3 As a Network Provider

Last time I was seriously looking at changing providers(a few years ago)
Most of the advice seemed to be to avoid 3 like the plague.
It seems that now, 3 are a decent provider with some good cheap tariffs.
What are peoples opinions of '3' these days? I'm especially interested in
anyone that actually use them, though general feedback would also be
interesting.

The phone I have at the moment is a SE 610i, so not 3G, is that a
show-stopper as far as using 3, or do they offer good support for GSM
phones?

--
Regards,
Chris.
(Remove Elvis's shoes to email me)

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› See More: 3 As a Network Provider

No problem for me - over the past 3 years I've been on Orange and
Virgin, but moved to 3 in October.

They have Indian call centres, but the quality of the service has been
brilliant - and I honestly have no complaints.

I have a Nokia E61 and have push email and their unlimited internet
package, and have had a few fairly technical and tricky questions -
they dealt with them without fuss and got to the root of the (self
inflicted) problems quickly.

My wife has since moved her contract to them, and that has been
equally seamless and trouble free (plus a bonus of £30 each as I
recommended her).

Our experiences have been brilliant, but I guess you'll find people
who have had problems. 100% recommendation from me, and better than
my experiences with either Virgin or Orange

Neil

On Feb 7, 9:22*am, "ChrisM" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Last time I was seriously looking at changing providers(a few years ago)
> Most of the advice seemed to be to avoid 3 like the plague.
> It seems that now, 3 are a decent provider with some good cheap tariffs.
> What are peoples opinions of *'3' these days? I'm especially interested in
> anyone that actually use them, though general feedback would also be
> interesting.
>
> The phone I have at the moment is a SE 610i, so not 3G, is that a
> show-stopper as far as using 3, or do they offer good support for GSM
> phones?
>
> --
> Regards,
> Chris.
> (Remove Elvis's shoes to email me)

On 2008-02-07, ChrisM <[email protected]> wrote:
> Last time I was seriously looking at changing providers(a few years ago)
> Most of the advice seemed to be to avoid 3 like the plague.
> It seems that now, 3 are a decent provider with some good cheap tariffs.
> What are peoples opinions of '3' these days? I'm especially interested in
> anyone that actually use them, though general feedback would also be
> interesting.

I wasn't around a few years ago, but I use 3 now and it seems okay.
Their coverage seems to be good where they say it is good and
their prices for just about everything are quite competitive. If
you have a problem 3's customer service is way more annoying to call
than T-Mobile's was, but I haven't had many problems. It may be
that you get what you pay for, but 3's prices are nice enough that
I've been willing to deal with any imperfections. I didn't originally
trust them enough to take a contract, but I'm considering that now.

> The phone I have at the moment is a SE 610i, so not 3G, is that a
> show-stopper as far as using 3, or do they offer good support for GSM
> phones?

You need a 3G phone, 3's own coverage is all 3G. They roam on Orange
GSM where they have coverage gaps, but I don't think they'd be happy
if you didn't use their native coverage where it is available.

Dennis Ferguson

ChrisM wrote:
> Last time I was seriously looking at changing providers(a few years ago)
> Most of the advice seemed to be to avoid 3 like the plague.
> It seems that now, 3 are a decent provider with some good cheap tariffs.
> What are peoples opinions of '3' these days? I'm especially interested in
> anyone that actually use them, though general feedback would also be
> interesting.

I've used them for about 3 years now. Coverage has improved by leaps
and bounds - I have no coverage issues now. The whole family have
now transferred over. The £15 mix and match tariff has 300 x-net
minutes or texts plus 300 '3' minutes - so we all have loads of
minutes. They also have vouchers which give £30 to both parties if
recommended - the whole office is converting one by one.

The Indian call centre is pretty useless. They are fine for standard
issues, but any real problem and you can forget it.

>
> The phone I have at the moment is a SE 610i, so not 3G, is that a
> show-stopper as far as using 3, or do they offer good support for GSM
> phones?
>

Yes and no, in that order. If they spot you using a non-3 phone then
you get disconnected - they can't afford you making all the calls
through 2G (coverage provided by O2 or Orange on contract).


regards, Ian

"ChrisM" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Last time I was seriously looking at changing providers(a few years ago)
> Most of the advice seemed to be to avoid 3 like the plague.
> It seems that now, 3 are a decent provider with some good cheap tariffs.
> What are peoples opinions of '3' these days? I'm especially interested in
> anyone that actually use them, though general feedback would also be
> interesting.
>
> The phone I have at the moment is a SE 610i, so not 3G, is that a
> show-stopper as far as using 3, or do they offer good support for GSM
> phones?

The Mix and Match tariff isn't very good value for money imho - a
combination of texts and cross network/landline minutes to use as you like
where 1 minute = 1 text. This is a bit crap because the value of 1 sms
shouldn't equate to 1 cross network minute. If you use lots of texts you
would be better using a cheaper text tariff (in which case your choice of
contract subsidised phone is limited).

3 has some good phone deals though - including the black N95.

Their data plan - unlimited (fair use) GPRS for £5 is very good.

The call centre for customer service can be a very frustrating experience
and probably a good reason to avoid them if you think you may need sensible
customer support.

Gareth.

"Gareth" <hotmail.com@dgareth_nospam.com> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> "ChrisM" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
<snip>
> The Mix and Match tariff isn't very good value for money imho - a
> combination of texts and cross network/landline minutes to use as you like
> where 1 minute = 1 text. This is a bit crap because the value of 1 sms
> shouldn't equate to 1 cross network minute. If you use lots of texts you
> would be better using a cheaper text tariff (in which case your choice of
> contract subsidised phone is limited).
> Gareth.
3s Stretch tariffs replaces the old 500mins for £25 add on, which didn't
include any mins.or 300 3 to 3 mins.

Stretch 18 for £18 now gives you 500 mins or text, a reduction of £7
and incs 300 3 to 3 mins.

The highest stretch 21 tariff £21 gives you 700mins or text which is still
£4 less than the old one

Steve Terry

On 7 Feb, 22:33, "Gareth" <hotmail.com@dgareth_nospam.com> wrote:

> The call centre for customer service can be a very frustrating experience
> and probably a good reason to avoid them if you think you may need sensible
> customer support.

I had a few initial technical difficulties with my 6120 on 3
(wouldn't roam to Orange) and found their calls centre people to be
unfailingly helpful. They even rang me a couple of days after the
problem was sorted to check that I was finding everything OK.

The only thing which annoyed me was that you can't turn off voicemail
from the handset, and it took three calls to support to get it
sucessfully deactivated. And that's quite a minor issue.

Overall I have been very pleased, and my monthly bill is half what it
was from O2.

Ian

PS that's just voice and texts. Everything to do with data - including
Skype - has been rubbish.

>> have at the moment is a SE 610i, so not 3G, is that a
>> show-stopper as far as using 3, or do they offer good support for GSM
>> phones?
>>
>
> You need a 3G phone, 3's own coverage is all 3G. They roam on Orange
> GSM where they have coverage gaps, but I don't think they'd be happy
> if you didn't use their native coverage where it is available.
>
> Dennis Ferguson
>
Their gaps used to be filled by O2
You can't choose to hop between - the software will always hop back to
'3' where there is cover and the hopping drops calls
Their 3G coverage is better than any other network.

ChrisM wrote:
> Last time I was seriously looking at changing providers(a few years ago)
> Most of the advice seemed to be to avoid 3 like the plague.
> It seems that now, 3 are a decent provider with some good cheap tariffs.
> What are peoples opinions of '3' these days? I'm especially interested in
> anyone that actually use them, though general feedback would also be
> interesting.
>
> The phone I have at the moment is a SE 610i, so not 3G, is that a
> show-stopper as far as using 3, or do they offer good support for GSM
> phones?
>
>
I was with 3 for 3.5 years.
Their coverage improved 10 fold
I left them because they used to allow a good rate if you did not
upgrade your phone. This year they insisted I upgrade and they refused
to allow me to hop tariffs onto the 300 mix n match. They wouldn't
upgrade my phone to the w910i on my old £25 tariff.
I binned them and got 3x as many any time mins from Orange with
additional unlimited free eve/weekend landline calls plus free calls to
2 other nominated orange phones (great for family) and a free w910i -
all for the same £25
SO - up to this year I would have said 3 all the way .....but this year,
orange trounced them.
My wife is with virgin on their special £10 for 300+300 deal for VM
customers which I shall probably go to when my orange contract is up.
Virgin have exceptional coverage using T-mobile network

On 8 Feb, 18:05, DCA <[email protected]> wrote:

> Their gaps used to be filled by O2
> You can't choose to hop between - the software will always hop back to
> '3' where there is cover and the hopping drops calls
> Their 3G coverage is better than any other network.

Actually, you can choose not to use 3. Just go to "Select network
manually" and choose the "3" /without/ the "home" icon beside it.
Bingo, you are now on Orange. Not that I can see why you'd do it,
since that will only give you 2G, and if 3's own network is available
it's 3G.

Ian

On 08 Feb 2008, DCA wrote

> Virgin have exceptional coverage using T-mobile network

They do have a few dead spots, though -- there's a reaaaallllly
annoying one on our local railway line: it's about 5-10 minutes out
of town, which (sod's law) is precisely when I want to call home to
say "I'll be at the station in 5 minutes".....

"Steve Terry" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> "Gareth" <hotmail.com@dgareth_nospam.com> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>> "ChrisM" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>> news:[email protected]...
> <snip>
>> The Mix and Match tariff isn't very good value for money imho - a
>> combination of texts and cross network/landline minutes to use as you
>> like where 1 minute = 1 text. This is a bit crap because the value of 1
>> sms shouldn't equate to 1 cross network minute. If you use lots of texts
>> you would be better using a cheaper text tariff (in which case your
>> choice of contract subsidised phone is limited).
>> Gareth.
> 3s Stretch tariffs replaces the old 500mins for £25 add on, which didn't
> include any mins.or 300 3 to 3 mins.
>
> Stretch 18 for £18 now gives you 500 mins or text, a reduction of £7
> and incs 300 3 to 3 mins.
>
> The highest stretch 21 tariff £21 gives you 700mins or text which is still
> £4 less than the old one

Oh right - and you can select "stretch" on contract? No.

The Mix and Match tariff is far from innovative - it includes an "allowance"
for over priced sms in comparison to the cost of cross network voice calls
in a generic bundle. It's like mixing crab apples and pomegranates.

Are you going to sing the praises of 3 from now on in response to any
critical post about them in this group? 3 is just a bloody telephone company
and one which currently has things a bit screwy in terms of its contract
tariff offering. It's customer service and technical support is generally
considered to be crap (even when compared to the likes of Virgin).

Gareth.

On 9 Feb, 10:20, "Gareth" <hotmail.com@dgareth_nospam.com> wrote:
> "Steve Terry" <[email protected]> wrote in message

> The Mix and Match tariff is far from innovative - it includes an "allowance"
> for over priced sms in comparison to the cost of cross network voice calls
> in a generic bundle. It's like mixing crab apples and pomegranates.

So what? If you don;t like it, go elewhere.

> Are you going to sing the praises of 3 from now on in response to any
> critical post about them in this group? 3 is just a bloody telephone company...

Precisely

> It's customer service and technical support is generally
> considered to be crap (even when compared to the likes of Virgin).

"Generally considered" is Wikipedia-speak for "the author thinks
that". Can you back your claim up with evidence or figures?

Ian
>
> Gareth.

"Ian" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:a20cf37b-af3e-4661-ad5d-666cea185b31@s12g2000prg.googlegroups.com...
> On 8 Feb, 18:05, DCA <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Their gaps used to be filled by O2
>> You can't choose to hop between - the software will always hop back to
>> '3' where there is cover and the hopping drops calls
>> Their 3G coverage is better than any other network.
>
> Actually, you can choose not to use 3. Just go to "Select network
> manually" and choose the "3" /without/ the "home" icon beside it.
> Bingo, you are now on Orange. Not that I can see why you'd do it,
> since that will only give you 2G, and if 3's own network is available
> it's 3G.

I have just finished with a 3 contract and will agree their service and
coverage has greatly improved in the last few years. However, I've changed
to the Virgin £10 300/300 tariff which suits me very well.

I had a Sony Ericcson K610i from 3 for which I obtained the unlock code from
3 and started using it for Virgin. At first all seemed well but I had some
problem with the Virgin (T Mobile) 3G signal and so was advised by the
helpdesk to force the phone to receive only a GSM signal. My problem is how
do I do this. I've used the manual network selection but all I get is a
list of services. I thought there ought to be a 3G/GSM selection as well,
but I can't find it. Am I missing the obvious? As this was a customized 3
phone, has that option been removed? Any advice appreciated.

Regards

John R

On Sat, 09 Feb 2008 15:17:32 +0000, John Riggs wrote:

> I thought there ought to be a 3G/GSM
> selection as well, but I can't find it. Am I missing the obvious? As
> this was a customized 3 phone, has that option been removed?

That's entirely possible; as mentioned elsewhere in this thread, 3 users
using 2G cost 3 money, because 3 don't own 2G infrastructure and have to
buy it in.

> Any advice appreciated.

Look for a manual for your handset [or someone with a non-3 one]. If it
mentions an option for manually selecting 3G or 2G, then get your handset
debranded and the option should appear.

--
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Convergence, n: The act of using separate DSL circuits for voice and data