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Orange Kenya Time-Based Tariff and Other Irrelevant Stuff

Orange Kenya should pay me for publicizing their tariffs. They are so bad at publicity and promotion they should get the price for the worst marketing among telcom companies in Kenya.

Strangely, they collect the emails (or should collect) of those who register SIM cards but have no clue what to do with all that data. TKL - please show a bit of innovation!

So here's the "Time based" tariffs of Telkom Kenya (so-called Orange Kenya):
http://www.orange.co.ke/en/internet-on-modem/


You can buy a one-week "unlimited" bundle for KSh. 990. The bundle is not really unlimited because there is a Fair Use Policy limit of 10GB. If you exceed that limit before the 7-day period is over, speeds drop to 256kbps.

The 30-day package  (KSh. 2,990) will get you only 20GB in 30 days.

You can load up airtime via PesaPal by going to Lipa na MPESA on your phone's MPESA menu and selecting Paybill then give the business number as 220220. When asked for the account number, give "ORNG" followed by the phone number e.g., ORNG0773676767

Indicate the amount of airtime to buy.

On receiving the PesaPal text message on your phone (SMS) confirming that PesaPal has received your money, login to https://myaccount.orange.co.ke/3G/index.jsp with your browser and visit the "Purchase Bundles" menu to select the preferred bundle. You may be forced to login to that account. See below for a screenshot of the login page and a description of how to get your password.
MyAccount Page

Purchase Bundle Menu


Login Page
 (see link  new user? forgot password? click here ) 

Use this link "new user" to add a new account. You will need your phone with the Orange SIM installed because the new password will be sent to you via SMS text.



Bon Voyage for your orange-colored digital excursions. Remember to always have Plan B when on safari. 

How Much Data Have I Consumed?

This question is easy to answer if (i) you are using a single 3G line to connect to the Internet and (ii) you do not share the connection with other people. In this situation, you can use Glasswire. Simple stuff. 

Here's my Glasswire 7-day report. Unfortunately, I don't see a feature that allows the user to get a report for a given range of dates.





Signal Meter
Lastly, you may just want to check your 3G or 4G signal levels. If its 2G you are not going to enjoy the ride. There's plenty to chose from. 

For one, Android (5.1 in my case) gives you the signal strength. Select Settings -> About Phone -> Status -> SIM Status. If you have multiple SIMs, Android should show you the list to chose from. The key parameter is the Signal strength in dBm (decibel-milliwatts). The more negative, the weaker it is. Hence -55 is much stronger than -100.

In my case, I get -68dBm  while about 100m from a 3G mast. Android also provides the cellular network type (e.g., GPRS (~150kbps max.), EDGE (~300kbps max), HSPA (~3Mbps max.), HSPA+ (~20Mbps max.). Obviously a weak HSPA+ is far better than a very strong EDGE signal. 

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