Orange debuts cheaper roaming data bundle
Orange is letting its customers who roam in Europe use their mobile broadband at a daily rate of €2 for 2MB.
The mobile operator has already launched the opt-in bundle in Spain and Romania. Orange said on Monday that it is now extending the offer to customers in the UK, Poland, France, Slovakia, Switzerland, Austria, Luxembourg, Belgium and Moldova.
In addition, the company said it will let its French iPhone customers access the web from their phones while roaming at a daily rate of €5 (£4.36) for 10MB of data. It added that this offer will be extended to "some other countries" at some point.
The operator charges its customers £3 per megabyte for data roaming in Europe, unless they opt into a daily bundle. Its daily packages cost either £8.50 for 50MB or the newly-announced €2 for 2MB. Rolling monthly and one-off 30-day bundles are also available. By way of comparison, T-Mobile charges £1.50 per megabyte, out of bundle.
Yves Maitre, Orange's devices chief, said on Thursday that the €2 bundle will help customers avoid 'bill shock' — a term that refers to the surprise experienced by those opening bills that detail unexpected levels of charges.
Maitre noted that people who approach the limit on their daily package will get a warning by text message. Once the limit is reached, they can buy another 2MB for €2 or revert to Orange's standard out-of-bundle charges.
According to Orange, 2MB will get a user "approximately thousands of Twitter messages, 80 to 100 emails (not attachments), 80 to 100 web pages (text) or approximately 15 to 20 images".
"The average [roaming customer] uses 41MB per month," Maitre said. "Statistically, users are using less than 2MB a day."