Orange & Nokia Another Partnership

Orange PCS and Nokia ESPOO recently announced a joint venture with the Nokia Messaging application. The two companies will soon be touting a co branded email solution to Orange customers in the UK at least for now!

“Orange is the first operator group to announce a European-wide offering of Nokia Messaging to their customers and we are very pleased about this extension to our service collaboration. The agreement on Nokia Messaging will boost the adoption of mobile email service and makes it easy for consumers to activate the service on-device and at Point-of-Sale. We believe that mobile messaging is for everyone, not just for a certain segment of the consumer market. “

Orange UK Refresh PAYM Offerings

Orange UK have today refreshed their Pay Monthly contract deals, we still have the animals on offer but one of them is missing! They still have Dolphin, Racoon and Panther but the Canary is missing it’s rumored to have been eaten by the Panther but reports are unconfirmed! The reality is that Orange already have some form of Orange 2 Orange calling benefit with the Magic Numbers service which allows a user with an 18 month contract to build up to 4 magic numbers over 18 months. These numbers can then be called for up to 3 hours a day with no charge or loss of inclusive minutes.

Examples of some of the changes are below:

Orange Launch HTC Dream! (Read On)

Orange have recently launched the HTC dream, the  google android based handset. The phone has already been marketed as the T-Mobile G1 in the states and europe.

• Orange is offering the HTC Dream™, the first Android™-based handset launched in France with preinstalled applications such as Google Search™, Google Maps™, Gmail™ and YouTube™.
• The HTC Dream™ is being sold from 99 euros with the Origami “plus version” packages, with a 12-month commitment.

Notice the bold red text and some of  you’ll will sigh and ask yourselves, when will it be in the UK? Well i honestly don’t know and i’m not sure it would ever make it to Orange UK. Not to say that i am psychic but i’m not sure it fits with Orange UK’s profile. They’ll probably prove me wrong though, who knows?

Orange And Barclays Team Up To Use NFC

Orange and Barclaycard will co-develop NFC tech

The duo will launch co-branded contactless payment products and services based on near-field communications (NFC) technology, allowing you to simply wave your mobile over an in-store reader to pay for, say, a train ticket.

Although neither firm’s said anything concrete about what hardware the partnership will eventually herald, they did state that the joint venture will result in contactless services for ticketing, transport and rewards. We assume the latter could mean airtime vouchers and credit card points.

Blackberry’s and Orange!

Mobile email fans bereft of cash can now get their BlackBerry kicks without a monthly service contract, thanks to Orange.

The service provider has announced plans to launch the BlackBerry Pearl 8120 on Pay-As-You-Go.

Although the phone will initially cost you £145 ($206/€161), you’ll then have control over how much surfing, calling, emailing and texting costs you because you won’t be tied to a monthly commitment.

Orange’s decision is said to have followed “growing demand for a BlackBerry smartphone with PAYG service”. Unfortunately, RIM’s latest BlackBerry – the Storm – won’t be available, but there’s always a chance it’ll be added to the list later. Much like O2 did with the iPhone 3G.

The BlackBerry 8120 will be available on Orange PAYG from early next month. ®

Source: Reghardware

UPDATE: Orange have released their PAYG Blackberry offering and a monthly charge of £5.00 is levied, as long as you have at least £5.00 a month credit you will be able to use the service.

Orange Bold 9000 Update

The Blackberry Bold 9000 has been released for a second time on the Orange UK network, the Bold was pulled from sale by Orange and RIM to sort out a few software glitches on the original firmware. This morning at 11:30am the handset was unleashed on general sale and upgrades, Orange took delivery of the handset last week and a full rigourous testing phase was completed before releasing the phone today.

I will post a report on the findings of the software fix in the coming days, so keep your eyes peeled for more news to follow.

iphone on Orange UK?

You may have seen reports from major websites reporting that the iphone will be available on the Orange network in October? Sites like The Register and TheInquirer reported that the fabled iphone would be turning Orange after 02 were reported to have possibly dissapointed Apple through lack of sales and that they had a get out clause in the exclusivity contract, which meant if 02 failed to perform in terms of sales and contracts,  Apple could pull the plug so to speak.

Blackberry Maps Missing On Orange Bold 9000’s

Punters getting themselves a BlackBerry Bold from Orange are finding the in-built mapping application absent, and are being asked to pay for the Orange alternative despite the original adverts clearly stating the in-built app would be included.

The adverts in question appeared on the Orange website, and used to clearly state that BlackBerry Maps were included on the device, which is advertised as an alternative to Apple’s iPhone. Since punters started complaining that text has been removed from the site, leaving a suspicious gap, but not before it was snagged by one disgruntled customer:

Before…..

After…..

Orange Rockcorps 26th Sept 2008

Orange Rockcorps will descend on The Royal Albert Hall in just over 2 weeks to present a gig to celebrate the volunteering projects they are actively involved in across the UK. Orange are in partnership with RockCorps, a pro social music production company, to harness the power of music to inspire a new generation of young people to make a real difference in their local community.

Multi-Grammy award winner John Legend will join Guillemots and Busta Rhymes to play an exclusive, money-can’t-buy gig for volunteers taking part in Orange RockCorps, a national music-led volunteering programme.

Taking place at the Royal Albert Hall on 26th September, tickets to the cross-genre, all-star supergig will not be available for fans to purchase or win. In a bold departure from the norm, fans can’t buy their ticket, they can’t win their ticket, they have to earn their ticket by taking part in a four hour Orange RockCorps community project.

More info on Orange Rockcorps:

http://www.orangerockcorps.co.uk/

Lycamobile MVNO On Orange (UK)

Lycamobile an ethnic market provider has launched it’s MVNO services on the Orange network in the UK, Lycamobile is one of the worlds largest calling card companies and already work with Orange in Switzerland.

It’s thought that Its launch rates include free on-net talktime for call of up to 39 minutes, after which calls are charged at 9p per minute. On-net text messages are charged at 9p each, calls to UK landlines at 8p per minute, calls to other mobile network providers at 10p per minute.

International calls start at 4p per minute to fixed lines in certain markets, including Brazil, China, Poland, Romania and Turkey. Calls to foreign mobiles are marginally higher.

Lycamobile has targeted 750,000 Uk customers in 12 months, however niether Lyca or Orange were available for comment today.