Orange

About Orange

Orange is an excellent mobile telephony provider, with a range of competitive tariffs and payment plans for a huge range of consumers.

As well as keenly priced UK, international calls and texts, it also offers the brilliant Orange Wednesdays two for one cinema ticket offer.

Orange is a superb network with millions of happy customers across the UK. With a host of industry awards to its name, the company is noted for its great coverage and range of tariffs to suit all usage requirements and budgets.

Customers benefit from a choice of fantastic handsets, with the most sought-after new models added regularly. The company’s Orange Wednesdays incentive has proved a massive hit with UK consumers, who benefit from cheaper cinema tickets.

Orange customers are able to fully take advantage of brilliant mobile phone internet access, thanks to the company’s GPRS, EDGE and 3G-connectivity, making downloads quicker and easier than ever before.

History

Founded in 1994, Orange is the brand used by France Telecom for its mobile network operator and Internet service provider subsidiaries. Since that time, Orange has been credit for simplifying billing and making mobile phones more accessible.

The group serves more than 170 million customers across the globe, with two thirds of these being Orange mobile customers (109.6 million). Orange has a retail network of 300 stores and was the first UK network whose products could be purchased online.

Customer service

The company operates a free customer service line, which can be reached by dialling 150 on your pay monthly phone or on 07973 100 150 from any other phone.

Pay as you go customers can call 450 from their pay as you go phone or 07973 100 450 from any other phone.

Orange also pledges to give you up to a minute of talk time back in the event that you are cut off during a call.

The company’s website offers customers the chance to manage their account online and houses a number of mobile guides covering matters such as what to do if your phone lost or stolen, understanding your bill and getting the most out of your mobile phone model.

Customers benefit too from the Orange Wednesdays promotion, which gives them two for one cinema tickets at participating cinemas across the UK.

Tariffs

Orange operates both pay monthly and pay as you go deals. Pay Monthly deals are for 12, 18 or 24 months, with charges reflecting the number of texts, calls and web browsing time to which customers are entitled.

Customers who take out an 18 month (or longer) contract benefit from the Magic Number service. This allows them to pick an Orange number and enjoy free unlimited calls as part of their plan. They are then entitled to choose another number every six months for as long as they stay on an eligible package

The pay monthly contract deals feature animal branding to make choosing the right tariff easier:

The Canary package is aimed at nature’s born talkers. It offers customers Unlimited anytime Orange to Orange calls, unlimited free calls to your Magic Number, unlimited evening and unlimited weekend mobile internet browsing for two months

The Racoon package offers unlimited anytime calls to UK landlines, unlimited free calls to the nominated Magic Number, unlimited evening and weekend mobile internet browsing for two months.

Aimed at sociable, fun-loving types, the Dolphin deal entitles Orange customers to unlimited texts, unlimited free calls to your Magic Number as well as unlimited evening and weekend mobile and internet browsing for two months. They also get four free downloads to personalise their phone.

Panther customers are entitled to a choice of unlimited benefits and unlimited calls to their Magic Number. They also get free itemised billing, specialist customer service and three months free email access with an 18 month package.

Orange customers can also opt to top up their packages with message bundles, whereby they can get an extra number of text messages each month. Additionally, the company offers a mobile broadband package with more browsing time and high download limits as well as the World Traveller and Favourite Countries bundles which cut the cost of international calls.

Coverage

Orange invests £1.5 million per day in developing its networks. Much of this has gone into improving the EDGE, 3G, HSDPA and HSUPA networks, which currently offer speeds of up to 3.6Mbps. However, the company has pledged that this will rise to 7.2Mbps in the top 30 UK cities and 14.4 Mbps in the top five cities.