Apple on Orange...feeling like a lemon

Financially_Backwards

Greetings,

I am unable to get any signal on my iPhone 4 on Orange since I moved house to Warwickshire. I lived in one village where there was no signal, before moving 10 miles away and had no signal there. Halfway between is where I work, also with no signal. This is both with TMobile and Orange coverage, the most I get is 1 bar for 30 seconds at a time before it goes again. This is also both 2G and 3G and the issue didn't happen when I lived in Loughborough or went to visit relatives in Sheffield.

So the obvious question now, is there a way out of the contract? I am stuck for 12 more months of a 24 month contract. Orange rate their coverage as "moderate" on their website for the Warwickshire region in general but it definitely isn't. This is literally destroying the way I live - I no longer talk to relatives often, work are !!!!ed off that they can never get hold of me and I miss a lot of important calls. I takes 5 attempts to send any text message and I have to walk 1 mile out of town to make a call! Orange have been woeful, telling me to reset my phone to factory settings, forcing me to put os 5.0 on which RUINED my battery life (and cant be downgraded, thanks Apple!) and even told me I had to turn Wi Fi off so the phone didn't "get all confused as to where it was and what its doing".

Any help will do, I suffer from depression so my phone is a lifeline and a window to talk to friends for me.

pitkin2020

I doubt you could get out of the contract TBH as they usually have it sewn up pretty tight on such issues but maybe someone else knows something different.

The other option would be to sell the phone and use that to pay the contract off, see if you can downgrade the monthly package first though. Then switch to a proper service provider that can actually offer a decent level of coverage outside of a major city.

NFH

I'm beginning to think that Orange and T-Mobile will never match the coverage of Vodafone and O2. The lower the frequency, the better the signal penetrates buildings, particularly over longer distances such as in rural areas.

2G operates on 900MHz and 1800MHz (or 1900MHz in the US)
3G operates on 2100MHz.

Vodafone and O2 use 900, 1800 and 2100.
Orange and T-Mobile use only 1800 and 2100.
3 uses only 2100.

Therefore it seems quite obvious that Everything Everywhere will never have as good coverage as Vodafone and O2. If I switch from Orange, I'll go to Vodafone, for this reason and also because they don't rip off on data roaming as much as the other networks do.

grumbler

Any other people with other phones on Orange/T-mobile nearby? Have you tried other phones?

sdduk

Just like to say were i live Orange/T-Mobile and 3 are the best signal
O2 and Voda are really bad its all down to were there masks are if you are over a mile away from a mask then you will get bad signal
Were my daughter lives which is about 2-3 mile from me she can only get 3.

flyingscotno1

NFH wrote: »

Therefore it seems quite obvious that Everything Everywhere will never have as good coverage as Vodafone and O2. If I switch from Orange, I'll go to Vodafone, for this reason and also because they don't rip off on data roaming as much as the other networks do.

To be honest, I've seen areas with poor Vodafone coverage in cities. It happens to all networks and I've been with both Orange and T-Mobile and now on Vodafone I can't say one was better than the other. However indeed in terms of 3G around Glasgow Vodafone are woefully behind T-Mobile.

daleski75

good luck in trying to leave orange they might give you a deal on an early termination fee because you get zero coverage.

o2 and vodafone for me are good in some areas and vice versa t-mobile and orange are better in others and in my opinion there is not 1 good network in the uk and each have their pluses and minuses for coverage.

i would not agree that if o2 or vodafone use the 900mhz band that gives them instantly better coverage where I work at MK I have tried both o2 (barely 2g and 3g does not exist) and vodafone is always edge and never get 3g.

however orange/t-mobile i get nearly full 3g signal both indoors and out.

just my 2 pennies worth

Financially_Backwards

grumbler wrote: »

Any other people with other phones on Orange/T-mobile nearby? Have you tried other phones?

Its weak on all phones, my old 3310 gets 3 bars consistently on orange here though - just that I dont want to be paying a paygo sim at the same time as my iphone contract since I cant really afford much, plus it means carrying 2 phones around and having 2 phone numbers. In other words, I would if I could.

grumbler

Financially_Backwards wrote: »

... my old 3310 gets 3 bars consistently on orange here though - just that I dont want to be paying a paygo sim at the same time as my iphone contract since I cant really afford much, plus it means carrying 2 phones around and having 2 phone numbers. In other words, I would if I could.

So, if I understand correctly, you can get 3 bars with a proper phone and it's just your iP that is incapable of making and receiving calls because of it's well known problems. As you can't use it for mobile internet anyway, just get an adapter and put the sim into your 3310 or some other cheap proper phone. Keep using your iPhone as iPod on WiFi.

wendb69

Ive been on phone to them all week after 11 months of problems... still no joy. Spoken to someone in every country so far.

NEVER AGAIN!

Im_just_careful

From "Its weak on all phones, my old 3310 gets 3 bars consistently on orange here though"

The obvious answer is to go back to the 3310 with the SIM in an adaptor and use the iPhone on WiFi where available.

Use your minutes and generally get your life back.

Once you have sat your contract out and your iPhone is truely yours, get it unlocked and get a rolling SIM only contract from another network.