Anybody on Three?

[nicks3607]

I'm looking at moving three pay-monthly contracts to SIM only. I'm with EE, so was looking at BT deals: 3 SIMs on 6GB/month and unlimited texts / calls for £41.50/month. We've just been into the Three store, and they can do 3x 12GB/month for £41/month.

My question is - what's the Three network like? My impression is that it used to be a little behind the big networks, but that might be very old news, I've been with EE since Orange launched. Is it worth jumping to Three? My wife and I don't use near 6GB, never mind 12GB, but my son is going to Uni in September and the 12GB + free Netflix etc could be great for him.

 

[CK61938]

I've been with Three for about 4-5 years now. Never had an issue them. The only downside is that within the major cities (especially parts of London) you might notice serious slow connection due to epic congestion and what not. But other than that, not an issue. I live in Newcastle myself and it's been no bother whatsoever apart from the usual deadspots.

And if you get the Advanced plan you get tethering and Feel at home which lets you use your phone abroad outside of the EU (certainly countries of course). Certainly came in handy when me and the missus went to Florida a couple years back. Saved over £3500 according to Three!

I would probably also ring Three and see if you can the deal a bit cheaper? It's even better that the likes of Netflix won't use up the data on their Go Binge feature.

I'm on their SIM only plan using 4GB for £9 a month on a 12 monthly contract. I got this after I told them I was moving away to Plusnet for their 3GB data at £8 a month. An extra quid a month for an extra GB? Why not! Certainly saves a lot of money from the last 24 month contract I was which was all you can eat on everything for £49!! Only to find I barely hit around 5GB on most months. Your son might not even touch 6GB himself if he's on the Uni wifi a lot.

 

[Kainz]

Been with 3 for 7 years.

After a recent trip to Italy, I had an absolute nightmare getting my S8+ to work with their Feel at Home feature - where you can freely use your current data/calls plan abroad. Turned out my account was botched, as well as my account management webpage settings. I absolutely hate the Three web management portal as it is horrible to look at let alone navigate. Their messy 'indian call centre' staff eventually sorted it out after 3hrs of non stop badgering but it took a day and a half to kick in... So I couldn't use G.Maps upon reaching Italy! When I eventually got on the Three partnered Italian networks I was getting about 4mb downstream and 1mb upstream, it was enough.

Signal wise Three have always been excellent around London and the North of England I find. I have never had an issue there and always have fast speeds.

Upon returning from Italy, I was still sour faced about my Three experience and wanted to goto SMARTY Mobile (check them out too). I was paying Three £17 a month for a 200mins, 12GB plan - I forgot its name. I phoned them up requesting my PAC and their retentions department came up with a nice deal for me

Advanced - SIM 8GB data All-you-can-eat minutes - 12 months - £10. Since I was a long standing customer they knocked off £13 as this was apparently £23 a month. At most I hit about 4-5GB usage a month so this was perfectly fine for me.

Three for it's network is excellent, obviously location dependant though. It's customer service seems to be based in India and sometimes it takes multiple call attempts to get something done. Make what you will of that one. It's plan pricing I find way better than EE.

 

[nicks3607]

Nice one, thanks he will probably be using WiFi quite a bit, I just don't want him to get caught short. I think they're advertising 4GB at the shop for £12/month

 

[reflux]

I've been with em for 5-6 years. They're cheap and data is fast some of the time, but I'm thinking of switching because the coverage isn't quite as good as EE or O2 (especially inside buildings). Not sure though because I'm getting a really good deal on Three atm.

 

[strumpusplunket]

I moved from Three earlier this year. I was fairly happy with them, but was upgrading and found a better deal through CPW on another provider that they couldn't match.

Now I'm back with Voda, my immediate impressions were:
The majority of the data blackspots I experienced on Three are still blackspots on Voda. I was hoping to get better coverage on my commute and in the parts of my work building that for some reason have no data connection, but nope - still goes dark for data in the same places.
I've noticed no difference at all in signal availability in general.
It seems there's a somewhat better chance of me getting a 4G signal outside of heavily populated areas on Voda.

The biggest difference for me was in the roaming experience. Three was okay for roaming, but I got terrible data speeds and it was often damn-near unusable for data abroad. Just got back from a country adjacent to one I went to a few times when I was with Three, and I got solid 4G data and good speeds the whole time. This was much better than with Three, but for most everything else I'm hard-pressed to tell that much difference. Although maybe Voda's network isn't that great, either, I don't know.

 

[Marky]

I've been with Three for years now - No complaints, and although I check every now and again for other deals from other networks, no one has been able to get close with what I have been offered!

 

[hux]

Can't complain, certainly won't with ayce data 500 minutes, 5000 text for £20pm.

I do sometimes find them congested, but luckily where I live it's been pretty good.
Cs can be a nightmare, usual Indian call center.
Jumping into them might be a good move. On 5g they only got 20ghz of spectrum, whilst the others managed 40ghz.
Three recently bought a wireless internet provider that gives them an additional 43ghz, plus their equipment will be using bt exchanges, so we might see a combined mobile, and high speed internet package.

 

[nicks3607]

Thanks for all your responses - I'm really tempted to jump to them.

 

[Dirk]

No VoLTE for devices bought off contract. I've found that both at home, and at work, i get faster speeds on 3G than 4G so i've disabled the latter.

YMMV

 

[MagicBoy]

I've been with them on SIM only rolling monthly for 5+ years. Coverage is no worse than my previous T-Mobile/EE. It's cheap, data is unlimited and I get 30GB tethered data for peanuts a month. I went SIM only so I could swap around for the best deal, not found anyone that can beat Three so far.

No VoLTE for devices bought off contract. I've found that both at home, and at work, i get faster speeds on 3G than 4G so i've disabled the latter.

VoLTE works on my iPhone, bought from Apple (not Three). 4G is faster than my Fibre internet...

 

[ahenners]

Another Three user, been with them about 3 years now. Came from EE and was also worried about the coverage etc. It's easily as good as EE in the NW where I live. Arguably better in some places.

Not sure I'll ever leave tbh, I'm on a 30 day rolling sim deal which is cheap as chips with bags of data.

 

[Kryton]

Was with three for about 5yrs but left as the signal was getting worse in my area and data speeds were also becoming worse. I moved over to bt 6 months ago and so far I've had no problems.

 

[TallPaul_S]

Was with Three for a while on PAYG, would get 90+mbps download at my old workplace, barely a few mb less that people on EE. Have since switched to iD mobile which runs on the Three network, on a rolling 1 month contract - I'm paying £8pm for 3GB of data, but crucially it rolls over. I was paying £15 for 5GB of data on PAYG, now as I roll over at least a couple of gig per month I'm essentially on 5GB.

 

[HangTime]

I'm with Three and they aren't great in my experience. Signal is poor at home (no signal some of the time) and also flaky whilst commuting (especially between Eastleigh & Winchester). I've also been unable to disable the adult content filter (no sniggering at the back!) despite going through the [very antiquated] website to tweak preferences etc.

Main reason I went with them was a cheap contract offering but I will switch away when it runs out.

 

[Kainz]

despite going through the [very antiquated] website to tweak preferences etc.

They really need to sort their website out. It resembles something from 1999 I swear. Half the time the account management options are broken, and if you've forgotten your password then for some reason it takes days to receive it (tried 3x email providers). It looks complete cack.

To top it off their app is no better on Android. I've noticed for a few years (across 2 phones) now that it seems to run as a service for some reason so it is always there as a background process. Uninstalled it right away.

 

[Rimsy]

I'm with three, the missus is with EE and generally speaking more often than not I have signal whilst she doesn't.
As others have said the speeds aren't always great but having data signal vs having nothing wins imo.

 

[Sp00n]

Three paygo, was on giffgaff but their 4g was absolutely shocking so switched to Three and haven't looked back since, I work out of the main city now and I never see speed issues.

I go for the 25 quid package thing, I really should just do a sim-only deal as it'll save about 9 quid a month.

 

[Slam62]

I switched from EE to three, same service, much less money.

I've got 12gb all you can eat calls and texts, go binge, feel at home, for about £12

Keep an eye on Quidco, they often have good deals for three.

 

[Sp00n]

Yea, there is an all you can eat text/calls + 30gb data for £16/pm here or the £18/pm with £60 cashback on quidco for the same which is about a £35 saving if my maths is any cop.