Orange: Price hikes are cancelled -- you're stuck with us

Orange, perhaps prompted by legions of customers grabbing their heavily subsidised phones and running for the hills, has cancelled the price increases it had planned for 1 September.

The price hikes would have allowed customers to terminate their contracts, thanks to Orange's terms and conditions, which state that you can get out of jail early if it varies your contract's terms, resulting in "an excessive increase in the charges".

Today, Orange told us that people were finding the news "confusing" and therefore it has "decided not to go ahead with the proposed changes".

We think it's more likely that Orange lost its bottle once it realised the news was out that customers who signed up for lengthy contracts with expensive phones could cancel early without having to return the lovely loot.

That sounds like the opposite of 'confused' to us, but we'll publish Orange's apology anyway. The company says sorry "to those customers who found the messages unclear and any subsequent misunderstanding this has caused".

For those who got out, our advice is: run, damn you! Run! Run! For our fallen homies left behind, tonight we will pour one out as a tribute.