Since I wrote this, I moved to a Vodafone 3G data card which has been substantially more reliable and speedier than Orange's data cards. I have also discussed with others Orange's unreliable data service. I was informed by an Orange techie that in November 2004 they were rolling out a new network, when it got substantially worse :( so in the end Vodafone came through with the goods.
I work away from home quite a bit when I get bored, but still require bandwidth - so I use my laptop with Orange's GPRS system. This document is intended to assist people who may be considering this service, or having difficulty in choosing a system which matches their needs.
My week tends to be split between London and Wakefield, so I do a lot of train travelling down the East Coast Mainline in the UK, passing through Wakefield, Retford, Newark Northgate, Grantham, Peterborough and Stevenage. This line is actually reasonably OK for GPRS - certainly better than using it on the West Coast line to Birmingham anyway.
Orange's GPRS network is actually pretty broken. Routing is frequently sent into a black hole, especially when changing cells. This can lead to all sorts of frustration if you're moving at any speed although it seems to get worse between Peterborough and London. Click here for a typical journey's log.
Also of note is that some ports appear blocked - MSN Messenger is rendered unusable sometimes, as is IRC and any sort of VPN solution. However, web pages are not proxied, which makes it a bit easier to browse. An Orange representative blamed this on my handset rather than the connection, which I found a little odd.
I recently moved from the "domestic" service to the "business" and a lot of this cleared up though - but again, a difference between the business and domestic services has been denied by Orange themselves.
OK, so what do I use now? Well, I've recently purchased a SonyEricsson GC75 data card which is tri-band, and does GPRS. It's meant to be for Windows only but there are scripts out there for the Mac too.
There is one major gotcha with this card - and that's that it removes most of the AT command set by default. This means that it'll give ERROR responses if you even do something as basic as an ATZ command!
To enable full functionality you need to issue the following command:
My hacked-up Linux script for using the data card in conjunction with Orange GPRS can be found here. Caveat emptor, YMMV, you gets what you pays for, etc.etc.