Major signal issues on ORANGE pls help.

Woodmysta

Hi, i recently moved to a village location and the signal on Orange is terrible. However my blackberry has the UMA facility, which means it picks up a signal off the wireless at home, so is ok at home. however as soon as i dive in the car the signal drops away, still shows on the phone as full signal, but the phone is dead. I recently had a blackberry 9900 upgrade, but the signal was awful, kept getting red SOS in corner, or full signal, but no use for phone. Orange said they could see i was having problems so sent me a recon phone same model, exactly same problem. went back to old Bold 9780, but same problem, signal drops for long periods whilst out and about driving. have read new blackberrys are having a few issues, but i expected more help, or at least acknowledgement from orange. When problem at its peak peeps calling me dont even get the answerphone, just a single tone suggesting the line is dead, and it rejects their texts. I'm in an 18 month contract with them. to make matters worse i recently had a week in spain, have used other phones abroad loads, took the 9900 and it wouldnt work, Orange washed their hands of it and said not their fault, Spanish providers problem, but all my friends around me Orange was working fine. this is causing me real grief as am self employed and rely heavilly on my phone at home and abroad. I just wondered what my options were now ie if Orange blaming blackberry and vice versa, i'm stuck. do i buy a new Nokia phone, or what do i do ? Orange say there are some issues as i'm travelling from one mast area to another, but surely i'm not alone in this, and that cant justify 30 mins of not being able to get a signal. During the 30 mins ive tried battery pulls, manually selecting networks, switching to orange only as opposed to orange and tmobile, switching to 2g and so on, basically everything, but nothing seems to get the phones back on to a signal. Where do i stand in terms of cancelling my contract, how do i prove the problem is so bad, i have videoed my lack of signal on wifes iphone for ten plus minutes as evidence, but whats it worth ? Please can someone help with some advise as to what i do next, Orange have always been very good to me in the past, but regarding this, and the Spain incident, absolutely dreadful.
Thanks all. I hope someone can help.

sandraroffey

my son is also having the same problems with orange. he lives in kent, and is also self employed so relys on his phone.

the signal is rubbish, the noise on the line is awful and conversations keep just cutting off as the signal dies. really really rubbish. and also on a contract.

i will be watching this thread with interest!!!!

NFH

Why did you commit to a contract as long as 18 months when you couldn't commit to being at your previous location for 18 months where the signal was acceptable? Surely a 1-month rolling contract would have been more suitable. Which networks do deliver satisfactory coverage in your area?

Woodmysta

Hi, i actually committed to 2 years, 6 months before we moved, the move was not planned, it was to do with stuff outside of my control, but i have about 15 months left. The problem is not with the signal at home as the UMA facility has sorted this nicely, though strangely not all blackberrys have this facility, but for anyone struggling with signal at home who has wireless, this is an absolute must. the problem is when i'm driving around, the signal just drops. I have had 2 new sims from orange, level 3 technical looking into what the problem is, as originally it all started with an iphone 4, which the signal was even worse, just kept getting text messages saying i had a missed call off person x y or z....so managed to get to a blackberry, but reading blackberry threads it seems the 9900 is well known for having connection issues, i do wonder whether this is part of the reason RIM share price has plumitted due to massive technical issues. anyway, its just so frustrating as the signal just drops for massive lengths of time whilst driving about the country. as i say, i cant be the only one but at present Orange have no answer or interest in resolving. surely they must be in breach of contract for not providing the service ive bought, but probably small print somewhere saying they dont guarantee anything.

completelyterrified

Woodmysta, I had the same problem and got nowhere. Had several conversations with some of the engineers, and they told me it was a congestion issue - I'd frequently have access to a full 5 bars of 3G signal, but couldn't receive a call, a text, and attempting to connect to the net wouldn't work (on an iPhone4, and a Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro).

They explained it as such - it's down to two issues, firstly the number of customers on a local cell, and secondly, the bandwidth available via backhaul. It's usually that either there's too many customers on a cell, meaning that you can get signal, but no available bandwidth at that point, or that there's too many customers using the connection, causing the backhaul to become fully utilised.

I understood it to be similar to a home wi-fi connection - if you have 100 devices connected to a 1mb connection, it'll grind to a halt, despite showing full available signal. Does that make sense?

I battled this for months because my phone was essentially a brick. Best I got was £5 off my bill, and that was like getting blood from a stone. Took it to the arbitrator, and got nowhere thanks to the lovely T&C in the contract saying they can't guarantee service.

Woodmysta

ha, that sounds pretty much what ive been told, terrible attitude though dont you think, and surely their technical info should be able to tell them and tell me this is the case, instead of just saying weve tested everything, you must be imagining it lol...one even said to me, well youve made 600 mins of calls this month, it cant be that bad....i nearly crashed the car i was so F**kin angry lmao. Just would like to know what else i can do to get them to resolve it. thanks.

Guys_Dad

1. Borrow a cheap Nokia basic handset and try to see what happens. You can even buy one unlocked from CPW with a different network's sim (not T-Mobile) and see if you get reception on the other network and, of course, on Orange when you leave the house..

2. Have you got your handset/service also registered on the T-Mobile network? It's free.

3. No network guarantees 100% reception, so if your handset worked where you were previously and you have now moved to a different area, then that is hardly Orange's fault.

4. No, you can't cancel - or should I say you could stop paying, but then see what happens to your credit record.

5. This "" " "is called white space. My numbered sections are called paragraphs and if you use both, then other people can read your points more clearly and are more inclined to help.