ORANGE -- ADDED services SUCKS. Review on Vodafone Mobile Operator

A lot, already HAS been written about the network strength, customer service, billing etc. Let me try and give some information about their “Added” services

I was to travel abroad. I wanted to have access to my faxes and e-mails while I was away. Hence I thought of inquiring about the GPRS or DATA and FAX services offered by Orange. (Needless to say I opted for Orange because I already have an Orange SIM card.) After the usual 4 to 5 minutes of listening to symphony on the phone (that’s the waiting time that one almost always has to devote to be able to speak to a customer service personnel), I was told that if I subscribed to GPRS I would certainly be able to use Internet (WWW o and not WAP) from my phone and in effect be able to log into any e-mail sites (vsnl, yahoo, hotmail etc.) and check my mails. I was also informed that for the moth of April, the GPRS charges were Rs.99 per month, but from May 01, they would be raised to Rs.650 per month + Rs.8 per minute airtime. Since I was going to travel only in the first week of May, I wanted to give this a thought and called a couple of days later to request this service. THIS time I was informed that since Orange a “complete” GPRS service, and that their GPRS service was actually “GPRS over WAP” my handset, Nokia9210i would not support the “kind” of GPRS service that Orange provides. I either had to switch over to BPL or opt for “DATA and FAX” service, which any handset would support.

The charges for DATA was Rs.300 per month, and Fax too was for Rs.300 per month. However if I opted to take BOTH services, the charges would be Rs.500 per month. The airtime would be charged at Rs.8 per minute in India, and it would vary from country to country depending upon the GSM service providers. Moreover, it would also depend if the service providers in that country I was travelling to , DID offer data service or not. I inquired about the countries I was going to visit, and was informed that all the countries did have GSM service providers who would provide the data service. I inquired about the procedures and method of using this service. I was told that I would simply be given TWO separate numbers, one for using the FAX service and the other for using Internet. I was informed, all I had to do was to dial that given number, and log on to the Internet and use the service. I signed up for the two services, and I was told that I would be getting two numbers all settings and procedures by a letter within a week. I never got the letter. After calling Orange TWICE (with those 5 minutes of “symphony over telephone” wait), I was given the two numbers on the phone, and was informed that no settings had to be changed except feeding in the number given to access the internet in the “internet settings” option of my handset. I tried the FAX service. I was able to send and receive FAXES. Then I tried the internet. ZILCH. Each time I tried, I got the message that the “number is busy”. Thinking there may be some settings may not have been completed on their side, I waited for 2 days. Trying to log-on several times during those two days. On all occasions I got the same message : “number is busy”. I complained about this. THIS time I was told that I should go to an “Orange Shop” and a technician would have to set up my handset for the service. I went to the “Orange Shop” at P.M.Road, where I was made to wait more than an HOUR before the technician could attend to me. SURPRISE. SURPRISE. The first thing he asked me was which Dial UP ISP was I signed up with . I told him VSNL and he simply Fed in the VSNL number (172226) and asked me to enter my Username and password. And the service started. I was amazed that over and above the data line, I HAD TO HAVE A ISP to be able to access internet. The technician informed me, that unless I was subscribed to an ISP in the countries I was travelling to, I would NOT be able to access internet inspite of my DATA-LINE being “OPEN”. I explained to him about my several queries about the service on the telephone. I also told him that NOT ONCE had I been informed that I would have to subscribe to an ISP in the countries I was visiting. He apologised (with a smile on his face) and told me that all he could do was to send this feedback to the “superiors”. If I wanted to I could cancel the service, but I would still be charged for the number of days that the service remained operative. So I would be charged for no fault of mine? Once again, the same, “apology with a smile on his face”. Disgusted, I left the ofivce, thinking I already had wasted enough time there and had hundreds of better things to do instead of sitting there and breaking my head against a WALL.

I am seriously thinking of subscribing to another GSM service al together. Suggestions anyone?