Rants

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Welcome to dr jan's rants page. The most recent rant is at the top of the list.

Why Can't Orange Deliver Handsets?

Follow this link to see why I'm fuming at Orange

Why I'm Cancelling My 3 Account

This page explains the difficulties and frustrations of being an 'early adopter' of third generation phone technology.

Why I Opened A 3 Account

About 25th June 2003 I opened a pay-monthly account with 3. The main attraction was the £35.00 a month fee which included 750 free minutes to any UK network. At the time I was spending about £150-£200 a month on my Orange account, so 750 free minutes was quite a big incentive.

How I Opened An Account

I used a website to order an NEC808 handset on 3. I forget now which one (probably for the best), but after a few days they contacted me to tell me I had been refused credit by 3, so I couldn't have a phone after all.

I was shocked and surprised, I've never been refused credit before, and I have an excellent record. I even went so far as to request details from Equifax, the credit reference agency that 3 allegedly used. There was nothing bad or unusual on the report.

After some time, the people at the website told me that 3 would be writing to me to explain why I'd been refused credit.

Eventually, a letter arrived from 3. However, it wasn't an explanation, it was a bill for my first month's use of the service!

So, 3, if you've refused to give me credit, how can you then send me a bill?

The reason for the bad credit report also became apparent - the letter was sent to the wrong address. I live at number 67, but just down the road from me are about 16 flats, which are all Flat n, 67a. The phone account and credit check had been for one of the residents of the flats. It's lucky that I have a vigilant post person (most of the time).

So, I went into a handy Carphone Warehouse and signed up there and then in the shop. With the correct address. And no credit problems.

Handset Problems

OK, I appreciate that the NEC808 is the 'first generation' of 3G phones, so there were bound to be some issues. Here are some of the problems I experienced:

The processor is too slow, and you can't 'type ahead'. Screens take a long time to appear, but until they have, keypresses have no effect.
The firmware on the phone is not very bright. There are no handy shortcuts and generally the phone feels a bit 'clunky' in use.
There are two shift keys, one produces an upper case letter for the next letter typed, or if you press it twice in a row it effectively engages caps lock. The second shift key works more like a traditional one, in that you have to hold it down and then press another key. This is used to get the symbols and special characters on the keyboard. This gets rather confusing quite quickly when trying to type text messages.
The battery generally just lasts a full day, depending on how much the phone is used.
The worst problem is that if you leave the phone for a week or so it discharges itself to such an extent that when you charge it again you have to enter the PUK master unlock code before you can use the phone again. This has happened to me twice when I've been abroad for a week.

Network Problems

The most frustrating part of using the 3 network is quite often when you dial a number you just get a rising tone 'beep-beep-beep'. Now, I don't know exactly what this is supposed to signify, but I can only assume it means I can't talk to the network. Or something. Whatever, it is extremely annoying. If you redial, there's probably a 50/50 chance you'll get the same thing again. If you're really lucky you might actually get through to the called party.

General Comments

I'm pleased to say that I have kept my original Orange account active in the meantime. If the 3 phone was my only mobile device I would have gone crazy a long time ago.

A friend who ported his number to 3 (and so had to use the 3 phone as his only device) was getting increasingly frustrated with the whole experience. Now he's back on Orange with a Nokia 6310i. His comment was 'Thank goodness I'm back on 2G - it just works!'

I tried the video calling mode when it was free during the first month or so. Having done it once, I can't see why I'd ever want to do it again.

Being able to take pictures was a very useful feature however. This was my first camera phone. The only downside is it took a long time to engage the camera mode.

The Last Straw

The thing that really upset me and inspired this entire page is...

I called 3 last night to check when my 12 month contract expires and to request cancellation of my account. So, now I know the magic date is 25th June. But I have to call 3 back during office hours so they can cancel the contract.

I know, it sounds so trivial, but on top of everything else it just made me realise how fed up with the whole thing I was.

So, now I've upgraded my 6310i on Orange to a Nokia 6600. It's fab - it does everything I want it to and because it runs the Symbian OS I can easily exchange data with my Psion Series 7 device.