Non-motoring > Orange phone service or not. Upgrade to HD coming? Miscellaneous
Thread Author: henry k Replies: 13
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New Wed 1 Sep 10 09:04 
 Orange phone service or not. Upgrade to HD coming? - henry k
Orange rolls out high-definition voice for mobiles

www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11138503

"The launch of HD voice comes amidst reports from Orange customers of regular network outages.
Some have speculated that the faults are the result of upgrades to the network or attempts to merge with T-Mobile."

I wonder if this is what is causing our poor /rubbish outage.
I would expect Esher to be high on the list of an upgrade :-)

I contacted Orange yesterday to complain re poor signal strength.
The call centre guy started on " a few security questions" to which I told him where to go as all he needed was my location so he could answer my questions re rubbish coverage.
He then started to ask what model phone I had ( a suggestion to upgrade ?) to which I told him to desist.

Why oh why do they not listen rather than immediately go to their security script when a query is not about an account or anything private. ?
Last edited by: VxFan on Mon 13 Dec 10 at 00:29
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New Wed 1 Sep 10 11:12 
 Orange phone service or not. Upgardeto HD coming? - Boxsterboy
I read yesterday that the merger with the T-mobile network was due in a few weeks (i.e. not yet). Apparently T-mobile were best inside the M25, so residents of Esher rejoice (if it happens!)
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New Wed 1 Sep 10 12:48 
 Orange phone service or not. Upgardeto HD coming? - rtj70
To use the HD service from Orange, both phones needs to support the HD service. So if you call anyone that does not also have a HD compatible phone on the Orange network.... it's standard definition.
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New Wed 1 Sep 10 13:50 
 Orange phone service or not. Upgardeto HD coming? - Tooslow
tinyurl.com/3yvvxrp

Not so much HD as "less SD". Marketing! Grrr. Make something truly terrible, then improve it and claim it as a breakthrough/ Good grief.

Orange. Bargepole.

JH
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New Wed 1 Sep 10 13:55 
 Orange phone service or not. Upgardeto HD coming? - Zero
Now Orange and Tmobile have become Torange, sorry I mean "Everything Everywhere"* customers of either network can roam between the two networks for best coverage starting in the next two weeks.


* I would think they should concentrate on a decent network, the trade is calling the new company "Nothing Nowhere"
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New Wed 1 Sep 10 16:17 
 Orange phone service or not. Upgardeto HD coming? - Tooslow
Wife's business (!) Orange stopped syncing email last week. Whole co. was "out of contact" for about 24 hours until Orange rolled out some sort of update to the phones. Today she's wfh and the signal, poor at the best of times, has just totally gone. Even the usual hot spots in the garden are blank. Useless bunch.

JH
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New Wed 1 Sep 10 16:47 
 Orange phone service or not. Upgardeto HD coming? - Bromptonaut
Only issue I have with sound quality is where the signal is poor. Hisses and crackles were an analogue 'feature'.
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New Wed 1 Sep 10 17:48 
 Orange phone service or not. Upgardeto HD coming? - spamcan61
Well I'm not a guru on speech coding, but most issues I've had with poor audio quality in the digital cellular world have been to do with background noise getting in the way, not the quality of the speech per se. I'm not sure changing to a different codec is going to do anything about that. More robust network coverage would be much more useful to me and I suspect many others.
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New Wed 1 Sep 10 19:00 
 Orange phone service or not. Upgardeto HD coming? - Skoda
I'm surprised Orange are first to market with this. A good few years ago T-Mobile were dabbling with this, in fact i'm almost 100% sure it eventually went into field trials, that would have been ~5 years ago.

Although I don't really keep up on the mobile telecoms industry anymore. It's the one industry i've worked in where it was just too cut throat for me and that ultimately pervaded everything.
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New Sun 12 Dec 10 18:45 
 Orange phone service or not. Upgardeto HD coming? - henry k
Well SWMBO and I am not at all happy with Orange
Yet again the local cell is bust. Been like it for several days and will be back at the earliest 19 Dec.
After searching their website I had to resort to the Web for an 0800 number.
I lost count of how many menus I had to decend t through before I got that awful Musak and the long wait for India to answer the call.
I told him he did not need my phone number for the fault and that shocked him. (Having already typed it in earlier)
The "good news" is that I can opt to have my access via T mobile for free."
" I have done that for you sir but it will be 24 hours before it is activated"
A text message arrived extoling how fantastic it is etc and how much better to have a choice of network.

Well T mobile signal was very poor and now that too has died so my phone now bleeps and says O2 or Vodaphone.

So both SWMBO and self have the option of paying extra to use other networks or drive to the next cell.

We are in an urban area with the cell at the local station and the trains have been running OK so they do not need need a van to get there.

We are both stuck with Orange as we have a old very good deal.
Rant over.

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New Sun 12 Dec 10 19:23 
 Orange phone service or not. Upgardeto HD coming? - MD
Got to say that I have been with Orange for over ten years and have had issues, but in the main quite good given our rural location. However it has improved a little lately re coverage locally and linking with T Mobile has produced huge benefits.

BTW it does not roam (yet). If it can't find Orange it goes to T mobile if available, but does NOT roam mid call.
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New Sun 12 Dec 10 19:54 
 Orange phone service or not. Upgardeto HD coming? - Zero

>> We are both stuck with Orange as we have a old very good deal.
>> Rant over.

If the service is crap, its not a good deal.
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New Mon 13 Dec 10 10:44 
 Orange phone service or not. Upgardeto HD coming? - DP
I have about a 50% success rate finding a useable 3G or HSDPA signal when I want to surf the web or send e-mail on my Orange phone.
Perhaps this should be a priority for the company.
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New Mon 13 Dec 10 11:01 
 Orange phone service or not. Upgardeto HD coming? - henry k
>>If the service is crap, its not a good deal.
>>
We have been with them for some years and had no problems until these two outages.
Both outages have been well over a week and I would expect a faster recovery than that.
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