I have an orange monthly tarif on an iphone. To be honest, it's not particularly good - slow to download, sometimes no service/patchy internet access. This also happens in the center of town at times (I'm in the burbs). Travelling the reception can be very poor in the countryside, with very slow downloads or nothing at all. It's also super expensive abroad, and here in Basel that's not very far - I have often got stung for a missed call/answerphone message when shopping in Weil am Rhein (12chf). The phone's OK though abd I have foreign calks included in my tarif which is great. When my contract expires I'll probably change though.
Orange doesn't have very good coverage in the greater Basel area (or anywhere else, for that matter). They're currently upgrading their network, but it'll be another year before they finally introduce EDGE on their network.
If you want to save money and at the same time want decent coverage, you'll have to look at Sunrise. Beware that they don't allow tethering and voice over IP on their network (that's what it says in their legal terms, however, they aren't actively blocking those sevices. So it's up to you whether you ignore the terms or not...). Also, Sunrise has the highest tariffs (by far) for data usage abroad. If you're planning on using your phone abroad a lot, you'll have to stick with Swisscom. In Switzerland, Sunrise offers the best deal.
I use Orange in BS/BL and have no complaints. The coverage in other urban areas is ok too. Once I get outside an urban area - on occasion - my Swisscom colleagues routinely get 3 bars while I have to stand on chair and wave my arm to get any reception.
We have Orange and I find that service is ok in Basel-Stadt, but rather patchy outside it. My husband commutes to Zurich everyday, and it does have issues between the two cities.
I have orange and find its generally ok in Basel Stadt but drops out a lot on the way to zurich. However - you can get a fair way into France without losing the Orange CH connection
How far into France, do you know? I can get the Swisscom network to about the centre of Saint Louis, but if I go as far as Leclerc in Saint Louis La ChausseĢe (about 5 km from the Swiss border), I'm in the French network...
I would say you can get reasonable reception for at least 3km over the border if you head in the Ville Neuf and Huningue direction. I assume it must depend on where the mast is and how it is configured to reach across Basel - as if you so much as go across the German border it seems to switch.