Orange ducks out of coverage exam

Orange has failed to provide any data about the geographical reach and reliability of its network to Oftel's latest investigation because of a technical failure at its fixed-line partner.

The Oftel survey measures the percentage of test calls connected and completed successfully, percentages of successfully held calls and successful set-ups, both nationally and regionally.

An Oftel statement said: "Orange has decided not to publish the results of its drive survey, as they do not accurately reflect the performance of the Orange network. The fixed-line-to-mobile results were affected by localised faults on the fixed network where the test calls were originated, resulting in the failure of a number of test calls to the Orange network. Consequently, the data obtained does not reflect the actual network performance of Orange."

Oftel's latest mobile network performance survey sets out call success rates for over 21,000 test calls made by each operator in 70 cities and towns and on major A roads and motorways around the UK between April and September 2001.

The survey shows that over 95 per cent of calls made to and from mobiles were completed successfully on a national level.

In the absence of Orange, Vodafone emerged as the UK's best network.

However, Orange and One2One use the 1800MHz waveband, which provides more capacity than the 900MHz waveband used by the others, and consequently Orange has a track record of coming top in similar surveys.

In London, where One2One's network infrastructure is concentrated, the network came top on two out of three metrics, and was narrowly beaten by Vodafone on the percentage of calls successfully made.

David Edmonds, director general of Oftel, said in a statement: "The survey published today allows consumers to make direct comparisons on how companies perform on a regional basis. Reliability as well as price is an important consideration when buying a mobile phone. For example, what might be the best network for somebody living in Wales might not be the best network for someone living in the South West."

The full results and details of the survey can be found on Oftel's
website at http://www.oftel.gov.uk/publications/research/2001/call_survey/index.htm