Since it was launched in 1994, Orange has been very aggressive in its expansion. It has more transmitters than its PCN rival T-Mobile (One2one), and if you do drop a call due to bad coverage you can get it free if you dial again within five minutes! They also offer Talk share plans where two phones on one account can share inclusive minutes. They offer to match any competitors tariff, but beware they may not match fine detail like One2one's partners scheme which halves the cost of partner to partner calls.

Orange are also the most gadget based network. They will soon be offering video phones; they let you have two lines in a phone (one of which can be a landline number); they now have a voice operated voice-mail assistant and their data services offer features like fax retrieval.

Pay as you go

You can now  buy a choice of three PAYG plans.

'Talk and Save' charges 25p per minute for the first three minutes each day (00.00 to 23.59) and then 5p per minute thereafter. Calls to other networks cost 40p, Answer phone costs 10p and wap 10p  with text messages 12p.

On 'Choose your own off peak' you pay 35p peak and 10p off-peak. If you know that you talk most at certain times of the day , you can choose your own off-peak package to suit you. You'll automatically get standard off-peak rates between 11pm and 7am, but you can choose an extra 4-hour off-peak slot as well; so you get cheaper call changes at the time you make the most calls. Choose an extra 4-hour off-peak time band from one of these times: 7am to 11am, 11am to 3pm and 3pm to 7pm or 7pm to 11pm. You could buy four phones/sims and thus pay 10p all the time!! Other networks cost 50p on this package.

On 'Fixed rate all day' you pay 20p per minute all the time. All these tariffs now charge a minimum of 5p per call.

Pay Monthly

Orange 'Talk' plans range from Talk 60 at £17.50 per month with guess-what 60 inclusive minutes to Talk 10,000 at £940. These minutes can be shared amongst multiple phones according to tariff.

Their 'Everytime' plans start at £15 with thirty free minutes up to £185 with 2000 free minutes; additional calls cost 10p all the time (except other networks at 35p). The answerphone costs 10p but is free if you get Talk 200 (£30 per month) or above. Text messages cost 10p or 6.6p in bundles.

The best thing about Orange Account tariffs though, is that 0800 calls are still free, so that you can choose to make some calls through resellers like Tiscali. Data 0800 is no longer free.

Key Benefits

Send email to questions at callforless.co.uk
Last modified: April 02, 2003

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