I have been using mobile phones since about 1990 and from the beginning have always been with Orange (Hutchinson telecom, as it used to be, I think). However, lately I have grown more dissatisfied with Orange as a service provider and when the time came to change my work phone to my own number the crunch came.
I needed to keep my work number, but it was part of a large contract deal which meant that I couldn’t just transfer the number to my other phone. I asked this several times, in several places and was told it just couldn’t be done. Odd then, that several colleagues appear to have managed it. That was issue 1.
I have always lost my signal when traveling south on the M11 between J7 and J6 Which has been somewhat of a nuisance. I can also get no signal with Orange when sitting at home. This is inconvenient, but not enough on its own to cause me to change provider, but this is issue 2.
Recently we upgraded one of our own phones and wanted to pass the old handset on to a relative. This meant that we needed Orange to unlock the handset – something that is promised within about ten days. After four weeks it still hadn’t been done and in the end we took the phone to a ‘bloke on the market’ who had the necessary piece of kit to do the job. It cost the same amount but the wait caused by Orange caused some inconvenience. That was issue 3.
Finally, I decided to look around and see what else was available and for the first time in years went into a Carphone Warehouse. To my delight it has changed!
My phone needs are pretty specific – I have to have a T610 phone or spend mega bucks getting a new cradle for my car kit. I therefore went in asking for 200 minutes a month, on a T610, with a minimal number of texts. The salesman was great and recommended T-Mobile…
The T-Mobile deal is for a T610 (unlocked already), 200 minutes and, for the first six months, 200 texts a month as well. The line rental is ��29.99 (reduced by 50% for the first six months) and the contract is for 18 months. Nothing too unusual about that… until you see that you get ALL of the line rental money back at six monthly intervals.
Yes! You did read that correctly! ALL OF THE LINE RENTAL IS REFUNDED TO YOU. That means that the ��430 pounds I will be spending on this phone over the next 18 months will be refunded. I have three vouchers which I post off at the relevant time and they return me a cheque.
So what is the cost? Well, naturally if you exceed the 200 minutes or texts then you pay the call costs… and to get the deal you have to pay ��99.99. So from the outset you have got a mobile phone with a pretty generous call and text allowance for 18 months for the princely sum of approximately ��5.55 per month.
There it is… go get that deal if you want it! I am fairly sure it won’t be lasting too much longer…
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