On 3 now, and the signal is great. Rung up a couple of times to sort out the PAC code and to change the date of my Direct debit and spoke to an English person. No complaints yet. Fingers crossed!!

benjitheman

gjchester wrote: »

First you chose to move, so Orange can't be held responsible if you move to a poor signal area, however as it worked to start with then went bad that probably isn't relelvent.

Text messaging has never had a time element to it, they are delivered when there is capacity, usually they are near instant but if they take days theres no case to answer. Think new years Eve, everyone texts people and they get delayed, just the way the system works.

Since the Orange/Tmobile merger they have been turning off masts where they believe they have duplication. Tesco use 02 hence why there are no problems.

All you can do is ask to be released, but theres no rights for you to do so. In the end your contract states that the phone is a radio device and coverage cannot be guaranteed everywhere, and that there will be times when the system is unavailable due to no radio coverage or maintainance reasons, but to go on for this long is a bit excessive. Orange will have masts fail, and they may need a while to repair them, but your best answer may be to search for the email for the Orange Executive office on here and email them. Some people have reported they have been released from contracts others have been told they can't be.

You can also use Ofcoms SiteFinder to locate what masts are near you, 10 masts near you seems high.

Ultimatly this is going to be more common whist many people thought the merger would mean better coverage for O/TM custoimers not many peoiple though of the downside that long term masts would be decommisioned where there is duplication. There will be some spare capacity in most masts but probably not enough to cover everyone.

Thanks for your reply. I appreciate that Orange cannot be held responsible for me moving, however, I came here every weeked for a year beforehand and the signal was no issue, and like you say, for it to start OK and then change tells me it's nothing to do with the area having poor signal.

I have just spoken to them again as I have been having problems for the past 2 days - calls not reaching me, texts not coming through, same old. The operator I spoke to has told me he is to take ownership of the situation, told me it's nothing to do with signalling masts and must be my phone, he has now told me to do a full factory reset of my phone and he'll call me back tomorrow to discuss it further. I'm happy to follow his advice if it'll help, but I find it frustrating that the story has now changed, and to something that donnap83 also experienced by the sounds of things.

Thank you for the advice re: the Orange executive, I think I'll send an email and see what happens from there as I am not happy with the support and or service.

drbesty

Do you only have problems with the phone in this one area? If so that points to the network and not the phone as the cause of the problem, if the phone works elsewhere then it works, reseting it wont make any difference.