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tips & tricks to keep your bill under control
At Orange we want your mobile phone to work for you, which also means we don't want you to exceed your mobilebudget. Here are some tips and tricks to help you keep control of your spending, to save money, to show you how to block and unblock services and also some quick and easy advices for communication both in Switzerland and abroad. Please also consider the section about value added services.
young people and mobile phones: advice for parents
We are perfectly aware that as parents, you want the best for your children. And we also understand that while there are lots of advantages with modern technology, there are also plenty of potential disadvantages. That's why we are offering tools and advice to ensure that your children get the best and safest use out of their mobile phone and that you get complete peace of mind.
blocking SMS & MMS premium rate services
SMS & MMS premium rate services are services which are charged at a higher rate than normal MMS and SMS, in order to cover the cost of the service itself. They include services where you receive information by SMS (e.g. news, weather, sports results etc.)
These services have to be subscribed to, so before you sign up, you should ensure you're aware of all the associated costs.
To avoid accidental subscription to these premium rate services, or to avoid someone else subscribing on your mobile phone, you can choose to block either adult content only or all premium rate services. Please follow these instructions:
- send an SMS with BLOCK ADULT for adult content or BLOCK ALL for all types of content to the short number 5155 or call our Customer Care free on 0800 700 700
- to deactivate either of these blocks, just call our Customer Care, giving the password you received with your Orange subscription (written on the contract)
N.B.: Adult SMS and MMS premium rate services are blocked by default for customers and users who are known to be under 18 years of age.
For further details about these services, their costs, how to recognise them on your bill and Orange responsibility in their provision, please refer to our FAQ.
Preferred Numbers
Our Preferred Numbers option is a great way to save money, but if you exceed the normal, accepted usage of 1000 minutes per month, you'll be charged at CHF 0.40 per minute. Also, if you call a Preferred Number from abroad, you'll be charged the standard roaming rate.
foreign networks
If you're near the Swiss border, a stronger signal from a neighbouring country may cause your device to switch to this network, which means you'll be roaming within Switzerland and so charged at roaming rates. To avoid any roaming costs when in these areas, you can either temporarily disable roaming or manually select the Swiss Orange network.
Beep Option
This free of charge service uses a double beep to let you know when making a national call that you're calling a non-Orange number (even if the number starts with a 078), which may be charged at a higher rate (according to your subscription). This option can be activated at my account.
Travel Options
Save money when using your mobile abroad (whether it's for calls, SMS or data), by subscribing to one of our Travel options before you leave Switzerland.
Orange Box deactivation
When you travel abroad, calls made to your Orange Box are charged twice. There are various ways you can avoid this:
- deactivate your Orange Box before you leave, by dialling ##004#. Once you're back, you can reactivate your Orange Box by dialling **004*+4186x# (where 'x' is your 10 digit mobile phone number).
- divert all your calls to a Swiss fixed-line number (which means you can make but not receive calls when you're abroad)
- go into your phone settings and deactivate 'call divert' to your Orange Box (you can still receive calls and will be alerted to new messages in your Orange Box by SMS)
- activate 'call barring' to limit your incoming calls or to divert them to your Orange Box or an alternative number
data roaming deactivation
Most mobile phones allow you to deactivate data transfer while roaming very easily. We recommend doing this when you are abroad, so that you do not incur in roaming charges for accidental or automatic data transfer.
data calculator
Do you want to assess how much mobile Internet you would need? Use our data calculator to get an idea.
other options and services
Depending on your mobile needs, we have lots of other options available, to help you save money when using your phone. See our options section for detailed information.
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