Mobile Data Roaming on Orange

Leslie

Leslie

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Leslie
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Has anyone used their smartphone abroad using Orange data roaming?

I'm off to Oktoberfest in Munich next week and I'm considering getting one of the roaming bundles that Orange offer. For £3 per day I can get 30MB of data. The issue I have is that when you sign up to the bundle Orange removes the data cap on your account.

Has anyone used it and been stung for a massive bill when they got home? Or has anyone used it and it's been fine?
 
I work for orange, what handset do you have? be careful if your using it abroad as 30mb a day isn't really a lot if your on your phone a lot. If you exceed the data allowance you will be billed 58p per megabyte and its not capped so could prove costly, my advice would be download a data counter ie 3g watchdog/dataman/onavo/orange travel angel as they will be able to monitor your daily usage. Only things to remember are you need to reset it to zero every day, and also make sure you turn off data roaming and mobile data when you are not using the phone and only turn it on when absolutely neccessary. We get so many phone calls regarding this its scary, you won't know how much you have spent until at least a month after due to the billing cycles so be careful. That bundle is good though if you use it properly, its much better value than the monthly ones as they run out stupidly fast. Hope this helps :-)
 
Thanks for that very helpful reply Nick.

It's a Samsung Galaxy S2 that I have. I've just downloaded the Orange travel angel app and noticed that you can set alerts depending on data usage. Am I correct in thinking that if I add this bundle to my account but then don't turn on mobile data when i'm in Germany then I won't get charged for it?

I've taken some steps already to limit my data usage. For instance I've already deleted a load of apps that I never used but were consuming data in the background. I'm going to set my works email to never sync whilst i'm away (it is a beer festival after all!) and I've set some rules on my googlemail email account so stop some emails coming into my inbox.

To be honest I really only want to use the data for facebook/twitter/instagram, and not all the time (it is a beer festival after all!) If I upload pictures to FB and twitter does that count against the 30MB limit?
 
Leslie said:
Thanks for that very helpful reply Nick.

It's a Samsung Galaxy S2 that I have. I've just downloaded the Orange travel angel app and noticed that you can set alerts depending on data usage. Am I correct in thinking that if I add this bundle to my account but then don't turn on mobile data when i'm in Germany then I won't get charged for it?

I've taken some steps already to limit my data usage. For instance I've already deleted a load of apps that I never used but were consuming data in the background. I'm going to set my works email to never sync whilst i'm away (it is a beer festival after all!) and I've set some rules on my googlemail email account so stop some emails coming into my inbox.

To be honest I really only want to use the data for facebook/twitter/instagram, and not all the time (it is a beer festival after all!) If I upload pictures to FB and twitter does that count against the 30MB limit?
Click to expand...

Yeah your right about the cost, if you leave data roaming switched off then you wouldnt get charged, so for example you are away for a week but you only turn data roaming on on 2 days, 2x3.00 you would only be charged for the days you used it, you have done the groundwork by deleting loads of apps that run inthe background which is good, I would download 3g watchdog as well (its free) as I use that on my HTC one x and its really accurate, I think there's a setting on there where your phone can turn the internet connection off when it reaches a certain point (although I wouldn't rely 100% on this though)

Uploading photos to facebook/instagram/Twitter will go towards the 30mb limit.

So to sum up you'll only be billed on the days you use the data and have data roaming on. Uploading does go towards the usage. Make sure you keep an eye on it to avoid any extra charges :-)

Also: ring orange to add the bundle on as opposed to adding it through the travel angel app as sometimes it doesn't go on if you add it through the handset. We have to add it manually over the phone so you know it will be done, also ask the advisor to note your account to say they've added it :-)
 
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Many thanks again Nick, I'll give Orange a call this afternoon to add it on.
 
nickjohnwatson said:
Also: ring orange to add the bundle on as opposed to adding it through the travel angel app
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I've just spoken to a lovely girl called Nicola who sounded very much like she comes from your neck of the woods to add on this bundle!
 
No just a personal customer. There was a long wait in the queue right enough.

Don't know why these apple fanboys can't see that Android is the future!

**steps back to a safe distance**

Cheers again
 
is there anything available other that the 5-10p per month to give a call discount
i will be in turkey for 2 weeks and its 95p a min with the above bundle
thanks
 
thanks i did look on there earlier but could only find the 30% off calls for 5-10p
looks like that is all they do
thanks anyway
 
I got stung when I visited South Africa earlier this year. Got lost near Soweto and had to use google maps, and got charged around £60 for about 7 mb data. Orange where actually really good about it, and said if they applied the overseas data bundle (which I think was around £15) even though I had been back in the uk around 3 weeks, they would refund the rest. Which they did.
 
It's funny you mention that because one of the tips I read was to download a map of where you're going and make it available offline. I've just downloaded a map of Munich to my phone.

Can you tell I'm paranoid about these data charges?
 
I wish I knew why the cost of "roamed" data continues to be so expensive when the typical cost of moving data between the handset and the cell mast for local users is only about 2p per MB, yet it suddenly rises to £6 per MB (ie 300x the cost) if that same data becomes "roamed".

The cost of moving data from one country to the next is not that expensive as if it were then using the internet to view non uk sites via ADSL would need to also be expensive.
 
I have been checking two recent Business Orange bills for someone who went to South America and despite having a pre-paid 400MB roaming allowance they still charged £1100 for using 460MB. So that's 60MB over the paid allowance meaning they are charging £18 per MB. That's either a billing error or a serious rip off.
 
It's a disgusting rip off. Half the time when roaming you're connecting to another branch of your own network anyway!

There is something called the GoSim which is worldwide roaming. That's payg so if you use it up you can't get billed any more.
 
Well that was quite painless to uncover what happened. He didn't get a pre-paid allowance of 400MB but only 200MB - the bill repeats the bundle title so it looks like you get twice the allowance and he'd forgotten how much he'd originally asked for.

Quite scary though that the iPhone can go through so much data (or any smart phone).
 
gman said:
Quite scary though that the iPhone can go through so much data (or any smart phone).
Click to expand...

That's what was worrying me but the steps i've taken, i.e. deleting old apps that I don't use but were still consuming data and limiting the number of emails I get into my googlemail account has really cut down the data I use.

I've been experimenting over the past couple of days only using mobile data as opposed to wifi and using the 3g watchdog app that Nick recommended to check how much I'm using. I'm now comfortably under the 30MB daily limit that my roaming bundle allows.

I just need to make sure that I don't get too drunk and start doing silly things with my phone when I'm at Oktoberfest now!
 
To be honest you have to be really careful. I actually work in the business team so get calls like the south Africa one fairly regularly (unfortunately) and I really feel for people as roaming is ridiculously expensive. The monthly paid bundles are pro rata allowances so depending on the number of days left in the billing cycle depends on the usage for that month, which is where a lot of people go wrong. Btw I'm happy to answer any queries anyone has about things, either by pm or on this thread :-)
 
***** WORD OF WARNING *****
When you go abroad and think you have covered yourself by buying a data bungle AND downloading the Orange travel angel app to monitor you data usage, THINK AGAIN.
When you keep checking your app and it states you are well within your data allowance, THINK AGAIN.
Because when you arrive home you get a shock when your bill comes through, and when you call Orange they state you have gone over your allowance.

How can this be Orange ? are your stating your app does'nt work because for 2 weeks I never went over my usage allowance according to the Travel angel app.

The best thing about it is the fact that I called Orange while I was on holiday due to the fact I had concerns that I thought I was getting charged more that the data bungle stated. But I was assured not to worry.

I have called Orange and was told they would look into this and call me back today but i did not get a call ( why should they call me they have my money )

So best thing to do is switch off your data roaming save your money by not buying a data bungle.
 
Can't you just check your data usage counter that's built into the phone?

It's mad how much background stuff goes on with these new smartphone things. I couldn't work out why my battery was only lasting a day despite having wifi, gps, 3G etc turned off. Turned out BBC News feeds and Shareprice Feeds was the cause - the constant connecting.
 
I'm with T-mobile so share Orange network. When I go away I can't usr the internet (etc) without being asked first on-screen what package I want to buy... Think it was about £20 for 50mb allowance. When I ran out, the internet didn't work - simples
 
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