Orange iPhone tethering roaming charges

NFH

Ever since Orange launched data roaming in 2002, I've many times tethered my laptop via my Orange phone when roaming, and the charges have often been reimbursed by a third party for various reasons. I like to have this facility if only for emergencies, so I asked Orange to activate the Personal Hotspot function in my iPhone in order to use it when roaming. They were initially confused about how to do this without charging me for an unwanted UK tethering bundle, but after escalating to second line support they eventually found a way. They also warned me that the charges would be £8/MB, even within Orange zone 1. I queried this, as in the past I've been charged the normal £3/MB when tethering in France with a non-iPhone (although obviously non-iPhones use the same APN for tethering and non-tethering).

My questions are:

• What is the true charge per MB for iPhone tethering when roaming in Europe zone 1?
• Does iPhone tethering come out of any active roaming data bundles? For example, I have the £3 per 30MB per day mobile internet travel bundle.

If nobody can point me to a link on the Orange web site that answers these questions, please could the Orange Company Representative clarify?

NFH

Thanks Steve (from Orange) for replying via Twitter. I now understand that despite tethering roaming working fine with non-iPhones, it is not supported by Orange with the iPhone. I assume that Orange's tethering APN doesn't work when roaming. If for any reason it does work, will I be charged as if it was non-tethering data used by the iPhone itself, and consequently use any data roaming bundles that may be active on my account?

NFH

I have some good news and some bad news on this.

The good news is that when I used the £3/30MB data roaming bundle, all tethering usage was taken out of this bundle together with the data used by the iPhone itself. I have now received my bill which confirms this clearly because "Mobile broadband" (tethering data) is shown against various foreign networks with a zero charge, and "Mobile internet" (non-tethering data) appears against foreign networks with a £2.50+VAT charge for the £3/day bundle.

The bad news is that I later discovered that to enable me for tethering without a UK bundle (which I didn't need or want), Orange gave me a trial UK tethering bundle for one month. During a second trip, I received a SIM update at midnight at the end of this trial month to disable it. As well as waking me up unnecessarily, this disabled all data on my phone for half a day in addition to the intended disabling of tethering. This was extremely inconvenient, as I needed the data for business purposes, and I am asking Orange to compensate me for their blunder. Furthermore, Orange are now telling me that unless I take a chargeable UK tethering bundle, I will be unable to use tethering when roaming. I don't want to use tethering in the UK, so it's ridiculous that I should be expected to buy a bundle that I don't need. I'm happy to pay the £3/30MB bundle for tethering, but not for an unnecessary and unwanted UK tethering bundle.