Orange takes flak over data cap
Published: 04 Jun 2007 16:19 BST
Some Orange customers who signed up to the operator's "flat-rate" data bundle have expressed outrage over the usage cap that the company placed on it.
One month ago, Orange announced a series of data bundles designed to make mobile surfing more attractive to customers. One package, "Monthly Anytime", was priced at £8 per month and pitched at "seasoned surfers who demand great value for all their mobile browsing". At the time, the company's vice president of mobile and convergence, Jean-Pascal Van Overbeke, said: "Our new pricing structure makes it easy for our customers to understand exactly what they are getting and for how long, when they access the mobile internet. Customers can get access to the web on the move, without the fear of being caught out by any hidden charges."
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However, since then it has emerged that the package has a usage cap of 30MB per month, despite being promoted as a flat-rate deal. Comparatively priced bundles from rivals such as T-Mobile offer a fair-use cap of up to 1GB per month, which is roughly 33 times greater than Orange's cap.
Orange customers have taken to forums to vent their displeasure over the 30MB cap. On CoolSmartPhone.com's forum, user Surur wrote on Saturday: "I bought the SPV E650 [smartphone] from Orange last month on the strength of this [Monthly Anytime] press release. I now wonder if I will be able to cancel that contract." The forum's administrator, Gears, opined that "30MB is way, way, way too low to be useful and will just drive people away if it's true".
A spokesperson for Orange confirmed on Monday that the Monthly Anytime cap was indeed 30MB. "We have trialled this with users and we don't think it has been a problem," the spokesperson said, adding that "the whole mobile internet is going to be revisited [by Orange]… probably after the summer".
Orange does offer a daily rate for internet usage on its phones which includes 30MB of usage for just £1. However, that deal restricts the user to surfing the pre-approved sites within the operator's portal, Orange World. The company's spokesperson said that Monthly Anytime's 30MB cost £8 because it covered "off-portal" browsing.
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