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Orange UK Data Usage

M

m477h3w

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 9, 2007
339
8
Bristol, UK
Did anyone else here buy the iPhone 4 on an Orange contract?

I have the Your Orange app and there was an update for it this morning, and it now shows your data usage since your last bill. However, in my settings it says I have used 23.5mb + 168mb, and in the Your Orange app it says I have used 305mb! Quite a big difference :mad:

Anyone else have this problem?
 
Steve Jobs=God said:
Trust me the orange app is awful, especially when it comes to data usage, as the systems used can't really track data that well, best bet is to go by what the handset says, obviously making sure you rest the counter every billing date
Click to expand...

+1

The handset can calculate data usage a lot more accurately than the network. Same goes for routers and ISPs.
 
0dev said:
+1

The handset can calculate data usage a lot more accurately than the network. Same goes for routers and ISPs.
Click to expand...
I don't know how the contracts work (I'm PAYG) but if there's a cost issue with going over a data limit then does it matter which calculation is more accurate? Surely the key issue is which calculation is used by Orange to determine if you've gone over the limit and if the Orange number is being used then the handset data is only useful to help you know how cheated you should feel.

I really like the fact that iOS 4 added the ability to turn off mobile data completely but, now that they've done that, I think that one extra step would make it perfect. I'd like the ability to define in the settings a start day and a monthly limit (in MB) and for the phone to actively manage my monthly data usage by giving me notifications at maybe 80% and 90% of monthly allowance and optionally turning off the data connection when I hit 100% so that I never get an unexpected data bill.

- Julian
 
JulianL said:
I don't know how the contracts work (I'm PAYG) but if there's a cost issue with going over a data limit then does it matter which calculation is more accurate? Surely the key issue is which calculation is used by Orange to determine if you've gone over the limit and if the Orange number is being used then the handset data is only useful to help you know how cheated you should feel.

I really like the fact that iOS 4 added the ability to turn off mobile data completely but, now that they've done that, I think that one extra step would make it perfect. I'd like the ability to define in the settings a start day and a monthly limit (in MB) and for the phone to actively manage my monthly data usage by giving me notifications at maybe 80% and 90% of monthly allowance and optionally turning off the data connection when I hit 100% so that I never get an unexpected data bill.

- Julian
Click to expand...

I don't think they cut you off when you hit your exact limit, the limits have always been rough as far as I know. If you go dramatically over it according to Orange, like if you use 500MB on a 250MB limit, then they might start warning you.

But they will always warn you before they start charging you. If they don't, you have a case against them (depending on what their small print says in the first place).
 
On O2, I upgraded from my 3G a week after a contract reset date (the 17th of 18); I had therefore used my previous iPhone for a few days into this month's bill. I then got myself the i4, and my contract changed to my chosen i4 contract.

The minutes/texts/data I used before this change (on my 3G) have been carried across and cut out of this month on my new contract. My new contract resets on the same date as my previous one, not when I got the i4, so I think it's all fair.

Perhaps the same thing happened with you? Perhaps you used a fair amount before upgrading and it's been carried across; therefore Orange will have a higher value (in varying magnitudes depending on your usage) than your i4.

Just an thought which may shed some light on this issue :)
 
Steve Jobs=God said:
If your PAYG, you won't get a bill, it'll just come out of your credit, and your know when that's started as Orange a ton for data on PAYG, if you had £20 credit it'd be gone within a hour or 2, if you start getting charged for data call Orange on 450 to query
Click to expand...
Yeah. That's what I thought. And on PAYG the 250MB/month is a hard limit I think, it's almost a teaser so that they can make a fortune at something like £4 a MB for over-allowance usage. I wonder if they do send a text at 225MB or something to warn that the monthly allowance is almost used up. Does anyone know?

I only have about £9.50 credit on my card right now so I could leave it like that and, in the last few days of the billing cycle, deliberately consume a lot of data to take me past the 250MB monthly allowance to see what notifications I get. Assuming the over-allowance data burns up my entire balance then the experiment will still only cost me about a tenner so no big deal.

Is anyone here using their bundled BT OpenZone hotspot access? When I got my iPhone 4 there was a mix up and for some reason they didn't think my phone was an iPhone so I never got the bundled data and WiFi. I called up to complain and they registered my handset as an iPhone and I got a text message confirming my 250MB data allowance but I never got anything explicitly for WiFi. The Orange FAQ talks about a password and I did get another text message that said "Your Orange Services security code is <8-digit-number>. If you did not request this code, please disregard this free text message.". Is this my BT OpenZone password or do I need to make another call to Orange to get this freebie added to my account as well?

- Julian
 
Steve Jobs=God said:
I know for contract they send a text out when your 100mb away from the fair usage policy of 750mb, i'm not so sure about PAYG

*EDIT* just checked the PAYG pages for iPhone (I work in the iPhone dept at Orange) no notifications are sent out in relation to data usage, so no you wouldn't get anything, though apparently once you use the 250mb, your charges are limited to £2 a day, but only for the first 25.5mb you use each day, after that amount back to the £4 a mb
Click to expand...

That's stupid then, they should warn you if you're going to start being charged ludicrous rates for data.
 
Thanks for all the replies. I am still slightly confused though as to how there can be such a large difference. Phone is now saying 194.1mb in total, Your Orange app says 313mb total :confused:

I switched from O2 to Orange to buy the iPhone 4 so do not think there is any issue with data from my previous phone carrying over? I reset my iPhone 4's data usage once it was all synced up on the day I bought it so it should be accurate. Strange!
 
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