Three (3UK) review

[TW]Fox;23481828 said:
Technically there is no problem with it but you can't deny that the reason unlimited is now so rare is because of people going bonkers and doing stuff like downloading 100gb on phones.
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Have to disagree, I'm on 3 myself and have been for three years, I'm on the one plan and average about 30gb pcm, I don't have a home phone or broadband connection so I don't feel my use is excessive.

3 sold me this plan with AYCE data / tethering etc with a ridiculous amount of minutes (2000 irc ) and likewise to sms / texts. Now I use around 100 mins pcm and possibly 300 sms, I personally know a lot of folk on the same price plan with 3 who use next to no data but do use the minutes and texts heavily.

I recall T Mob offering a similar plan and then pulling it shortly after, I would suggest it's simply down to greed, 3 have built upon the AYCE plans and it's what marks them out from all the other networks, it's superb marketing for 3 as they know anyone who wishes to get the most out of a smart phone will switch to then sooner if not later.

If 3 would release yearly averages for everyone on the One plan breaking I don't think we would see excessive usage as an average, heavy users help draw people into switching to 3 by singing their praises.

Say I use 100gb pcm and I tell 25 people how fantastic 3 is and they sign up for them on a 24 month contract, out of those 25 only 5 use the data as much as I do but the other twenty are using <500mb pcm, the 5 heavy users in turn convince another 15 people each and it's easy to see how this works in 3's favour
 
I was on Three until fairly recently, and technically they were good. Signal was decent most place I went, data speeds were good and the price was cheap as well.

Unfortunately when trying to get my PAC for transferring to another network I encountered what has to be the most infuriating, unhelpful and down right awful customer experience I have experienced. It was so bad that it has put me off ever considering going back to Three as a network.
 
I have been 'attempting' to switch to 3 from o2 for ages now but contacting CS for a PAC code puts me off. The sheer speeds my iPad 3 gets on 3 is absolutely scary and even outside London and on motorways the iPad holds onto a good 3G signal.

o2 on the otherhand are beyond poor now in terms of speeds around the Middlesex area. This thread has given me a lot to think about again and this time I reckon I will do something about it this month.
 
I stayed with Three for 2 weeks and the reception was so poor when in buildings that I moved to giffgaff who are much better.... I stream a lot to f music.... I'm based in central London...
 
add my 2p here
I 'run' and pay for 4 different accounts at our house 3 mobiles and the broadband which has been with O2 till 3 days ago
my o2 broadband has been appalling with cable connection getting 3mb down and .1mb uploads and had been complaining to them for a number of months and I am not a huge downloader a couple of movies a week from sky anytime service and thats it
anyway after much research kicked them into touch and got Plusnet unlimited on a 12 month deal
only had it 3 days but it has been 10mb downloads and .5mb uploads every day so far so miles better than the o2 rubbish speeds

moving onto the mobile phones
my phone is vodaphone and the data is really bad with .95mb down and .2mb up

wife's phone is with Orange and gets 4mb down and .4 up

daughters phone was with o2 till 1 week ago
downloads were 1.2mb and uploads were .2mb

so as you can see not great my Town seems to be in the forgotten section of getting sub station upgrades etc

anyway I have always been of the opinion that three are aload of rubbish and have never even considered them (ever)

then over the xmas period my daughters boyfriend shows up at my house with his 'three' phone
and I actually could not believe what I was seeing the pages on his phone open in a split second whereas our 3 existing phones take an 'age'
anyway to cut a long story short I tried his sim card in all our phone and the difference is night and day compared to the other contracts I have so I cancelled my daughters o2 and moved her onto the three plan

and she has had it about a week or so now and it annihilates everything I have and as such my contract with Voda finishes in 3 weeks and I am moving over to three as well

the signal is just night v day better than anything else I have ever had and that includes T mobile
benchmarked the 3 contract every day and 11mb downloads and .500 uploads

I just wish I had seen how much faster there are in my town than suffering with appalling speeds for the last 6 years
 
I just began a contract with 3, i was warned from a friend in telecoms about the coverage but i was ok to risk it. Just yesterday i was at his house and i couldnt get 3G or even get any network coverage for a simple call. This is a bit worrying but others on different networks experience bad reception there too. Good to see a lot you saying its not that bad gives me a little confident i didnt make a dire mistake :D

http://goo.gl/VSVgg

Even if you used your phone for every minute of every day you could only possibly use, subject to traffic management requirements and policy, up to 1000GB each month. So in a sense, there is a data limit of up to 1000GB, which is based on what you can physically use.
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:D
 
Been with 3 just over a month now, coming from T-Mobile/EE. Like probably almost everyone on 3 I got it for the all-you-can-eat data. I have been hammering it (new phone, Note II) and doing a little under a gig a week.

Signal strength, I think, is a bit of pot luck. No network has best coverage everywhere. For me 3 has been just fine though. The speeds are good too, dropping at to/from work o'clock but you would expect that anyway.
 
Woden said:
No network has best coverage everywhere.
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Around my sister's place in Hampshire, my phone (on 3) reports that No Service has the best coverage :p. No Service seem pretty rubbish for a service provider thou, can't call or send texts!
 
exactly the same as what i fell.

if you get signal there is no better network. but drive through the countryside and you get signal 30% of the time.

i wouldnt use it for an emergency network!

FYI: im staying with them
 
That is excessive!

They should probably put some sort of throttling on the more you download.

I'mon 15 per month all you can eat data . I've used a fair few gigs tethering
 
JAMAL said:
Its people like you who spoil it for everyone else.
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If I were 3 I would end it after the 30 days is up. I know it is all you can it but there has to be a point where you are extracting the urine. 4 people in this house and we don't use 100GB a month on the landline.
 
100GB :eek: now what do you do with that amount of data each month apart from popcorn. pure greed.

I have been with three since they first appeared and never really had much problem and apart from the usual drop outs when near the coast as do all providers.
 
Stop yer whining lol. Just bought Ttorrent(encryption forced) :P:P from play market and chugging along torrenting all day long. Not planning to use the 1000gb that the previous guy mentioned though, but that is why I'm paying TRULY UNLIMTED DATA is it not?
Nearing 120gb now probably. Best network for my Note 2 period!

Current house does not have broadband and long delays for my fibre to get installed because of christmas so I've been happily tethering along 2-3 devices ever since December.
 
I'm on my third handset (Sony Ericsson C510 - Samsung Galaxy Portal (i5700) - Samsung Galaxy S3 (i9200)) with Three and 85% of the time I'm totally happy with their service... Only issue I have is as the OP mentioned, my indoor reception is pants - 3G reception is non-existant if I'm sitting on one of my sofas (makes me all the more thankful for wifi in this case!) that probably accounts for the 5% lol but my "10%" issue is that at no point during the contract process did they mention or make it remotely clear that the prices quoted on their website and by the guy I was talking to on the phone were NOT inclusive of VAT!!

My contract for my SGS3 is supposed to be £32 p/m for their "one plan" but my monthly outgoing is £43!!! (I'm not using anything outside of my allowances, that was the first thing I checked!)

So I rummaged through their T's&C's and there is a line that says "VAT will be added to your account where appropriate"

Now yes, maybe I should've hunted for this before... but who the hell expects to be quoted an entire contract without actually mentioning that it was NOT inclusive of VAT!?

Bad times! :(
 
EniGmA1981 said:
I'm on my third handset (Sony Ericsson C510 - Samsung Galaxy Portal (i5700) - Samsung Galaxy S3 (i9200)) with Three and 85% of the time I'm totally happy with their service... Only issue I have is as the OP mentioned, my indoor reception is pants - 3G reception is non-existant if I'm sitting on one of my sofas (makes me all the more thankful for wifi in this case!) that probably accounts for the 5% lol but my "10%" issue is that at no point during the contract process did they mention or make it remotely clear that the prices quoted on their website and by the guy I was talking to on the phone were NOT inclusive of VAT!!

My contract for my SGS3 is supposed to be £32 p/m for their "one plan" but my monthly outgoing is £43!!! (I'm not using anything outside of my allowances, that was the first thing I checked!)

So I rummaged through their T's&C's and there is a line that says "VAT will be added to your account where appropriate"

Now yes, maybe I should've hunted for this before... but who the hell expects to be quoted an entire contract without actually mentioning that it was NOT inclusive of VAT!?

Bad times! :(
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That's strange, even 20% VAT on the £32 is only £38.4.

Was that your first months bill? Your "month" (when your allowances start for the month, until they end) doesn't start the same day you get the contract, so the first bill will always be more, mine was a bit over £30 on a £25 a month contract because of it.

Three also quote all their prices including VAT afaik (may be different if you have a business account).

I must be lucky, at home I got 6Mb/s on my S2 and get 13.5Mb/s on my Note 2 :D.

Edit: £32.39 my first bill was (£25 a month normally) because of then my month actually started. Yours will be about right (ie every bill after that will be £32 you were quoted) if your allowances reset about 10 days after you started the contract :). Normally they explain this to you, Three did both times I've taken a contract with them, but, especially on the phone, it's easy to switch off when they start talking T&Cs :D.
 
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