Three - what's it like these days?

When Three first started I succumbed to temptation and signed up. The
tariffs were amazing and the phones seemed very hi tech. However, I had a
miserable time with them and vowed never to go back after the contract was
up. Coverage was awful (North London) and the phone needed to be replaced
three times.

However, nearly four years later I see temptation looming again! I'm
interested in getting a Nokia E61 and their tariffs on this are the best
I've seen - free phone and 15.00 per month (250 mins talk/50 text). So
what's Three like these days as a service provider? Do they still use
incomprehensible Indian call centres? Do they still switch to O2 when Three
coverage fails?

Also, given that the E61 has an in-built GPS unit I'm interested in trying
Nokia's GPS navigation system (Smart2Go) which seems potentially very good,
and cost-effective. It costs around 70 euros for three years for category A
coverage, which is Western Europe. I did read a rumour that Three were
blocking certain navigation providers, such as Navig8, because Three had
teamed up with TomTom. I see that they are bundling TomTom Navigator 6 with
the E61 for a number of tariffs.

Although I know TomTom is excellent, if the Nokia system works it would be
cheaper overall (say over a three year period) and more up to date. It also
offers speed camera info as part of the subscription, rather than having to
pay extra like you do with TomTom. Furthermore, it seems silly to buy a
phone with built-in GPS and then have to buy an external GPS unit to be able
to use TomTom. The Nokia system uses the built-in device.

It's totally unacceptable for Three to block anything, but I recall the bad
old days when the network refused to even offer a proper internet service,
offering the awful (and very expensive) walled garden instead. Are these
rumours of GPS blocking true?

Any thoughts welcome - on Three, the E61 and Nokia's GPS system!

Thanks in advance.

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› See More: Three - what's it like these days?

On Mon, 16 Jul 2007 22:44:32 GMT, "DannyT" <[email protected]>
wrote:

>Any thoughts welcome - on Three, the E61 and Nokia's GPS system!
>
>Thanks in advance.

Ive just joined and although yet to be connected certainly the stuff
you get upfront is good a 512mb mem card and a free bluetooth headset
if you ask a question thru their interactive talk feature.

Must admit didn't know that the tom tom system didn't use the inbuilt
GPS so are you sure this is correct. Have downloaded the base program
from alt.binaries.warez.pocketpc.gps so I'll report my findings when I
give it a go.

Don't forget when buying your phone to get someone to recommend you as
you get 30GBP and they do too let me know if you don;t know anyone and
I'll do it for ya ;-)
--
Gwyn. [email protected]
Remove rem if replying
note return address is your own computer;-)

Gwyn wrote:
> On Mon, 16 Jul 2007 22:44:32 GMT, "DannyT" <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>> Any thoughts welcome - on Three, the E61 and Nokia's GPS system!
>>
>> Thanks in advance.
>
> Ive just joined and although yet to be connected certainly the stuff
> you get upfront is good a 512mb mem card and a free bluetooth headset
> if you ask a question thru their interactive talk feature.
>
> Must admit didn't know that the tom tom system didn't use the inbuilt
> GPS so are you sure this is correct. Have downloaded the base program
> from alt.binaries.warez.pocketpc.gps so I'll report my findings when I
> give it a go.
>
> Don't forget when buying your phone to get someone to recommend you as
> you get 30GBP and they do too let me know if you don;t know anyone and
> I'll do it for ya ;-)

Thanks for the response and thanks for the offer - I may well take you up on
it!

Regarding TomTom requiring an external GPS receiver, I picked this up
yesterday from trawling through numerous GPS and PDA forums. Apparently it's
to do with the spec required for the new version of TomTom Navigator - it
needs SIRF Star 111 whereas Nokia's built-in units are only SIRF Star 11.

In practice this means that built-in units take longer to lock on when you
fire them up, and can have difficulty tracking satellites in built up
cities. However, the Set2Go software cleverly uses the cell phone network
and flips to GPRS or 3G to fill in the gaps if it needs to.

I've read a review on the 'All About Symbian' site and in practice the
built-in unit seems to work fine, once you've locked on. This applies to the
E61, E90 and N95.

I've just spotted a reason why the Three offer is so cheap - they're
offering the E61 from last year, not the more recent E61i - bugger!

Gwyn wrote:
> On Mon, 16 Jul 2007 22:44:32 GMT, "DannyT" <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>> Any thoughts welcome - on Three, the E61 and Nokia's GPS system!
>>
>> Thanks in advance.
>
> Ive just joined and although yet to be connected certainly the stuff
> you get upfront is good a 512mb mem card and a free bluetooth headset
> if you ask a question thru their interactive talk feature.
>
> Must admit didn't know that the tom tom system didn't use the inbuilt
> GPS so are you sure this is correct. Have downloaded the base program
> from alt.binaries.warez.pocketpc.gps so I'll report my findings when I
> give it a go.
>
> Don't forget when buying your phone to get someone to recommend you as
> you get 30GBP and they do too let me know if you don;t know anyone and
> I'll do it for ya ;-)

Whoops! I'm wrong about the E61 - it doesn't have built in GPS. I don't know
where I got that idea from

Just thought I'd mention it in case I mislead anyone.

On Tue, 17 Jul 2007 23:22:02 GMT, "DannyT" <[email protected]>
wrote:

>Whoops! I'm wrong about the E61 - it doesn't have built in GPS. I don't know
>where I got that idea from
>
>Just thought I'd mention it in case I mislead anyone.

yeh just learning about that meself it works via bluetooth gps about
30 GBP from Ebay. So its not inbuilt.

--
Gwyn. [email protected]
Remove rem if replying
note return address is your own computer;-)