CadetStimpy
Registered User
- Messages
- 11
Hello,
Just thought I'd share my experiences with 3 mobile, in case anyone else was thinking of joining them.
I'd had a work mobile with Vodafone for years, but since leaving the job in September I signed up with 3 after comparing all the different tariffs from O2, Meteor and Vodafone.
3 Pay Monthly 400 seemed a good fit for me, as they had no roaming charges in the UK and other countries with a 3 network, and their per text message charge was the lowest around - 9c inc VAT. I also signed up my partner with 3, and we'll get free 3-3 calls to eachother. I wasn't too bothered about all the 3G stuff - video calling etc.
So far so good, we've had two bills from 3, and it seems to be right tariff for us. My partner's bill is quite a bit less than her corresponding Vodafone bill.
Now the downsides:
- network coverage can be iffy, where there's no 3G coverage you should still get text/voice coverage
- even with text/voice coverage maybe 1 in 5 calls just don't connect at all
- cant view your bill online (but you can view it on your phone apparently)
- their customer support is based in India, all very helpful and polite, but they had fun working out my northern accent
But the biggest downside of all is that I can't send SMS texts to some international networks. Apparently 3 do not yet have network agreements in place with all networks. For example, I have friends in France with SFR (Vodafone) - I can't text them! They can text me, but I can't text them.
Here's a list of the networks that 3 has the agreements with:
[broken link removed]
I have to say this was news to me - I naively assumed that in this day and age, you could SMS from any network to any network, but apparently not.
Of course this was detailed in the T&Cs which I didn't bother reading before hand - duh! I guess they'll be adding more and more networks as time goes by, so I'm going to hang on in there.
Anyone else had any problems with 3?
Cheers
Just thought I'd share my experiences with 3 mobile, in case anyone else was thinking of joining them.
I'd had a work mobile with Vodafone for years, but since leaving the job in September I signed up with 3 after comparing all the different tariffs from O2, Meteor and Vodafone.
3 Pay Monthly 400 seemed a good fit for me, as they had no roaming charges in the UK and other countries with a 3 network, and their per text message charge was the lowest around - 9c inc VAT. I also signed up my partner with 3, and we'll get free 3-3 calls to eachother. I wasn't too bothered about all the 3G stuff - video calling etc.
So far so good, we've had two bills from 3, and it seems to be right tariff for us. My partner's bill is quite a bit less than her corresponding Vodafone bill.
Now the downsides:
- network coverage can be iffy, where there's no 3G coverage you should still get text/voice coverage
- even with text/voice coverage maybe 1 in 5 calls just don't connect at all
- cant view your bill online (but you can view it on your phone apparently)
- their customer support is based in India, all very helpful and polite, but they had fun working out my northern accent
But the biggest downside of all is that I can't send SMS texts to some international networks. Apparently 3 do not yet have network agreements in place with all networks. For example, I have friends in France with SFR (Vodafone) - I can't text them! They can text me, but I can't text them.
Here's a list of the networks that 3 has the agreements with:
[broken link removed]
I have to say this was news to me - I naively assumed that in this day and age, you could SMS from any network to any network, but apparently not.
Of course this was detailed in the T&Cs which I didn't bother reading before hand - duh! I guess they'll be adding more and more networks as time goes by, so I'm going to hang on in there.
Anyone else had any problems with 3?
Cheers