Why doesn't Orange offer a Pay as You Go Dongle?

A friend of mine lives in the small Norfolk village of Swaffham. Coverage in this area is patchy with all networks however, 90% of the time I was able to get a 3g signal with my personal dongle. The next day we decided to go to the shops to buy an orange pay as you go dongle.

After arriving at the orange shop - I was shocked to see that orange does not have a PAYG option for mobile broadband.

Prices do start at £5 per month for a meager 500mb of browsing (which is probably suitable for this low user.) However, they require that you are an existing pay monthly customer. This means we had to go for the next option up. The £10 per month deal. This provides you with a free dongle if you sign up for 18 months or a £29.99 dongle if you want to sign up for just one month. Finally when we had agreed the product we wanted we found we were unable to purchase it there and then as we had not brought along the ID required for a credit check.

Every other network in the UK offers a PAYG deal, which does not require you to pass a credit check and I am baffled as to why Orange does not do the same. Hopefully when the merger with T-mobile completes this madness will end.