Orange Mobile Broadband review

This review was updated in August 2011 to reflect the findings of our latest survey

Orange’s mobile broadband plans are named after animals, which doesn’t exactly add to the clarity of their schemes. There are two are listed on the website – Raccoon and Dolphin – but these two names cover seven distinct packages. As well as the standard 7.2Mbit/s dongle, the company offers an Orange Mobile WiFi mobile broadband router, similar to 3’s MiFi, for an additional £49.

Racoon is all about keeping costs down. The cheapest monthly tariff is just £5, but you’ll still have to pay £29 up front for the dongle, plus 5.1p per MB – there’s no bandwidth included in the £5 subscription. Monthly use is capped at £40, which equates to just 784MB. This package just about makes financial sense for those who just want literally one or two megabytes’ use a day – perhaps for checking email during a commute. The other Racoon contracts include 500MB data for £10 a month, and signing up for 12 months waives the £10 modem cost. Neither deal is particularly competitive.

The Dolphin plans start at £15 and also come with one- or 12-month contracts. They all include 1GB for use any time, but paying £20 adds unlimited BT OpenZone WiFi access. That’s cheaper than signing up to OpenZone directly, but O2 Mobile Broadband offers a similar deal for just £10.21. Meanwhile, signing a 12-month contract adds an additional 1GB monthly use, but only during the designated “quiet time” – midnight to 4am. It’s a rare individual who wants mobile broadband at those hours.

In a stark contrast to last year’s survey results, Orange received the lowest overall satisfaction score this year, with just 10 per cent of our respondents satisfied. Both the Raccoon and Dolphin plans are more expensive than similar deals elsewhere, the confusing array of versions, mediocre reliability and poor customer satisfaction make Orange’s mobile broadband a largely unappealing option.

See the next page for a full break-down and individual ratings of Orange’s services and the results of our broadband survey.

Broadband survey performance results

These results were compiled from our online survey, where users were asked to rate their broadband supplier. In the case of customer satisfaction, this is an average of whether users would recommend their supplier and if they’re planning on staying with their current supplier.

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