One of the key players in the market for Telephone and internet services in the Dominican Republic has reached an agreement to sell it’s interests in the DR. Orange (based in France)made a deal with Altice (based in Luxembourg) for $1.4 billion.

The Dominican Republic is considered a non-core market for the French based company that has been struggling over the last couple years.

How will the Sale of Orange affect Dominican Subscribers

Over the last couple years Orange has continued to improve its cell-phone and internet services. While still being known for its dropped calls and patchy cell network these issue have been improving with new equipment being added in the outlining areas.

Orange Internet services have continued to improve with some areas reaching much higher download speeds than the comparable Claro internet services at a considerably lower price. About 6 months ago I switched from Claro to Orange and was able to double my bandwidth that I was receiving from Claro (10gig to 20gig) at about 2/3 the price I was paying at Claro. With this same move my download speed went from 1.0meg to a max of 2.5meg with the Claro Internet service to 3.0meg to over 5meg with the cheaper Orange service.

Upload speeds have also increased from about .5meg with Claro to about 1.5meg with Orange. This greatly affects internet services like Skype and Magicjack which benefits from the higher upload speed for images and constant voice transfer.

Altice Caribbean

Orange isn’t the only acquisition that Altice Caribbean is making this year. On October 31, 2013 Altice VII in particular its subsidiary Altice Caribbean S.à made an agreement to acquire (more…)

Huawei E355 Modem from Dominican Orange

Got the chance to try out a different internet provider over the last month or so. The Dominican internet provider Orange has wireless internet plans at less than half the price of Claro although then have a reputation of having a much more limited coverage. Equipped with the Huawei E355 modem that is offered by Orange I decided to give it a try.

Dominican Orange Upload and Download Speed

When he service is working well (as in low traffic times), there is a much higher cap with Dominican Orange than there is with Claro. My Claro plan said that I should get up to 3.5 meg downloads, during the 4 years I have used Claro I never got more than 2.5 meg. Whoever during my tests with Dominican Orange I very frequently get 5 to even 6 meg downloads with a consistent upload of over 2 meg instead of the .5meg cap that I have always received from Claro.

Remember though, the actual Upload and download speed that you get will vary depending on how close you are to the internet service tower and how many people are trying to access the internet in your area at the same time. If possible it is always a good idea to find someone with the service and try it out in the area that you plan on using it the most before you lock yourself into a 1.5 year plan.

MagicJack on Dominican Orange Internet

One thing that is definitely nicer about using the Dominican Orange internet service over the Claro service is the way MagicJack reacts. Claro caps your upload at a much lower rate, usually about .5 meg while I often get as high as 2.0 meg upload with Dominican Orange. Magicjack seems to like (more…)