3 network

Guest2

Guest2

Guest2

Soldato
Joined
6 May 2009
Posts
20,339
I am with Tesco (who use o2) at the moment paying £12.50 a month for 200 minutes, 5000 text and 1gb data

3 offer something similar for £12.90 but includes all you can eat data which is attractive to me for tethering

http://www.store-3.co.uk/3-three-apple-nanosim-iphone-5.html

What is 3 call reception like?
What is the 3G reception like?
How good is reception abroad as I travel quite a lot?
Is customer service good?

I have been with Tesco a few years now and I have stuck with them for their great customer service. Its always easy to speak to something who actually knows what you are talking about
 
As with all networks, it depends entirely on where you are. I've been with Three for a few weeks now and they're great where I am, decent 3G coverage in rural areas of Scotland is rather nice when O2 seemingly can't even maintain decent 2G reception here.
 
TheVoice said:
As with all networks, it depends entirely on where you are. I've been with Three for a few weeks now and they're great where I am, decent 3G coverage in rural areas of Scotland is rather nice when O2 seemingly can't even maintain decent 2G reception here.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I live in Leeds, in Doncaster on Tesco there is no 3G at all where I live
 
Guest2 said:
3 offer something similar for £12.90 but includes all you can eat data which is attractive to me for tethering
Click to expand...
Tethering is only allowed on the One plans or via add ons and Three traffic monitoring is very effective at spotting tethering.

The £5/mo tethering add on will give you a few Gig (not sure how many) of tethering.

/edit the add on gives you 1gig for tethering
 
Last edited:
What if you just put the sim in a mi-fi?

Virgin do a mobile sim for £12 that 150 minutes and unlimited text and data. Not sure if you can use tethering on this.
 
Guest2 said:
What if you just put the sim in a mi-fi?
Click to expand...
Three inspect your traffic in realtime as it crosses their network so a mifi or usb dongle won't help.

Virgin do a mobile sim for £12 that 150 minutes and unlimited text and data. Not sure if you can use tethering on this.
Click to expand...
They are in the process of changing their T&Cs to ban it and talking about rolling out a system like Three's to detect it. At the moment I believe they have no way to detect tethering other than excessive data usage. On that vein they have introduced a FUP of 3.5GB a month after which you'll be throttled
 
Fourstar said:
They are in the process of changing their T&Cs to ban it and talking about rolling out a system like Three's to detect it. At the moment I believe they have no way to detect tethering other than excessive data usage. On that vein they have introduced a FUP of 3.5GB a month after which you'll be throttled
Click to expand...

Do you have a link to this information? Thanks.
 
thewanted said:
Do you have a link to this information? Thanks.
Click to expand...
The terms only changed on the 24th Jan 2013. I think I was slightly wrong as it reads like people with contracts from before this date will not be banned from tethering but the FUP will apply.

Virgin Media Mobile Acceptable Use Policy Pay Monthly

Virgin Media’s mobile services (“our services”) are for private individual use only (i.e. not for business or commercial use). As such, you must not use our services in any way that is not in keeping with that reasonably expected of a private individual.

You are liable for all use of all accounts in your name, irrespective of use without your knowledge and/or consent.

Further, you must not use our services in any way that is unlawful or illegal or in any way to the detriment of other users. You also must not allow anybody using our services provided to you in any way that is unlawful or illegal or in any way to the detriment of other users or the network.

For new & upgrading customers from 24 January 2013: If your tariff includes data, then this is for mobile internet services and data consumption actually on your handset. It does not include using your handset as a modem to connect other devices such as laptops and tablets - also known as "Tethering".

Virgin Media reserves the right to impose network protection controls which may reduce your speed of transmission if your data usage is excessive and not in keeping with that reasonably expected of a private individual.

For customers who joined Virgin Media after 25 June 2012 excessive use over 3.5GB of data per calendar month will result in their maximum bandwidth being restricted to 3G speeds (384kbit/s downstream, 200kbit/s upstream) on our network between midday and midnight. For customers who joined before 25 June 2012 excessive use over 2GB of data per calendar month will result in this restriction being applied. This policy will apply until the end of the calendar month, when it will be automatically removed. We reserve the right to review these usage levels from time to time. At this reduced speed, customers will still be able to browse web pages, send/receive emails, and stream audio and video all at 3G data speeds, but peer-to-peer and large file downloads/uploads will be slower than normal.

As an example, a customer would have to watch over 16 hours of high quality video before that threshold is reached. Typically far less than 0.25% of our customers will be affected on a monthly basis.

Terms and Conditions
Click to expand...
 
I wonder if I will lose the ability to tether if I downgrade from the £12/month to £7/month SIM-only plan.

I'd ask their customer service team, but I think I would be able to hold a more intelligent conversation with a guava.

EDIT: Looks like I will lose tethering if I downgrade. *sigh*
 
Last edited:
You get 300 mins 3000 texts & Unlimited Data on 3 PAYG for 15 quid. Get one & try it, I've been on 3 for years now PAYG & wouldn't be with anybody else or tied to owt not even a pay monthly.
 
It depends on the quality of the reception of your area, however where I am the reception is generally perfect, however 3G speeds vary greatly depending on location. They don't ever drop below 2mbit/s which in my opinion is perfectly fine for mobile data, however when I'm home the cell tower is just up the road from me, and as such... Just look

Y95nRGY.jpg


This isn't even a fluke result, I've seen it hit 30mbit/s before now and it never drops below 10mbit/s in the general area around where I spend most of my time - which makes for immense mobile-internetting.

(This is on a Nexus 4 using DC-HSPA42 however three don't support the DC part so...when they DO roll this out (which they're doing soon) - the speeds could double. Insanity)

In terms of tethering, I do it every day without fail, using gigabytes a time - and I've never been contacted or visible throttled on anything other than Bittorrent (Which they do seem to sometimes throttle)
 
kn100 said:
In terms of tethering, I do it every day without fail, using gigabytes a time - and I've never been contacted or visible throttled on anything other than Bittorrent (Which they do seem to sometimes throttle)
Click to expand...
You don't mention what plan you're on or how long you've been with them?

The One plan does still offer 2GB/unlimited tethering for £20/£25 a month but all other new contracts will have tethering blocked (without the £5 for 2GB tethering add on).

Existing users get to keep their tethering abilities.
 
Fourstar said:
You don't mention what plan you're on or how long you've been with them?

The One plan does still offer 2GB/unlimited tethering for £20/£25 a month but all other new contracts will have tethering blocked (without the £5 for 2GB tethering add on).

Existing users get to keep their tethering abilities.
Click to expand...

Until around a month ago I was on PAYG just buying the £15 bundle each month which gives 300 mins/300 texts and AYCE data

Now I'm on the £12.90 a month contract, which gives me 200 mins/5000 texts/AYCE data.

Furthering my review of Three - Call reception is fine, no better or worse than most other networks however there's no 2g so bear that in mind. One nice thing is Three supports the new HD Calling codec so if you have a phone that supports it, and you call someone who has a phone that supports it (Nexus 4, ZTE Skate, etc) - expect AMAZING call quality, some of the best I've heard, better than Skype. It's absolutely fantastic.

Customer service in store tends to be pretty good if you know what you want. Phone support is OK at best.
 
Last edited:
Does the £15 pay as you go include tethering or is it another £5 a month?

Are you able to use it for international calls? I know some providers block making and receiving none UK calls! What is 3 like at picking up other networks when abroad?
 
kn100 said:
Until around a month ago I was on PAYG just buying the £15 bundle each month which gives 300 mins/300 texts and AYCE data

Now I'm on the £12.90 a month contract, which gives me 200 mins/5000 texts/AYCE data.
Click to expand...
That's interesting to know. It was around three weeks ago I was looking into this and by that time it appeared new non One contracts were being blocked from tethering.

Guest2 said:
Does the £15 pay as you go include tethering or is it another £5 a month?
Click to expand...
I think Three told me tethering is not allowed at all on PAYG and the tethering add on is only for pay monthly plans. Your best be is to check with them. You could always just get a sim and test it out. Let us know if it works :)

Guest2 said:
Are you able to use it for international calls? I know some providers block making and receiving none UK calls! What is 3 like at picking up other networks when abroad?
Click to expand...
It is supported. See here for international call costs and here for countries you can roam in. You shouldn't have any problem picking up networks abroad.
 
Last edited:
Fourstar said:
That's interesting to know. It was around three weeks ago I was looking into this and by that time it appeared new non One contracts were being blocked from tethering.
Click to expand...

It is, I am on a non "The One" plan and tethering is not allowed (on my 4s). Hotspot is there but you're presented with a three web page telling you it's blocked.
 
I went into a 3 store and asked about the tethering addon. They said with the addon you can only tether 1gb/month! Can anyone confirm this or find any info on the 3 website?

I was told in store that the only unlimited tethering deal is the 'One Plan' which is £25/month

I also asked about roaming data charges and told it was either 16p or 19p per MB. (cant remember which) either way, its much better than tescos 69p per mb

edit - think i just found it 'If you’re on one of our Pay Monthly plans, including the Essential Internet and Ultimate Internet Plans and want to tether, you’ll need to buy an Add-on. You’ll then get a tethering allowance. You can only use this allowance in the UK'

http://support.three.co.uk/SRVS/CGI...internetapps,varset_subcat=3582,Case=obj(3599)
 
Yeah, the tethering addon is only 1GB.

For roaming you can also pay £5 a day I think it is and then just use your phone as normal, all usage just comes out of your allowance. So you can use GBs of data overseas and all you'll have to pay is the £5 a day :).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom