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3 End Roaming Agreement With O2 - It Will Be Orange From Late 2006
Everything Goes
10-05-2006
3 will terminate their National Roaming agreement with O2 and will move over to Orange later this year. Change over should be completed by early 2007.

3 selects Orange as new national roaming partner
craigr98
10-05-2006
Is Orange's reception better than O2 or are they about the same?
Everything Goes
10-05-2006
Originally Posted by craigr98:
“Is Orange's reception better than O2 or are they about the same?”

Reception should be similar but you will find slight differences in coverage.

http://coverage.orange.co.uk/busines...rageSearch.htm

http://www.webmap.o2.co.uk/
wavejockglw
10-05-2006
I dont think the change will make much of a difference as 02's coverage has never been an issue, its 3's own UMTS depth of coverage that seems to be the major problem for most who have used 3.

I have now had 3, Vodafone and 02 3G services and in my area the latter 2 have far greater call stability and that is what counts for me. I shall be trying T-Mobile when my Vodafone contract expires as their flext tariffs are unbeatable plus you can surf the Internet up to 2GB a month for about £8 with Web'N'Walk Pro.
Mr Cable
10-05-2006
Originally Posted by wavejockglw:
“I shall be trying T-Mobile....”

Sorry, this is a thread about 3's changing in Roaming partner, lets try and keep it on topic - there are plenty of others talking about T-Mobile and Web'n'Walk.

Here's One

Here's Another

Anyhoo, I see that the terms (ie CASH) of the agreement were not disclosed, anyone got any ideas?
wavejockglw
10-05-2006
A lot less than they would have been paying 02 because of their improved geographical coverage. I think if one considers what businesses pay now for mobile services (less than 1p/min in many instances) and think about the volume this one deal will afford the winning bidder we are looking at a fraction of the sum a standard business customer would pay.

I would not read too much into this deal as it was put out to tender many months ago and is a vital requirement tp make the network viable. There is a lot happening now with telecoms consolodation and with little prospect of a floatation and nothing unique on offer Hutchison will have a major headache providing the kind of money that 3 UK needs to stay afloat and may be tempted to cut and run if a reasonable offer appears from a company who would like to add a mobile network to their existing telecoms business. By the end of 2007 the mobile telecoms landscape will have changed considerably.
mattworld
10-05-2006
In all honesty I don't think it'll make any difference what so ever, execpt for people who couldn't get a decent O2 signal, those who won't be able to get an Orange signal or people who live in buildings with thick walls or buildings with lots of metal in them.

Calls will still drop when you switch down or up to 3g, just like they did with O2. This is because of the network chagning (O2 3g to O2 GSM & Orange 3g to Orange GSM calls switch seamlessly because there is no network change involved).

3 will have probably just gone for the most cost effective option, after all they aren't doing too well at the moment, aren't doing too well in terms of subscriber numbers and have huge losses.
wavejockglw
10-05-2006
Why would 3 be interested in roaming on Orange's 3G network? Its not going to happen. Orange will provide GSM access where 3 dont have coverage and the 'seamless' issue will only be proven when 3's customers experience the network integration - something that has not been available previously and until it goes live it remains a big maybe.... Meanwhile T-Mobile marches forward with superior voice/text tariff alternatives (Flext) and the first truly affordable open Internet access (Web'N'Walk) on 3G.
lost boy
11-05-2006
Originally Posted by simax:
“This deal will affect a lot of people in the South West, Cornwall especially, as it is well known that in most areas in Cornwall, Orange have the best coverage of any network.

Orange I believe will also allow seamless roaming between 3G and 2G, something that O2 couldn't do.

Now if 3 were able to use Orange's EDGE system as well, then that would help them!

I think it's a win win all round, seeing as Orange are the only network not to have a VMNO on it (Virtual Mobile Network Operator) so they'll have the capacity to deal with it.

I've not heard a lot about the offer cash wise, but I bet O2 wanted more than the £100m a year they were getting, due to Three's popularity. I reckon Orange got it for about £105m a year. Don't quote me on that though

Ironic isn't it, that Hutchison are now using the network they palmed off 6 years ago to help their new network....

I wonder...... are they getting nostalgic on us? Wish they never ditched Orange? Yeah right! We can dream!


Simon”

Agree agree... and agree once more. In fact, the bit of your post I've boldened is exactly what crossed my mind when I saw the thread title word for word

In any case though, this is good news - O2 seem to be struggling more and more by the week with handed over Three traffic here, so Orange are bound to do better and of course call quality post handover (direction: Three > roamer) won't fall over quite as bad as it currently does either
pje1979
11-05-2006
Shouldn't make much differenve to me. 3's coverage is excellent where I live in Scarborough, infact I would go as far as to say they have the best coverage off all the networks here.
BAC_Plymouth
11-05-2006
Orange's coverage is the best in the uk this is down to they are the only network who own there transmitters the rest rent from people like NTL BT Etc
DerekP
11-05-2006
Originally Posted by BAC_Plymouth:
“Orange's coverage is the best in the uk this is down to they are the only network who own there transmitters the rest rent from people like NTL BT Etc”

Not in rural NE Scotland - their coverage is awful outside the larger towns.
hoofy
11-05-2006
Originally Posted by pje1979:
“Shouldn't make much differenve to me. 3's coverage is excellent where I live in Scarborough, infact I would go as far as to say they have the best coverage off all the networks here.”


Well said, I agree 100%
nodnol
11-05-2006
Originally Posted by hoofy:
“Well said, I agree 100% ”

Yes me too. I agree. The only things that beefs me about 3 is the 2g to 3g dropping call thing. Said it before. But I can live with it.
Was in Newcastle last few days, cant fault the service. When Orange come aboard, things should get even better.
Sod all the three bashers
chris20
11-05-2006
this could be a big improvement for 3 no more dropping calls or very little
wavejockglw
12-05-2006
In major cities the change should not make a lot of difference but in some rural areas there will be some who will loose out as 02 have greater geographic coverage of the UK.

The 'seamless' issue is one of definition. Roaming between 3 and 02 has always been seamless in the respect that the handset changes network automatically when the 3 signal becomes unuseable. The user does not have to make any manual changes. The same will be true with Orange roaming I suspect. The big question is what will happen when this process takes place during a voice call. The handset has to log off one network and register on a separate one and there is a validation process during roaming to setup the connection. All of this may well be seamless but will someone using a 3 phone be able to remain connected during this process? The vast majority of the time most of the handovers are not noticable when the handset is being used for data or is in standby mode, its when a circuit switched voice call is in progress that the roaming process causes call dropping and I don't think 3's move to orange will change this as it is a technical issue that is unique to 3 (only having one type of network) and there does not appear to be any published solution that addresses the issue of GSM/UMTS handovers whilst roaming.

If anyone can come up with some technical information on how two separate networks can maintain calls whilst the roaming registration and validation takes place please post the details here.
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