686 responses so far ↓

• 1 steve // Apr 29, 2008 at 12:03 am

  Be very careful here, 3 (three) mobile have charged me an exorbitant amount for going over the monthly 3GB limit.They mislead me instore by saying this was not possible, and the customer “help” is dreadful, both on the Indian no-help line and instore (Eastbourne branch anyway). I was notified (by being sent 50 messages all at once!!) 2 days after allegedly going over my limit, and later told they couldnt contact me sooner as I hadn’t been online!!! Overall they charged me £39 for one month for allegedly using 3.3GB, just 10% over the 3GB, normally £15 a month, the 7GB bundle being £25. Normally I could only use less than 1GB, the download speed being so slow. Avoid if at all possible.Three 3 mobile internet is a disgraceful rip-off.

• 2 steve // Apr 30, 2008 at 5:15 pm

  Furthermore, I have now been told by 3 that it is possible to cap your limit, after a return visit to the Eastbourne store, where the “manager” Darren said this was not possible (although the salesman originally told me I couldnt go over the £15 a month charge even if I tried) When I phoned him to tell him he said “we just sell the contracts the way we are told to by the company!!” Also T mobile internet do not charge you if you go over, just advise you as any decent company would, not sting you for £100 a GB “overuse”!!I would switch to them but I am stitched into an 18 month contract now, even though they signed me up under false pretenses…some urgent new legislation is needed because these companies are not fit to regulate themselves, and they are taking full advantage of the situation..

• 3 SteveG // May 31, 2008 at 8:17 pm

  Well I just purchased one of these and tested out in a few locations. I do live in an HSDPA area and connect with 4 / 5 bars. However, running a speedtest then I am lucky to get 124Kbps download. So heavens knows how you get anywhere near the mythical 2.8Mbps – which I grant you is the published max – but I am still far from that. I can sometimes see a max burst speed of up to about 400 – 500Kbps but that is not maintained and generally speed is much lower. It took a good 10 minutes to download the accelerator file from 3 web site (about 1.5 MB I think)

  I installed the 3 “accelerator” but that just tells me that service is unavailable all the time. So no progress there despite what it says on the 3 site.

  I would call support but given previous experience of their Indian call centre then I do not think my blood pressure could cope with this.

  May test some more but looks like a return job to me.

• 4 DaveFoster // Jun 4, 2008 at 9:29 am

  Thanks for your reviews ! Coupled with my personal experience of very poor service from 3 I wont be bothering with this now.

• 5 Rich // Jun 5, 2008 at 2:03 am

  using hspda three ‘mobile internet’ albeit via a nokia n95, consistently getting 1mbps or above in various speed tests (more consistent than my “2 mbit” virgin media cable connection!!!) absolutely fantastic in the north west (regular use in preston – liverpool – manchester region) and often used along m6 up to kendal, 8/10 its good value too … was a pain in november last year but since … bloody fantastic!

• 6 Dean // Jun 5, 2008 at 8:23 am

  That’s consistent with the speeds I see. At home it only connects at 56k which is unusable, but at a friends house 8 miles away it connects at 3.6Mbps and various speed tests showed me getting 1Mbps.

• 7 Sean T // Jun 18, 2008 at 3:57 pm

  I have 3 mobile broadband for about 3 months, i have had an excellent connection with it, can even use Xbox live on it with very little lag

  only complaint is with the indian call centre, cant give you a straight answer, completely crap service, but as i have very little problems with it i have no reason to cancel

  i use the 7gig limit, although i tend to use only 4 gb for internet usage a month and the rest i save for the odd download and xbox live for my kids

  can undertand why others have had problems, but i havent up to now

• 8 Cloudstrife // Jun 20, 2008 at 10:13 am

  2.8MB Speed? That’s a wow compared to the one available in the Philippines at 357 kbps! LOL

• 9 StiffyBiffy // Jun 21, 2008 at 9:08 pm

  Just purchased a 3 Mobile Broadband dongle for my Mac OS X and am going through hell to try and find the drivers for it, i didnt get supplied a disk and the mac software isnt on the dongle. im starting to regret this buy already.

• 10 Dean // Jun 22, 2008 at 9:00 am

  You need to download the Mac OSX software from the three web site. It is not on the dongle as you mention. Here is the link:

  Mac OSX drivers

  The drivers you need to install depend on whether you’re using the ZTE or Huawei modem. Which modem have you got?

• 11 marc aspeth // Jul 4, 2008 at 9:28 pm

  I have now had 3 mobile broadband for around a year. I live in South London. When I first bought it the internet worked at reasonable speed, but has only ever been fast dial-up. Over the year the speed of the service has declined markedly. It is now often difficult to get internet access. The “fast” link HSPDA continually kicks back to the slow connection, which does not work. In the evenings especially the service is unusable.

  I would not recommend the service, though it is cheaper than some competitors, the service is generally like a low-dial up connection. I do not think it is accurate to describe it as broadband.

  Looking on this review board, the responses seem very variable. I think this reflects the fact that the speed of the service differs markedly depending where you are. My observation is that South-West London is particularly slow; I have tried the internet on my laptop on a number of occasions.

  If you want to try 3 mobile, do not go for the 18 month contract. I would recommend instead buying the prepay option and seeing if it works in your area. While the mobile dongle costs £60+, better to do that than spend a couple of hundred pounds on a service that doesn’t work in your area.

• 12 Mark Richardson // Jul 6, 2008 at 9:30 pm

  I agree with a lot of the comments on this forum. It very much depends wher you live regarding the speed you will achieve on any mobile broadband service.

  I live in Manchester and HSPDA coverage is excellent. I often achieve speeds in excess of 2mb and outside of the peak data periods, I have been achieveing speeds of 3-4.5mbps. Download speeds are in the region of 100kbps when using BBCi Player etc.

  If you look at 3′s coverage map the North of England is all ‘turbo’ enabled whereas the South of England is in the process of being fully enabled with the exception of the large cities where there shouldn’t be any problem (in theory).

  On tip if you’re using a dongle (rather than a data card) is to keep the cable connecting your dongle to your USB port as short as possible. I lost quite a lot of speed when I trued using a longer cable.

• 13 Suki // Jul 7, 2008 at 10:29 pm

  3 Mobile Broadband is sooo Sssloooow.
  I mean most of the time it is like DIALUP SLOW! And it is always crashing on me. Plus they charge an arm and a leg for the slightest overuse. They have poor customer service too. Please try Vodafone instead. I am so glad I switched.

• 14 Abbie // Jul 13, 2008 at 8:50 am

  Don’t bother with 3. Ever. Broaband is a distant dream and the help desk tells me 379 kpbs is good. i can’t even sign up for online billing as they insist on sending the password as a text message to my 3 sim – which is inside the dongle – not a mobile phone. seesh.

• 15 StiffyBiffy // Jul 14, 2008 at 10:02 pm

  well i sold it to my landlord for £50 and it’s not my problem anymore, so guess what 3hree or 3 or whatever you are, if you solve all these problems you may one day have a business as succesful as vodaphone or orange.

• 16 garry // Jul 23, 2008 at 6:48 pm

  having trouble tracking down drivers for my 3 dongle i borrowed my laptop to a friend who then deleted my connection access so now i can not access the net at all plus i wasnt given an install disc upon purchase any chance i can get some help to track them done thanx in advance

• 17 Dean // Jul 23, 2008 at 9:50 pm

  Garry,
  Drivers can be downloaded from the following link:
  3 Mobile Broadband Drivers

• 18 Damian // Jul 25, 2008 at 3:57 pm

  the sales guy in the shop said i would get 2.8 after check the coverager checker on 3′s web site. Most of the time i get 300K and if i am really luck this might go to 400K. I am right in the middle of the supposed coverage area. I can see a transmitter about 50 meters from my house although i only get 1 bar on the signal strength. Not sure what is going on. Any ideas

• 19 SteveG // Jul 26, 2008 at 8:33 am

  I think you can sometimes be “too close” to a transmitter but are you sure that the transmitter you are seeing is for ’3′ as I don’t think affect would be as significant as that. Even with 5 bars you will probably not get the max speed though due to network congestion. Similar to ADSL contention … but the affect is worse as I do not think that there is any such concept as a “contention ratio” to limit the affect; it all depends on how busy the data network is at the time. Network congestion will cause your speed to drop quite considerably as well as lack of signal strength (perhaps more so). You will probably find that you will indeed get a better speed when the network is very quiet. Unfortunately you will probably be asleep!
  I have found that some areas seem to have a great deal more variation than others. You might also get a burst of higher download speed, but this may not be sustained.

• 20 steve a // Aug 5, 2008 at 9:50 pm

  Purchased this a cheaper option to hotel broadband. Very, very slow. Lucky to get 12% of the advertised 2.8Mbs so connection is even slower than 486 with a dial up modem. 3 offer no support. STAY WELL CLEAR AS THIS DOES NOT PERFORM TO ADVERTISED STANDARDS.

• 21 Vikash // Aug 7, 2008 at 8:05 pm

  I too have a 3 mobile broadband and the speed is horrible. I stay in Nottingham in city centre but have never crossed the speed of 20 Kbps!! complaints to the company through email has yielded no results. They are cheating everyone. I can’t stream any videos and sending emails through 3 is like downloading a 10 mb file on a normal network:(.

• 22 peter // Aug 10, 2008 at 9:37 am

  Anyone considering buying 3/Three mobile broadband, this is a warning to you.
  Based on my experience and the experience of a group of friends that at about the same time signed up for three broadband in the UK.
  While Three broadband does work at an acceptable level in some parts of the country, in London where most business users are it appears over subscribed.
  As a result even when you do eventually get connected with a good signal ( and that can take several hours) the transfer rate is appalling (usually around 5 k bytes per second, which is the same as a dial up modem, and about 10% of basic broadband speed, and only 2% of what its advertised to be capable of).
  If you have not realised this in your first 7 days then three operates a policy of NO CONTRACT TERMINATION. Without the full period of the contract being payable.
  There call centre in India is very polite, however they don’t actually do anything other than solve windows PC configuration problems.
  If you have the problem I have above, they will simply give you the run around, wasting hours of your time until you get fed up.
  They will not investigate the problem themselves, they state that it is impossible to do this.
  You will get very angry with them, and end up joining me in letting the country know how bad there product and service is.
  I cant vouch for the alternatives at this moment in time, they could be as bad, or better, but people in my office with Vodafone have a better experience, and I have sat next to people on the train home who have a signal on T mobile all the way home when I have a signal for only 20% of the journey.

• 23 barry // Aug 11, 2008 at 10:35 am

  wow, i have an eeepc for remote mobile support, I chose the 3 usb dongle over the competition coz it was the cheapest with the shortest contract 12mth.
  Ive only tried using it indoors at work and home so far in mansfield area but get a 3.6mbps and 2.4mbps respectively. Just need to find out now if text messages sent from it are included in the 3gb monthly limit or wether im gonna get additional charge for them.
  Oh, and why cant i send email through it for my home email account?

• 24 sean // Aug 12, 2008 at 1:27 am

  Beware three broadband is a total rip off, e.g: £25/month for a mere 7GB, slow and unreliable connection at times, plus after midnight when my new monthly download limit became active i was still being charged for an hour due to technical problems on their side no doubt, costing me £10. Stay away from them, far far away!

• 25 danielle // Aug 14, 2008 at 6:50 pm

  Do not bother with 3!
  bought the dongle, monthly service charge on july 24th have managed to get network coverage twice! they have replaced the dongle with no change. rang to cancel and they had the cheek to tell me i have to pay £80 to terminate the contract because i went over the 14 day cooling off period!!! this is still ongoing after i spoke to the supervisor’s superivsor’s supervisor, have waited for four callbacks which i have not received, and have now cancelled my direct debit and i have now reported to my local trading standards, offcom and watchdog. i work for a solcitiors and what they are doing is illegal by even attempting to charge me the early termination fee. but try telling them that and getting them to understand is like pulling teeth.
  totally incapable of provding the service they promise, indian call centre is about as helpful as chocolate fireguard and nobody is interested in your compalint, one guy actually told me i was wasted HIS time, that was after i rang at 18.15 ans was still on the line trying to cancel at 19.45. funnily enough to buy their products you get through to a glaswegian call centre within seconds, trying to cancel you have 45 minute wait to get through to india to speak to someone who know nothing about leigslation, or their own products, or even what day it is to be honest, and then they tell you cancellations will call you back within 48 hours, which you have more chance of meeting elvis.
  If it even crosses your mind to use this company you need help.

• 26 Garry // Aug 14, 2008 at 11:49 pm

  3 mobile broadband is unbelievably bad..i can spend hours trying to get a connection, very slow download speeds, switches itself off when it feels like it..complained to 3 and they said it would be a 3 day repair service, use it every day for work so this is no good, i would avoid 3 mobile broad band if you can, really really pathetic

• 27 Mark // Aug 23, 2008 at 7:21 pm

  DO NOT BUY! Yes, the thing works for some people but, on principal alone, it would be wise to avoid this company due to their complete mis-selling of likely speeds.
  I live in West London in a “turbo” zone and am lucky to get between 5 – 5ok speed. What is this, the age of dial-up again?
  I am wondering if new customers somehow get given priority in download speeds for the first few weeks during the cooling-off period. Then, when locked in, the crappy speeds kick in. I started on about 500k and things have just gone progressively downhill.
  Buy at your own risk and know that it is a complete gamble when it comes to speed. You may start off ok, but it won’t last. Don’t do it, folks!

• 28 Kieron // Aug 26, 2008 at 9:03 pm

  I’m in central Manchester. Lucky to get speeds over 15kb/s, usually less that 10kb/s. That’s 2.8 THOUSAND times less than max advertised. Max bursts I have seen are just over 100kb/s. Also it hangs often (requiring re-connection), can take several attempts to connect, and boots me off regularly. Not happy. Thankfully I got the PAYG package so I can just write off the 50 quid. In-shop staff couldn’t be less interested. Might suck it up and get a home BB package…

• 29 Alonzo // Aug 27, 2008 at 12:41 pm

  Bought this on pay as you go and its not good for anything but random sufing online. It’s too slow to watch BBC iplayer/youtube or anything else that needs to steam, its most certainly not broadband, and i can assure you it’s nothing anywhere like 2.8GIG speed, absolute rubbish, im going to buy the vodaphone one instead

• 30 Maciek // Aug 27, 2008 at 5:05 pm

  rubbish …..i had it for 4 moths and it was ok …speed up to 200 kbs loosing connection lost packets but it was working enough to surf websites but by last 2 weeks its lowet than 20 kbs WOLVERHAMPTON AREA

• 31 Malcolm // Aug 31, 2008 at 4:44 pm

  the 3 mobile broadband service is rubbish. cannot get much more than 56kbps – if i am lucky – sometimes can burst up to about 100kbps, and I’m in London W1. The call centre is useless. The email support is useless.

  All utter rubbish!

• 32 Jack // Sep 1, 2008 at 11:35 pm

  I concur with everyone on here who has had the same experience as me. 3 mobile “broadband” is atrocious. It continually drops the signal, switches from the supposedly fast “HSDPA” mode to “3G” mode and requires constant reconnection over and over again.

  Until there is some sort of interest shown from either the media (in terms of a consumer rights show) or a regulatory body, 3 will continue to misrepresent its products and services and continue to rob us blind. It all wouldn’t be so bad if 3 would allow us to vote with our feet…. I bet they would address our problems if we all migrated to another service! I have around seven months left of an eighteen month contract and I just can’t wait for it to be over!!!!

  AVOID 3 MOBILE AND MOBILE “BROADBAND”

• 33 jez // Sep 4, 2008 at 2:47 pm

  Try moving to Sweden.. HSDPA here on 3 mobile and the speed is fast.. Best I have managed so far is 5.5 mbps and unlinited usage for 299 SEK (about £25 per month) and no contract..

• 34 Adrian Wainer // Sep 5, 2008 at 12:27 pm

  Hi I am connected to Three Ireland’s supposed broadband network with a Huewei dongle and situated in Dublin Ireland , it’s a 169G and looks exactly the same as the one featured in the photographs. It is rated at 3.6 Mbps but that’s just cloud cuckoo land as far as I am concerned. I have seen it operate at 1600 to 1800 Kbps from time to time but a lot of the time it is operating at peaks of about 700Kbps but unfortunately that is not a continous speed of 700Kbps as the base station is cycling the service between customers. The problem is, that it is a contested service, so that system badly declines during peak usage and because it is overly congested it is not up to stratch even on off peak periods, for the reason that Three has insufficent capacity to carry their customer load at any time 24/7 even in off peak hours. Furthermore, I rather suspect that there is little or no effort put in to maintaining the system as best as it could be [ within its technical and operational constraints of having inadequate equipment ] and that when something breaks it is left broken till somebody might get around to fixing it, rather than treating any fault as an urgent matter. The people in the call centre in India are polite and helpful, but if the equipment is inadequate to service the customer base which it certainly is and if it is maintained in a keystone cops fashion which I rather suspect it is, one is going to end up with a lousy service and that is pretty much what the customer can expect in Ireland from Three.
  Furthermore Three Ireland concurrently share IP addresses between customers so don’t expect to use download services that are popular and have a restriction that only one file can be downloaded at the same time, as somebody else [ ie another Three customer with the same IP address ] will likely be downloading a file at the same time you try to download a file.
  I would say to anybody, avoid it unless you have absolutely no alternative.

  Best and Warm Regards
  Adrian

• 35 Alex // Sep 7, 2008 at 5:00 pm

  I have had the PAYG version for 2 months now – I live in Manchester and absolutely love it! I am achieving around 1.2mb – 1.8mb. Obviously mobile broadband isn’t viable for users who wish to download hundreds of songs or movies a day but for me (I’m a web developer) it’s absolutely sound! Use the work computers to download large things anyway. I am VERY impressed with how easy it was to install and overjoyed with the speed.

• 36 Mark Richardson // Sep 8, 2008 at 8:49 pm

  The moral of this story seems to be that the quality of 3 mobile broadband depends upon:
  1. Your location and proximity to a 3/Tmobile mast.
  2. How busy the network is at any time.
  3. Network coverage 2G or 3G?
  4. Your computer equipment.

  There are known glitches with certain programmes or PC’s. For example, I disabled HP Quickplay on my PC. The programme was slowing down the effectiveness of the dongle so it might be worth checking your equipment if your dongle’s playing up !

  I agree with Alex. Mobile broadband from 3 is excellent in Manchester but Manchester is a big place and I’m sure there are a few low reception areas. It really is worth checking your signal strength before you buy.

• 37 Ben // Sep 12, 2008 at 10:23 pm

  Really encouraged to see that so many people rightfully despise three as much as I! I have just paid a £75 cancellation fee so that I no longer have to deal with their shameful customer services department.
  There is however a silver lining for any poor souls who have experienced the frustration of the over inflated data costs (£50 for 500MB!) when they exceed the monthly data allowance (contract only).

  Although three will never disclose this information (and will purposely mislead their customers to prevent them from finding out), should you find yourself about to exceed your monthly data limit, you can simply buy a PAYG SIM and some credit for a few quid from a local 3 store and use that in your wireless dongle at the standard ‘£25 for 7GB’ rate.
  Little wonder that three don’t want their customers to know when they can charge them 28 times the going rate for data outside of their monthly allowance!

  Personally, I find that level of dishonesty to be nothing short of a disgrace to the industry. Legally, I suspect that they are also on pretty shaky ground as if you challenge them on it, they will knowingly withhold this information in order to leave you, the customer with no other option but to pay their extortionate premium rate.

  I only hope that people will see this and pass it onto others so that they can save themselves time and money in future.

  Oh, and the broadband service is painfully slow, bordering on useless and ground-breakingly unreliable too, even in a city centre!

• 38 adam // Sep 13, 2008 at 7:31 pm

  for me personally having had this dongle for about 6 months i can now safely say it`s the biggest mistake i ever made for example i brought a 25 pound pay as you go 3 voucher last friday this gives me 7000gb or mb whatever! and now 1 week later i have used half that!! and i have downloaded 1 essential thing which took about 3 minutes and watched a movie and that is it,i dare not download anything really as it`s such a rip off the connection speed is 3.6mbps for me as i live in a turbo area in poole dorset and if it rains the connection will sometimes stop like it did last night complete nightmare,and although im a heavy user although i work 9 hours a day i feel that is is a complete ripoff and would advise people to saty clear of it unless of course you have a laptop and it`s just convenient i personally will be switching to “VIRGIN MEDIA” very soon so sod you 3

• 39 Vijay // Sep 14, 2008 at 10:04 am

  Does anyone know how make the text messages that 3 sends to the Inbox readable? All I get in my inbox is a bunch of small square figures.

• 40 Dean // Sep 15, 2008 at 8:43 am

  Vijay,
  Is every single text message you receive from anyone all small square figures? or is it just certain text messages?

• 41 Jon Cain // Sep 15, 2008 at 5:19 pm

  Be warned,i am not impressed at all either are the friends i know on 3 broadband,i seem to be paying for a service i am not getting,either by no signal or a very low one,or just wont connect ,it has taken me 2 days to get my connection on again,,,i know as soon as my contract is up i shall be cancelling

• 42 Vijay // Sep 15, 2008 at 8:03 pm

  Dean,
  I justed texted the mobile broadband number from my O2 mobile. I received the text in proper english. So i guess the squares are only for texts received from 3. I had registered on My3, but the password i can see in my inbox is only the squares.

• 43 mark goldsmith // Sep 16, 2008 at 12:53 pm

  DO NOT BUY!! WHAT A DREADFUL SERVICE!! I HAD NO RECEPTION WITH THE MODEM SO CANCELLED WITHIN MY 3 DAYS, AND NO THEY KEEP SENDING ME AN INVOICE ALONG WITH DEBT AGENCY LETTERS!! NO ONE IN THE CALL CENTRE SPEAKS ENGLISH AND IT IS TAKING ME MONTHS TO CANCEL THE CONTRACT! STAY WELL AWAY!!

• 44 jmph // Sep 17, 2008 at 12:23 am

  I subscribed to this this service mainly for Youtube. When I first used it, I was quite impressed, but now it takes roughly 15 minutes to download and watch an average length music video. I don’t know why this could have happened. My laptop has recently had vista re-installed but the 3 service is still poor. I too have phoned the call centre – interestingly, I got through much quicker on a mobile, which made me wonder…Anyway the Indian chappie knew nothing of any use and almost understood me.
  It gives me pleasure to use this service to review it poorly, and if one person, just one, reads this and decides not to subscribe, then I feel something may have been achieved.
  Be very, very careful. Maybe things slowed up because so many have got it and I am certainly not a technician, but I would only recommend 3 mobile broadband to people I don’t like.

• 45 Phil // Sep 26, 2008 at 8:27 am

  I took out payg from 3 last xmas and have speeds upto 1.8 but normally about 0.8mbs. as i worked for orange for 3 years, i can truly say that in my experience of the payg 3 mobile broadband staff they are 1000 times better than orange. also with payg you acn never go over the limit as if you use your allowence in say 25 days, you just buy another voucher early. as i have no access to a landline this is the only way i can go online and i am very inpressed with hte service. I live in Blyth on the northumberland coast.

• 46 Ming // Oct 2, 2008 at 8:00 am

  3 had an appalling indian call centre, who seem more interesting in “dealing with you”, rather than “dealing with your problem”.

  For instance, these indians love to waste your time asking you your name, account password and all that load of shite.

  Then they insist there must be something wrong with your settings, when you quite patently say the internet connection was working fine till 3 minutes ago when it disconnected itself.

  This is an appalling indian call centre.

  The actual broadband service is not much better. Its quite true the connections speeds are very slow, and the connections are constantly being dropped.

  I too, in common with the other reviews, have no idea where the advertised 2.8MPBS speed comes from. The more typical speed seems like no more than a fast dial up modem.

  Further, the connection always does drop whenever you try to download video, audio etc, which makes the claim of “broadband” meaningless.

  Needless to say, the indian call centre knows nothing about it.

  My recommendation is : I would advise staying away from any 3 contracts, and if you really do have to, just use 3 pay as you go.

• 47 John Klut // Oct 5, 2008 at 5:15 pm

  3′s internet me;
  Internet connection generally ok but no reliable.
  Occasionally shut down (for upto 1 month) for ‘upgrading’ meaning no internet (and no refund)
  Customer service and technical help – absolutely awful.
  Overall cheap, but i would not reccom end and will not be using again once my contract expires.

• 48 Steve // Oct 5, 2008 at 5:22 pm

  Rang customre dis-services today to be sure that my 12 month contract did not run over as it expires end of November. The chumps said they couldn’t cancel it yet without charging me a fee for cancelling contract earlier. Ermm… no, I am just giving a month AND a few weeks notice. No joy – but they “helpfully” suggested I could ring any time within 30 days of it expiring – oh yes, but then of course they add another month for not giving them a full 30 days notice.
  TO WARN YOU ALL – YOU NEED TO CANCEL EXACTLY THE DAY BEFORE YOUR CONTRACT EXPIRES. YOU HAVE A 24-HOUR WINDOW ONLY, SO USE IT WISELY!
  Good luck to all who’s miserable contracts are soon to expire. To the others, I offer my comiserations.

• 49 Tom // Oct 7, 2008 at 10:53 pm

  Three is the worst network, worst customer service (if you call it service).
  what a waste of time and money.

• 50 Tom // Oct 7, 2008 at 11:11 pm

  By the way, I’m on T-mobile broadband (10pound a month) and it works extremely well, whilst i’m still paying 15 pounds to this company named “three” that provides you misery and grey hair but not the internet…

  I won’t be surprised if three is the next target of the credit crunch. Let’s hope so, so many of us can have an early termination of their contract for free!

• 51 Phil // Oct 8, 2008 at 12:36 am

  for every cust who says that 3 has the worst cust service there will be one who says it is the best. after spending 3 years at orange on the contract mobile helpdesk trust me, you get one call where they use the f word, the c word and say that this is the worst company ever you will get another call saying that vodaphone o2 etc are the worst company ever and that orange can do no wrong.

• 52 Ian Smith // Oct 16, 2008 at 12:25 am

  Have a n95 on cont with 02 not brill but no major complaints been on 3 payg since 04 just as spare mob 1st with nec 338 great little mob even if cam and vid not that good and only 17meg mem bought skype S2 and 4Gig sdhc card 4years no matter what network 3 were on Tmobile then 02 now orange it has always had all of the problems listed by others but its getting even worse recently in 4years I have NEVER met anyone that hasnt beware anyone who says never lose conectivity get over 2mbps nice try 3

• 53 Ming // Oct 16, 2008 at 12:42 am

  I suggest 3 be reported to Ofcom. Ofcom is in any case investigating internet broadband (er, broadband?) speeds.

  The greater the complaints the better.

  The Indian call centre are ineffective, and vague.

• 54 Ian Smith // Oct 16, 2008 at 12:50 am

  What they dont tell you about Skype S2 this it is not a fully internet compatable mob it has no adobe acrobat installed so cant down load iplayer or DPF camera just ok vid poor especial night set text select agravatiing wont hold your text select but jumps back to T9 every oppertunity doesnt like big mem 4gig makes go dead slow and makes keys sticky ie press nothing happens so you press again wrong phone thinks you pressed key twice mega faiing idoes not let you organise files in your folders avoid

• 55 Ian Smith // Oct 16, 2008 at 1:39 am

  Final thoughts about skype s2 this mob is 2years to late and what a bright idea to stick mem card slot under the battery dont knock custemer service the only doing what told they want to keep there jobs aint thier fault 3s naff will 1st try everthing to convince you its your mob thats got the prob battery and sim card out put back in do a master reset take in and get engineer check out ignore it reasons flucktuating signal wrong bit a tottenham do what I did get unblocked £5 not by 3 £15 get Tesco sim

• 56 Ming // Oct 16, 2008 at 1:49 am

  Hello. I refer to previous post by Ian Smith.

  Ian is absolutely right. 3 seems to try to convince you it is you, or your mobile at fault, and then try to talk round the problem you report.

  I have encountered this very same problem way too many times.

  Pathetic service.

  The result is I *always* give them a ear bashing when they try to talk “around me”, and I make pretty darned sure to leave very negative feedback.

  Please be informed : you can specifically request you be put thru to the feedback line to leave negative feedback.

  Of course, you have to be aware — I’ve been cut off when leaving negative feedback, so you never get to complete the survey.

• 57 Ian Smith // Oct 16, 2008 at 1:55 am

  Ming what is very strange is that everyone is and are complaining but responses totaly under whelming had no replys from watchdog or regulator going to phone up the gaurdian news desk later today emails get you nowhere loging orf now so goodbye and thanks for all the fish

• 58 Ming // Oct 16, 2008 at 1:59 am

  Ian. I know people are yabbering off.

  But the central message is this :

  a. avoid 3.

  b. If you want 3, do not get broadband contract. Only get a pay as you go contract.

  c. If you do have problems with three call centres, make sure you give them a pretty hard time, but only if they don’t answer your questions.

  d. Complain to ofcom! By all means.

  e. If none of the above makes sense, then -> AVOID 3 broadband.

  Its very simple. Its called — GIVE 3 A miss.

• 59 ian Smith // Oct 16, 2008 at 4:57 am

  Ming my nec ran out mem saw great so called independant reviews ie not 3 or carphone so got one at 3shop wood green when asked if had Tflash player said yes as came with wanted to charge me £15 dont buy cars that will fill up at one type of petrol station went round the corner and did for 5 annoyed found only had adobe game player no problem downloaded adobe acrobat as a DPF was then found mob cant read DPF so couldnt open it made me realy angry reason with Tesco Is have person in store to complain to

• 60 Ian Smith // Oct 16, 2008 at 5:22 am

  Ming and whats it like on tesco I hear you didnt ask have had no lost cons touch wood max speed clocked 860Kbs hasnt dropped below 600 but cant vouch it doesnt as dont use very often just keep my broadband up oh skype calls still awfull sound like being bounced off the moon still it makes a good mp3 music vid player and thats it as can put them in an ordered list as long as do it 1 by 1 no slide show for photos

• 61 Ian Smith // Oct 16, 2008 at 5:33 pm

  If your are on 3 have a nokia or ericson & think your mob is giving you hassle it aint its 3 they make reasonable mobs dont bin just unblock it & go for a primary network provider 02 or vodaphone yes its dearer & you’ll never get claimed max net speed but then that also goes for cable ect. Unblocking your mob from 3 is like you’ve got a new phone &and dont pay 3 £15 to do it as can get it done for a fiver

• 62 Ian Smith // Oct 16, 2008 at 6:48 pm

  wont update to a new mob untiil I get a fully internet compatable moby with propper conectivity list of wants clam type phone like my old nec with a bigger screen 5meg swivel cam with propper cam & vid controls nec must have the best organised file system you can get on any phone for folders & contacts so easy to use only read the instructions after using it see if I’d missed anything been waiting 2years for them to but later mods not there yet ah but one can dream

• 63 Ian Smith // Oct 16, 2008 at 7:18 pm

  I’m an elecrlcal engineer doing standby electrical generator maintainance &repair so get to travel round most parts of the country &had 3 network as payg spare mob for nearly 4years no matter where you go 3 is consistant in poor signal shutting mob off freezing your mob dropped calls et al it did improve a bit aint saying much 3 were with 02 but since with orange its internet conect is unusable for serious work trust no blog that says 3 is wondiferous in thier area or using it for work oh yea 3 avin us on

• 64 Ian Smith // Oct 16, 2008 at 7:52 pm

  also thing to note skpe S2 came with £35 on sim but wanted to use my old sim in it but if swap 3 or tesco sims wipes out all your settings time date start up pic wall email mms thanks skype still got to hand it them think they &3 well suited if network dont get you wound up skype phone will & hey you get to be annoyed in stereo I like to think am iphone savy reviews good at £70 spec looked good for price even with fiver for unblocking be last mob I’ll buy without a full demo or trust indy reviews

• 65 Bex // Oct 22, 2008 at 2:30 pm

  AVOID 3 LIKE THE PLAGUE!

  I am also stuck in a 12 month contract for mobile broadband that I have never been able to use. I have sent it back twice to be checked for faults, but it is apparently ‘fine’. They are not interested in trying to help me to solve the problem, only concerned with me continuing to pay the monthly fee.
  Terrible Terrible Terrbible customer service. Can’t wait for my contract to end!
  I cancelled my direct debit and sent the dongle back, only to have threatening phone calls and them send it staright back to me!!! Whay should I pay for a service I’ve never had!

• 66 Tom // Oct 24, 2008 at 10:04 pm

  It’s incredible that any company can act in such a dishonest and direputable way in a supposedly regulated industry. Three are incapable of providing anything approaching a usable internet connection. It’s impossible that they don’t know this, yet they continue to actively market this appalling service, thus guaranteeing that problems caused by oversubscription will become worse. They are continuing to offer contracts which they know they will immediately breach but continue to demand money for regardless. If this is legal there is something wrong with the law.

  These scum should be avoided at all costs.

• 67 Ming // Oct 24, 2008 at 10:58 pm

  My email is mho900.2@gmail.com

  Again, apparently various comments, so might as well toss in my two cents worth.

  a. Does three know its service is a load of crap? Probably, “they” do. But the indian call centre doesn’t. Or has been told not to “let on” and stonewall for as long as possible.

  b. What if Three doesn’t know how crap their service is? Ans : Simple — contact Spirent PLC for testing services.

  c. You guys have a lot of complaints. What should you do? I suggest complaining directly with ofcom. This will take effort.

  Make sure you insist the “customer service” at three is informed every single time you have an internet problem. Tell them to record in on your customer log, BEFORE you allow them to ask you about your computer settings if you are sure your settings are correct.

  In the mean time, please, folks, avoid signing contracts with Three, and insist they state in writing (or make a tape recording of any verbal representations) the service level. Rubbish like “up to a blazingly fast speed” is not contractual.

  d. Further : If any of you guys with contracts feel like it, you certainly should lobby for a “cooling off” period for your contracts. 14 day no quibble refund. Tell Ofcom. And certainly the Consumer’s Association.

  But, the best thing to do : don’t sign contracts with Three.

  Or better still, let it be noted -> their broadband service is crap, the customer service is lousy, and tell people just that much.

  The “Thee Broadband Service” gets a very clear thumbs down, until Three publishes *truthful* data on the internet service.

• 68 Ming // Oct 24, 2008 at 11:00 pm

  ps : Ian, I’d see which other mobile place would unlock the Three fone for a £5. Certainly never to pay £15 to Three. Madness!

  Needless to say, do screw Three a little : make sure your mobile fone can be unlocked safely for a £5 before buying it from Three.

• 69 Ian Smith // Oct 25, 2008 at 12:15 am

  Ming use my old 3sim to check up now and again always been bad serviice but since with orange its total rubish at least I new it why unblocked it day I bought 3 tell you dire things may happen if you dont let them do it all flapdoodle unblocking consists of pressing certain keys and entering 13 dig unblocking number and thats it oh other networks mob still works but not skype settings does on tesco sim as they sell the s2 as well

• 70 Ian Smith // Oct 25, 2008 at 1:04 am

  Bex bailifs are an empuy threat if you’re in genuine dispute with 3 keep the paperwork phone logs emails though not on 3mail as they have a tendancty just lately to go to a different planet prob zog bailifs will take no action if its disputed oh and if they try to mess your credit rattings you can have 3 for that to if what happened to you happened to you I’d be down small claims court asking for compensation its cheap and effective so you have a cont for service they’re not providing tell stop your D.D.

• 71 Ming // Oct 25, 2008 at 3:52 pm

  Hello Bex and Ian

  Are you receiving threatening fone calls? If so, can your fone / mobile fone record fone conversations?

  If so, then please tell the caller to *hold on*, turn on your recording equipment, tell the caller simply the fone converation is being recorded, and continue the conversation.

  The recording is your property, and you are feel to delete it if you wish, and you certainly don’t need to hand it over to anyone.

  Contrary to what people seem to think, recording of fone conversations is not illegal. State simply and clearly the call is being recorded, and entertain no protests that it is somehow *illegal*. Everytime somebody whines about *illegal* you know they are getting desparate, and you will retain the option to screw them into the ground on that score if need be.

  You may need some brass balls to do all this, but this I trust you have.

  It is also true that “balliffs” will not act without a court order. So if any one threatens you with baliffs, I suppose you will, as Ian says, say the matter in dispute, and to tell them to *f… off* in polite terms. Call the police if the “baliff” stays around for more than 3 minutes.

  The most that would happen is a “debt collector” will turn up. If so, in addition to stating that the matter is in dispute, you can make another audio or video recording of the proceedings. Again, this recording is your property if it takes place within your premises (eg office, residence), and any suggestions about it being illegal will be met with a polite *f… off* from you. And yet again, Call the police if the “debt collector” stays around for more than 3 minutes after you have made clear your case to him / her.

  This recording, in which you will behave impeccable and be seen to be so doing, will be publicised and published at a time of your choosing.

• 72 Ming // Oct 26, 2008 at 1:56 am

  Apologies for multiple posting, but given the number of complaints about Three, and its seeming refusal to act, please could you note the following URL (Ofcom) that may prove useful to you.

  Complaints are in order, of course. (Please copy and paste the URL if clicking it does not fire up the web page)

  http://www.ofcom.org.uk/complain/internet/

• 73 Phil // Oct 26, 2008 at 3:59 am

  Hi, not a legal expert but if a company or debt enforcement agency hounds you for money, during a dispute or when a payment arrangement has been made i believe this is ilegal. check citizens advise or similar if needed. also the people you speak to in a call centre have very little real power -Have worked in several- you need to get it in writing to someone higher up at a head office and arbitration at ofcom will cost the company at least £400 so the chances are that for cases of lack or loss of service or the levels of speed discussed on this site very few cases would need to go that far.

  have work at orange but if you threaten to take if further then do so otherwise they will just keep fobbing you off

• 74 Phil // Oct 26, 2008 at 4:01 am

  I konw this sit is about three but there isa no real difference as to how these service providers work

• 75 Ming // Oct 26, 2008 at 6:12 am

  Hello Phil, and others looking in.

  Three has an interesting way of working.

  The call centre would say “they are forwarding it to the relevant department”, and refuse to tell you what department that is.

  This is regardless of what problem you tell them.

  The answer is always the same, namely, it is forwarded to the relevant department, but “they cannot assure you of a reply”.

  Erm, actually, there is always no reply, so they really should say in such cases : “we can assure you will almost certainly get no reply”.

  So, more meaningless playing around with words. Garbled messages, but the meaning is set on this message board clearly.

  Ofcom has a set procedure for complaints.

  It is almostly certainly clear that Three will fall foul.

  I suggest you have a look at Ofcom’s procedure at the URL given in earlier posts, whereupon one fine day, when you have rather too much time on your hands, take Three thru the procedure swiftly, quickly, brooking no delay and shilly-shalling.

  Take Three to Ofcom by all means.

  The URL is already in previous post.

  Record your conversations, and if there is stonewalling, it will become clear.

• 76 Joseph // Oct 28, 2008 at 9:08 pm

  £10 GONE IN 2 MINUTES!!!!!!!

  Hi all, I have the 3 mobile broadband, i live in Chester and the speed is reasonable, but the cost isn’t!

  Today i logged in to “My3″ on the three website and paid £10 from my credit card to buy an “add on” so i could download something – BIG MISTAKE!!!!!!!! – 2 MINUTES WHILE TRYING TO DOWNLOAD AOL 9.0VR SOFTWARE (BECAUSE I LOST MY CD) – 3 CUT ME OFF AND I GOT TOLD IN INTERNET EXPLORER “ERROR 404 THE PAGE CANOT BE DISPLAYED” – MY DOWNLOAD HAD BARELY STARTED!

  My concusion is that 3 broadband speed is delibarately ‘set’ to run slow, so it takes longer to do each task and you have to stay online longer to be RIPPED-OFF! – 3 IS A TOTAL SCAM AND A WASTE OF SPACE.

  I am thinking about getting T-Mobile internet and binning my 3 dongle LOL!

• 77 Jack // Oct 28, 2008 at 10:57 pm

  I believe 3 operate some kind of throttle system on their mobile “broadband” dongles. My connection contuously switches between HSDPA and 3G but when in 3G mode the connection might as well not be there at all as the internet suddenly adopts the same speed as their customer dis-services representatives do when they take your calls and complaints.

  I think the speed is throttled when the software perceives your bandwidth demand to be lower and therefore switches down to 3G mode and then suposedly switches up to HSDPA when it perceives your bandwidthneeds to be higher. Of course if this is the case then the system is evidently bugged to bits and swtivhes the majority down to snail-pace most of the time.

  Seeing the steady and constant stream of replies and complaints on this and other forums I have got to wondering, why don’t we all try to co-ordinate some sort of class action against 3? We could, as a group, approach OFCOM and eventually also consider a claim in court against 3 fo breach of contract. At the very least we may get OFCOM to take notice of 3′s Dick Turpin tactics (at least Dick bothered to wear a mask!) and also gain some publicity to alert others to steer well clear of 3 Mobile Broadband.

  If there are enough replies to this expressing some interest I will setup a website solely for this purpose for us all to register and proceed with a complaint and possible legal action. I will happily devote the time if there is enough interest and motivation to really, once and for all, do something about 3′s shocking customer service.

• 78 Joseph // Oct 28, 2008 at 11:16 pm

  That’s a great idea!…..3 has seen us all comming and is milking us (the public) for every last penny – they only care about there proffits, not about us (the public)….i think 3 is run by very selfish and arregent people who think that they can charge the earth for a service that don’t even provide to a high standard and get away with ripping us all off while we lose money and suffer in silence

  The bottom line is this has to stop somehow.

• 79 Phil // Oct 29, 2008 at 1:11 am

  Joseph. you said that £10 which is 1gig went in 2 minutes? Your download speed must be off the scale. I think that we have finally found the one place in the uk that three have not just reached the 2.8mbps mark but smashed it. How can you say that three is slow when you have speeds well above three’s own advertised rate.

• 80 Jack // Oct 29, 2008 at 1:36 am

  Phil, is there any real reason for your presence on this site? You make the rather inane comment previously about all services being the same….. well actually no they aren’t. Vodafone for instance offer the fastest connection speeds for mobile internet and also provide very courteous and helpful customer services. T-Mobile are friendly and English when you call their customer service and their surfing packages are quite nice with decent connection speeds. the others I am not yet sure about. But it is clear that all the mobile services aren’t the same.

  Additionally, Joseph did not say he had downloaded 1Gb of data which would have used his£10. If you bothered to read peoples’ posts and appreciated them you wold have understood that Joseph said that he was disconnected shortly after starting his download of AOL’s software… in fact in his own words his “download had barely started”

  So don’t make presumptions Phil, don’t troll other peoples’ points and don’t ruin a perfectly good forum which up to now seems to be the only real place to express an opinion about the dreadfully slow, erratic, unreliable and tenuous service that is 3 Mobile Broadband.

• 81 Pat // Oct 31, 2008 at 8:11 am

  I have just read all 80 posts on this site and had a joyous time, i had thought it was my inexperience with the network. I have a 3 phone and 3 broadband and am assured that the service will improve in ’3′ months. This has been the mantra since February. It is a rubbish service and shows no sign of getting better. Ofcom will be a good idea if enough people get on board, Oh and Phil, you dont work for 3 by any chance do you?? Best wishes to all 3 non- believers

• 82 Ian smith // Oct 31, 2008 at 9:41 am

  Over last 5day with a group of friends have been monitoring 3s HSPDA 24.7 at following locations se london Croydon 2 s london Tooting 1 Central london 2 norf lundun 1 norf Tottenham 1souf 1 Enfield 1 west london Acton 1 Ealing 1 Greeenford 1 all in turbo areas has only been up average 9per cent of the time from analysis of graphs seems to work in small bursts then slow or stop then drop out best speed Croydon 280kbs for 10 secs before dropping back to 66.3333k longest up 30min Acton but only 128K max

• 83 Ian Smith // Oct 31, 2008 at 10:31 am

  What still amazes me all these problems everyones having aint new been there from the start ie switch off your mob off freez it ect I thought was just shared network problem but from comments made so far think it goes much deeper if anyone has any doubts that 3 directors dont know whats going on easily proved by the tight scripts they are’nt allowed to deviate from I repeat 3service personel not morons just trying to keep thier jobs so go easy on them

• 84 Ian Smith // Oct 31, 2008 at 4:13 pm

  Oh one last bit of advice specificaly complain to 3service about thier HSPDA conectivity they wil say have a special department dealing with this on 500 usual mob rates apply keep you hanging on forever and give you the same old flapdoodle only lucky you you get to pay for it only people I’ve seen are the type of blog that says been with 3 for 4years no problem realy fast speeds rate 5 out of 5 or 10 of 10 well 3 you going to try and give your network a good review a least make it look credible

• 85 Ian Smith // Oct 31, 2008 at 6:00 pm

  By comparison am lucky to you all knew 3 was wibbley wobbley but fell for the splendiferous reviews for skype s2 things you must check if updating to new iphone has it got a tflash player installed so can download iplayer can it read dpf files can it handle large memory ie 4gig or 8gig by that I mean can you access mem files fast last but just as important can you organise the files in your folders & from bitter experience get them to demonstrate it I didnt so more fool me

• 86 Joseph // Oct 31, 2008 at 6:20 pm

  Thanks for the comments guys!

  I still can’t believe how expensive 3 mobile broadband internet really is *shocked*

  I think it would be cheaper to phone Australia from an Orange mobile phone during peak hours that to download something using the 3 mobile broadband service LOL!

  If only the guys at 3 would see sense and get their act together by making thier mobile broadband more affordable (as it is the yonger ‘student type’ of clintel with not much money who usually go for this sort of thing anyway), it would be better and more attractive, at the moment 3 broadband is a total joke!

  What’s the point??

• 87 Ian Smith // Oct 31, 2008 at 6:27 pm

  Last words for a while an whos that who said thank goodness watch it! got to hand it to 3 they’ve certainly redefined the meaning of HSPDA never new it stood for Horrificaly Slow Perpetually Down Agravation me thinks 1for the uxbridge english dictionary so will drop in once in while to see how fings is you ave been warned as except for me you all seem to have your heads screwed on the right way round B.F.N

• 88 Pat // Nov 3, 2008 at 8:47 am

  Quote from ‘what mobile’ letters page,current awards edition. ‘ over the next year, 3 is going to share its transmitters with T Mobile (and vice versa) so by the end of 2009, it will equate to well over 15,000 cell sites and near 100 per cent coverage. You should start to see improvements from the end of November this year’ this was a laptop/dongle question. Does near 100 per cent coverage mean we will all be getting reasonable speeds? I think not, it smacks of 3 press release and will refer to basic 2g text/call coverage, Not broadband, i think this is sloppy journalism in not answering the question properly, more evidence of this is that 3 won the ‘best mobile broadband’ category, tee hee

• 89 Pat // Nov 3, 2008 at 9:07 am

  3 win ‘best mobile broadband’ in ‘what mobile’ awards. Dont know who votes for this, or does it come out of a hat?

• 90 Ian Smith // Nov 3, 2008 at 9:47 am

  Checking HSPDA on 1 moby souf tottenham been showing just g icon no signal last 8hours but other mob says 3g 3bar can anyone come up wiv an answer oh I’ve tried 3 tech support just give my edache a edache thought I new a lot of things apparently not

• 91 Morris Roe // Nov 7, 2008 at 1:10 am

  3 MOBILE BROADBAND HAS NOW BEEN SHOWN TO BE A SCAM IN 80 PERCENT OF THE UK. AVOID LIKE PLAGUE!!
  In the beggining I got good service but since then has declined to dial up “IF I AM LUCK”
  CLASS ACTION AGAINST 3

• 92 Steve Lancs // Nov 14, 2008 at 12:35 pm

  Have had the package for about a month, at its best it is excellent allowing me to have high quality video conferences out on the road. I have measured speeds up to the rate they advertise. However on the edge of coverage the behavior is erratic. Understanding a bit about RF transmissions and data networks this is about what i expected, although I would like better coverage. I have noticed, two characteristics, I seem to get better performance when the laptop is not running of the battery (maybe the laptop is throttling performance to maintain battery life) and the bandwidth I get seems to very with demand, so if I am downloading lots of small web pages I get a small allocation but when i start to download a large file the allocation increases.
  I would however caution about their customer service and billing. I recently noticed that they had charged me an extra £1 a month on my bill, which when i rang up to question they told me was a new charge for paper billing which they had sent me a text to allow me to opt out of. When further challenged they admitted that I had not been sent the text and that I had already been charged and they would refund me next month.
  I suggest everyone check out for this and ring them up about it. I wonder how many £1 they have added to bills …

• 93 Peter F // Nov 14, 2008 at 11:44 pm

  I have just downloaded a PDF file.
  Details as follows

  Downloaded 2.91 Mb in 39 mins 40 secs

  Transfer rate 1.25 Kb sec

  At one point it was as low as 551 bytes sec

  Location, London SE17

  I’LL LEAVE IT FOR OTHERS TO COMMENT!

• 94 Jack // Nov 16, 2008 at 3:49 pm

  I have tried to download video drivers for my laptop video card. The file size was 17.9Mb and estimated time to download was 35 minutes. Download speed was 14kb/sec which is hardly broadband!! Steve from Lancs… you seem to be the lucky one mate, the rest of us are paying for a very dire service….. oh I wish the contract would end!!!

• 95 Jack // Nov 16, 2008 at 3:51 pm

  Forgot to mention…. I gave up on the video drivers and will just wait until I am near a proper broadband connection to download them. The estimated time was one of those that never seemed to get shorter!!!

• 96 John // Nov 17, 2008 at 7:36 pm

  3 are so misleading. Why can’t they put up a coverage checker for HSPDA ONLY on their website. From what people are saying it seems like its not worth having anyway. 3G is the best most people will get. Can’t wait till my contract is up and will never go back to 3. OFCOM DO YOUR JOB AND MAKE 3 DELIVER ON THEIR ADVERTISING AND STOP MISLEADING ALL OF THEIR CUSTOMERS

• 97 Jon Cain // Nov 17, 2008 at 8:25 pm

  i have found it the worse so called broadband connection i have ever had,also very very costly when you go over your limit,,mine is so slow,,thats when i can manage to actually get connected,would not reccommend to anyone,,as soon as my contract runs out its ,,sling your hook to 3

• 98 Sam // Nov 18, 2008 at 6:27 pm

  Stay away – this is a complete gamble as to whether it works in your area and Three will not honour their legal obligations under the 14 day money back guarantee without threat of litigation.

  The most you can get in my area was 50k ps

• 99 Greg // Nov 19, 2008 at 10:03 pm

  Hi ya,

  Interesting review!

  I use Three PAYG via an E65 [3G speeds up to 384Kbps download in Cambridge] and have fairly good luck with it. My E51 [HSDPA] does not provide the same consistency that my E65 does. I use Nokia PC Suite to connect my laptop to the internet via my E65.

  PAYG allows me to use the service for for £0.50 per day, which works nicely since I am only in the UK for 2 or 3 days a month.

  Also, using this via PAYG is safer since I only have a few £ of credit, so if I go over the limit, the loss is quite small.

  Another point to consider for those of you using the Huewei USB dongles, not all of these USB dongles are created equally. BTW, the E220 is old and a technician in Singapore told me that it is better to go with the E270 [not available from 3UK] or possibly the new E180 [not available from 3 UK?]. 3 UK will soon offer a E159 to replace the E169g [an older device]? which curiously is not even listed on Huewei’s web page.

  huawei modems: http://www.huawei.com/mobileweb/en/products/browseProductCatalog.do?id=462

  I would like to buy an E180, however, I want an unlocked or buy a locked one and get it unlocked bc I travel all over and bc it is nice to try out services from other companies. Any of you know how / where to unlock a Huewei modem? ie. : E180?

  http://www.huawei.com/mobileweb/en/news/view.do?id=620&cid=82&type=0

  Also, if you are constantly switching between 3G and 3.5G, you might want to try an antenna booster, but no clue if these puppies actually help much: Antennas: http://www.inkino.co.uk/zen/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=2501

  Also, using a longer USB cable and placing the modem higher in the house and also closer and/or outside of the window can often provide a better signal. I have a 3meter USB cable.

  Greg

• 100 gemma // Nov 20, 2008 at 1:32 am

  Has anyone else who has this three mobile internet on a mac had problems with it crashing mac osx? I had the old modem… can’t remember the name… begins with a z. which was fantastically crap. I had to wave it around and hold it in a particular position to get a signal. That died completely last week so I got the newer one in the picture in this article. It was £59 as the three mobile shop assistant said it was much faster. There is only one position in my house I can sit where I get a signal (not really mobile internet then is it?) and after several times of failed sign ins when I do finally get online it crashes osx and I have to power down… Anybody had this problem or even better a solution? I’m not ringing three. I had a problem with my mobile once and it cost me about 12 hours of my life ringing that stupid call centre which I’ll never get back

• 101 steve // Nov 20, 2008 at 10:05 pm

  The best solution Gemma would be a sledgehammer, to the 3 dongle….at least it would make you feel better for a while. Avoid 3 or anything to do with them, they seem a very desperate company, not willing to help, just count your money and squeeze a bit more out of you. A bit short sighted one would think but until Ofcom show some teeth they will carry on ripping us all off. For the guy in the shop to say the new modem is faster was just a lie. It cant be faster if you’re getting such a weak signal…thats just impossible….like buying a faster car when the speed limit is 20 miles an hour anyway….(3 is a lot slower than 20 mph!!) They should have a snail for a logo…wearing a burglars outfit….somewhere in India….

• 102 gemma // Nov 21, 2008 at 12:21 am

  lol!!! I know that wasn’t technically useful but at least it made me laugh!!!

• 103 Alex // Nov 21, 2008 at 10:08 pm

  I use a Skype s2 mobile on pre pay, topping up £20 per month and buying stretch mins etc, and taking advantage of the skype function to make lengthy, frequent and free calls to ireland, to friends on the 3ireland network. I was considering opting into a £10-20 per month mobile broadband, but on reading this I may not. However, ur thoughts echo mine when I took out a tmobile broadband contract, which I was fortunate to be able to cancel due to the shop making a mistake. I find 3 v.good, but on My terms!

• 104 MING // Nov 21, 2008 at 11:08 pm

  Alex, hats off to you. Have lots of fun with your skype. Well done. MING

• 105 justin // Nov 22, 2008 at 4:38 am

  wow i wish i’d found this before i signed up – just wondering if anyone else got miss-sold on the 7mbps, i spoke to a rep on their site and they swore blind the signal was great where i live and its going to be as fast as ‘normal’ broadband if not faster. In the shop they didnt really contradict this till during/after signing when they said thats sometime next year, so is currently 3mbps, but expect 1.5mbps. In reality you have to apply this halflife rule a couple of times more to get your real speed. To be fair the signal is great- according to their software that is anyway it rarely drops off full signal and it only ever switches from hsdpa to 3g occasionally – always when im trying to download something big (by early 90s standards; 1MB+). You can get a decent 800k+ speed out of it, you just need to be prepared to use it at 5am- thank god for extreme flexitime, I have got the full 3mbps out of it once … the manager glitched and it downloaded a massive 1KB at a speed of 3400kbps then dropped the connection and needed to rest for a couple of hours. No ones mentioned the upload speed, im a web developer so it seemed a good idea to go for mobile broadband – just dont try to ftp hundreds of small files because it would be quicker to drive to several hours and transfer the files via usb. its latest trick is to drop the connection and refuse to admit its dropped till i click disconnect and then connect again when it will refuse to do so till i restart. I really really hate 3 and cant wait till theyre on watchdog or something- mobile broadband is a joke, im sure i could sustain a higher data rate with two flash cards with a o and 1 on them!

• 106 MlNG // Nov 23, 2008 at 3:20 pm

  ah! Justin. You’ve evidently discovered another one of 3′s Tricks and inadequacies.

  Namely the trick of disconnecting you without you knowing.

  Exactly the same thing l experience.

  would everyone please note-three would drop your connection unexpectedly and often. its not good enuf.

  Avoid Three. Three’s technical performance is bad.

• 107 Sim // Nov 30, 2008 at 11:17 pm

  Can’t believe that so many people are having huge problems with 3 and the company is still up and running.
  Signed up for a contract last year only to find out that about 3 weeks later they introduced PAYG. Feel ready to cry cause now I am stuck in a 24 month contract and can’t get out even though the service is absolut shocking. Had customer service actually lying to me but how can I prove that when they don’t give anything written down?! They actually charged me for alledged overuse even though my3 homepage said I still have more then enough mb available and when I kept getting messages I actually verified it with customer service and he said it is ok I still have 700mb left and my3 is incorrect at times. Oh, and he would refund me… am yet to receive that. Spoke to managers and god knows who… all lying through their teeth and nothing in writing. Quite clever really- because if I had had something in writing or a voice reorder I would have sued them by now- but as it is… This company is absolutely corrupt and shut be shut down! Can’t even sell what’s left of my contract cause by now nobody is stupid enough to get involved with 3 anymore. So this worked out as the most expensive, unreliable internet connection ever!!!!

• 108 steve // Dec 1, 2008 at 11:24 am

  Sympathy to you Sim, I am now in a similar situation. After all my troubles I tried to cancel. They gave me the usual runaround on all customer service numbers. Now they make you go on a charged per minute number to cancel or enquire, and keep you on the phone for ages. Another money-maker for them. My girlfriend cancelled her call contract by giving a months notice. They kept calling her to offer her better deals, in the end she just hung-up, so they have made her pay for another month because they say she was undecided!!! When she then asked for a pac code to port her number they said she would have to pay for yet another month!!!Its blatant robbery. I tried writing to Ofcom but you get nowhere with them at all, I reckon they are getting goodies from the providers to keep them quiet. pay as you go from now on.

• 109 Jack // Dec 1, 2008 at 12:09 pm

  Sim believe it or not people are still signing up with 3 because of the lack of proper regulation (why would the government regulate a company who like all the other mobile providers, paid millions for the privilege of plonking mobile phone masts all over?) which means no action has been taken against 3 by the toothless Ofcom. And then add to that 3′s policy of ignoring all of its customers’ complaints, deferring all aggravated customers to a continent where the people couldn’t care and don’t understand what they are being told anyway, thats on top of continued heavy promotion of their mobile internet services….. so yes, people still join 3 thinking they’re going to get a service.

  Unfortunately that doesn’t help you…. or the rest of us stuck with lengthy contracts. I don’t know if anyone recalls the blurb about 3 getting the use of T-Mobile’s network for data at the end of November which was supposedly going to speed up 3′s mobile internet services? Well its now December and my service has gotten worse not better!

  Like I said in a previous post, I believe the only way to get any kind of response is for a group of disgruntled customers (us?) to club together and pursue a group complaint against 3 with Ofcom and/or pursue a class action in court against 3. I offered to setup a site and co-ordinate the claims in an earlier post bu alas I think only one person expressed agreement.

• 110 MING // Dec 1, 2008 at 7:42 pm

  hello Jack. I’d be in favor of a coordinated response, but the details have to be worked out.

  In response to the last few posts, I can’t say clearly enough: please Record your calls with THREE.

• 111 Ming // Dec 1, 2008 at 11:16 pm

  Steve hello. You pointed out all the difficulties in ringing a (paid for) number to cancel your subscription.

  Would it be feasible for you to go into a three store to use their fone instead.

  I can’t imagine you having to pay yet more money to cancel your flimsy subscription to 3 broadband.

  I think, three stores are very empty. This is based on an observation three weeks ago, at about 2-3 (pm?) on a weekend.

  (wow!)

  Of course, by now, starting with the original article (above) where the author complained about the slow speed, to this the 110th message by now, with our electrical engineer Ian-Smith superb field testing …

  it has by now to be fairly comprehensively established 3′s speeds are nothing like what they advertise, is highly problematic in connection, and 3 plays stupid devious games (all coming out of this indian call centre?) to try to saddle you with a contract you can’t and don’t want to use.

  3 therefore, to be, avoided. A robust conclusion.

• 112 Ming // Dec 2, 2008 at 1:34 am

  PS: Greg mentioned use of a long USB cable (3m?) to connect fore and PC.

  One might also consider blue-tooth, which enables 7m; theoretical maximum circa 10 m

• 113 Ming // Dec 2, 2008 at 1:40 am

  Bluetooth, fones and PCs aside, 3 has lost $500 million and $100 odd million in the past 2 years.

  They now offer “free PCs”; if you take a broadband contract.

  Do no such thing. Do not take a free PC with 3 contact.

  Pay a bit more and get a better network. You’d come to nothing but grief with the 3 contract.

  Note posts above.

• 114 j // Dec 2, 2008 at 2:12 am

  is that a 3 metre usb lead to plug into next doors computer for a usb-lan type arrangement as i fail to see how a longer cable addresses the issue of the 3 mobile network being completely useless… are we seriously saying that its the length of the usb cable that is to blame here …?

  you can get 100m bluetooth, so, making a bluetooth scatternet between your home and work would probably be less effort and more reliable than 3 is!

  … borrowing next doors connection is best done with ‘n’ wifi … just prey they arent on 3 too ;p (joke)

• 115 Ming // Dec 2, 2008 at 2:42 am

  hello J. The longer USB (tone to pc) enables fore to be placed in better reception areas /spots.

  This is still a very shaky arrangement as the phone remains liable to be pulled off accidentally.

  Hence Bluetooth – (wireless)

  But yes, you are right. No amount of phone positioning would deal with 3′s “broadband”‘ (i.e. dial-up) service (“service” Sic!), which nobody should take out a contract on.

• 116 Ming // Dec 2, 2008 at 2:44 am

  spelling mistakes in above post.

  fore = fone. tone = fone. Sorry!

• 117 j // Dec 2, 2008 at 3:53 am

  ah i see, you must have some seriously thick walls in your house/castle if you are having issues that have you holding the phone in hotspots like an old tv aerial ;p jk

• 118 steve // Dec 2, 2008 at 10:34 am

  j : you could live in a tent, it wouldnt make any difference to the non-signal you get from 3. Ming thanks for your going into the shop for help suggestion. I did that once….never again!!The shops are empty for a reason. I have never wished anyone or any company any harm….except 3….lets hope the recession shuts them down.

• 119 Jack // Dec 2, 2008 at 4:39 pm

  What I find scary is the thought of how many people will be suckered by the 3 marketing this Christmas!!??

• 120 jamie // Dec 4, 2008 at 5:33 pm

  i brought the modem it worked for a few weeks now i cant get any signal at all . every time we phone three up its always asian people and i cant understand 1 single word ……..DONT BUY THIS !!!!!!!!!!!

• 121 Ming // Dec 4, 2008 at 5:56 pm

  Hello Jamie. Please return the modem if you can.

  And why in the first place did you buy it?

  Please read customer reviews before you have anything to do with three.

  Or for that matter other companies.

• 122 Jazzing // Dec 8, 2008 at 2:03 pm

  SUMMARY:

  1) A long-term money-sucking commitment of Frustration in a dongle.

  2) Worst shopping decision made since buying expensive electronics from a developing country 6 years ago which claimed to have ‘international warranty’.

  POOR SERVICE.
  Since I live in Central London (zone 1), I though I would receive a decent service based on the ‘turbo service’, which would compensate for the general slowness of mobile “broadband”. But despite picking up to 5 of 10 bars (signal bars like you see on a phone), it is hardly faster than dial-up. I feel sorry for those not lucky enough to get the so called High Speed (HSPDA) connection.
  A friend who lives near Bond Street said he couldn’t pick up more than 3 bars of connectivity either!

  UNRELIABLE
  The industry should not be allowed to use the term “broadband”, it is deceptive!
  And what’s the point of “mobile” internet with access from “anywhere” if it does not connect!

  UNRELIABLE X2
  Most annoyingly, this piece of rubbish doesn’t connect. When it does finally connect, it randomly disconnects in the middle of you work!

  Some good things:
  At least I don’t waste so much time watching youtube, videos or downloading things anymore.. (I watch them partly load and buffer instead)
  I am cheerfully surprised when ever I do manage to surf the net for an hour without interruption.. (though usually not by using this piece of rubbish)

• 123 Ming // Dec 8, 2008 at 5:08 pm

  Hello Jazzy, and all others.

  You mentioned 5 (five) bars reception on your mobile fone.

  Something not well understood is these bars refer only to “voice” calls and not always to “data” connectivity.

  So just because you find “5 bars” on your fone, or if you find yourself in a good reception” area, your data connectivity still could be very problematic.

  This is because you are looking at the wrong indicator. A point not always well understood.

  For noting.

• 124 Peter // Dec 8, 2008 at 7:47 pm

  Service limitations apply. Sorry but could not make it as small as in their adverts!!!!!!

• 125 Ming // Dec 9, 2008 at 12:31 am

  Random Disconnections.

  The issue Jazzy raises in post above of random disconnections in the middle of your session is not at all new to me, and other people have raised this issue too. And I have experienced it enough to roll my eyes at yet another posting on this matter.

  These random disconnections are extremely disruptive to your operations, and if you are not careful, would end up “spending all day”, or “most of your time” connecting, re-connecting, then connecting, re-connecting, and connecting, re-connecting .. etc, via 3 data, which is already an appalling service on many fronts. See above postings for details on this.

  All this connecting and re-connecting makes you wonder what the service is for. Is it to include you as a number in the “contracts”, or are you actually meant to use the service? You should not use an “unusable” service.

  The data connection collapses whenever you put a couple of windows worth of internet demand on it. It was almost as though the service decided it either wouldn’t or couldn’t cope with your data requirements, and therefore simply decided to disconnect you.

  The so-called free PC offer, in which 3 mobile broadband (broadband being a term of abuse, and which is highly inaccurate as it is nothing of the sort, see above postings) chip is embedded into the PC is poor.

  Not only is the service poor, and the customer service superficial, embedding the SIM chip into the PC (or for that matter the use of the dongle) means you cannot be as mobile as you need be. This is because you are limited to the reception quality where your PC is located, and data coverage quality can vary appreciably within a few feet (or metres). 3 may out of desperation randomly blame the atmospherics or poor weather, but then again are you a fool? You therefore are forced to continually shift your PC around.

  And you are not a lab rat.

  Therefore, there can be no question of not using 3 mobile broadband contracts, and it receives an unambigious thumbs down. Do not get any data contracts from them.

  To be clear :

  (1) Do not go in for 3 data contracts,
  (2) nor, for that matter, the “free” PC offer,
  (3) Avoid using a modem dongle (on account of three’s patchy data coverage, whatever their PR flacks say).

  If the above sounds too complicated, and also in summary, save yourself the trouble that has been extensively mentioned in the above posts by …

  *definitely avoiding Three data service altogether this Christmas 2008, and probably well into 2009 or 2010. Certainly avoid it for three years until there are no more independently reported complaints about the service (which is quite different and distinct from what three claims their service to be)

  The service will in the end, let you down. Therefore, thumbs down to the service, and avoid taking out data contracts. Certainly no free PCs – as it is a con.

• 126 David Sanderson // Dec 11, 2008 at 12:31 am

  3g have STRESSED me out, how do I get out of a contract? I will do it legally, I will be a good boy, sit it out and just walk away, go to another network and get better service (it can’t get any worse), I just want to grit my teeth, stay calm and get away from 3g, their cowboy staff, their lies and their useless call centre, any help would be greatly appreciated.

• 127 steve // Dec 11, 2008 at 7:17 pm

  Heres more unbelievable stuff…suddenly my bill went up from £15 to £16 aa month, even though I am on an 18 month contract at £15 which I want to get out of but cant. So I rang the ludicrous 3 help centre, they told me the increase was for paper billing (which I have been getting since the start of the contract) I said I dont want or need paper-billing as I am not even, or cant even use the dongle, its blocked at £15 credit limit anyway even if I could use it. They said sorry, you should have been informed of this and would have to cancel the paper-billing. I said i had not been informed and i dont get messages from them as I am not using the service. They said i shouldve had a letter (paper?) so they would refund my pound and ensure the bill went back to £15. Guess what, a month later no refund and the bill was £16 again, and I didnt get a paper-bill either. Now I KNOW its only a pound a month, but if you times that by everyone they are ripping-off in this way its thousands or even millions to them. I am counting the days until i can cancel this contract, they will let me do this if i call EXACTLY 30 days before the last month. Its in my diary…..

• 128 Ming // Dec 11, 2008 at 8:19 pm

  Steve, hello.

  Why don’t you just send them a letter about the matter, and cancel your direct debit until they get the bill right?

  no replies required.

• 129 David Sanderson // Dec 11, 2008 at 11:09 pm

  All I can say about 3G is the mobile broadband is so unreliable, I am actually drafting a letter giving notice that I wish to terminate my contract when it expires and posting it SIX MONTHS is advance by registered post, copies will be sent to Ofcom, trading standards, my local 3 store and every director etc of 3 I can contact, I will keep copies of all replies and I am already expecting them to threaten me, their service is abymal and I don’t know how they can get away with what is basically bullying and intimidation.

• 130 David Sanderson // Dec 11, 2008 at 11:17 pm

  My experiences of 3 have included staff instore accusing me of lying when I reported a faulty modem, it took 4 visits with my laptop to convince them, staff browsing internet forums when I asked for help and saying there was nothing they could do, a store manager not being honest about the cooling off period, call centre staff telling me to take the laptop outside, it’s mobile for Gods sake, telling me to open a window, hanging up on me, telling me there was a strong signal when no bars were visible and limited service and not found were clearly displayed, trying to tell me we had a faulty laptop when I borrowed a T mobile modem which worked perfectly well, on top of that the shop tried to get me to buy a 3 phone saying my calls to customer services would be free! Bunch of cowboys.

• 131 Ming // Dec 12, 2008 at 12:29 am

  Hello Steve and David.

  I was just thinking about your problem(s?), and wondered if you are unable to get out of your mobile data contracts, and without prejudicing any existing efforts to get out of it, then :

  check if it is possible ( and I think it is ) to place your broadband chip into a 3 or 3.5G capable mobile fone for mobile fone WAP use.

  if this works, you could then also place your chip into a “smart fone”, or use a PDA in conjunction (eg bluetooth) with a mobile fone. A PDA has a larger screen, which helps in browsing where ever you are, thereby avoiding areas where no data reception is possible.

  Sometimes, I find mobile fone wap possible were mobile PC broadband is impossible.

  It is unlikely you’d use the entire 3GB or so data monthly “allowance” this way, but at least you may get some joy from browsing from “mobile” devices when on the move rather than from the PC, until such time you get your contracts cancelled of course.

  Until such time you cancel your contracts.

  Hope this helps; no replies required.

  mho900.2@gmail.com

• 132 David Sanderson // Dec 12, 2008 at 12:58 am

  It would work in theory but surely the chip is traceable, I trust 3 so little, I am getting into orwellian thinking, if you get burgled, you claim on the insurance, the Police fit new locks and you buy a light timer etc. You learn from experience, you feel safer and better and move on in life. 3 is a different ball game altogether.
  I’ve never been ripped off so blatantly before, 3 are worse than smackhead burglars in my estimation as to use an analogy 3 have the cheek to come round the next day and after burgling you, demand better drugs next time or else.
  The cheeky bastards take the biscuit and your tea bags too. Usually, I am a nice, reasonable, decent, tolerant and easy going kind of guy but 3 just like to push you and push you and push you, until you snap, then push you some more.
  I just want out of this contract, until now I had never googled ‘abusive relationship’..3 really are that bad!

• 133 Ming // Dec 12, 2008 at 10:05 pm

  Hello David.

  Lets face a couple of (darned?) things here :

  a. three wants your money badly, and isn’t going to let you walk away from it easily however poorly you feel about the service (or “service”) isn’t it?

  I suppose three will ask you to try everything under the the sun to get a signal apart from standing on your head, and giving you a refund isn’t it?

  b. Presumably, you *wouldn’t* have subscribed to three if you had read this bulletin board postings would you?

  And few people would too.

  If you do want to approach OFCOM, please note (see my earlier posting above) OFCOM wants a very, defined set of procedures tto be followed up.

  So, for maximum effect, please see the procedures are adhered to. That is, if you want complain to OFCOM.

  mho900.2@gmail.com

• 134 Joey // Dec 16, 2008 at 6:42 pm

  My boyfriend and I purchased 3G mobile broadband on the weekend and are extremely dissapointed. It doesn’t have any connection in our apartment, even though Phones 4 U assured us we live in a good reception area.

  No biggie, we figured, we’ll just take it back. Tsyeah, right! It took 3G 48 hours to activate our modem, but they also give you just 48 hours to return it! Because they include the day on which you bought it. Which is just plainly ridiculous, we bought it while out Christmas shopping, do you really expect customers to rush back home and see if the damn thing works?

  And the 3g customer service? Absolutely rubbish! I really wish I had never laid my eyes on this shitty product!

• 135 Steve Lancs // Dec 18, 2008 at 1:50 pm

  Steve,
  How are you getting on with the extra charge for the paper billing ? I seem to have been lucky as they have given a refund and the bills are now correct again. When I originally spotted the increase I challenged them to tell me when they had sent the correspondence, or the text message, at that point they admitted that I must have been an odd one out, and that in fact I had not been sent the correspondence. It might be worth trying a similar approach?
  Obviously their method of notifying people is flawed.
  At danger of being the odd one out, having had it now for several months I am resonably satisfied. Yes in borderline areas I get poor connection. I do believe the industry as a whole needs to pint out this that data connections require far greater signal integrity than voice.
  At reasonable signal strengths however the service is excellent, including for example a international call on skype holding together all the way up the m40 and then up the M6… all hands free of course ! and regular video conference quality connections around the country. key factors seem to be, urban areas, motorways, good height, away from obstruction, and certainly avoid interference. I live near an airport and near that place the connection becomes terrible.

• 136 David Sanderson // Dec 18, 2008 at 8:17 pm

  Ming in response to point b, NO!

  In a word, NO!, I have a few days off work at xmas if the missus buys me a magnifying glass I will read the small print, if she buys me a crystal ball, I will look for a 3g free future, if she buys me a 3g product, I think I will see a solicitor and find out if it qualifies as creulty!

  Joey, remember that old song ‘There may be trouble ahead’?

  Steve Lancs, Let’s all meet up one xmas at the 3g recovery centre, this lot could drive you to drink!

  Happy xmas everyone (except 3)!

• 137 Steve // Dec 19, 2008 at 12:18 pm

  yeahh…I found out my phone is unlocked so I am switching providers, and my girlfriend is now free of her £35 a month 3 slavery contract…so thats about £70 a month they have lost…..
  On the 3 non-mobile dial-up speed dongle……in reply to Ming,,,and everyone else,,, you should NOT cancel your direct-debit as they will then proscecute you (even though they know it is their fault) and soon you will have a debt recovery agency after you using threats of bailiffs. My bills are a month behind and the Indian call-centre say the amount will change on next months bill…so we will see…In response to Steve Lancs the fact that you got to make a phonecall on it is hilarious!! Yes I know it was on Skype so that is a moral victory, but how much are you paying 3 for it? It would be better for you to get one of those new low-cost international call sim-cards which only cost a few pence per minute for international calls. Finally in response to David and all of you, Merry Xmas….and a 3 free new year!!!!

• 138 Jimmy Da Hoof // Dec 19, 2008 at 4:20 pm

  The Three dongle is a rip off They let me go over my limit, (If you have a PC you get a little piece of software to monitor your download usage, if you have a mac you don’t and have to painstakingly look it up daily at ‘My three’ to find out how much of your monthly allocation you have used ) If you go over which is not difficult , three will cut you off, but only after you have gone over your limit and incurred £50 of extra charges in one month . I argued and got £25 back but then when I asked them to cap my usage to £15 per month as advertised to prevent this happening again they craftily capped it at £ 15 of EXTRA usage per month . So my bill came in at £ 30 instead of £15 I was furious and fought this with the Indian call center ( making sure they phoned me back by posting a written request on their website for them to call me) after about an hour of arguing with the call center manager that what they are doing is misleading the public at the point of sale, and by threatening them with court action to recover my money they caved in and refunded all my extra charges .It’s time for government legislation to stop these rip offs .
  Get on to three if you’ve been stung like me and don’t give up, they will try to get out of it but you keep on wasting their time they will get fed up and pay you back your extra charges.

• 139 Dave // Dec 21, 2008 at 9:20 pm

  Well after reading alot of the above, I can say I have experienced exactly the same crappy service as the rest of you.
  I was on contract and went over my limit by 500Mb (£50) extra – I asked them alot of times to split the extra charge over 5 bill @ £10 extra per bill – they refused – cut me off. I threw away my contract simcard, bought a payngo card, moved house (not coz of 3) and ripped the bastards off.. they can suck my plums if they think they`re getting anything more out of me.. I payed £28 per month for a year for a service I could hardly use… Ive pain stakingly unlocked my dongle and am waiting for another provider to go payngo – I might save £20 per month for a plane ticket to India just so I can go punch one of the techs clean in their useless lips

• 140 David Sanderson // Dec 28, 2008 at 9:48 am

  I tried contacting 3 by E mail. Didn’t work, get this THEIR site crashed. Maybe we should contact their HQ and demand a response.

  Star House
  20 Grenfell Road
  Maidenhead
  Berkshire
  SL6 1EH

  Tel 01628765000

• 141 David Sanderson // Dec 28, 2008 at 9:56 am

  I did call the Indian call centre out of sheer desperation 3 times, first time I hung up after being patronised, you know, is your computer switched on, that kind of thing, second, I just lost it after they insisted a speed of 0.ookps and no bars meant I had a clear signal, third I had to repeat my details so many times, I asked for someone to call me back, they said I would get a call within the hour, that was over a week ago. Are they called 3 because it takes 3 wasted phone calls for your blood to boil?

• 142 David Sanderson // Dec 28, 2008 at 10:06 am

  In response to Joey, the call centre is useless, you will just waste your time and money, we are calm, tolerant, friendly people but we feel so intimidated walking into the 3 store that we take our complaints to their top honchos, I contacted a Mr Grant Nicholas (customer satisfaction manager) who never replied, 3 don’t listen so we are having to take legal advice just to get out of a contract, 3′s tactics are nothing but corporate bullying and I have made sure that any time the conversation at work or in the pub gets on to mobile networks, I am TRUTHFUL about 3, get out of this contract by any means possible but DO NOT TRUST 3, repeat DO NOT TRUST 3.

• 143 Baz Lowther // Dec 30, 2008 at 4:29 pm

  Been trying to help my son resolve loads of issues with 3- poor service connection, terrible customer care service all problems already highlighted. However just thought I would let you share what I believe to be the ultimate problem solving suggestion from the 3 call centre to improve reception ” Cant you move to a new home!”

• 144 David Sanderson // Jan 1, 2009 at 5:00 pm

  BAZ, I was offline for 4 days, only just got back on today, I virtually know the 3 script by heart now, did they tell you to open a window or go outside? Just grit your teeth mate, if you don’t have a 3 phone (are they as crap as their broadband?) and you get disconnected (sorry, not if but when) send an E mail to them from a public computer or ask a mate if you can use his PC to send one, NEVER call them, it’s expensive, pointless and you really do lose the will to live after repeating yourself more times than you thought was possible, we are actually thinking of putting some champagne on ice to celebrate escaping in July, I have already drafted a letter saying I will not be renewing, happy new year and good luck to you all, I’d say E mail me but it’s probably quicker to use pigeon post.

• 145 Pat Emmison // Jan 4, 2009 at 9:42 am

  A thought, if 3′s network coverage is in the high 90% of the population,would it not be easier if they show us where it doesnt work seeing as its only 3-5% of the figure….?

• 146 David Sanderson // Jan 4, 2009 at 2:46 pm

  LATEST NEWS: they called yesterday and after 1 hour accused me of lying and said it was my laptop at fault, it has been checked and given a clean bill of health, STILL can’t get online at home.

• 147 Pat Emmison // Jan 10, 2009 at 2:34 pm

  Re Davids post, I have never been able to use the “service” at home. i have to travel at least 4 miles to get a workable signal, the latest timeframe for getting a mast to cover this area is summer 09. which begs the question why are 3 still selling it in this area? i was in a 3 store a few weeks back when i overheard a salesman telling a prospective customer “Unless you live in the Highlands of Scotland, you will get a signal”!! Time is surely running out for 3 if they carry on like this, empty promises and downright lies. Regards to all

• 148 Pat Emmison // Jan 10, 2009 at 2:35 pm

  whoops, i meant summer 2010 !

• 149 David Sanderson // Jan 10, 2009 at 11:43 pm

  I am online now but only after sending repeated letters of complaint to my local 3 store, customer services and head office, I am seeking advice from trading standards and consumer direct, any correspondence I recieve from 3 will be kept for future reference and I would ask everyone reading this to acknowledge in public that I will not be renewing when my contract expires on July 11th. I expect further hassle and I am completely unsatisfied with the quality and service.

• 150 Ming // Jan 12, 2009 at 1:23 am

  what’s the reliability of the “3″ service?

  I can report “3″ Service is throwing up a lot of “access denied due to system policy” messages now.

  Plenty of them.

  Been happening for the last 24 hours.

  apparently, you are charged 10p op to report this problem to 3.

  Why don’t I report the problem on here instead?

• 151 David Sanderson // Jan 13, 2009 at 5:14 pm

  Offline again, so here I am at the library, the manager of the Grimsby store VERBALLY agreed my letter giving WRITTEN confirmation that I do not wish to renew is sufficient, good job, I recorded the call….

• 152 David Sanderson // Jan 14, 2009 at 8:44 pm

  We are online (for now) but had to send a complaint to customer services from another computer (mysteriously we got online at home 45 minutes later ) saying that they had ignored our verbal and writen requsets for assistance, we have given them 6 months notice and put in an official complaint to consumer direct, fingers crossed.

• 153 Debbie // Jan 14, 2009 at 10:37 pm

  If 3 mobile broadband was a lager it would probably be the worst lager in the world…..

  This is utter tosh, do not buy this product. I have spent 10 hours within 4 days with NO service. Apparently there was a problem their end….if they cant fulfil their obligations to their consumers, they shouldn’t be selling the product. Taking money for a service and not providing it is fraud. Why hasn’t Ofcom pulled their trading license ?
  I am told I need to call them when there is a problem, yet they will not reimburse for the cost of the calls.
  These calls I add, would not be necessary if they would provide what they are taking money for.
  I am moving to vodafone or 02, as 3 have robbed me for long enough.
  As they say, Dick Turpin wore a mask…….

• 154 Dave // Jan 16, 2009 at 12:20 pm

  Well after 20 – 30 emails threatening 3 with OFCOM and telling them I was deaf and required the internet for communication (im not) and telling them to fit another E1 board to the cell supplying my area – doing a speedtest over 3 days and sending them the results (www.speedtest.bbmax.co.uk) was the one the told me to use, it seems… and i dont want to speak too soon, but i can actually browse the net quite normally now.. downloads are still pretty sad but pages load ok for the last couple of days.. fingers crossed

• 155 Debbie // Jan 16, 2009 at 2:06 pm

  I am still having to reconnect every 30 mins When pay day hits, I will be moving to 02.

• 156 deano // Jan 16, 2009 at 8:18 pm

  hi folks its so great in a nice way to see im not the only one who fell for 3′s tosh! after reading nearly all comments tonight on your site i feel somewhat comforted.
  ive had the dongle since july and prob used 100mb! i phoned and complained on 17th dec told em i would cancel direct debit if they canot provide me with the service they said and that that would be it.
  i even offered to down grade from £15 to £10 per month as i wasnt getting full usage but they said they cant . so i said stuff it .
  went on online banking and they had cancelled it themselves!! then to day i get an invoice for 2months worth so phoned up …usual indian call center trash but i said hang on you cancelled it not me.they checked and said oh yes but may have been a mistake we can rectify it. i said no thanks leave it at that ! they then said ANY THING WE CAN HELP YOU WITH TONIGHT MR WHIAT!!!!! im mean AS IFFFFF!!!!!
  sorry folks just had to get it off my chest lol

• 157 Ming // Jan 16, 2009 at 9:13 pm

  This little comment comes after reading the last 3 or 4 posts.

  I wonder why people would not read reviews of the service before buying.

  I guess I’m as guilty of this some times as any one else.

  But now, I don’t do that sort of reckless buy-to-try, but rather read-before-buying.

  What say?

  A good tip for your friends?

• 158 Debbie // Jan 16, 2009 at 9:39 pm

  I have had 5 hours today with no connection. this is the 4th day in a row, SO I get £2 credited to my account and wait for it a whole pound for having to make phone calls. Hmmm, it can’t be converted into bandwidth online. I have to go to the 3 shop. sighs, a half hour drive for three measly quid ? It’ll cost me more to get there. They really are taking the piss.

• 159 David Sanderson // Jan 18, 2009 at 10:47 am

  I have been reduced to recording phone calls, saving E mails and communicating by registered post. I had never heard of 3 a year ago, I just expected to walk out of the shop and be online straight away, since then I have learned a lot about 3, quite honestly the WORST service ever, no doubt whatsoever.

• 160 Trevor // Jan 18, 2009 at 6:42 pm

  Very simple message. DO NOT sign up for 3 Mobile USB Broadband packages.
  ALL of the above posts apply the service is rubbish. Now how do we get out of these 18 month contracts that we foolishly signed up for?

• 161 Dave // Jan 18, 2009 at 6:48 pm

  Well my solution was that as they did not provide me with the service they promised, I will not provide them with the payment promised – after all fair is fair and the contract works both ways – I doubt even if they caught up with me that they would 1. take me to court, and 2. have a leg to stand on when I presented the court with this website

• 162 Trevor // Jan 18, 2009 at 7:29 pm

  As a quick follow up to my post above I have contacted 3 Mobile via email and have had an automated response with a link back to the 3 support site. On clicking the link I got

  “This service is currently unavailable.
  Please try again later. ”

  Bless them for making my cases easier.

• 163 David Sanderson // Jan 20, 2009 at 9:07 am

  I hope 3 read these comments, I have given my local store, head office and customer services (surely a contradiction in terms) 6 months notice, yet they are ignoring me, I complained to Otelo and have even had to get legal advice, just to get out of a contract!

• 164 deano // Jan 20, 2009 at 10:32 am

  lol! unbelievable …they take the mick.!
  i have emailed the websitelink to 3 customer support!
  but they will prob not be able to read without a translator!

• 165 Ming // Jan 20, 2009 at 11:11 am

  hello Deano

  In the past, and perhaps even now, 3 used to get back to you. They call to say “your feedback is appreciated, …. but they cannot guarantee anything.”

  Sometimes they say “we appreciate your feedback, but ….. they cannot assure anything”.

  At other times, they say ” Thank you for sending feedback to 3; your feedback is valuable”.

  Off and on, they say ” Thank you for sending feedback to 3; your feedback is being forwarded to the relevant department.”

  Also, they say ” Thank you for sending feedback to 3; your feedback is being forwarded to the relevant department . but ….. they cannot assure anything”.

  Erm!…! I see.

• 166 David Sanderson // Jan 21, 2009 at 9:17 am

  I have bombarded them with complaints, also I have contacted Otelo, trading standards, executive office, head office as many consumer watchdogs as possible and even the media.

  End result? They are refusing to return my calls or reply to my letters, I will keep sending them and retaining copies for my own reference. I don’t trust 3 one bit.

• 167 Dave Z // Jan 21, 2009 at 10:49 am

  oooooo! 3 are unbelievable!

  would you believe they asked me to do 3 different speed tests on http://www.speedtest.bbmax.co.uk – well I rung them today to give them the user name and password to check the results.

  AMAZINGLY whilst I was on the phone to 3 a speed test of 1000+ kb actually appeared on the site. (bare in mind the avarage speed before was 144kb) The test appeared at 9.40am. (my girlfriend has the dongle and starts work at 9am)

  Obviously the test was run and put on there by them. So i basically told him that the last result was completely in accurate.

  They told me on the phone the problem would “definately be solved” and that they will do “everything in my favour” – so if they dont , can i consider this as grounds to cancel the contract?

  Aparently the engineers are heading up to the mast to “solve it” and it could take up to two weeks!

  WHAT A JOKE!

• 168 David Sanderson // Jan 21, 2009 at 12:17 pm

  Where’s the mast? Mount Everest? Most likely the Mariana trench, knowing that lot.

• 169 Dave Z // Jan 21, 2009 at 1:29 pm

  haha. It wouldnt surprise me.

  You can tell by the tone of their voices they are more than aware they are selling a duff product.

  They had the cheek to try and charge me £1.80 for my cal to them today , i told them it was 3 to 3 and to take it out of my 3 to 3 minutes which they did lol

  I think people would generally accept between a 25-50% loss of service speed. but it would seem generally people are expeirencing 80% loss. Which is totally unacceptable.

  I think we should gather peoples names and 3 mobile broadband numbers and put it in a petition. There must be 100′s of people on here. Surely the more voices speaking at once the better chance we have of being heard.

  What does everyone say ?

• 170 Debbie // Jan 21, 2009 at 4:36 pm

  I would opt in if there were a significant number of folks here also willing to do so, but my gut tells me they are getting our dosh and don’t really give a toss whether we feel we’re getting value for money or good service. The only reason I bought this product was that at the time it was the only pay as you go internet and , having just moved into a new home I really didn’t want any more direct debits coming out of my bank account.
  Has anyone contacted any of the TV consumer programmes ?

• 171 Ming // Jan 21, 2009 at 6:21 pm

  I think Dave Z is correct. I too have never taken speeds advertised.

  Most of the time, speeds are just about dial up modem speeds.

  The point is – users and potential users (ie potential purchases) to ensure they do not believe the misleading speed advertised by 3.

  The speed advertised by 3 is either a lie, or available only under very, very, selective test lab conditions, or exists only in theory (ie, may not even exist at all)

  Further, the upload speeds are even slower than the download speeds. This point has been noted in earlier comment somewhere in the above 100 or so complaints.

  Therefore, there are open questions about the download speed being misleadingly advertised, and the upload speed being even slower then the slow download speed.

  Incidentally, when I called to question this point, I was offered the 3 standard solution, namely -> “could we check your settings?”.

• 172 David Sanderson // Jan 30, 2009 at 3:40 pm

  I got out of the contract, now with 02, 3 are total crap, simple as that.

• 173 dave z // Jan 30, 2009 at 3:41 pm

  how did you manage to get out of the contract mate?

• 174 Lee 'M' // Jan 31, 2009 at 3:38 pm

  My girlfriend has the 3 Broadband package using the MF622 HSDPA USB modem and when she got it, the signal was absolutely shocking, couldn’t get up to 3 bars, constantly on 0,1 or 2 bars.

  However a few months ago, for some inexplicable reason, the signal went up to 5 bars, and fluctuated between 3,4 and 5 bars which was nice to see, especially from a company as useless as 3.

  But since last Wednesday, the signal has now reverted back to the stone age and is fluctuating between 0 bars and 1 bar.

  What’s 3 been doing? Giving us a little taster for a few months and now have decided to can it and go back to the crappy signal they have always had before?

  Only 6 months to go until the end of the contract and when it’s up, I’m going to have a mass ritual burning of the modem and the software, and I’m never ever getting involved with 3 again!!! They are shockingly bad!!

  I’ve just tried that speed test thing and it’s given me a download speed of 307kbp and an upload speed of 292kbp.

• 175 David Sanderson // Feb 1, 2009 at 6:54 pm

  Dave Z, I just bombarded them with letters, phone calls etc, feel free to use me as an example! Lee, follow my example, the guy who called me: Stuart Borland was actually quite reasonable but 3 are shite!

• 176 Dave Z // Feb 3, 2009 at 8:28 pm

  David, – can I pick your brains (or anyone who knows)

  I have written to three and made a formal complaint (after loads of complaining on the phone) – Ive had a reply back in writing, but im not really satisfied with the response.

  what is the next stage of action in the complaints procedure ? who and where do i need to write to (is it the head office) ?

  cheers

• 177 David // Feb 4, 2009 at 7:16 pm

  after reading all this comments about 3 network I must disagree with 90% of you because 3mobile brodband generally is very good and indian costumer service is the best:)
  I did few speed test few different websites example:
  speedtest.bbmax.co.uk
  1 to 2 signal bar out of 5 3g
  location london camberwell green
  29.01.2009 time 0500am
  download speed 100kbps
  29.01.2009 time 1000am
  download speed 10kbps
  29.01.2009 time 1500pm
  download speed 4kbps
  29.01.2009 time 0600 pm
  download speed 20kbps
  29.01.2009 time 2230pm
  download speed 95kbps

  I know that this download speeds are not generally the same as 3network say 2.8 mbps

  generally to speed up my internet i did extend my usb lead up to around 16m and one end of this cable I did connect to my laptop in living room and another is on the roof with dongle.
  look what I got after that:)
  4 to 5 signal bar out of 5 3 HSDPA
  speedtest.bbmax.co.uk
  location london camberwell green
  30.01.2009 time 0500am
  download speed 185kbps
  29.01.2009 time 1000am
  download speed 40kbps
  29.01.2009 time 1500pm
  download speed 40kbps
  29.01.2009 time 0600 pm
  download speed 55kbps
  29.01.2009 time 2230pm
  download speed 170kbps

  Im really happy three costumer:
  Guys dont ask 3 indian service what three can do for you just ask your self what you can do for 3 network
  pay your direct debit!
  and fit your dongle on the roof of your home!

  regards
  Happy customer

• 178 Dave Z // Feb 4, 2009 at 8:13 pm

  David, why stop at attaching the dongle to a roof? why not run a direct cable from the cell site. or better still , tie it to a kite and let it float in the air

• 179 Dave // Feb 4, 2009 at 9:17 pm

  David – You are obviously not english and abviously very biased towards 3, so those 2 things put together = a 3 employee – piss off and stop giving us as much shite as your collegues do, dickhead

• 180 Dave // Feb 4, 2009 at 9:22 pm

  Oh and by the way.. USB without some form of amplifier will not power a dongle or any other USB device with a cable longer than 5 meters – after 5 meters you will lose whatever signal you were hoping for fron the device due to interference and lack of USB power

• 181 Ming // Feb 4, 2009 at 9:49 pm

  As mentioned before :

  do consider using a bluetooth linkup, rather than a wired linkup, (extends the range) and try not to use a dongle. (limits flexiblity)

  Am mentioning now :

  I have a new way to improve reception. If you link your computer to the TV, and then to your DVD player then Washing Machine, your signal with 3 improves.

  Kites don’t work too well as this depends on the wind blowing, and also not everyone has chimneys to fix their stuff to.

• 182 David Sanderson // Feb 5, 2009 at 9:10 am

  I read a post on here ‘Indian customer service is the best’! Yeah and David Beckham is signing for Grimsby Town, Chubby Brown just won slimmer of the month and I’m taking Paris Hilton to the next quiz night at my local! You couldn’t pick this guys brains as someone suggested, if brains were dynamite, he couldn’t blow his nose.

• 183 David Sanderson // Feb 5, 2009 at 9:18 am

  Dave Z, write to customer services, your local 3 store and head office by registered post, make an official complaint to Otelo, if you get through to executive office, (otelo give you the phone number and a complaint reference) amazingly you get polite, ENGLISH SPEAKING people who listen, insist you are cancelling, if need be, contact your local paper and those 2 guys who have a page in the Daily Mirror about rip off companies, kick up enough fuss and you will get out of the contract, quite simply the most appalling, unhelpful, clueless, rude, incompetent Indian call centre ever, I now refuse to deal with ANY Indian call centre.

• 184 unhappy customer number 1 million // Feb 5, 2009 at 9:22 am

  i am one of the many victims of 3. they are the worst and i actually have an ongoing dispute with them but even though they received my complaint letter(cos they made the mistake of telling me,they did over the phone) they just choose not to reply to me in writing. instead they get someone different to call me once a week for payment and troubleshooting all their text book blah blahs. i dont intend to pay them, i cancelled my direct debit 2 weeks ago, and if they try to damage my credit rating, i can always complain to Credit Expert, plus not like I plan to borrow anything from the scummy banks anyway. because they havent replied to me in the time i gave them, I can now go to Otelo and I plan to speak to Watchdog today to see if they can help.

• 185 Debbie // Feb 5, 2009 at 10:05 am

  Good luck with your complaints , unhappy customer, please let us know how you get on.

  I found the Indian Call centre extremely rude and of course speaking with a Northern Ireland accent just didn’t help…… at one point one of the ignorant staff member who obviously wasn’t used to the accent asked me if I spoke English ?? to which I replied ” A lot better than you do sunshine”, so it was a very insulting call, it’s only a subtle dialect difference it’s not like it’s a completely different bloody language.

  The signal here is getting worse and worse and I’m having to log off and log in again every 40 minutes on average, at times every 10 minutes.
  God, I never knew a small item of hardware could instill such aggression in me. I have even taken the little aerial from my TV card and plugged it into my modem to see if that would help boost the signal ( I know I know desperate measures eh ?)
  This has made me so disgusted that I will never again use a company that outsources it’s staff from the UK.
  Take the money from the UK then at least have the decency to provide jobs within the UK and provide staff whose native language is English, in fact, They should send their staff to Vodafone for training as Vodafone customer services are brilliant and they can’t do enough for you PLUS they do what they say on the tin.
  My partner is with Vodafone and never has any problems like those we have with 3…oh and nice try 3 but no , we checked and you do not share your network with Vodafone.
  I have registered my complaint and lack of follow up with Ofcom………though I don’t have much faith in them to be honest.

  3mobile are disgusting liars who have ripped us off long enough. I worked in the telecommunications industry in the good ole days of Oftel and a company could have it’s trading license revoked for this carry on and even the loss of a day’s trading can run into huge losses. I’m not impressed with Ofcom, at least Oftel worked on individual cases.

• 186 Debbie // Feb 5, 2009 at 10:07 am

  Oh and wouldn’t you know…… I had to log in again twice to get this blooming mail sent GGGRRRRRR !!!!

• 187 Dave Z // Feb 5, 2009 at 10:11 am

  hey guys, Thanks David Sanderson,

  I managed to get my mobile broadband contact canceled today. I basically told them I was holding them in breech of contract and that I would be taking the matter further. I said id tried absolutely every suggest they offered, Had a replacement modem and even tried different postcodes and computers and nothing improved their poor service.

  I rung the high priority number and then asked to speak to a line manage who had it all sorted and canceled within 2 hours.

  for those who are trying to cancel, i reccomend reducing the usage of your modem , coz they can check your usage and if its still in high usage, they will deem this as being ok.

• 188 David Sanderson // Feb 5, 2009 at 1:01 pm

  Dave Z, I was reduced to recording my calls and repeating this line:

  I DO NOT WISH TO RENEW, 3 ARE BULLYING ME AND IF YOU WANT, WE WILL DISCUSS THIS IN COURT.

  Stuart Borland called me at 10.30 am on January 23rd, I still have a recording of the call and all the letters 3 have sent me, if they try anything, I will take 3 to court and WIN, BULLIES, nothing more.

• 189 David Sanderson // Feb 5, 2009 at 1:13 pm

  Debbie, report that rude customer service person for RACISM, they even insulted my Polish girlfriend, after this conversation I have recorded, how can we tolerate these racist bullies?

  3: What is your postcode?

  Me: DN31 2LE.

  3: Brighton?

  Me: No, Grimsby.

  3: Nottingham.

  Me: No, Grimsby, anyway, it’s DN31 2LE.

  3: Give me the first line of your post code.

  Me: I’ll give you a clue, I live in Grimsby, it’s DELTA NOVEMBER 31.

  3: Delta, November?

  Me: Then THREE ONE:

  3: Ah, there is a very good coverage in your area?

  Me: I can’t get online.

  3: your postcode is?

  Need I go on?

• 190 Dave // Feb 5, 2009 at 1:53 pm

  I think this flash animation says it all

  http://www.killsometime.com/animations/animation.asp?ID=121

• 191 Debbie // Feb 5, 2009 at 3:10 pm

  I am now going to have to be out the expense of a punchbag as every time I speak to one of those idiots, I have a real need to punch the living daylights out of something.
  I am losing and gaining signal like a yo-yo today, it took me fifteen minuted to open one single yahoo mail and a further 10 to get it sent. I see they are now no longer taking emails regarding broadband….. funny that….. maybe they’re too busy…..??
  Busy scratching their backsides more like !!

• 192 David Sanderson // Feb 5, 2009 at 6:02 pm

  Debbie, don’t be intimidated, I spoke to Customer dis services on New Years Eve just before we went out, I spent £7 on a phone call, requesting to cancel my contract due to poor service, this rude Indian guy kept asking me not to repeat myself and insisting he couldn’t cancel it anyway, I have a recording of that call and quite a few from 3, my FINAL payment is due on 13/02/09, my contract was ended on 23/01/09 and if they try to bully me any more, I’m willing to go to court.

• 193 Debbie // Feb 5, 2009 at 6:18 pm

  I guess I’m one of the luckier ones in that I am not on a contract with them but I’m still out the money for the modem and will still have to pay for another one from a different provider, unless there is some way of unlocking the one I have.

  I think court is maybe the best action, defend yourself and let them be out the money in fees etc.

  I really should have known better as I had a contract phone with them and the signal kept dropping, the excuse was we’re upgrading the service and when they told me the same story at broadband customer dis services the alarm bells went off very very loudly.

  Absolutely never again will I have anything to do with this crowd of thieves again after I get a new provider.

• 194 steve // Feb 5, 2009 at 7:31 pm

  I have a suggestion for Mr David who obviously does not work for 3…..! Why not connect your head to the mains, stick your dongle up your a### and use yourself as a human antenna…then tell us what your download speed is please?
  Seriously though, our government is letting us down in that 3 and other communications companies obviously know they can get away with theft if they make it so difficult for us to cancel. I reckon 95% of people just give up and pay up. Ofcom are useless to the ordinary man and Otelo no better, They are giving these cowboys a license to rip people off.

• 195 deano // Feb 5, 2009 at 7:57 pm

  DAVID 3 employee of the year! do you really expect everyone to by 1x m25′s worth of exra cable with built in 3g boosters , and to stick it on the roof of a 65 story building ??? come on son! you may be getting a 3 pay review but i ask you ….ARE YOU MAD lol! lol lol if they cut off your head i suppose you would have 3 written millions of times in circles like a stick of rock???
  go and work for orange or something! lol

• 196 deano // Feb 5, 2009 at 7:59 pm

  oh and david>>>>> WHATS YOUR REAL NAME????? lol are you from the 3 team who i sent this website link too??????????????????????????????????????? lol oh boy!

• 197 Dave // Feb 5, 2009 at 8:04 pm

  Dont be nice to these arses, dont say “lol” these pricks are coming into our homes and raiding our wallets and purses – i f***king wish I had a way to get to india and grab one of these arseholes by the throat and make him admit he is scamming us, then lock him in a dark room for a year with nothing but a shitty laptop and a 3 dongle.. propper bunch of wankas who are getting paid and trained to rip english people off and also trained to piss the life out of us on the phone.. and debbie I`m with you.. i cant believe also how mad a stupid tiny piece of plastic can make me feel and act – the worst part of it is – i cant break it or I have no way of complaining about it!!!!!!!!

• 198 deano // Feb 5, 2009 at 8:17 pm

  here here! you said it all! and yes me too is with you debbie, like you just said dave you want to wind it up in a vice and plant some c4 around it and blow the f****R into a million pieces but nope as soon as you light the fuse india will ring asking you to return goods for a full refund!………………………….well maybe thats a little too far ..

• 199 Dave // Feb 5, 2009 at 8:25 pm

  Deano – nothing you could conjure up would EVER be going to far with these pricks
  They deserve everything they get, and I am starting slowly to believe that there may soon be enough of us to actually do something about them, what they are doing is im mine and everyone else in here`s eyes ILLEGAL – selling a product that does not do what it says on the tin. For one False advertising, for another trade descriptions act.. the list goes on..

• 200 David Sanderson // Feb 6, 2009 at 7:16 am

  It is advertised as ‘mobile broadband’ to me that implies you get an internet connection on the move, now I understand it means you have to be on the roof top of a block of flats and be prepared to repeat your postcode for 20 minutes and still not get a connection, silly me for not understanding! A mate lives round the corner, he got suckered into getting a phone/ ‘Non mobile broadband’ on some contract, his calls to this abysmal Indian call centre are free, only problem is: He often can’t get a signal on his phone at home and in 3′s words ‘troubleshooting’ requires you to be seated at your computer, so he’s sat there with a phone that has no signal and an internet service that doesn’t work so he can’t call people who can’t help about a service that doesn’t work, when I found out he was with 3, I just rolled my eyes!!

• 201 unhappy customer number 1 million // Feb 6, 2009 at 9:24 am

  david, they should have made your contract ineffective from the day you request cancellation over the phone!epecially if you are disputing with them, they shouldnt chase you for money!I think they use all these stupid corporate tactics to make people pay but the end of the day it is my money and i will decide what to do with it…I wont be scared by some idoiot on the phone who wont even give me their name because they know i will do everything to make sure they get fired…I have no plans to pay them another dime, I still havent received a written reply so I am sending another letter out tomorrow also with the stupid dongle and the sim. I find that if you address the letter to sir or madame they just use it wipe their crack.this time i addressed it to a guy called allen who is supposed to be the director of customer services, and i will make sure to send it recorded this time…and then I am gonna start ignoring them like they did it to me for almost 8 months. the annoying thing is I dont even want bloody compensation, I just want them to close my account and leave me the bloody hell whole so I can live my life free from 3…that would be good slogan for a campaign!hah!FREE from 3!

• 202 unhappy customer number 1 million // Feb 6, 2009 at 3:47 pm

  http://www.threecomplaints.com/
  have a look at this site, it gives addresses of executives you can contact as well as non-0870 number that wont cost you as much…

• 203 Ming // Feb 6, 2009 at 7:05 pm

  I read the complaint site (given in post above); and note there are some 202 complaint comments on this blog.

  I am doubtless repeating myself. But, http://www.threecomplaints.com/ shows a customer who did not record his fone calls with three regards whether he did say whether he wanted to upgrade his fone or not.

  So, as David, Dave, et cie as well as I have done, do record your calls with three. Let them know you are recording your calls, and by all means bludgeon them into the ground if they invite you to.

  It is not satisfactory enough for Lena Dass (from three) to be allowed to misrepresent anyone. Highly annoying that!

  See above URL for more on Lene (forgive the spelling inconsistency!) Dass, from 3, was reported to have foisted a charge onto somebody.

• 204 David // Feb 7, 2009 at 3:14 am

  Dave im not english, irish or scotisch this what I wrote about 3 mobile broadband was joke I was suprissed in funny way that I found so many people unhappy with 3net just like me.
  Generally about me I can say im british newer english I think that many of them are very rude and use abusive words just like YOU; sometimes I think I understand Irish (south); Im on contract with three or last 3 years mobile phone and 1 year mobile broadband.
  mobile broadband I got 5gb usage for 7.5£
  I live in London se15 on the three network map you can see that im in good reception area and from 1 april 2009 will be here 7.2 mbps what say 3G.
  generally first time I used dongle was one month after I signed contract with 3
  In se15 I found that is no reception just 1 bar out of 5 open google web around 10 sec yahoo not possible. I did call to three in indie and was on the phone for many hours they told that cant help me and generally im getting bad reception becayse of buildings another time they told to walk around or stay near window or even go outside. I was fed up. generally I have tried few broadband companies talktalk example 20£ month 8mbps broadband free uk calls and internationall around 20 countries landline included. they started charge me first month 65 second 45£ third 45£ fourth month I stopped direct debt and I moved to virgin media 20£ month broadband advert 8mbps and free uk phone calls. in end I got broadband around 270kbps and I was charged not 20 just around 55£ month. GEnerally I dont think you will find in Britain (not England) good phone or broadband company.
  Generally in past I have tried few of them and non of them are good or proffesional same as 3 network.
  generally is two options have phone and broadband or not. I stay with 3 just because of they are cheap 34£ month for new lg renoir 300min land line unlimited 3 to 3 and 120 video min and useless broadband with phone I dont have any problems every month exactly 27£ and they newer charged me over 7.5£ for useless but broadband.(just make it work):)
  generally I did!
  now free advice:)
  1 service support is free from any 3 mobile number 500 if dont have 3 mobile use sim free mobile put 3sim card cost 1£ and call 500 also if in feature you need any free phone numbers any companies use web say no 0870
  2 my broadband now is working maybe is not this what I want but I can easy check web sites email and download generally with speed around 20 to 150 KB/s
  I did spend around 3 days and nights looking for help 100 different websites
  2a check ebay or another web sites if you have signal problem for 20-30£ you will buy signal booster this will help you with bad reception check if booster is compatible with your dongle im using e169g I didnt have reception now I got 90 % of time 5 out of 5 sounds good
  3 as you guys know not just reception is important also software which you use driwers from three are useless check huwaei web and download something little better for E169g web for firmware http://www.huawei.com/mobileweb/en/homePage.do
  you will find there driwers not just for e169 but for all of them. remove old three software from comp and usemobile mobile partner which provide huawei on the web. If you will install it proppelly you will see mobile partner window. in profile name type anything aand in APN static type three.co.uk and acces no is *99#. get out from options click connection and connect.I guaranee you that your broadband will work 30% better
  3. download web accelerator this will help too you can download from three web site very good one.
  4. I have removed norton system work (firewall)from my system

  3mobile broadband is generelly rubbish but I made it work in some way:)

  last thing some times your ISP can cap your internet speed in your area. if your signal strenght is around 4 or5 out of 5 and you dont have any problems with connection to the internet and speed test show to you download speed less than 150-250kbps call 3costumer service and fight them.

  IF YOU WANT USE INTERNET FOR DOWNLOADING DONT BUY MOBILE BROADBAND NOT BEFORE 2050 IN BRITAIN OR MOVE TO KOREA OR SINGPURE

  for last two weeks I read about mobile broadband lot. in london we got for now max speed with vodafone 7mbps but really max download around from 30 to 500kbps
  3network 3mbps but really max download around from 30 to 300kbps

  In singapure hauwei is planing start sale dongle 100mbps they will get propoblly around really 20-40mbps check huawei web:) in korea they proppobly already got 100mbps
  in london we will get 100mbps in next 40 years

  Regards

  David

• 205 David // Feb 7, 2009 at 3:47 am

  steve help your self and stop crying like baby are you man ?
  help for your self stop crying.
  who cheat you ? if someone give you something what you dont know how to use or you dont want know stop direct debt to them copy this website and send to three and if you have more problems with any other companies do the same.
  you are very rude bastard

  Regards

  David

• 206 David Sanderson // Feb 7, 2009 at 6:24 am

  Who cheat you? 3, who else?

  As for your abusive language, 3′s USELESS Indian call centre is staffed by the rudest, most unhelpful, incompetent people I have ever had the misfortune to deal with, the instore staff are about as good, it is ironic such a cowboy company uses Indians! The Lone Ranger at least wore a mask, so did Dick Turpin, Keep up the foul language it shows you in your true colours and to everyone on here who has been cheated, lied to, bullied and basically fobbed off with 3′s pathetic non service, please bear in mind this obvious imposter is no doubt using a false name, (probably a 3 employee who KNOWS 3 are without doubt the worst mobile network in existence) I notice pro 3 threads have been bumped up on google, coincidence or what? Shocking service, abysmal quality and nasty, agressive tactics do not a good company make.

• 207 Dave // Feb 7, 2009 at 3:35 pm

  Signal strength has absolutely nothing to do with connection reliablity or download speeds in 3`s case, I have FULL 99% HSDPA Signal all the time and rarely get speeds above 10Kbps – it all depends on how many 100`s of suckers they cram onto one cell, overloading it and giving us these ridiculous results we are all experiencing, a cell can only provide so much bandwidth at once, so imagine your normal landline net connection, lets say virgin cable, for your own PC it would be super fast, now imagine networking your entire street to your net connection, suddenly you have a problem, this is where 3 is going wrong, if you took your theiving little hands out of your jingling pockets and build some more masts or fitted the appropriate expansion boards to the almost melting existing masts, then we would all see some improvements (oh I nearly forgot, build a call centre in england, shit even america or austrailia would better, but come on, india? you guys have the most difficult to understand accents out of anyone who speaks english as their second language, and that is not racism, its truth, can u imagine and english call centre supporting and indian internet company? lmao) That gives me an idea… revenge!

• 208 Dave // Feb 8, 2009 at 1:24 pm

  2 days now and 3`s website still wont load.. good job I dont need to topup. Just goes to show how good an ISP 3 is if they cant even keep their own website online. Amatures

• 209 Mark // Feb 8, 2009 at 7:34 pm

  I have attempted to use the 3 dongle for a few months now, it works great at 3am (this is how long I waited up to get a connection!) but at peak times it only takes one person on 3 to send a text or make a phone call and my connection grinds to a halt. Receive Current usually displays 0.0kbps as I sit hoping to see a number and my blood pressure rises. Have called the customer frustration line several times to no avail, then they finally admitted there is only one transmitter in my area (NE63)

  I too have signed up for an 18mth contract so if I want any access to the internet during this time it would appear I should become nocturnal.

  T-mobile were much better

• 210 Paul // Feb 10, 2009 at 7:07 pm

  Location: Runcorn, cheshire.

  Huawai E160g 3 PAYG mobile dongle.

  Average download speeds: 1.8 to 2 mbs per sec (3.6 advertised)

  Connection: No problems what so ever.

  Call centre: After flashing my firmware with the australian version by mistake, i was unable to connect, rang 3, was back online within 5 minutes. no fuss and very polite. Though only by adjusting the australian program settings. A uk firmware update can not be downloaded. The dongle must be sent for repairs??

  Performance : As good as my ethernet virgin cable pc in the other room. For surfing the net its superb. However.. Downloading movies , large files will quickly gobble up your allowance.

  15 pounds for 3 gb…… 3gb is 3072mb…1 movie is average 700 mb.. Thats 4 movies and just 272 meg remaining! This also applies to you tube, or any streaming video sites.

  80 mins of youtube = around 600-700mb.

  Surfing the net in general uses very very little, around 10 mb per hour.

  Gaming: World of warcraft

  Latency: With the very nature of mobile broadband latency or lag can be a problem. My average latency on my 2 meg cable connection hovers around 120ms, On mobile broadband It takes a while to settle down to a steady 400 to 500 ms, This can be a problem, Can drop to around 300ms in a low useage time of day.

  Cs source:

  Latency on cable is around 70ms. Mobile broadband is around 250 ms.

  I must add both of these games are playable on mobile broadband. Though can lag.. a little.. sometimes.

  Bandwidth useage and gaming:

  Depends on the game. World of warcraft uses between 10mb and 30mb an hour.

  Cs source of other fps use around 40 to 60 mb per hour.

  So to sum it all up?

  As a pessamist to mobile broadband to begin with. i expected id wasted my money on the day i bought the dongle. However i was pleasantly surprised, Apart from the Download limits i really cant complain.

  This is just my experience… In my area…..I hope those having trouble get it sorted very soon.

• 211 Mick // Feb 10, 2009 at 10:46 pm

  I have not read ALL of the 210 posts but here’s my experience, and its not disimilar to some of the above…
  The help centre located in India, (judging by their accent and poor English) are helpful and polite but only if your problem is NOT connection speed related. Lets just say the connection is patchy at the times you would really like to use it.

  AVOID if you’re easily frustrated like me!

  Maybe the cheapest out there , but not the best – you pay for what you get.

• 212 Debbie // Feb 12, 2009 at 11:17 pm

  My connection appears to be on a rota basis tonight. Every 2 hours I lose connectivity , for roughly 10 minutes and it’s always on the second attempt at connection that I get connected.

  A while ago they told me I live too close to the mast in my area which is allegedly within 400 metres of my home. Now unless the mast is a CB aerial on a biscuit tin in somebody’s bloody roofspace, those feckers are lying….but then I suppose we have become accustomed to that…

  Vodafone have only one option available on PAYG broadband, a tenner for 1 GB, but they should have price plans up and running some time in March, though they are quick to point out that they are not in competition with any other PAYG broadband providers.
  Vodafone seems a lot more stable where I live, my partner uses their service in my home and never has a single hiccup.
  I’m keen to hear if anyone has any experience of o2 PAYG broadband, my mobile phone is o2 and great and if they’re as good as Voda, I’d consider keeping my business with o2.

  As far as 3 are concerned, they are just taking the piss, and as soon as I find out comparisons between o2 and Vodafone including pricing, I’ll be having a ceremonial burning of my 3 dongle.

• 213 ftm // Feb 13, 2009 at 11:33 pm

  Its a toss up which i hate the most this service or my ex wife only diference is my ex is not as patronising as that lot in India sPS while i was writing thisconnection dropped twice god i hate this f***ing thing

• 214 JG // Feb 15, 2009 at 10:23 pm

  I live in Dundrum,Dublin,and I believe the mast is about a half a mile from me.I would agree with the negative comments so far re download speeds,loss of connection,the Indian call centre,etc.The best speed I have got after using this device for a month,about 70+hours of surfing is around 60kbps.Iheard that 3 recently won a major government contract to roll out broadband across Ireland.!!! If this service doesn’t improve I’m going to get a proper service via the phone line,sorry I didn’t do that first,

• 215 Debbie // Feb 18, 2009 at 1:36 am

  I had the unadulterated sheer luxury tonight of using my partner’s vodafone dongle on my laptop. 3 full hours of fast uninterrupted seamless internet usage and it was absolute bliss…..then I went to the shop and bought my top up voucher for my 3 internet, came home, topped up and came crashing back to the world of ripping my hair out and swearing fluently.

  It took 45 minutes to open 2 pages. Now I find that very strange considering 3 insist they use Vodafone’s network….

  I’m still convinced their mast is in a biscuit tin up somebody’s attic…..a bit like the early CB aerials…

  Roll on March till Vodafone reveal their pricing plans.
  One question….. I’m not terribly technical but… 3 phones are usually locked to the network…are the dongles locked in any way ?

• 216 Dean // Feb 18, 2009 at 8:19 am

  Debbie,
  Dongles are normally locked to a network, but just like mobile phones they can be unlocked. Some are easier to unlock than others, the Huawei E220 for example can be unlocked.

• 217 Dex // Feb 18, 2009 at 12:12 pm

  3 is absolute shiite and cost a fortune. There really needs to be an investigation into three’s product. Because what they advertise is NOT what you get. doesnt matter where you are, east west, north or south, the service will continue sucking.
  They are too good at convincing people that there service will live up to its name, because for all you other three users out there, you start to believe in it the moment a webpage happens to load faster than 10kb a sec….when a video loads at 4am (which is about the only time it SORT of works to a basic speed level)

  I have tested this damn thing everywhere,at all hours of the day and night, and it always disappoints…. DONT BE FOOLED THREE IS A SCAM. SCAMMMM RIP OFF.
  PLEASE report them to ofcom and encourage others to do the same until something is done, well, unless you like watching your money disintegrate in the loo.
  remember, your paying three heads of corporate to sit there and laugh over a £1000 meal while your at home eating ramen trying to send an email to gran.

• 218 Michael // Feb 20, 2009 at 1:57 pm

  I think the three mobile broadband is terrible. It drops the connection all the time. I just can’t ever get anything done on it. It always seems to stall as well and take up to 2 mins before it starts sending & receiving data.

  I wish I had just got a fixed connection instead.

• 219 Lee 'M' // Feb 25, 2009 at 9:28 pm

  It seems like the 3 signal has gone back up since my previous post………..but that’s all it does.

  I don’t think I have ever had an internet service whereby you can have a full signal, but yet the internet won’t pick up any websites.

  The amount of times I have had to connect, wait 10 mins for a page only to give me an error, then disconnect, re-connect, then disconnect again and then reconnect. The 3 service is absolutely abysmal.

  I’m counting down for my girlfriends contract to end, because when it does, I’m taking the modem outside, placing it in the middle of my flat’s carpark, and then proceed to drive over it in my car at speed, before reversing back over it again.

  I will then put it in an envelope, and send it back to 3 with a note advising of my feelings towards them and their inferior products.

• 220 Ming // Feb 26, 2009 at 6:01 pm

  a small report : I’ve found 3 mobile broadband seems to have

  slowed down significantly

  in the last few evenings.

• 221 David Sanderson // Mar 1, 2009 at 11:03 am

  Lee, just complain to 3 rather than wait for the contract to end, I am with 02 now and it is far superior, UK call centres too, 3 know they are ripping people off.

• 222 David Sanderson // Mar 1, 2009 at 11:15 am

  Ming, I don’t know why you stay with them! We have been with o2 for over a month, they are easily the best phone network (in my opinion) and let’s just say the mobile broadband is better than 3, looking back the main problems with 3 are poor communication between departments, abysmal customer service, unhelpful instore staff oh and crap products.

• 223 andy // Mar 1, 2009 at 10:00 pm

  I have had this for 6 months and cant wait for the contract to finish.It is so slow. I often get speeds of 0.3kbps and the most i’ve ever had is about 120kbps.I travel all over the country so its not a question of being in a bad area.It is a VERY BAD service.

• 224 ali // Mar 2, 2009 at 6:42 am

  honestly …..i havent had such a worst service in my whole life….if u really want to make the best use of yr modem then dont buy three…..all have been doin is just waiting fo r the contract to get finish.

• 225 Debbie // Mar 2, 2009 at 9:16 am

  Between a mixture of boredom, PMS and frustration ,I thought I’d have a little fun with 3 last week….. There is absolutely no 3 signal at my mate’s house whatsoever…nada. No phone no net.

  I went to the 3 shop on the pretense of buying a broadband package….postcode check time, I gave my mate’s postcode and was told “ah yes you have great coverage up there “……to which I stood up and informed the entire shop about what 3 staff reckoned and what reality was and in fact that 3 are liars. I successfully managed to put 2 people off buying dongles and instead directed them to the Vodafone shop….

  2 nil to me !!!!

• 226 Internet Dongle // Mar 3, 2009 at 5:21 am

  Really interesting post you have written there about 3 mobile broadband.
  I have been the happiest with the vodafone dongle and never have any problems with getting a “good” connection..

• 227 Geoff // Mar 6, 2009 at 11:03 am

  I live in central London on the banks of the Thames, five minutes from Parliament and the London eye by foot. To connect to 3 mobile broadband I’ve had to pretty well jump through hoops, the connection’s so horrible. Whenever the “3 connect” program is showing signal from 3G by 3 it simply does not connect. When I’m lucky I can find a spot in my living room which has HSDPA at maybe 2 bars and then it works. The other day it was so terrible it actually roamed onto Orange 2g. This is London! If I can’t find a connection here what the hell does that say about the bloody company! I’ve wasted my money.

• 228 David Sanderson // Mar 8, 2009 at 12:50 pm

  So many people say they are waiting for their contract to end, you don’t need to, just kick up a stink and threaten them with legal action, if they are not providing you with the service promised then they are in breach of contract, I got out of the contract, basically I was sick of their pathetic excuses, lies and bullying, the customer service is abysmal and I now refuse to use any company that has Indian call centres.

• 229 Debbie // Mar 8, 2009 at 2:41 pm

  3 are so slow today I’d be quicker sending smoke signals, another few weeks and i’m on to vodafone !!!!

• 230 steve // Mar 9, 2009 at 10:28 am

  I have a few days before im “allowed” to cancel my 18 months is almost up!!!!…What a waste of money…I could have had a nice holiday with the £270 plus extra charges I have been ripped-off for. Does anyone have any tips as to the easiest/cheapest way to cancel as I am dreading it. The thought of hours on the “help” lines fills me with panic…not to mention my blood-pressure rising quicker than a “3″ download. I would like to hear from anyone who has successfully cancelled. Thanks guys.

• 231 Ming // Mar 12, 2009 at 12:40 am

  Am leaving a note to say that night/ evening time connectivity on Friday, Sat and today Mon was especially poor.

  Expect more notes on this BB where the situation warrants or permits.

  Much better leaving such notes of poor connectivity on the BB then with 3. For obvious reasons.

  David (Sanderson) : I don’t have much skin in the game with 3. Am more than happy to be able to report actual failures in 3 for the general / consuming public.

  Steve : I hope you have cancelled your subscription fine. No harm ringing ahead of time, taking care to record your call, to find out if you really can’t cancel ahead of time. It would be amusing, and unfortunate, for you to find you can’t cancel on the day you expect to be able to.

  Best luck.

• 232 Peter // Mar 15, 2009 at 12:14 am

  I took this up because my mother’s failing health means that I have to be away from home a lot. It was fine for general surfing and email at first although too slow for streaming video.

  However I now appear to have my access throttled. I can log in and start browsing but after viewing a few pages downloading simply stops although I appear to be connected, Stopping the modem, restarting and reconnecting gets me back online for another 10-20 minutes.

  In all a rip off

• 233 Peter // Mar 15, 2009 at 12:15 am

  Had to disconnect and reconned just to post the above message!

• 234 Debbie // Mar 15, 2009 at 1:48 am

  Aw Peter that is so typical of 3, been there done that…..all flaming night long on occasion, so frustrating.

• 235 Dave // Mar 15, 2009 at 2:56 pm

  A possible glimmer of hope for everyone, I have gone through the same crap as you all and complained etc, and then 3 days ago my net hit speeds of 250Kbps+ and has not dropped, pages load fast, downloads are done in seconds, I wonder if they actually listened to me and sorted out the over loaded mast? Maybe they are living up to the promise of upgrading their system? whatever the reason im happy now, it feels like normal landline broadband, I can stream radio and download and watch youtube videos at the same time it unbelievable how i managed to put up with such a crap connection for 2 yrs, I hope this is the first mast of many they are fixing and that you all get better results soon too, ill keep you informed as the my speeds but so far it looks like its here to stay

• 236 steve // Mar 17, 2009 at 11:20 am

  250Kbps is hardly broadband!! Virgin now give speeds of 50 meg, some 200 times quicker than that, even o2 can give you 16 Meg. I dont think you will get even that poor speed for long either, especially at normal times or peak time as they call it.Also check the speed with an independent speed test, the readings given by 3 are unsurprisingly very inaccurate.

• 237 Dave // Mar 17, 2009 at 5:43 pm

  250Kbps is amazing for 3 – and yes ive tested the speed at speedtest.bbmax.co.uk and speedtest.net and get the same result on both test sites, I dont use the 3 software, only on first install to register on the network, and then I use windows to dial up the connection after setting ip header compression and PPP settings, so far ive had this new found speed for 6 days constant, even at peak times it doesnt get much lower than 200Kbps, dont get me wrong I still want to hang the staff at 3 by the balls and given the opportunity I will be getting a landline connection, but at the minute its like xmas to me having “fast(er)” internet access

• 238 steve // Mar 18, 2009 at 9:24 am

  so less than 200Kbps at peak times when you need it most….come on Dave its pretty poor by any standards…you should still be complaining mate!!

• 239 Ferg // Mar 18, 2009 at 12:07 pm

  Im using dongle in midlands / southwest and yorks at the moment. Speed is variant. At home i get 1.5Mb but im near mast and in rural area.

  My real problem is dataloss… chatrooms dont work, pdf document with 1/2 data missing. a real pain. Indian call centre – nuff said !.

  Ive had this about 2 months – if the dataloss continues i will simply walk back into the shop and hand it bak, cancel the direct debit and thats that. im guessing my CR rating may get hit but under sale of goods act the product is unfit for use.

• 240 Ming // Mar 18, 2009 at 9:06 pm

  And so, today, I feel like reporting again to the BB :

  around 1930-2100hrs – numerous, numerous disconnnections.

  again, appears 3 doesn’t like the load I’ve placed on it, and decided the easiest thing is = “disconnect”.

  numerous disconnections.

  probably easier if I used the service at 3:30am in the morning I guess, that might be their suggestion.

  Presumably.

• 241 deano // Mar 18, 2009 at 10:02 pm

  they have be using a debt collection agency to try and get me to pay for a shoddy service with wich after i moaned about cancelling on the phone they went and cancelled it for me .so they can go swing. funny though , when they ring they say can u just confirm your address and post code … i say sorry o dont give that info out over the phone . and they say well i cant help you then. lol so i say ok not to worry then bye. lol !

• 242 Ming // Mar 18, 2009 at 10:27 pm

  So, 2200hrs+, am feeling in the usual unctous mood about the usual appalling service.

  And in real time, the field report is :

  ***unable to play streaming video properly at all.

  Constant skips and jumps and reconnections etc etc.

  This bloomberg TV’s streaming video.

  –> ps : have not tried going outside to try the connection.

• 243 Ming // Mar 19, 2009 at 5:26 am

  hello deano, you are quite helpful it appears.

  When 3 asks for a lot of your details, its not clear what they do with it? Perhaps they intend to hand it over to Gordon Brown’s database.

  Whatever actually happens to the data, it hasn’t helped to get any useful information from them(!) (ie 3), so when they fail to answer the straightforward questions and start asking for nonsense data, I just hang up.

  Perhaps its best not to hand any “details” over to 3, or to just invent nonsense ones.

  Your details will go into some god-knows-what database for some god-knows-what reason, and you’d usually get no proper answers.

• 244 Dave // Mar 19, 2009 at 8:10 am

  During my arguments with 3 over email I gave them my postcode to check the coverage and they replied saying they needed my EXACT address to check if I could get turbo! Surely my postcode IS my exact address in relation to a signal!
  And yes I am still complaining steve, I was just explaining my circumstances

• 245 steve // Mar 19, 2009 at 9:44 am

  Good Dave, we wouldnt want people to read your comments and actually think its a good service….!!! I would be wary of giving your exact address…you will be hit by junk mail and probably calls and email…if it can get through!!! Ha ha.

• 246 rob // Mar 19, 2009 at 3:09 pm

  My step-daughter has 3 mobile broadband and was charged £150 deposit as she failed a credit check. She has the receipt for this deposit and was told it would be refunded after 12 months. The 12 months is now up – I bet you can’t guess what happened next!! No money back – 3 say they have no record of the payment being made.

  We have qoted the customer number, we have faxed the receipt to them along with a covering letter and so far we have sepnt over 6 hours on the phone to them.

  Progress made so far – NIL

  Customer satisfaction – NIL

  3 Rating – NIL

  When I last spoke to 3 I said that this was the sort of treatment I expected from a cowboy company. The customer service agent asked me “Are you calling 3 a cowboy company?”

  If the stetson fits…………

  My partner and I have 3 mobile phones on contract and the signal has always been dreadful – they are now being cancelled. There is no way on this earth that I can justify giving money to a company like this.

• 247 David Brewer // Mar 21, 2009 at 3:44 pm

  Hi all,

  I have just read through this entire thread.

  The only “pleasure” this gave me was that of knowing I am by no means the only one having a terrible experience with Threes (particularly narrow) mobile “broadband” non service.

  To sumarise my situation I had been a Three customer for some time and enjoyed the free Skype and mobile msn which was included with my phone contract.

  When preparing to move house last year I spoke to BT about having my phone line moved to the new address. No problem they said but it would cost £125 and I would be contracted to them for a further 12 months. Having just completed a 12 month contract with them I wasn’t keen to begin another, and the £125 seemed a lot to pay for a simple reconnection of the line. I wasn’t too bothered about not having a landline phone as I usually only use my free mobile contract minutes or Skype to make calls but I didn’t want to have to be without the internet so I thought mobile broadband might be the answer.

  Being an existing Three cusomer I took them up on their half price offer on the 5gb p/m + free dongle on an 18 month contract.

  How I wish I had done a little more research before I signed. Like many others on here I live in the middle of what the coverage map has as a high signal area so I thought there can’t be any problem. I’d had cause to call India a couple of times re the mobile but things got sorted quite easily and I had no real problem so I guessed a mobile BB contract at £7.50 an month would be worth taking a chance on, I mean, it’s broadband, it can’t be that bad can it?

  Well yes, it seems it can… I received my dongle a few days before moving but what with the general chaos didn’t get to try it until a while after I’d moved by which time the cooling off period was well and truly over.

  So I began to use the dongle just after new year this year and oh dear… Having been used to a rock solid stable 24meg connection from BeThere (highly recommended) the performance from the dongle has been a huge disappointment.

  Not that I’d expect it to in any way keep up with my previous connections speed but I would not have thought it unreasonable to expect something approaching half the speeds claimed by Three. Sadly the reality is nowhere near. Most of the time data downloads at no more than 10kb/s. There might be the odd peak of 20 or 30kb/s but this is not sustained for more than a couple of seconds or so. It’s not unusual for speeds to drop to 1.4kb/s and to have long gaps with no data trasfer at all for hours from late afternoon and through the evening. This obviously makes it impossible to use Skype, Youtube or most other things people like to use their broadband for. Even retrieving email on Hotmail can become impossible. The only time I can be reasonably sure of anything like a usable internet connection is in the middle of the night, between 2 and 6am. Then I can get up 1.5mb on a speed test so presumably there’s no problem with my signal or settings.

  This is so far short of what you could call broadband as to beggar belief and I have wonder how Three can so blatantly get away with operating such an appalling service without the joke becoming more widely known.

  I guess I’m in a better position than some on here in that I’m only stuck paying £7.50 an month. I really feel for those having to fork out £25 a month for a service which is so seriously flawed and oversubscribed.

  I would love to take Three on and make them cancel my contract which still has another 14 months left to go due to them failing to uphold their side of the contract but I really don’t think I have the patience or the desire to devote the time and energy to the fight. I know this is the kind of attitude they are relying on and probably why the customer dis-satisfaction centre is run the way it is. It’s all designed to make the whole process as frustrating as possible in the hope we will just give up, go away and keep paying them.

  For those above asking for support in banding together in a legal case against Three you can count me in. I will try to keep an eye on any developments on here, connection permitting that is

  Anyone reading this and still in two minds? Probably not but to be sure let me reiterate… Do not even consider Three mobile broadband unless it really is your only option. In that case opt for PAYG and under no circumstances sign any kind of contract with them.

  P.S. Strangely, while have been sitting typing this I have been watching youtube downloading onto my machine at a reasonable speed for longer than I’ve seen for ages. Perhaps the rest of the country is off out enjoying their Saturday afternoon and I have the entire network to myself

• 248 rob // Mar 22, 2009 at 9:44 am

  To David Brewer above – there are ways of getting out of a contract with anybody.

  A contract is a two way thing – you have to honour your part by paying and 3 have to honour their part by giving you what you are paying for. If they fail to provide the service for which you are paying, they are in breach of contract, not you, and you are perfectly entitled to end it.

  I would email them, also send a letter to their UK addresses (one in Glasgow and one in London) and then give it a couple o weeks to allow them to reply and if no reply is forthcoming, cancel direct debits etc.

  I hate 3 with an absolute pasion, partly because the customer service staff lie and do not understand, but also because of the arrogance of the company.

  I went in peron to a 3 store in the UK and asked for an address in England where I could send a county court summons and was immediately given a London address and the guy who gave it to me genuinely wished me good luck with the case. He seemed to think that 3 were not good, and he works for them. His daily experience must comprise predominantly of dealing with dissatisfied customers – what a job!!

• 249 rob // Mar 22, 2009 at 10:00 am

  Just as an ineresting addendum on this thread, the branch manager of my local Carphone Warehouse now refuses to let customers sign up to a 3 contract. He has to have their products on display but if you ask about them he will tell you that he will not let you have one as his job description requires that he gives customer satisfaction and that does not happen when you get a 3 contract. If you really want a 3 contract he will send you elsewhere.

• 250 Peter // Mar 22, 2009 at 5:08 pm

  Yesterday I had the same experiences that I posted on the 15th. Today, staying at a friend’s house I have connected and kept up the connection without problem for 44 minutes before logging out.

  Has 3 suddenly got better overnight or is it because I am running the laptop on mains power ? Normally when I use the dongle I am on battery power.

• 251 Mark Richardson // Mar 23, 2009 at 5:13 pm

  Like many people, my speed seems to have become worse with each passing month and i’m going to defect to Vodafone when my contract expires in 4 months.

  I would advise people to check the Ofcom website to check which mobile phone masts are available in your area before purchasing mobile broadband: http://www.sitefinder.ofcom.org.uk

• 252 Ming // Mar 23, 2009 at 10:59 pm

  Hello. There have been some observations posted on this BB (ie bulletin board) about how long one can stay connected to “3″ broad(sic!)band. So, I’ve an excellent tip on “how to stay connected” when using 3.

  The tip is : connect to 3. Then leave the PC alone for about 2 hours. But, don’t attempt to browse any web sites.

  Hey presto, come back after 2 hours, and you will find yourelf still connected to “3″ broad(sic!)band for about 2 (whole) hours!

  A great tip for all those who care to try.

  Good luck!

• 253 chris // Mar 24, 2009 at 6:44 pm

  i bought my 3 dongle off some shop in town i only got the dongle with no stuff with it and now a week later its blocked the simcard does tht mean i have 2 get another simcard for it and ware would i get one can i just buy a 3 sim or is there special sim i have 2 get i put £10 in it and i thought tht would last the month if i was only checking my e-mails and social networking sites but tht£10 was finshed just before it was cut off i did’nt download anything so why’s tht?

• 254 M // Mar 24, 2009 at 9:54 pm

  hello chris

  has this device you bought been declared lost / stolen (by somebody else, presumably)?

  As for the sim card, you might consider going into a three shop, or, if you can contact them free, on 333 (something like that) from a three fone / sim, then by all means do so.

• 255 Dave // Mar 24, 2009 at 9:55 pm

  Yes you can use any pay`n`go 3 sim in the dongle, I did just that after being cut off from my contract sim £3 in the market

• 256 Ian Smith // Mar 24, 2009 at 10:42 pm

  Hi! folks sad to see same old probs but even worse 3s always had a capacity prob because primary service providers wont let shared providers plug fully into thier network been with 4 years on & most off webs never been usable for serious use ie. speed & drop outs are a joke time out conecting site unavailable 302 error 504 codes will drive you nuts here in souf tottenham or anywhere else travel most of uk in my work & never seen download speeds over 280kbps then only in short bursts avoid 3 like the plague

• 257 Little 0ld me // Mar 24, 2009 at 11:00 pm

  I am with Vodafone for my Broadband Internet connection. The dongle cost £39 and I have to pay £15 per month for 24 months. The reception was good for the first 8 months but in January 2009 it went seriously downhill and now the reception is very poor and frequently stops altogether. This is very inconvenient especially if you are e-mailing or carrying out an on-line banking transaction. I am now unable to compose e-mails on-line as all is frequently lost before sending. I am all the time disconnceting and reconnecting to try to get a working link. I also keep having to tweak the management connection between 2G and 3G to maintain a connection simply to get anything done. I have sent a registered letter to Vodafone but they have not replied. This poor receiption is in the South West. I suggest to anyone thinking of going to Vodafone to seriously think again. Vodafone do not give a damn about after sales service.

• 258 Ming // Mar 25, 2009 at 6:51 am

  hello “little old me” –

  could I suggest : whenever you compose emails to do them offline, then paste (if applicable) the message into the email browser.

  This is something I do frequently – its helpful when you have unreliable connections.

  Of course, if you use Outlook (or Windows Mail), this would be done automatically.

  Also, consider cleaning up your PC (defragging, and also using a Registry Cleaner – there are free versions of this) as this can in some cases assist in (not is not guaranteed to) improving the quality of your connections.

• 259 Ming // Mar 25, 2009 at 6:53 am

  previous post refers :

  (not is not guaranteed to) = (but is not guaranteed to)

• 260 Little 0ld me // Mar 25, 2009 at 4:45 pm

  Hi Ming
  Thanks for the advice, I will look into some of your suggestions.

  I only use Hotmail for email as Vodafone do not supply any e-mail accounts and therefore I cannot use Outlook. Well I believe I cannot. I have tried. Thanks

• 261 David Brewer // Mar 25, 2009 at 8:40 pm

  Hi Rob,

  Thanks for the advice. I’ll bear that in mind and already have a letter drafted out in my head if needed.

  I’m going to hold off on that for a while however because since yesterday morning I have beeen experiencing unprecedented levels of data transfer right in the middle of the times when the service has always been unusable for me.
  I’m happy to report I have had no problem browsing, downloading or uploading for over 36 hours now.
  Long may it last.

  Has anyone else noticed any improvement?

• 262 Debbie // Mar 25, 2009 at 9:11 pm

  Here in Northern Ireland the 3 service is worse than ever. I had to seriously fight with the modem to read email today…..left hand high in air, one handed typing…….. it’s a pile of bollocks. At least I have proof that Vodafone not only works here but is seamless….unlike 3 who have a hell of a lot to learn…….

• 263 ryan // Mar 27, 2009 at 12:14 am

  I live in Northern Ireland. I normally vary between a 3g and HSDPA coverage. speeds really fluctuate, i just did a test and got a respectable 1.53mbs which to be fair for mobile broadband isnt bad however just did another test and got 370kbps. These tests were done maybe 45 secs apart. this makes it pretty useless. I like the idea and I will be sticking with it but do not be confused this in my opinion is not a substitute for conventional broadband. I was living with inlaws for a few months whilst getting work carried out on my house so this saved me takng a lengthy contract on a landline based option. I got dongle for £29, at that price it is a steal really.

• 264 Peter // Mar 28, 2009 at 7:26 pm

  hey in 20 minutes I have only had to reconnect once! Looks like a good night by 3 standards.

  Best speed registered by the modem is 667k. Fine for email if only the ****ing thing would stay connected.

• 265 Ming // Mar 30, 2009 at 8:54 pm

  Monday.

  Can report from 1645hrs onwards, to now – 2153hrs, there has been poor connection, highly variable data flow, and a lot of disconnections.

• 266 Ming // Mar 31, 2009 at 12:54 pm

  A near total data transmission breakdown at “3″ was observed.

  beginning at 0203hrs early Tuesday morning – there was a near total failure of 3 mobile broadband service. Impossible to fetch contents of external web sites.

  A total failure was observed. Which is something “3″ might not want you to know, but you heard it here first.

  It started around 0203hrs, and lasted for a length of time I didn’t bother to check up on, but it was appreciable.

• 267 four // Apr 6, 2009 at 5:54 pm

  I would be interested to hear from anyone who managed to cancel their contract successfully.

  I have had my dongle for about a month now and am very dissappointed to say the least.

• 268 Little 0ld me // Apr 6, 2009 at 7:48 pm

  Hi Four. I sent a recorded letter to Vodafone on 9th March 2009 complaining about my dongle reception and connection speed, after receiving poor help via the Internet and e-mail. So far I have not received a reply. Nearly a month of silence now.

  I shall send it again and then if I get no response I shall as a national newspapers problem sorting reporter for help – to hopefully help name and shame them. It seems like all the major suppliers of mobile broadband are rubbish regarding their back-up service and the dongles themselves don’t seem to be suitable for purpose and indeed do not live up to their advertised performance at all. Another consumer rip-off.

• 269 Mark // Apr 7, 2009 at 1:07 pm

  Firstly, thank you for bringing a ray of sunshine into my life (as a 3 ‘customer’ aka ‘sucker’ this doesn’t happen often).
  After spending AUS$20 trying to get through to a customer confusion representative on the subject of unlocking my modem, I had the fortune to read this long tale of woe – cheered me up no end, as I no longer feel alone.

  to the point: Has anyone had any experience good or bad of using 3 Like Home abroad, specifically in Australia?

• 270 Mark Richardson // Apr 8, 2009 at 6:26 pm

  Sounds as though the networks have become oversubscribed and this probably contributes to lower data speed transfers for users. I read that the amount of mobile broadband users is increasing by around 5%-10% per month. It seems that the networks can no longer keep pace with demand.

• 271 Mark Richardson // Apr 9, 2009 at 7:43 pm

  Latest news from me is that I think 3 may have upgraded my local 3/T-Mobile mast just up the road at Manchester City’s stadium. As reported earlier my speeds had fallen but I’m getting consistent speeds of 0.9-1.5 megs down and 0.35 megs upload according to speedtest.net

  I’m well impressed again and tried streaming the BBC News Channel which streamed perfectly (not that I need to stream because I’ve got a TV). Seems like 3 is in my good books again which it should be for the £25 per month I pay.

  It would be handy if they could let customers know their upgrade plans. Think I might even stay with them when my contract ends in a couple of months but I won’t be signing up for another 18 month contract.

• 272 David Brewer // Apr 9, 2009 at 8:22 pm

  Hey, glad to see someone else has been seeing some improvement in the previously abysmal service from Three.

  As I was saying further up the thread I started to see usable speeds a few weeks ago and am glad to say this has continued up to date. No idea which mast I’m getting signal from (I’m in the Carlisle area) or what happened to make the difference but I’m not going to question it, if only because that’d involve ringing the (no) help desk in India and we know how much use that’d be. I’m just glad to have a service I can use.

  If things carry on like this for me I’ll be staying with Three for the foreseeable future as I don’t feel like being coerced into signing BT’s 12 month contract for a landline so I can get ‘proper’ B/B, or Talk Talk or any one elses contract for that matter.
  It’s this kind of thing that really annoys me. Companies feeling the need to trap you into staying with them so they can then provide a less than adequate service and still screw money out of you if decide you don’t want to put up with it.
  When will they realise all they have to do to retain our business is provide a reliable service at a reasonable price? But hey, I guess that’s a discussion for a different forum.

  Anyway, all those of you still having trouble, don’t give up hope just yet. You’ll get no warning of any change. Three will not write to tell you they acknowledge how terrible their service has been but if things happen for you as they did for me you will just find that things will suddenly start working one day.

  Hope you all see a similar improvement soon.

  Best of luck

• 273 Ming // Apr 15, 2009 at 3:19 am

  Hello.

  It was in April 2008 Dean first wrote a review of 3 mobile broadband.

  He said he himself could not get the advertised high speeds, but apparently “others” good.

  It is apparent, from this BB, that there are no “others”.

  So, how has everyone been getting along?

  The last post points to “no notification” from three. This is certainly correct.

  For at 0404hrs Wednesday today, there are again numerous interuptions.

  You best bet to staying connected, if you cannot bear to connect and reconnect, is to connect once, and leave your PC alone. Do not try to fetch web pages. This will only cause a disconnection.

  This is been noted before.

  I have noted numerous problems with three, which I will post here when I get the time to review all my electronic logs.

• 274 David Brewer // Apr 15, 2009 at 9:38 am

  I was also experiencing difficulties again early this (Wednesday) morning, being unable to connect to the internet at all between 0130 and 0230.

  I also have a Three Skypephone on which the signal is usually fairly solid but this morning was fluctuating wildly between 0 and 5 bars and was unable to connect to Skype which suggests to me there was some kind of work being done on the network which was causing us problems.

  Perhaps Three were doing something about increasing their networks capacity and more of us will be seeing some kind of improvement… Maybe?

• 275 Ming // Apr 15, 2009 at 4:04 pm

  Helo David.

  You “usually” have solid connections, “but” experienced something different on Wednesday morning. “Maybe”, as you say, things will improve.

  I wish everybody luck.

  The state of affairs is : for some time before 1700hrs today, again, I’ve noted many disconnections.

  Again, I can only repeat that disconnnections occured when one attempted to fetch web pages, and that the connection was stable only if I didn’t attempt to fetch web pages in any meaningful way.

  I’m sorry to have to repeat all this, but this is the state of affairs still.

  When I get round to reviewing my connection log, I will be able to post more. I believe there was at times a total breakdown of the network affecting voice, and wap connections too. And not just mobile broadband.

• 276 Dave // Apr 15, 2009 at 4:32 pm

  To those of you who are grasping at straws thinking that network downtime is 3 fixing their masts or solving network problems, I have 1 word “DONT” I spent 2 years caught in that brainwashing trap and it never improved, network downtime is “normal” for 3 and does not mean things will improve

• 277 Ming // Apr 15, 2009 at 5:16 pm

  I would like to stand corrected. In particular, I would like to correct myself.

  I think there is evidence of “3″ mobile broadband disconnecting itself when it is not fetching web pages.

  1810hrs today Wednesday – The web pages were in the background, and I was typing some some stuff on the word processor. I rechecked the connection, and hey presto, the connection had gone down.

  So I stand corrected. I think there is evidence of “3″ mobile disconnecting itself when it is not fetching web pages. This was not a case of my modem on “auto disconnected” due to inactivity.

  Is this a problem with my settings? Ans : No. As mentioned, it has already been checked before.

• 278 Dave // Apr 16, 2009 at 6:27 am

  Ming, there is no pattern, no reason, no excuse for when, why or how 3 mobile disconnects, slows down, wont connect, is slow, seems fast, wont load etc etc, apart from, Unreliability, that in one word sums up all the problems and different things you experience while using 3, it has no explainable reasons for what it does apart from its being unbelievably crap, from my 2 years with this company I tried to find a pattern, there is none, if a leaf blows past a house 2 streets away, it disconnects, if its a perfect calm sunny day and eastenders comes on the tv, it speeds up, on a tuesday at 1230am when the moon is full and a dog barks, you cant access your emails, there is no pattern, simple as, end of!

• 279 Dave // Apr 16, 2009 at 6:32 am

  There is however 1 way to improve the length of time you stay connected, if you navigate to your network connections folder, open the properties of the 3 dial up connection and in the “Configure modem properties” menu, select a lower “bps” speed, I found that would help with the being disconnected issue “19200 bps” seemed the best in my case (you will need to stop using the 3 connection software and just connect via that dialup connection to use that setting or it will reset what you change each time you use the 3 software connection program

• 280 Ming // Apr 17, 2009 at 5:52 am

  Hello Dave.

  Thanks for your comments.

  In response : I’m not wasting my time looking out for “patterns” – ie when it works well and when not. If I notice a pattern, ok fine, but I’m not looking out for these.

  As I said to David Sanderson, I don’t have too much skin in all this.

  Am more than happy to report any bad connections to this BB (Bulletin Board) for all to note, present and future users, and any one else interested.

  As for your comment about how speeds can be reduced to improve connection reliability – thanks. My connection is set at 33600.

  Also, I don’t know if Three has any special connection software. I just use Vista’s modem software.

  In addition to your proposed tweak, there is one other tweak somebody (somewhere) else has proposed, namely reducing something called your “packet size”.

  But I’ve no idea how to do that, nor have I bothered to follow that up.

  I can only suggest Dave, you either get rich enough (taxes are something one need not comment about, but … you know), and/or check out what provider works best for you in the geographical regions you are in. Check out, in as risk-free contract-free a way as possible, noting the “return policies”.

  Wiser shopping is a bit tedious, but sometimes its either you take the load upfront (ie “front load” the problem) or deal with the mess, if any, afterwards.

  Thanks for your post(!)

  –

  Conclusion (gratitious!) : stay away from Three for a long time more to come.

• 281 Mark Richardson // Apr 19, 2009 at 5:16 pm

  Not sure if this will help anybody and I know that a lot of people will rely on the modem and software from 3 but I’m using my 3 phone as a modem via Nokia PC Suite to connect to 3 broadband.

  Manchester City have been playing at home this afternoon so my speed dropped to around 1 MB (the mast is at the football ground). When there’s no match, my speeds are regularly between 1 and 2 MB.

  Perhaps 3 has ‘turned the corner’? but as I haven’t got long to go before my 3 contract ends I’m switching to Vodafone who regularly deliver speeds of 2.5-3MB consistently in this area.

  I’ve decided not to enter into another contract with 3 because I feel I’ve experienced far too much downtime from 3. Even when I’m trying to make voice calls on 3, the signal is erratic yet I receive a solid signal from Vodafone.

  All the best to you all with 3 but I think I’ve learned my lesson which is not to take out a data contract with any provider and only deal with a pay as you go option. It’s certainly more expensive but I can also ‘defect’ to another provider should I need to.

  I really object to 12,18 and 24 month contracts. It wouldn’t be so bad if the mobile operators offered 6 month data contracts on a sim only basis so that you don’t need to buy a modem. When will the operators realise that some of us don’t want their modems or software?

  End of rant !

• 282 Royston // Apr 19, 2009 at 6:34 pm

  WARNING to anyone condidering joining the three network. They have taken to blocking port 25, Which means that you will only be able to send Emails through their servers. They did it to me and caused me a whole days work sorting the mess out. I was not given any warning and I was left mystified as to why I could receive Emails, but was unable to send replies. I eventually solved the problem by contacting my website host ( tshost ) They sorted the matter out in under ten mins. I sent an email to the three network to complain about their lack of warning about the block and I received a reply the next day. The reply informed me that they would get back to me in SEVEN DAYS. They are without doubt the worst mobile broadband providers in the U.K their customer services are a joke.

• 283 Dave // Apr 19, 2009 at 8:34 pm

  That explains why I suddenly cant use my btinternet email account anymore, what a bunch of pricks, what reason would they block port 25 for? So we are forced to use their servers? And what would they gain from that?

• 284 Ming // Apr 19, 2009 at 9:12 pm

  Evening, evening all.

  To Dave’s question : “What could they (ie 3?) gain from that?”

  I noticed a spike in interruptions to the 3 service, the day the UK “spying on emails” legislation came into effect.

  This latest (UK) government “spying” refers to obligation of ISPs to keep details of your emails and various site visits on database for a year.

  I can’t say for sure what the connection is between the two is.

  In any case, although this is may be off topic, would you like to consider :

  https://www.hushmail.com.

  If you do consider signing up, please only use the java version of the site. Ie, enable and use the java version of hushmail.com to input your password.

  Not using the java applet means your password will pass thru the internet system fairly insecurely.

  Also, don’t include your real name in your email address. This could be inconvenient, but doing so is foolish.

  Emails between secure and insecure systems also compromises integrity, so its best your email correspondents also use secure encrypted systems. Eg, email between hushmail (encrypted) and yahoomail (unencrypted) is straight away compromised.

  Intra hushmail.com emails are less compromised.

  Further, if you wish to obscure your site visits, you may wish to use something called “Tor”.

  OK, so the post is a bit off topic, but since somebody brought the subject up, I thought I’d add a couple of cents to it all.

  ps : its worth repeating – if you do use hushmail, always use the java version (ie activate encryption engine) to send your password.

  Your correspondents should have secure email (which is not gmail, hotmail, or yahoomail!)

  As a general, sending your password via https compromises your security. Don’t be fooled by the https: designation, or even the “padlock” sign on your web browser. Your password is not as full encrypted as it could be. Even worse, your password can be retrieved from the ISP, making it vulnerable to inside job.

  Most people seem unaware of the above, and have been misinformed about.

  You will probably know a lot of BT users were not made fully aware BT run “Phorm” usage surveillance (/detection?) software with the blessing of the UK government.

• 285 Ming // Apr 19, 2009 at 9:30 pm

  Dave, what is your email address? I tried to post a reply to your piece, but the piece has not appeared (yet).

  mine’s -> mho900.2@gmail.com

• 286 Dean // Apr 19, 2009 at 9:35 pm

  Ming,
  For some reason you’re previous reply got marked as spam which explained why it didn’t appear. I’ve approved the comment now.

• 287 Ming // Apr 19, 2009 at 9:35 pm

  ah Dave sorry.

  No need to provide me your email address.

  My add-on to your post has just appeared on the BB.

  Sorry for the inconvenience.

• 288 Ming // Apr 19, 2009 at 9:36 pm

  Dean, it happens from time to time!

  Stay cool.

• 289 Royston // Apr 19, 2009 at 11:13 pm

  Well Dave now you know. B.T have been blocking port 25 for a long time now. I don’t mind them or any other i.s.p blocking ports, But I thought it would be nice of them to let the customer know in advance, and even tell them the work arround. They think that just because a customer is tied to a contract then they can treat them like dirt! I am so dissapointed with the three network that I have managed to deter at least a dozen people from joining them. That adds up to over £3,000 in lost earnings for them. If every dissapointed customer did the same then maybe i.s.p’s would treat us with more respect. Back to the reason for blocking port 25. Ming could be correct with his theory, however the reason that i.s.p’s give is.That in order to cut down on spam, emails must be sent from the same server as emails are received from. I think the latter is a load of crap. If I receive mail from one server and reply from a different one then it makes it difficult for “big brother” to read the answers i give to email questions that I receive. But it would not be impossible. I choose to beleive that the i.s.p’s want to avail themselves of the content of our emails. How weired is this: I received an email from a friend which asked me if advertising in the local press was worthwhile. The next day I had an email from the thomsons directory!! inviting me to advertise with them!!! I like the idea of encrypted email but I think that is going too far. I think that in the end it is all our own fault. We just sit back and let big brother do as he wants. I mean to say, what would we do if governments took to opening our letters and reading them before we receive them? Worse still, what if royal mail were ordered to photo copy all our mail and keep a copy for a year!!! Its the same thing is it not. Rant over!!! If you need to get arround the blocked port and get emails flowing again just ask it is quite simple really.

• 290 Ming // Apr 20, 2009 at 12:27 am

  (note : I’m not an employee of hushmail, nor do I own the company)

  As follows :

  a. goto https://www.hushmail.com (please note “S”)

  b. enter a username.

  c. Turn on the Java Encryption engine. (! a must)

  d. Enter your password.

  That’s it. All further encryption etc is done for you automatically. (*)

  That’s it. Not hard. ok? your friends/contacts to use secure systems. if not secure (eg yahoo, gmail, hotmail), you are at least partially compromised.

  Secure secure = best.

  Secure insecure = compromised.

  –

  Password – (key!)

  a. not too short. abc123 will not do.

  b. long passwords like – “maryhadalamb123″ not too good. Such passwords can be cracked, esp with the insider help, by one single overnight run of software comparing your password to dictionary database.

  c. Best passwords (that can be remembered!) are non dictionary passwords beyond 8 – 10 characters.

  d. If you have means, use http://www.diceware.com for a password that
  is really random.

  –

• 291 Tommy // Apr 21, 2009 at 8:50 am

  I’m honestly sick of being dis-connected, and especially at the most inopportune moments. I’ve lost e amils, constantly getting dc’d from messenger and I’ve eventually worked out to copy anything that I’ve written before I post.

  Since I’ve written this short review, I’ve been automatically re-connected 3 times, in the space of a few minutes. And there’s simply no point in trying to download anything. And it says I’ve mostly got a 3 bar signal strength.. What a load of cobblers..

  Not a happy customer and will be swapping networks asap. Thank God I bought PAYG, because the thought of being tied to a 12-24 month contract is simply worrying, especially the reviews I’ve heard of the ‘customer service’..

  Edit: Make that 5 times I’ve been re-connected..

• 292 Ming // Apr 21, 2009 at 12:29 pm

  As observed, Monday evening / Tuesday morning; more network failures.

  According to my notes –

  Monday

  1925hrs

  saw the data network go down.

  1935hrs, the entire network seemed to go offline. Ie, No voice calls, no data.

  2029hrs, some data available, but it went down again.

  The above failure extended to Tuesday, 0039hrs.

  All related to installation of the spying software?

  ps : Tommy. Good of you to make copy of your emails. Its a good move. good good good.

• 293 Ming // Apr 21, 2009 at 3:32 pm

  This post is offtopic, but commenting on Royston (above).

  “the reason that i.s.p’s give is. That in order to cut down on spam, emails must be sent from the same server as emails are received from. I think the latter is a load of crap. If I receive mail from one server and reply from a different one then it makes it difficult for “big brother” to read the answers i give to email questions that I receive. But it would not be impossible.”

  (1) Clearly not impossible. In fact, if your correspondence have only 1 email box, your replies would be picked up.

  (2) Reason the ISPs give *IS A* nonsense.

  So, all praise for common sense.

  Propaganda has been having a good run at driving out common sense.

  Time for a stop.

• 294 Ming // Apr 21, 2009 at 3:35 pm

  sorry, correction :

  correspondent, not correspondence.

  ” if your correspondent has only 1 email box, your replies would be picked up whereever your replies originate from”.

• 295 Ming // Apr 23, 2009 at 6:43 pm

  note on Three (mobile? broadband {not really!} )

  today Thu from 1430hrs to 1942hrs,

  multiple disconnections whilst accessing web pages.

  nothing new then.

• 296 Royston // Apr 23, 2009 at 7:53 pm

  Beware the new software update download from three network ( for usb dongle ) I downloaded it beacause they said it was compulsary. On restarting my desktop and clicking connect, My browser opened on its own and took me to the three website. So I was paying them for advertising to me!!! I pay per meg. Try as I might I could not stop the ” hijacking” of my browser. Got through to customer support and after explaing to them that they were effectivly stealing my bandwidth which is against the law teck support talked me through stopping the dongle making the unwanted connection. If anyone wants to know how to stop their dongle making an unwanted connection post a request here or better still get up three’s nose and contact tech support and waste their time not ours.

• 297 Dave // Apr 23, 2009 at 8:27 pm

  Why are people still using threes crap connection software?
  Yes you need to install it, but only to register on the network and connect with it once, after that, close the piece of crap down for good and make a shortcut to the dialup connection in your network connections folder and use that to connect, I have not used threes software for over 2 yrs now – also to help the connection, right click the dialup connection, select properties and UNTICK all hardware features in the first tab, next tab (options) choose PPP settings and tick ALL those boxes, Last choose Networking tab and double click the TCP/IP 4 protocol, select advanced, and tick “Use IP Header compression”, press ok on all windows until they are all closed, now connect EVERYTIME via the shortcut you made of the dial up connection, if you use 3`s software again, it will reset everything you just did and you will have to do it again, using this method you will see much better results with your connection, I am speaking from 2 yrs experience of this terrible company.

• 298 Ming // Apr 23, 2009 at 11:25 pm

  Hello Royston

  I was just wondering.

  If you were paying for your data per megabyte (terribly expensive way to do it),

  … and if all you are doing is sending emails, …

  … then perhaps you might be better off not using mobile broadband?

  Instead, you might consider using WAP? (ie, internet on a mobile device? not PC)

• 299 Royston // Apr 24, 2009 at 7:33 am

  Hi Ming, I do use the dongle for internet, I havea couple of websites that I take care of, my own and the local rugby team. It’s just that I often only fire up my machine to check for Email’s. I got frustrated because I was being hit in the face by three networks website. I take offence to a program that opens my browser without my permission and I get even more irratated when I realize that I am paying for the bandwidth that three are using to advertise to me. I am very lucky with my location as it is in a H.S.D.P.A covered area, which means that I can download about 2.1 meg. I tried wap with Virgin mobile but it cost me £6.10 to download a spam mail from Argos !!!!!!!!!!!

• 300 Ming // Apr 24, 2009 at 2:13 pm

  Hello Royston.

  Your post is noted.

  But if it helps, 3′s WAP connections are more stable than its (so called) mobile broadband.

  Further, as you know, you could get 3 WAP-unlimited for 5 pounds per month. But I haven’t checked this for months.

  Now, this is not good enough for editing websites, obviously.

  One thing about 3 WAP, is this :

  I’ve found I don’t need any money on the fone to use 3 WAP for yahoo email, but this’s only only for yahoo (wap) email, not email from other places.

  But, I didn’t have any money on the fone, and I didn’t have any data allowance. If I had, no doubt those would have been deducted from.

  So Virgin.WAP and 3.WAP (in as far as yahoo WAP email goes) are obviously different in this regard?

  But ain’t good enough to do website maintainence, obviously.

  Stay well!

• 301 Peter // Apr 24, 2009 at 10:34 pm

  Re Port 25 Blocking: I responded recently to a post on another forum from somebody pouring abuse on their web host because their email had stopped sending. They refused to accept that it could be an issue with their ISP, I wonder if they were with 3?

  This is the first time that I have used 3 for a while. Connected for over 30 mins, max download speed 1259k. Is this a real improvement or is it simplyy down to being in a small town on the Welsh border instead of in London?

• 302 David Brewer // Apr 25, 2009 at 9:10 am

  Hi Peter, If you see my post further up the thread you’ll see I too have been enjoying a big improvement in my service from Three which has continued for several weeks. There have been a couple of imes I’ve been unable to connect at all during the early hours of the morning but generally things have been much better.

  I thought I was the only one

• 303 Ming // Apr 27, 2009 at 8:01 pm

  On Sunday, I was :

  a. delighting at the felicity of the 3 mobile internet in the early hours of the morning.

  b. reminding myself of David Brewer’s optimism (see above post)

  c. and thinking : “ah good!, we’d be darned if we see this again on Monday”.

  Monday afternoon — all afternoon — ah yes, we’ve run into the usual treacle speed again.

  Plus another 3 or 4 disconnections on the top.

  I can’t tell you the groundwind speed, or whether a leaf blew past, but I can tell you it was overcast.

  If it helps, that is.

• 304 Dave // Apr 27, 2009 at 8:04 pm

  Damn those leaves

• 305 Mick // Apr 28, 2009 at 4:46 pm

  Every time I use three’s mobile broadband it leaves me angry and frustrated. I releive my anger by telling everybody I know, how poor three are. I have successfully prevented our company from supplying over 50 field based account managers with three mobile broadband dongles. I am so pleased. I know three wont know (and probably wont care) but at least they wont be receiving nearly £10,000 it would cost. I have also deterred at least 4 friends from ordering one. 8o)

• 306 Jim // Apr 28, 2009 at 8:54 pm

  I have similar problems with 3 mobile rubberband. Dave, you mention Windows dial-up connection software is better than the 3 software. I am using XP; I assume your instructions were for Vista. What user name and password would I need, please?

• 307 Dave // Apr 28, 2009 at 10:02 pm

  Hi Jim, once you have successfully connected at least once with 3`s software, there will be a dialup connection sitting in your Network Connections folder called whatever you named the 3 one.
  Basically make a shortcut from that to the desktop to use everytime you want to connect. You do not make a new dialup connection which is where it is asking you for a username etc. After you close 3`s software, follow the settings guide i posted earlier, XP will have a slightly different layout but similar enough to be able to follow my guide. If you are still unsure post back and ill answer…

• 308 Ming // Apr 29, 2009 at 2:43 am

  The password field is left blank.

  The username is *99#.

  You could set the max-connection speed (modem) to approx 0.9MB, and step that down gradually if you find it helps.

  A lot of the time, the defacto speed-of-connection to 3 mobile broadband is far/far/far less than the advertised speed, so you lose nothing.

  But check out your connection speed to 3 mobile broadband to be sure.

  For all you know, you might actually get 2.1 MBPS (or whatever it is) in your area.

• 309 Dave // Apr 29, 2009 at 6:27 am

  Ming the username is not *99# that is the dial out number – but you can use alternate ones, there are 3 would you believe! *99# *98# and *99****1# I use the last one, it seems to have a more stable connection

• 310 Dave // Apr 29, 2009 at 6:28 am

  My appologies, the last one is actually *99***1#

• 311 Jim // Apr 29, 2009 at 6:56 am

  Thanks Dave, got there eventually. Mine gives error 777 with *99****1# so am sticking with *99#. Also unticked prompt for number and included sensible redial info if line dropped. I shall see how it goes in comparison. I am often away from my laptop and I use ICS to share the internet connection with other machines on my LAN.

  Ming – only get reception upstairs and 100kbps is usual with modem on extension near window. If I am lucky and it is orientated in the ‘lucky orientation for the day’ I can get up to 600kbps for very brief periods. Wind and rain knock it down to nothing quite often. Frequent periods of very low bandwidth. Seems to work better if the usage is kept up rather than allow it to drop; as if something somewhere puts the connection into a sleep state that it has trouble getting out of. Currently ‘escalating’ (ha-ha) the issue with their support – I haven’t exhausted their delaying tactics yet – I’ll see how it goes.

• 312 Jim // Apr 29, 2009 at 7:05 am

  Ahah – yep, that works.

  Two useful features of their flakey software is the counter of usage (important to not exceed the limit and get ripped off – I am an unfortunate contract customer) and also realtime bandwidth. Both are missing from XP modem status activity info.

  Amongst other things, the rule that I think was most unfair in all of this is that, upon purchase, the customer cannot use the modem more than three days without losing the right to return the device. That is not enough time to work out if the connection will be good in a borderline area like mine. It worked mostly great for the first three days I had the thing – I vaguely remember 500-800kbps. I am about 1mile away from the nearest enabled mast, but down hill.

• 313 Ming // Apr 29, 2009 at 2:58 pm

  hello, yes, sorry, obviously *99# is the dialout number, not the username.

  sorry for the mistake.

• 314 Ming // Apr 30, 2009 at 9:07 pm

  News on data failures on 3 mobile broadband

  I’ve found 3 *mobile broadband* to have *2 major evening prime-time* hour failures yesterday (Wed) and today (Thu).

  On Wed, the data failure seemd to start around 2030hrs, and lasted to 2330hrs.

  On Thu, the data failure seemd to start around 1821hrs, and lasted to 2145hrs.

• 315 3 ate shit // May 2, 2009 at 7:03 am

  3 are shit.do not use then. worst product i have ever used.

• 316 Trevor // May 2, 2009 at 5:44 pm

  Thought it was only fair to report that the service has improved greatly over last couple of months. Hope the improvement continues

• 317 Lovette // May 5, 2009 at 1:17 am

  Short story, bought the dongle plus 15pound worth of surfing time. No network as soon as I got home called customer services who advised me to wait 72hours after which i was on teh phoen for 3hrs (i am paying) nothing is resolved. i take it back to teh same shop that told me when i bought the item that i could return it within 14days that there is no refund after 3days. So i now have a stick and 3g usage which i cant use and cant sell. Thanks a bleeping lot three.

• 318 Ming // May 5, 2009 at 8:41 am

  So, you can return the product before 14 days …

  … but if you return it after 3 days you won’t get a refund ….

  …. and customer service advised you wait till 72 hours (3 days) are up?

  Is that what you are saying?

• 319 Ming // May 5, 2009 at 9:01 am

  ps : hmm! you say, 3 hours on the fone, at 10p a minute, so means £18 out of pocket?

  hmm!

  (Ask them to call you back next time!, if there is a nexttime, and there shouldn’t be a nexttime!)

• 320 Ming // May 6, 2009 at 10:18 am

  More outage and unreliability reports

  Yesterday 05 May 2009, “3″ (mobile broadband (sic!)) service was yet again unobtainable from about 1845hrs in the evening, to around 2330-0000hrs.

  This was yet another “3″ (mobile broadband (sic!)) outage, lasting 5+ hours in evening.

• 321 Mark Richardson // May 6, 2009 at 6:09 pm

  I phoned the 3 mobile broadband line on 500 (from a 3 phone) today to give a month’s notice to cancel my contract seeing as I thought it would end on 2nd June.

  The person I spoke to at the ’3 Ministry of Retentions’ told me that my contract doesn’t actually end until 2nd July which is fair enough as I had miscalculated my dates. I was told to phone back on 2nd June to give notice but I think I will give notice in writing and post a letter to 3 by recorded delivery.

  Interestingly enough, I was told that if I signed up for a 12 month contract for 7 GB per month, I could have it for £12.50 per month in place of £25 per month. I declined saying that although I had noticed a speed increase in the Manchester area the 3 signal is terribly erratic and at times I’m back to either a zero speed or around 300 kbps. Perhaps the £12.50 deal isn’t quite as good as it seems when 3 is offering 15 GB for £15 per month albeit on a 24 month contract basis.

  I prefer reliability over price so it’s Vodafone mobile broadband, for me, on a pay as you go basis and the unused credit lasts forever as long as you access t’internet at least every 6 months.

  3 Tried to entice me by offering me a new modem in place of my Huawei E220 although I told the man that I haven’t used the E220 for a long time as I either connect via my Nokia phone’s modem or use a 3G enabled Advent 4213 netbook.

• 322 Ming // May 6, 2009 at 7:34 pm

  Hello Mark

  I would suggest you call “3″ up on 02 June 2009 anyway, and record your conversation.

  If possible, I’d put a note on this BB to remind you, if I manage to keep this in mind.

  Its such a terrible waste for you to waste the remaining 1 or 2 months contract. If it helps, and as I indicated in previous posts, WAP on 3 works acceptably, so you might consider putting the chip into a WAP fone / PDA and using it that way for the remainder of the subscription.

  Just a thot.

• 323 Little 0ld me // May 6, 2009 at 9:58 pm

  I wish you well with your decided swop to Vodafone. Not sure if you have read my previous entry but I have been on Vodafone for over 14 months. At first it was good reception but since Jan ’09 it has been variable and of a lesser quality and frequenty provides no signal.
  Vodafone contacted and little assistance provided so a registered letter was sent. This was ignored so a follow up correspondence was sent. This eventually got the responce – like it or lump it. I was warned that if I returned the dongle I would have to continue paying right up to the Dongle being registered as having been returned. This sounded like it would purposely take a long time and was like a threat.
  Damed Mobile Broadband….just when is there going to be some official body that will enforce service being provided as it has been advertised?
  I suggest you talk to someone in your area regarding signal strength prior to going ahead with your plan.

• 324 Ming // May 6, 2009 at 10:19 pm

  Hello.

  I doubt if anyone “official” will give you the truth about the actual reception in the area, and network performance.

  For example, judging from the above posts, and also from personal experience, “3″ will :

  supposedly check up your postcode on a computer,

  invariably tell you the reception is OK,

  and leave it to YOU to find out it isn’t actually as OK.

  Also, check the network reception in the area is hardly the only issue.

  Many a time, I find flacky server capabilities, and also major breakdowns in the server performance of the type mentioned in above posts.

  Best thing to do is please don’t sign a contract unless somehow you have to, and if possible, return the dongle (or whatever device) as soon as possible, and don’t let any “mobile fone official” put you off.

  Also, what reviews have these mobile broadbands had?

  As you can imagine, “mobile fone officials” are in conflict -of-interest positions :

  Why should they make it easy for you to return something?

  Being somewhat desparate for customers, you know what they would do.

• 325 Mark Richardson // May 6, 2009 at 10:31 pm

  Hi Ming and Little Old Me, Thanks to you both for all of your posts. It’s made for some very interesting reading over the last year or so.

  I’ve already tried Vodafone here and the signal strength and reliability is wonderful with speeds of around 2.5MB down and 0.75MB upload so I bought my friend’s sim card from him because he moved to an area of London with poor Vodafone coverage yet, ironically, excellent 3 coverage whenever I visit Lewisham! The 3 signal at my house can vary between no signal and a full signal within the space of a few seconds even when I haven’t moved !

  Yes, I agree with you Ming that it’s a waste of the last couple of months of my 3 contract but I suppose that’s life and I’m much more educated regarding mobile broadband now rather than being a ‘newbie’ a year and a half ago. 3 was also pretty good back then although I think their bandwith has reached capacity owing to the increasing popularity of mobile broadband and there must be a fair few of us Manchester users overloading the masts.

  Time to move on now though but I don’t think I’ll be signing any more lengthy contracts so that’s my lesson learned.

  I’ll probably do what you suggested Ming and use the sim in my phone now and again but the only place I get a decent 3 signal is at work in the city centre. It’s a whole different world with 3 just 1 mile East of the centre !

  Just one thing before I go – It would be useful if you could all let us know where you’re having difficulty with your 3 reception just so that people could gain some insight into which towns and areas are bad and also which are good.

  All the very best to you all and if anybody wants a 3 mobile broadband SIM card (for free) for a couple of months, with 14 gigs of data, just drop me a line here.

  All the best to you all.

• 326 Royston // May 7, 2009 at 6:17 pm

  Mark, I would be more than happy to buy the sim card. How much would you like for it?

• 327 David Sanderson // May 9, 2009 at 9:58 am

  We are informed that 3 are sending people to India to monitor the call centre staff! Hasn’t it occured to anyone at 3 that their abysmal Indian call centre is the root cause of a lot of problems? A totally unrelated thought but isn’t it patronising when someone with a made up Anglicised ‘name’ asks if he or she can call you by your first name? o2 have an excellent UK call centre and I can’t believe I put up with the rudeness from 3′s call centre for so long.

• 328 Mark Richardson // May 9, 2009 at 12:09 pm

  Hi Royston,

  Could you possibly send me an email and we can arrange something away from this forum:

  mrichardson@eastserve.com

• 329 Ming // May 9, 2009 at 9:15 pm

  Mark, if you go to Royston’s post and click on his name, you’d find his email address that way.

• 330 Royston // May 10, 2009 at 12:08 pm

  Thanks Ming, Mark telephoned me. Being contacted from a poster over the telephone makes this site ” come alive” I will make a donation to our local P.D.S.A . As mark would not accept any payment for the sim.

• 331 Ming // May 10, 2009 at 3:43 pm

  hello Royston and Mark

  Good going thus far apparently then.

  Not for me to give unnecessary advice of course, but there’s plenty of time yet to go for the dongle to prove itself and Mark may always need something in the future, so there we go – make of that what you will.

  Anyway, lets see how it all goes in the end … ( or whatever .. )

  [[ no further comment required ... ]]

• 332 Tony // May 11, 2009 at 12:36 am

  Wow, I just got mine (3mobile dongle) today and it sucks. 42kbps! The bellend I spoke to at the call centre wants me to take the speed 3 times a day at different times for the next 3 days and then phone back so they can “look into it.”

  Fook that I’m phoning them tomorrow and they can have it back! I’ve read enough here in the comments about them and I’m bailing out.

• 333 Royston // May 11, 2009 at 2:12 pm

  Tony, Don’t wait a second more. Get it back to them pronto. They are asking you to keep records in order to put you outside the return time limit. If it is 42kbs now, then it aint going to get much better. Quick! tell them you don’t want the dongle.

• 334 Ming // May 11, 2009 at 6:24 pm

  I second Royston’s suggestion. Take your dongle back, and do that asap.

  The excuse 3 gives are all non starters :

  “Investigate it?”

  nonsense. 3 can investigate with their own resources. they are not going to turn you into one of their unpaid testers.

  I suggest you return your dongle asap, Tony.

  If the return period is 72 hours, I suggest you get rid of it asap.

  You don’t need to do your testing with one of “3″ dongles. That’s not the way.

  best luck in returning it.

• 335 royston // May 12, 2009 at 10:12 am

  Hibernate problems with three dongle. Well I was playing around with my descktop and I thought I would make a shortcut to enable me to do a hibernate as my desktop takes like forever to re-boot. When I clicked on the new shortcut I got a message that informed me that my three dongle was preventing the hibernation! It seems that three do not want me to go to sleep!

• 336 royston // May 12, 2009 at 11:07 am

  Hope You don’t think I am hogging this page but I just discovered something. If you want to find out how far you are from a three network mast ( incidently you may be aware that they share masts with T-Mobile) Then I have found this site that will show you where your closest mast is. It could be useful to use it before getting yourself a three mobile contract, or even checking a prospective new home’s coverage. this is the site http://www.sitefinder.ofcom.org.uk/ It is quite easy to do a search of a postcode. But remember to zoom to 1-100 to gain the name of a mast operator.

• 337 Tony // May 12, 2009 at 12:24 pm

  Thanks Royston and Ming, called them up yesterday (Monday) and cancelled, they are sending me out a package to send the thing back in, the guy I spoke to kept saying “our tech support team can help you out” but I told him no thanks already spoken to them and there is nothing they can do. I then called Vodafone and haggled 3 months at £10 (rising to £15 afterwards) on an 18 month contract to 8 months @ £10 but then failed the credit check lol! Thinking of going Pay-as-you-go as I will not be using it heavily. It’s £39 for the dongle (with 1GB loaded) then £15 per 1GB, no expiry on the initial Gig and as I am using it infrequently it should be fine, providing I get more than 42kbps!

  Also, may be coincidence but I joined Three on Friday and yesterday I received 2 calls from Indians, the first company said I had won a prize and the second told me I had won £5,000. On the second one I screamed “bullshit” down the phone a couple of times then hung up lol!

  Wouldn’t surprise me if the bastards have been dishing my landline number out.

• 338 Ming // May 12, 2009 at 2:51 pm

  Hello Tony,

  speaking only of testing out 3 speeds.

  Am not trying to give out unnecessary advice, but if I was setting about testing 3 speeds, I definitely won’t use their dongle.

  What I would do, if I wanted to test out speeds, is to use a bluetooth-mobile-fone modem.

  Anyway, I just wanted to say also I think there’s something the matter with 3 servers.

  Friday evening/Sat morning = very weird behaviour. Was sent to yahoo everytime I typed in a URL. Thereafter, the computer showed “web site not available”.

  Monday and Tuesday (ie Tuesday). I could connect, but a lot of involuntary disconnections.

  Speed = sluggish.

  This is in the Hammersmith area, London.

  ps : yes, I don’t think 3 tech support can help. They are trying to sell snake oil I think.

  I personally think, from speaking to some of them, that they have given up helping.

  I think they know they can’t do much. They are just gabbing down the line, crossing their fingers hoping something would work.

  In the meantime, 3 is offering to revolutionise the web by offering free skype-calls-for-life.

  I guess this means paying customers are going to get pushed off the network.

  3 network “mobile broadband” (sic!) is not a network I’d take around town with any confidence. Its way too touch-and-go. If I was really mobile, I couldn’t choose this network.

  The 3 “mobile broadband” (sic!) network reminds me of toy Power Rangers walkie-talkies.

  Ie, its a bit of a joke that can’t be relied on to perform.

  Don’t use it if your money is at stake.

• 339 Tony // May 12, 2009 at 3:50 pm

  Thanks Ming. I’m just hoping that whatever network I end up choosing (probably Voda) will be reliable.

  What I have found just by reading around about this mobile broadband is that all of them are overselling it as some new fantastic alternative to conventional broadband with superfast speeds but in reality it’s not like that at all.

  That’s the impression that I get.

• 340 Ming // May 12, 2009 at 8:42 pm

  Hello Tony,

  you know what? you are probably right.

  Probably the biggest favour you could do yourself is to maintain an even temper. avoiding the emotional rollercoasters so many posters have been having.

  Just test the system, as you have done with three.

  If it don’t work, it probably doesn’t work, so try again later.

  Your instincts about overselling of mobile broadband are probably right; just that you test it for a bit to see if it/what works for you.

  As you know, the telco’s have paid about £22.5 billion in 3G licences, so you can imagine how desperate they all are.

  Talk about credit bubbles!

• 341 Ian Smith // May 13, 2009 at 2:32 am

  Hi Ming and rest for some realy usefull info every time I dust off me old 3sim and try it gets worse only browser con wont spend a tenner finding out how bad broadband connectivety still is what is more to the point been complaining everywhere I cant be the only one nothing ever happens enuf to make you believe in conspiracy theories if anyones heard anything would appreciate it

• 342 Ian Smith // May 13, 2009 at 3:26 am

  ps Ming agree with your evening times but it worser here in south tottenham and other areas at least it used to speed up once in a while now its dead slow all of the time keep getting unable to connect to 3 content provedider 2O2 and 5O4 error codes ect switch hand sets off which they deny when took my skype s2 into wood green told me was in turbo area services said ther e was a known software fault with my trusty old nec338 so said why my nokia 95 and skype s2 doing same was back to same old

• 343 Mark Richardson // May 13, 2009 at 7:15 pm

  I second Royston’s comment regarding using the Ofcom sitefinder database to see which mobile masts are nearby but with a few words of caution namely:

  1. The database maybe out of date especially as mobile companies are moving to share resources – T Mobile and 3 for example.
  2. You need to make sure that the mast is a UMTS mast.
  3. You should check the power output of the mast.
  4. Ensure the mast is a macrocell rather than a microcell – as the names suggest, the macrocell will (or should) cover a wide area rather than the limited area covered by a microcell.
  5. Check the height of the mast given in the table. It’s no use thinking you’ll receive coverage if there aretall buildings shielding the mast from your home/office.

  If possible, borrow a dongle or sim card to test out the service before you buy and perform a few speed tests at different times of day prior to buying a dongle or entering into a contract.

  ‘Nuff said !

• 344 Peter // May 13, 2009 at 9:23 pm

  When my daughter moved to a rented flat without a landline at Easter she benefited from my experience and :
  1. Didn’t touch 3
  2. Paid cash for a dongle
  3. Worked through PAYG sims from all providers before committing to a contract
  I would recommend the same to anybody else.

  When I use 3 away from home I still get random connection drops and highly variable connection speeds.

• 345 Mark Richardson // May 13, 2009 at 10:17 pm

  Please don’t all rush out and buy Vodafone dongles especially if you’re in the East Manchester area. Leave all of the Vodafone bandwidth for me please !!!

• 346 Ming // May 14, 2009 at 1:05 am

  hello Ian.

  On the times I’ve gotten round to using Skype on 3, I’ve suceeded in one thing.

  Namely, I’ve succeeded in annoying person I called.

  The quality of this Skype mobile I’ve found is : BAD.

  Thankfully, I don’t really use Skype mobile on 3.

  Another thing : 3 customer service are blaming you for faults?

  What’s new?

  You know, the fault has to be with YOU. Who else can it be with?

  Certainly not three. (if you believe that).

  “Gotta be your software, Ian!”

• 347 Londonbloke // May 20, 2009 at 10:13 pm

  No matter how modest you judge your internet needs, do not buy 3 mobile broadband.

  It’s not just about speed, it’s actually reliability of the connection, 40-50 percent of the time it will not load a basic web page, nor send a short email. And that is in London – the one time I tried it outside London it didn’t even nearly connect.

  It’s truly awful if you are lured by the slightly cheaper price as I was you will still sorely regret it while you watch it time-out trying to load Google or send a one-line email, time and time again…

  To top it off, their approach to customer services seems to be ‘offence is the best form of defence’ – they got aggressive when I tried to suggest how poorly their service was performing.

  Even if you have to get mobile broadband, just shell out an extra few quid and avoid 3 mobile broadband, it’s infuriating and an utterly false economy.

• 348 Jimham1971 // May 22, 2009 at 9:11 pm

  I agree with Londonbloke as my 3 dongle is awful, takes forever to do anything and i would be quicker flying to my friend in the states and talk to him than send him an e-mail, the price i get charged for going over is daylight robbery and something should be done about it because they get away with it, i advise NOBODY GET ONE because it is (and pardon my french)
  SHIT! and can’t wait to smash the thing up when my contract is up then send it to india with a letter in clingon and see how they like it when they can’t understand a word i’ve said.

• 349 Ming // May 22, 2009 at 9:31 pm

  Well, if you can’t return your dongle, and aren’t willing to take them to court nor complain to the OFT using their well defined communications sequence,

  then :

  consider using a blue tooth fone modem as this would enable you to test out various spots for better reception (if such spots exist)

  ps : letters are sent to scotland and not to india, but end up read into the indian systems anyway.

• 350 Salafrance // May 23, 2009 at 1:30 am

  I’ve used 3 for over a year… I naively expected to be able to cancel when I chose, once the initial year was up. Isn’t this how contracts normally work?

  Bandwidth varies from very fast to virtually unusable, with frequent disconnections. Peak mobile usage times seem to be the worst. I play RPGs a lot and my experience varies from fine, to the worst lag I’ve experienced on any connection. I’m also really short of money, and during a particularly tight period, I tried to negotiate a different contract and they effectively told me to **** off.

  The 7Gb limit kind of sucks too – I occasionally download iso images for OSes I want to try, and have friends all over the place whom I *try* to keep in touch with via skype and video.

  There is no way I’m renewing, and if anyone is organising a class action suit, I’d like to know about it.

  Filthy, evil, sordid, money-grubbing corporate whores. I make a point of telling everyone how much 3 sucks, now, as an exercise in negative viral marketing.

• 351 Tony // May 26, 2009 at 11:22 am

  Jesus Christ just to make things worse I have just had my phone bill in and to add insult to injury the 3 mobile numbers I was calling and spent some time on (08707330320 & 08707330333) managed to track up about £7.50 in fees. Bastards.

• 352 royston // May 26, 2009 at 6:38 pm

  Well Tony, 0870 numbers are premium numbers if called from a three network. If I need to ring one, I pop down to the nearest phone box. You will get used to the stench of urine after a while

• 353 royston // May 26, 2009 at 6:42 pm

  Salafrance, You can get ubunto etc for free on a cd if you ask. That will save you some bandwidth.

• 354 royston // May 26, 2009 at 6:48 pm

  By the way Salfrance, If you buy a three sim and change it for the one you have at present you can use skype for free even if you have no credit on the sim! That would also save on bandwidth. I will agree with you though. Three are a bunch of B;%$£”£!s

• 355 royston // May 26, 2009 at 6:53 pm

  Also by the way salfrance, If you like to try out new ops I can send you a copy of vist ultimate if you would like.

• 356 mho900.2@gmail.com // May 26, 2009 at 8:32 pm

  08707330333 = charged

  333 (equivalent) = free from 3 fone/chip.

• 357 angie // Jun 6, 2009 at 10:54 am

  people be carefull when dealing with 3 no matter the service u looking at they say they will cam yr service but they dont and when u do find out and dont pay that month they harrass you constantly making threats my advice to anybody stear clear of them not worth the agro i have 4 contracts with them and cant wait to get out them hope this helps people

• 358 cliff // Jun 9, 2009 at 7:03 am

  i need to recieve information in pdf and i only have a 3 dongle ( no landline ) can i do this .

• 359 royston // Jun 9, 2009 at 5:56 pm

  Hi Cliff, yes you can receive p.d.f’s. As long as you have a sim in the dongle and you are within your data allowance and you are one ofthe lucky ones that can manageto get a signal on a three dongle. A p.d.f is just a file like any other doc such as word. But do be sure to check the size of the file as some p.d.f’s can be 100′s of megs.

• 360 Ming mho900.2@gmail.com // Jun 10, 2009 at 2:43 am

  are you able to get online and receive data with this dongle?

  have you a PDF reader software installed?

  If yes to both :

  download your PDF file (not a virus), and read away.

  –

  If you’ve no PDF-reader software, then download the said software using the dongle.

  If you’ve slow dongle-internet-access, use other computers (eg public library computers?) to download the PDF-reader onto a CD for eventual installation onto your PC.

• 361 Mark Richardson // Jun 10, 2009 at 10:01 pm

  Just a quick message for Royston:

  I cancelled my 3 MBB contract on 2nd June so you need to use my 7GB limit by 2nd July.

• 362 royston // Jun 12, 2009 at 6:46 pm

  Hello Mark, Thanks for letting me know. I have noted it. I have managed to get a great deal done with he bandwidth so far. I can’t thank you enough for your generosity. If you feel I may be of some help to you in the future, feel free to ask. All thebest for now, Royston

• 363 Confused // Jun 20, 2009 at 11:31 am

  Hi! Ive bought a 3G mobile broadband payg thingy, and it works (slowly, and no use for skype, unfortunately), on a friends pc. But I need to use it on my Mac, which is running OS 10.3.9. Anyone know how to do that? (ideally, a web address of a driver to download, and an instruction on what to do once Ive downloaded it.)

  Thanks!!!

• 364 Confused // Jun 20, 2009 at 11:35 am

  PS The mobile dongle is a HUAWEI e156g

• 365 Dave // Jun 20, 2009 at 11:45 am

  http://www.huawei.com might have some drivers for you

  Also this address has instructions for installing on Mac OS
  http://www.three.co.uk/Help_Support/Mobile_Broadband_Help?content_aid=1214306104361

• 366 Royston // Jun 20, 2009 at 6:07 pm

  Hello Confused, You will need OS X 10.3.9 at least. Then you should pop along to http://www.three.com.au/cs/ContentServer?c=Page&pagename=Three%2FPage%2FBusinessVideoCallingTemplate&cid=1215747787891
  Scroll to bottom of page for modem drivers for the Mac. Just because the dongle works o.k in your friends location does not mean that it will work fine in yours. Likewise just because skype does not work in his area, it may well work fine in yours. I use the dongle for skype with no problems at all! Good luck and happy surfing. But you should have gone to specksavers ( I mean t-mobile or vodafone).

• 367 Ming // Jun 21, 2009 at 3:40 pm

  hello confused.

  as royston has said, its probably good advice to check the performance of this dongle in places you actually use it, and not at your friend’s place.

  if you are getting bogged down with all this apple/mac matter becos the dongle is not helping you along, you might consider whether you should keep the dongle or not.

  If the dongle works fine -nothing to worry.

  If you can’t test the dongle speed becos of some matter of your mac/apple, do borrow your friend’s notebook to test out connection speeds at your place.

  Else, you might get stuck with an unusable dongle.

  As Royston was trying to say.

• 368 Ming // Jun 21, 2009 at 3:42 pm

  ps : do be conscious it may only be three days before you can return the dongle, confused.

• 369 Confused // Jun 21, 2009 at 9:43 pm

  Thanks Royston! (and also Dave & Ming). I downloaded the PowerPC driver in your Australian link, and the install program ran (progress!), and even recognised the device (when the dongle wasnt in it gave an error message), but when I clicked “connect” on the dialup menu of the mobile connect program returned the internet connect error “the connection has failed because you have not entered a telephone number”. Do you know of a link with the correct numbers etc to fill in? Thanks!!!

• 370 Royston // Jun 21, 2009 at 10:18 pm

  Hello confussed. It is my understanding that the number is *99#
  The password is left blank
  The username is also left blank. Hope that helps.

• 371 ant // Jun 22, 2009 at 5:09 pm

  at last my 18 month contract ends on the 24th june but i’ve got a sneaking suspision that even this is not going to be an easy ride in finally freeing me from this shoddy little set-up.

• 372 Ming // Jun 22, 2009 at 5:32 pm

  hello ant.

  I think you may have to call them exactly 30 (not 29 or 31 days apparently) days in
  advance to get rid of your subscription,

  so if you have any doubts in this area, do consider giving them a ring without delay.

  ..

  ..

• 373 ant // Jun 22, 2009 at 6:41 pm

  hello ming,thankyou.
  i rang them up earlier this month iwas told to ring back on the 23rd june, i don’t know maybe it’s just me being paranoid about it but i’ve just got a feeling that i’m going to get fleeced for another payment.

• 374 ant // Jun 22, 2009 at 7:12 pm

  the main reason i went with 3, at the time i was pretty new to this internet lark and having no landline connected i thought this would be the ideal solution(how wrong i was) anyway stumbled across moneysavingexpert the other day and found out that if you ring BT and quote “new line free connection offer” they will install for free instead of the usual £122 (offer ends 30th june) so got one coming early next month. 02 for me methinks!

• 375 Dave // Jun 22, 2009 at 8:02 pm

  you know what guys, I left my unpaid 3 bill at my old address back in december last year when I loved house and guess what, I have heard nothing…. suprise suprise…. as if they are gonna chase me up for a bill on a service they did not provide. I had 12 months left on my contract too. Stop fretting over contracts and drop those mo/fo`s for an ISP that actually provides “The Internet” rather than “A Brain Hemhorigge”

• 376 Dave // Jun 22, 2009 at 8:03 pm

  I didnt actually “Loved house” lol I “Moved House”

• 377 Royston // Jun 22, 2009 at 10:01 pm

  Dave, Check your credit file in six months or so. You will probebly find an entry there. They won’t chase you, they will send the final demand to your last known address and then file. They are not obliged to go looking for you. Hopefuly you are home and clear, but don’t bet on it. I sold a house and moved on, when I went for finance on a new car I discovered that the water board had filed for a non payment of a water bill and my credit went tits. It was a good job I kept the check stubs. i did in fact pay the stupid bill. They removed the file but it was very emarissing at the time that I was refused a loan.

• 378 Ming // Jun 22, 2009 at 10:54 pm

  hello ant.

  Its good to see your in the money with the £122 savings.

  That is until, the £6 tax on your landline comes into play.

  In the meantime, one would hope you don’t make your operations too dependent on your landline.

  Ie, give people your pay as-you-go mobile number instead of your landline.

  This way, you can get rid of your landline should you wish to without cutting everyone else off from calling you.

  (everyone would notice, this comment has nothing to do with “three”)

• 379 ant // Jun 23, 2009 at 12:09 am

  ming, the £6 bit i understand, but you’ve lost me on the rest

• 380 Royston // Jun 23, 2009 at 12:18 am

  Ming, I have to disagree with the giving out of mobile number instead of landline. Although I have more work than I can handle, I have noticed a distinct drop in telephone enquires since I had to move to an area that does not have landlines. I would give both numbers, I understand where you are coming from but a landline sets one apart from “fly by nights” somewhat.

• 381 Royston // Jun 23, 2009 at 12:26 am

  Further more, I think that landline users should not begrudge 12p per week in order to bring the whole of the country up to speed ( no pun intended) with regards to broadband. But I think the likes of three, o2 and others should cough up towards it as well.

• 382 Ming // Jun 23, 2009 at 4:31 am

  hello Ant and Royston

  Giving up your landline for whatever reason, eg £6 tax, would be harder if everyone knows only your landline number.

  Therefore, handing out your mobile fone number ensures people have your mobile number from the start, thereby increasing your flexibility should you wish to dump your landline.

  Leaving aside the issue of whether 12p per week / £6 per year is ok or not ok.

  Business landline costs are tax deductable, ie the tax is itself tax deductable, but that doesn’t eliminate the tax.

  Personal landline costs taxes are not tax deductible, but can be completely eliminated by not having a landline. (insofar as thats practicable)

  Whereas a business landline (tax deductable) is probably essential for business, its not likely to be essential for personal use. Ie, nobody would think less of you if you only had a mobile number.

  If it came to it, you could also only use mobile skype (haha)

  That’s really about it.

• 383 Linda // Jun 23, 2009 at 9:41 am

  I bought the 12 month 3 Mobile Broadband back in December 2008. I have had it least than 6 months, and have been told that I have used up my allowance, and although I still have a contract with them, I need to purchase top-ups as I have already used my data allowance. Also I was told my their helpdesk/tech dept that they don’t have a compaint department.

• 384 Royston // Jun 23, 2009 at 12:59 pm

  Linda, No complaints department!!! Tell that one to ofcom, they would have a fit! As far as I understand it, You would only need to buy top ups if you want net access. The contract is for giving you the ability to access the net. I was on a certain bay the other night and someone was selling 3 sims that give unlimited downloads for £5 per month top up. Sounds fine to me. you could pop that sim into your dongle and away to go. I do not think that your contract forces you to top up. Worth looking into a cheap sim.

• 385 ant // Jun 23, 2009 at 3:10 pm

  as i predicted yesterday 3 have managed to squeeze another £25 out of me, apparently they have no record of me calling to end my contract earlier this month, but thankfully no i know it’ll soon be over. i followed a link on this page and found out i’m only 150 metres from the 3 mast, it must be fairly new because when i first had this dongle there was no signal strength at all no get 5 bars, no increase in loading times(e.g. this page between 2-3 mins.)

• 386 Dave // Jun 23, 2009 at 4:38 pm

  My credit is fine so far, I have just bought a laptop on credit, but im not fussed about my credit anyway, if I want something ill buy it with money not credit

• 387 Ming // Jun 23, 2009 at 5:39 pm

  Hello Ant

  Am surprised you put up with all this nonsense.

  If I were you, I’d cancel the direct debit with the bank straightaway.

  I figure you are well entitled to your £122 BT savings (if you still want it) given the money you have wasted with 3.

  ps : hopefully, your O2 (or whichever one) works.

• 388 Ming // Jun 23, 2009 at 5:47 pm

  hello Linda

  your complaints can at the very least be sent to their postal address. Which is “PO Box 333″ (ask their “customer non-service by dialing (free) 333 from a 3 fone, and not from a non-3 fone.

  This assumes 3 operator refuses to take complaints over the fone.

  Also, if your on contract, this “top up” does not exist. What do you pay extra (extra) for is mobile internet data usage outside your contracted allowance.

• 389 Ming // Jun 24, 2009 at 5:07 pm

  Back to the old-ongoing subject, has anyone else found 3-internet to be erratic, droppy (ie drops connections) and reluctant recently?

  I have.

  ok, its a rhetorical question, nevermind.

• 390 Royston // Jun 24, 2009 at 5:25 pm

  Ming, Erratic!!! I have spent all afternoon trying to upload a 20meg file to one of my sites. It keeps dropping out like crazy. With the failed attempts so far, I have loaded 600megs whilst trying to upload 20megs. It is driving me nutts. Three network sucks big time, They make more money by dropping a connection because the customer has to upload te dat over and over again. They are crooks.

• 391 Perigee // Jun 26, 2009 at 1:00 pm

  Three’s “service” is beyond a joke. I am about 5 miles from the centre of London, high up and there has been no reception for 3 weeks! There is a 3 shop across the road, all they get is angry and frustrated customers wanted refunds. Their call centre in India hasn’t got a clue – ask for a manager and you’ll get cut off. The only way to contact their head office is by post! 4 weeks have gone by and not a word. I have now begun a complaints procedure with OTELO. They told me that the modem is not fit for purpose and I should write to 3 to this effect. They also gave me the CEO’s email address so now they can’t say they didn’t get my letters.

  The only language this shower understand is to chase them through the ombudsman and small claims courts, otherwise they hope you’ll go away. Whatever happens, don’t give up, you have paid for a service and they are contractually obliged to either provide that service or cancel the contract. Don’t forget to ask for compensation – it won’t be much but believe me you’ll enjoy it when it comes. Companies like 3 hate dealing with the ombudsman, energy companies reckon each ombudsman complaint costs them upwards of £300 to deal with.

• 392 steve // Jun 30, 2009 at 9:43 pm

  tut, if I’d read any of this before I bought the garbage from 3 I wouldn’t be here now. Not only is their service very poor, they lied about the contract in the shop, saying I received 150 free texts/mth and didn’t even mention the free laptop. Now customer services just told me to swivel when I asked what happened to my free texts. I will be doing everything I can to actively discourage people from using this joke of a company.

• 393 threeRshit // Jul 2, 2009 at 7:29 pm

  I live within 30 metres of a three mast and still cannot stay connected to three mobile broadband load of b*llocks. I have NEVER received a fast connection and I live in a village. I’m so glad my contract ends this month (I cancelled it 1 month before it was due to end and contacted them the same day to confrim this). They have ripped me off for a year now and I have discouraged everyone I know to avoid three mobile broadband (at least 300 pepole – mostly work mates). Threes “customer service” if you can call it that, is nothing but a joke. how do they expect their foreign cutomer services to help????? Unless htey dont improve soon I cant see them lasting much longer.
  If you are going to cancel your contract please do not be fooled into their upgrade offers. It took me approx 1/2 hour to cancel my contract over the phone even when I told them I wasnt interested in anything they had to offer.

  the worst service I have received by any body in my life.

  Cancel your contracts ASAP – even if they threaten you with bailifs – it wouldnt even get to court.

• 394 Royston // Jul 9, 2009 at 2:57 pm

  Wala! I purchased a repeater lead £6.00 Put the dongle inside a plastic container And sealed it. Run the cable outside and half way up the pine end of my house. Hey presto ! broadband download speed shot up to 2,757 kbps. So there is hope.

• 395 Ming // Jul 9, 2009 at 7:42 pm

  See? As I said, where possible, don’t use a dongle.

  Use a bluetooth fone-modem that will give you some chance at an advantage.

  Its a bit like extending your dongle up the backside of the house.

  Except, now that the dongle has been extended this way, one isn’t really mobile anymore.

• 396 Little 0ld me // Jul 9, 2009 at 9:59 pm

  So Royston, just what is a repeater lead and where is one obtained?

• 397 Royston // Jul 10, 2009 at 10:35 am

  Well Little Old Me, I am not sure that I am allowed to advertise on here so to be safe, google, USB 2.0 Active Repeater cable that will give you a whole load of results. I had mine on a certain bay but there are many suppliers out there. Tip (1) if you have a 3phone then hold that in a positon that gives best signal in order to find a fix point for the dreaded dongle. In answer to you Ming, If I am mobile then I would not need the lead would I ? I took my laptop out in the car for a run and tried to connect in town, I managed to get a very poor signal. Poped the lead into laptop and placed the other end on the roof of the car and hey presto 4 bars!! So it is in fact mobile I intend trying it out in my touring caravan as last time I had to hold the laptop near an open window to get connected. Maybe three should supply such a lead with every modem, they certainly work. If one uses the bluetooth sulution the you run up against the fact that the phone itself will not comunicate with a p.c if the bluetooth is running! Just think of the times that an indoor television ariel would not work but an outside ariel would! In my case I use a fixed p.c in my small office, The cable is perminatly pluged in the back. I rarely use the dongle on the move.

• 398 mho900.2@gmail.com // Jul 10, 2009 at 10:45 pm

  Hello Royston, the main (and probably only) thing is that it works for you, so good.

  As for bluetooth.

  Bluetooth wirelessly connects the PC to the fone-modem for purposes of internet broadband (“broad”?)

  What is true is if bluetooth is simultaneously used for other connections, eg file transfers etc, internet connection will tend to cut itself off.

  Also, certain types of fone calls will indeed cut off the bluetooth internet connection.

  Perhaps that’s what you refer to by, quote :

  “phone itself will not comunicate with a p.c if the bluetooth is running”

  As you have discovered, a dongle fixed to a PC is cute, but not very useful. The dongle must be re-positionable to be useful.

  I wonder, Royston, what would happen if it rains.

  Your field trails are taking place in the summer, and you can leave your windows / doors open.

  So anyway, its either your plastic sheath is really waterproof, or you’d have to bring it indoors and lose your connection.

• 399 Royston // Jul 11, 2009 at 11:23 am

  mho900.2, Well I live in wales! we don’t get much rain in this part of the world glug, glug. It is pouring down right now and everything is fine. I am a proffessional handyman and one of my skills is plumbing, so I can assure you that the unit is water proof ( silicone is wonderful stuff) I have stuck a small magnet on the outside of the unit and that in turn attatches itself to a screw and washer that I have fixed to the wall. So I can dismount the unit as easy as anything. Sounds like a lot of bother but there is no other way to get broadband at my location. I now have a better connection speed than I did via cable at my old address. Besides that, it was a challenge that I could not resist. anyone sitting at my p.c would never know that I have cowboy’d the net conection. I left it conected all last night and it was still fine this morning and when I did a speed check it was showing 2.477 kbs. So I say don’t just give up on the dongle, There are ways of making it work. But the three network are a load of s~~t.

• 400 /M // Jul 15, 2009 at 2:59 pm

  hello Royston

  your system must now have been bedding in for sometime, and you must be pleased.

  Talk about technological advancement of the production possibility frontier.

  Or put simply, how to get more out of a system by doing things smarter rather than harder.

  The idea three would recommend this must be a joke however.

  Would you consider patenting your idea?

  Am sure those living in flats will not be able simply to stick something out of their window or to their outside walls, however.

  All the best.

• 401 Royston // Jul 15, 2009 at 3:24 pm

  Well the answer to those living in flats is simple ( high rise) Just atatch the dongle to the window! magnet both sides of the glass ofcourse. I just did it with an upstairs window and it worked fine! On the patent issue. In 1983 I worked out how to send a letter around the world using a short wave transmitter and a zx84. I tried it and I managed to send a short note to someone in alask. It would cost nothing except for the equipment ofcourse. I tried to patent that idea only to be told that I was in fact doing exactly what a fax machine did!! That was invented in 1843 so my idea was a bit late. So I have given up with inventing things for monetery gain.

• 402 Royston // Jul 15, 2009 at 3:25 pm

  To add to above. Television retailers reccomend that you buy an ariel when buying a set. at least they used too. cable has ended that though.

• 403 /M // Jul 15, 2009 at 3:40 pm

  hmm … ok … how about blu-tack for sticking dongles to windows?

  no replies required (!)

• 404 Ming // Jul 15, 2009 at 3:49 pm

  no, actually perhaps not. blu tack does not stick too well to glass.

  nevermind.

• 405 Royston // Jul 15, 2009 at 3:50 pm

  Blue tack is not waterproof. Stick to the magnets. You could blue tack the magnet to the inside of the window though.

• 406 Royston // Jul 19, 2009 at 5:42 pm

  Want a laugh, Just discoverd that the Hutchison 3G web site (three networks website) domain name registrant is goes by the name of… wait for it……… http://www.joker.com. ha ha ha. the joker network, that is a better description of the three network.

• 407 Ming // Jul 20, 2009 at 1:33 pm

  what is less amusing is

  a total collapse in 3′s data network on Friday last.

  3′s mobile website said ” apologies for the occasional network problem over the last week”.

  No mention of the total collapse on Friday.

  And do these apologies mean I get a refund of all unused data allowance that was duly, prompted expired on time.

  After all, the network was not duly and promptly working, but the data allowance expired in that manner.

• 408 Royston // Jul 20, 2009 at 2:30 pm

  Hello Ming, Would you beleive it, Only yesterday I emailed them to ask precisley that!! I can not beleive the coincedence. Anyway this page is getting longer every day. I will soon need some skuba diving equipment to get to the bottom

• 409 Royston // Jul 20, 2009 at 2:37 pm

  Also by the way, threedongleproblems.co.uk domain name is available for a couple of quid for two years. I am thinking of buying it, I will probebly get thousands of hits a day

• 410 Ming // Jul 21, 2009 at 9:07 am

  Hello Royston, and another “occasional failure”.

  a. Hello Royston. I believe the coincidence you mention, but I don’t believe you will get a worthwhile answer.

  Quotas will expire regardless of whether the network is working or not, or whether 3 has given you a free notebook or not.

  To be fair, 3 only provided a free notebook, and never actually said the network would work.

  2. Occasional failures. Speaking of which, there is another one of these occasional data network failures happening right now.

  Not that you would know by reading 3′s so-called noticeboard.

  Make no mistake, another data failure.

  Can only expect more.

  What is 3′s definition of “occasional failure” anyway?

  Its a rhetorical question.

• 411 Royston // Jul 22, 2009 at 12:10 pm

  Well I am fed up know. I saw 3network t.v advert that said that I could even surf the net with a dongle when sitting on a park bench! So last night under cover of darkness, I sneeked into our pocal park, Uprooted a nice bench and carried it all the way home. I placed it in my office, sat on it and fired up my laptop and inserted the dongle. Guess what! No network!! The bloody liers. Anyone want a nice park bench ?

• 412 Ming // Jul 24, 2009 at 3:58 pm

  Not minding the park bench for a moment, 3 is providing a lot of drop outs and erratic connections again around 1650hrs.

  Just so that you know, rather than having to dig far down into 3′s noticeboard at the end of the week to find out about “ocassional interruptions” and their “apologies”.

• 413 Debbie // Jul 24, 2009 at 5:09 pm

  Success !!!!

  After having no net for weeks now I threw the head up and went marching into my local 3 store and complained….a lot. Having spent 6 quid of my precious calltime credit to talk to a total numpty at the call centre who went through all the usuals, I could take no more. I’ve been fobbed off by “our service is improving” for 13 months now and I was seeing blood…not your usual bog standard red…
  Well today,( having been refunded the cost of my 3 modem and last top-up) I finally have internet and can I just say it is fast, it is seamless it is amazing it is Vodafone and I am over the moon. I’ve never had internet like it !!!!

  5/5 for vodafone from me !!!!

• 414 Royston // Jul 24, 2009 at 8:06 pm

  Mine has been dropping connection ebery five mins for three days solid. This is my forth attempt to do this post!

• 415 Debbie // Jul 24, 2009 at 8:17 pm

  Royston that was kind of the last straw for me, I managed to open 4 emails yesterday in 37 minutes.
  I hope you get it sorted soon . I don’t know if you’re contract or payg, but I highly recommend vodafone for your next dongle.

• 416 Ming // Jul 24, 2009 at 11:46 pm

  I was wondering, Royston, how pay-as-you-go dongle users manage to take advantage of the 500 free SMSes that now come with £15 top ups.

  Presumably you’d need a fone to do SMSes?

  I don’t really know the answer to this, as I’ve never implemented this dongle idea.

  There might be specialised SMS software for this. I might even have this software, but have never investigated this.

  –

  Additionally, if you don’t have a landline, you might consider a second/backup mobile internet provider.

  If you have a (3G) mobile fone, your email will probably work fine over wap even when the mobile internet doesn’t. (never tire of saying this)

  –

• 417 Royston // Jul 25, 2009 at 10:59 am

  Hello Ming, When I launch the dongle connect program I get a dialouge box that opens up on the desktop. That has a facility to send text’s. I did it once but my account was debited by 10p. I don’t get free text’s as I am on contract ( yep another mug) But I have to say that texting from the p.c is much easier than from the mobile phone key pad.

• 418 Ming // Jul 25, 2009 at 1:30 pm

  Hello Royston

  Free texts, payasyougo, bluetooth
  —————————

  3 mobile broadband grinds to a halt during the day. This is “occasional”, according to 3.

  But when it does happen, it seems to regularly enough around 0200hrs.

  What I do, is to grab emails from mobile wap, and reply by text, or reply via mobile wap email.

  Its easier, as you say, to do texting from a PC.

  What happens as a workround is : messages are composed on a PC and bluetoothed to the mobile fone for texting or dispatch via WAP email.

  –

  Amazingly, I managed to get a cheap “surplus store” notebook that seemed destined for 3 users. This was last year (2008) around October.

  The price was cheap, but the notebook is fine. Its a Toshiba R400 Tablet Notebook.

  The software seems to be all geared up for 3 mobile internet.

  Have not tried this out yet, but : 3 payasyougo now offers free texts (500 for £15 top up)

  To see whether texts directly from PC are free.

  Can’t see why it shouldn’t be. Certainly free from fone.

  Its just an experiment.

  –

  The point of this posting is just to show how to get round the “not-so ocassional” 3 failures, using free texts, bluetooth and WAP email using Payasyougo.

  Don’t know what’s up for grabs viz contract users, cos I won’t sign a contract.

  There’s no point in having a huge contract data allowance that can’t be used, or is a Distraction-To-Use becos of the service interruptions.

  –

  Please bear in mind, gmail and other normal emails are not secure, and certainly not encrypted and are certainly interceptable, and are recorded by the ISP whether you like it or not.

  –

• 419 Linda // Jul 25, 2009 at 3:35 pm

  I’ve just logged onto the 3 Website. I just want to know
  1) How they have various positive comments registered on their website, when you can not leave a comment/complaint on their website.
  2) And how after topping up 15/20 mins ago, I know receive an email from 3Alerts to say that my Account is very low, and I need to top up, but when I tried to reply to the email that it says that that email address does not exist???

• 420 /M // Jul 27, 2009 at 10:48 pm

  I see Debbie has been dragged thru multiple times the “check your settings” routine which I warned about. Should anyone else find themselves on the verge of getting sucked into this this nonsense, bear in mind it will be possible to have your settings checked ONCE, and for the customer (dis)service to note that it has been checked. Refer them to this note the each and every subsequent time they attempt to (re) check your already-checked settings. They will no doubt want to recheck your settings, but of course, you don’t need to hear anything about it, and let them get straight to the standby-sop about “service is getting better”.

  –

  Linda’s post prompted me to look into this my3. ok, what’s interesting? Nothing really, except spotted something about “why you reception” is bad. Another sop. Eg, perhaps you live behind a hill, in a valley, or that the antenna is not tall enough, or your walls are too thick etc.

  The point is none of the above apply. From one single spot, I find the connectivity speed going up and down, down and up, through-out the day.

  This is an erratic service – the bottom line.

  Its hard to tell this as you are absorbing all the glossy advertising, but new users and prospective buyers will find out what the bottom line is soon enough.

  The bottom line.
  –

• 421 Peter // Jul 29, 2009 at 11:15 pm

  A friend who makes regular visits to Milton Keynes suddenly found that there was no signal on Sunday or Monday when she had used it normally (ie with regular dropouts) on previous visits.

  I think I will follow the advice above and take a punt on an active usb cable.

• 422 Ming // Jul 30, 2009 at 5:22 pm

  Three’s mobile internet is moving erratically again.

  At 1537hrs, there was a BIG wipeout, where everything seemed fail.

  Thereafter, the service has been moving up and down all afternoon.

  Erratic performance.

  Not related to living in a valley etc.

• 423 Royston // Jul 30, 2009 at 7:00 pm

  Hey Peter, You won’t look back. The cable has saved the day for me and I know of at least three other people that have now got themselves a cable and they cant beleive the difference it has made. Good luck

• 424 chris holden // Aug 2, 2009 at 1:16 am

  my son is in alder hey hospital (L12) so decided to try out mobile broadband on my laptop to try pass the time when im staying in my room and its sooooo frustrating … it says im in a ‘very good’ connection area but its total garbage ..the most annoying thing i think is when your looking at a webpage(if you lucky for it to even load up !) and the ’3 home page’ pops up and takes you off the webpage(has happened 5times since ive started typing this ! .. if your connection is as bad as mine this is really annoying as it happens nearly every minute .. i justed looked at my usage and it says ”average upload 14kbps” im on PAYG and im sooo glad im not on a contract because i would be even more annoyed .. i was under the impression that ”3” was the best but if it is god only knows how bad the other networks are ..

• 425 Royston // Aug 2, 2009 at 7:56 am

  Chris, Don’t use the three conection software. Shut that and use the connect to program in windows. IE: run-connec to-1.3g and stick with that. Upload speed is not same as down. I get 2.77 meg down but only 28kbs up! Try that and see what happens.

• 426 Ming // Aug 2, 2009 at 12:16 pm

  Hello Chris. The sad news for you and your 3G usage is :

  if the solution royston proposed, namely to treat the 3 internet connection as an ordinary modem connection (ie to not connect via 3′s software, but to connect via the computer’s modem, using *99# and leaving the username and password fields blank) does not work,

  and if you are not able to connect, or if it doesn’t work well, with your equipment positioned near some window,

  then the conclusion is your 3 connection not likely to work well where you are.

  I’ve been in similar situations before, where this mobile broadband is really nothing of the sort. Which is why I said in earlier posts I never carry 3 mobile broadband around with any confidence nor any expectation it would actually work when I’m out and about. Its just a sort of tombola whether it would work or not.

  You are better off not trying further, thereby preserving your time and sanity. You’d be better off overall.

  In circumstances you are in, WAP is only thing I have consistently found would work.

  You say 3 mobile broadband is supposed to be “the best”. I wonder where you got that impression from? Not from the idea that 3 coverage is “the widest” I hope. These two concepts are not the same thing(!)

• 427 Ming // Aug 3, 2009 at 2:34 pm

  Very slow, verging on useless, connection speed at 1455hrs today Monday.

  No change to position of buildings, elevation (ie moutains and hills), height of fone masts as far as I know.

• 428 Drew // Aug 3, 2009 at 9:01 pm

  After the recent “upgrade ” on the local antenna’s, my signal strenght dropped from 3-4 bar’s to 1-2 .I have looked at all the help file’s and contacted 3 used two pc’s,two modem’s and absolutely nothing!Trying to get any sense out of 3 is not happening.Any speed over 0.3mbps is ok their helpline told me,i’d be happy with that,most of the time i get 0.1!How do i remove the “internet explorer cannot display this page” image that is etched on my retiner’s

• 429 Tris // Aug 3, 2009 at 9:40 pm

  Biggest problem ive found is the actual 3connect software (especially since a recent update). It is constantly loosing the signal and disconnecting me or just saying “no service”.

  And up untill recently i was really regretting the 24month contract as my average speed was around 128k and the best id seen was just under 2mbps (at 4am!) and at worst was just 2kbps.

  However i recently stumbled across a solution, and its as simple as using windows vista`s own connection manager instead of 3connect!

  Just insert the dongle as normal, when 3connect pops up, just close the darn thing. Click on your network icon (to the left of the clock) and goto “connect or disconnect”, select your mobile broadband connection (mines called 1.3g) and hit connect. Simple as that.

  Since using this method to connect ive never been disconnected while browsing (even when 3connect is telling me theres no signal/service)
  And my speeds now frequently hit the full 3.6mbps, and even at peak times rarely drop below 2.4mbps.

  Im not sure if the 3connect software was deliberatly slowing the connection or was just so badly programmed that it just bogged everything down, anyway i hope this will work for others too.

• 430 Dave // Aug 3, 2009 at 10:22 pm

  I also binned the 3 connection software about 2 months into my contract and never looked back, windows is so much better at doing its job than that load of junk. My connection is stable using windows as the manager but I still hate 3, the thieving XXX XXX XXX etc etc etc…. Dave

• 431 chris holden // Aug 3, 2009 at 11:45 pm

  Ming and Royston ) thanks for help .. im a total noob when it comes to mobile broadband lol !! for some reason its worked spot on today and i think in a way thats what so frustrating with it all …one minute its great, the next its a pain ..all i want really is consistancy :O) my friend reccommended me ’3′ mobile and before you ask hes not a ’3′ mobile sales rep lol

• 432 Linda // Aug 4, 2009 at 12:43 pm

  Tris, the advice you gave about logging on using the network icon and not the 3 connection software is brilliant. I tried logging on this way to-day, and I can’t believe how much quick it is to open my emails, and do internet searches. Thanks

• 433 Chris // Aug 5, 2009 at 8:19 pm

  I got locked in to a 18 month contract with 3. Even though I an next to the mast I rarely get above 3-400 KBs. Even then it is only for short periods. Just got a pay as you go dongle from O2. The difference in speed is staggering and sustained. My signal strength is very low but it still zips along. Now I now just how good mobile broadband can be. A never going to be a 3 customer again!

• 434 Royston // Aug 5, 2009 at 8:32 pm

  Sometimes being too close to a mast can have a negative effect. ( it goes over your head). Happy surfing.

• 435 Slang // Aug 6, 2009 at 7:59 am

  I have been a 3 mobile broadband customer for 2 years. I live in east London. The speed has decreased over the last 12 months to a point where it is basically impossible to even connect to the internet. Customer support denies that there are any problems with the speed, even though it is obvious that the network cannot handle the number of licenses they have sold. I have tried to terminate my contract but have been told I need to call on a specific day in September (which is a Sunday!). 3 has not provided me with Terms and Conditions stating this fact, and they won’t send me the Terms and Condition. Don’t touch their services.

• 436 ant // Aug 6, 2009 at 1:30 pm

  is it possible to unlock the 3 mobile dongle(huawei e220) i want to try 02 pay as you go.

• 437 /m // Aug 6, 2009 at 3:50 pm

  I’ve noted a disruption to the three mobile-internet (best to stop calling it broadband) at 1615hrs. The service disconnected itself.

  Till now 1649hrs, the service is just about limping along – connecting slowly, connected to some sites, and not connecting to other sites.

  –

  Judging from some of the above posts, some users must have been vomitting bloody and emitting bile on account of the 3 mobile-so-called- internet

• 438 /m // Aug 7, 2009 at 4:01 pm

  hello Ant, having had a quick spin around the internet, it appears E220 unlocking is possible.

  have never done this myself, as I don’t have a dongle.

  –

  what’s for today?

  1518hrs saw 3 mobile internet disconnect itself.

  Thereafter, till now 1701hrs, very slow connection.

• 439 /M // Aug 18, 2009 at 10:39 pm

  hello. that’s funny, why hasn’t three’s mobile internet been working properly all day Tuesday?

  a. Is it becos a building is now suddenly blocking the path? No.

  b. Is it the computer settings? No.

  c. Any other excuses Customer Service / Tech support can dream up to explain this? Yes [ in all probability there should be lots of excuses ]

  d. Would technical support be able to do anything? No.

  e. Should I call Customer Services and waste my time? No.

  f. Should I spend my downtime looking thru three’s glossy advertisment and so-called “widest UK mobile network coverage”? No.

  So why has three’s mobile internet been working improperly all day?

  Why is it providing the most erratic of connections today?

• 440 Mark // Aug 20, 2009 at 10:15 pm

  Took my slippered feet off the desk this morning (I was bored and nobody had brought me a cup of tea) and tested 3 broaband in my office in central Manchester using a friend’s SIM card. Got consistent readings on speedtest.net of 3.5-3.8 MB download speed. This was using a mobile phone as a modem and not a dongle. Same old story at home though with an erratic 3 signal so quite glad I gave them the heave-ho. Think it’s possibly more to do with the topography of the area of Manchester I live in though to be fair.

• 441 /M // Aug 20, 2009 at 10:49 pm

  I was in Manchester several years ago. Was on a bus trundling along what I can only recall was the west side (some sort of regeneration, rebuilding) of the city. The WAP went crazy and refused to connect. Ah! Perhaps the bus, which was full, was moving too fast, and the cell network could not keep up. OK, well, maybe I was in a valley!

  Later on in the day, I was then near what I recall was a hospital, and right along the main road. Ah! The WAP, let alone the mobile internet, went crazy again and would not connect.

  Ah! When I called 3 customer non-service, I was told, ah! the signal was good, and there was no reason for these observations. I must have been having magic mushrooms. Would I like to have my settings checked?

  What was the postcode? Ah! I didn’t know. Oh well! So, if only I’d known the precise postcode, all these problems would have gone away?

  –

  Actually, I don’t think its just an issue of three’s radio signals. I actually think three’s servers are unreliable as well.

• 442 steve // Aug 23, 2009 at 10:08 pm

  the service is worse now than ever, can’t stay connected for more than a couple of minutes and between 6pm and 11pm its hardly worth bothering. I’ve made a complaint to ofcom and I intend to write to bbc watchdog if its still on so I’m going to try and collect signatures from people who have been ripped off by 3. if anyone is interested in signing a complain petition thingy please let me know. just reply here or mail me at threesucks@googlemail.com.

  Thanks

• 443 M // Aug 24, 2009 at 2:15 pm

  yeah, I’d sign this.

  please provide indication where I sign at some later point?

• 444 steve // Aug 24, 2009 at 5:21 pm

  Hi M, if you send me a mail to threesucks@googlemail.com I’ll make sure you get your name on the list

• 445 /M // Aug 24, 2009 at 11:18 pm

  Hello Steve. Have sent email to
  threesucks@googlemail.com as per request / petition.

  –

  The jalopy that can and can’t

  A funny thing happened yesterday.

  The 3 mobile internet got faster and faster. And faster and faster.

  Alright, so then around 1715hrs, it bumped me off, and wouldn’t function properly in the usual way it doesn’t function properly.

  Ie, not able to connect to URLs, slow data, etc. All the stuff that has already been listed in the above comments.

  Or, the jalopy that can, can’t and can’t, then can and can’t and can’t.

  Call it cardiac arrest.

• 446 Linda // Aug 25, 2009 at 5:40 pm

  You are not going to believe this, but I have just received a survey request for 3.

  If anybody would like to leave their suggestions or comments the number is 02030941503. Not sure how long the line is open.

• 447 Dave // Aug 25, 2009 at 8:29 pm

  Why was my post deleted with all the complaint emails on it? I thought that was the whole point of this site????????

• 448 Dean // Aug 25, 2009 at 8:33 pm

  We have spam filters running on this site Dave. If a comment contains a large number of links or email addresses then it won’t get posted.

• 449 Dave // Aug 25, 2009 at 8:35 pm

  Ah ok thanks for letting me know, well in that case, here is the normal link to a site containing a great deal of phone numbers and email addresses of the head of “three” and other good people to complain too
  http://www.talk3g.co.uk/showthread.php?t=3996

  Give them hell… I am.

  Dave

• 450 Ming // Aug 25, 2009 at 8:40 pm

  Steve, thanks for your email.

  a. is there a more public way of signing your petition other than emailing you. An online petition might get you more responses. Anyway …

  b. Regards 3′s misselling. You want to take action regards 3′s misselling, but I see 3 has made NO COMMENT WHATSOEVER about system reliability. (ie inability to connect).

  This is something users and potential users need to know. Namely, I can see NO ASSURANCE FROM THREE ABOUT THEIR system reliability.

  However, there is some advertising regards system speed.

  This matter can be more fully developed later, but this is something users (and potential users) need to know.

  c. Regardless, I of course agree user experience is quite poor. Feels as tho you are using an experimental system.

  –

  Dave, If it helps, you can shorten your URLs via :

  http://www.tinyurl.com

  I’m not sure what Dean is talking about when he refers to many links and spam, but tinyurl will help shorten your URL if that helps.

• 451 Dean // Aug 25, 2009 at 9:42 pm

  Hi Ming,
  It’s not so much the length of the URL that is the problem, although tinyurl is a good tool for making links more readable.

  The spam filter is more interested on the number of links in a comment. If you tried to post a comment containing links to 10+ different web sites then that comment will get blocked.

  By the way, when I first wrote this review I didn’t expect it to get so many comments. I’m glad this site has provided a vehicle for people to vent their anger and share ideas. Thanks for all the contributions from everyone so far. Keep them coming.

• 452 Royston // Aug 31, 2009 at 8:23 pm

  Just been disconected 17 times in 35mins. What a load of tosh the three network is. Update make that 18. I am really fed up now oh my god make that 19times I am sick as a parrot I dont beleive it make that 20 disconcections in a row Now this is mad!!! 21 11 Oh for f***s sake I am going to bed.

• 453 /M // Aug 31, 2009 at 8:54 pm

  Hello Royston

  What you describe seems to be a server issue, not a reception issue. But it could be either or both.

  If you know of the “ping” software, you might give it a go.

  However, I don’t know what issue that would solve, other then satisfying your curiousity.

  You may need a backup wireless internet facility.

  Best,

• 454 Royston // Sep 1, 2009 at 8:42 pm

  Hi Ming, My reception is first class. I get online for a few mins and next thing BAM, The page can not be loaded. I disconect and then reconect and again up pops google waiting for my search put in a few choice keywords and BAM page can not be loaded. It seems to be fine tonight as I have managed to stay alive for about three mins so far I think that since they have been telling the world that they can use skype for free the system has become to overloaded an just can’t cope. Never mind only anothe 11 months to go now and then I can tell them to stick their contract where the sun don’t shine.

• 455 /M // Sep 2, 2009 at 7:09 am

  Hello Royston

  what you describe is what I’ve experienced too.

  Basically, and as I’ve said before, its not just the reception that is a problem for some, but also three’s servers are just not to up scratch too and this affects all users.

  (!) Potential three users please note this problem(!)

  In case you (and others?) needed to know, if you “pinged” the external site (eg bloomberg), and find the route-trace ending up at three servers and going no further, you know where the problem is. Namely, at three’s servers.

  OK, ping and trace-route strictly speaking are different programs, but you get what I mean hopefully.

  But what does this solve? It only tells you something you already know about three’s servers.

  Best get a backup connection?

  Best,

• 456 Royston // Sep 8, 2009 at 1:03 pm

  hello Ming, Been disconected 37 times this morrning. Desperatly trying to update my website but no chance of that. I now have to goto my local library to update my site from there. I have had enough of three now. I am going to write to them demanding compensation.

• 457 Royston // Sep 8, 2009 at 2:07 pm

  Stop the press. Would you beleive it? I lost my temper and uninstalled the three network dongle drivers software ,the lot. Decided to give it one last try, reinstalled everything and would you beleive it? The bloody thing is working great now. been online for 45mins with no problems at all!!! Its rainging outside and so I really was not looking forward to going all the way to the local library. I wonder how long the damed thing will behave this time!

• 458 Dave // Sep 8, 2009 at 4:22 pm

  It will last so long as it is raining – well that was my experience, rain = service was ok, sun = service was terrible

• 459 /M // Sep 8, 2009 at 4:25 pm

  actually, that’s the reverse of my experience.

  rain = bad reception

  sun = not as bad as rain-reception.

  That’s also what the 3 customer service said in passing, after they wittering on for 6 minutes about my setttings.

  How does one draw mickey mouses?

• 460 Dave // Sep 8, 2009 at 4:30 pm

  Well if it is any help at all, I have found the best reception in my home is up high in the corner of the room pointing the face of the dongle toward the window – Also very important to improve everything is in the settings change I posted much higher up, I will try to find it. – Basically configure your dongle using windows connection manager and never use the 3 software again

• 461 /M // Sep 8, 2009 at 4:32 pm

  Dave is a good fengshui practioner and water diviner.

  lol

• 462 Dave // Sep 8, 2009 at 4:37 pm

  haha – Ok I found my post it goes like this…

  ————-

  Dissconnect, Open network Connections folder.

  right click the dialup connection, select properties and UNTICK all hardware features in the first tab, next tab (options) choose PPP settings and tick ALL those boxes, Last choose Networking tab and double click the TCP/IP 4 protocol, select advanced, and tick “Use IP Header compression”, press ok on all windows until they are all closed, now connect EVERYTIME via the shortcut you made of the dial up connection, if you use 3`s software again, it will reset everything you just did and you will have to do it again, using this method you will see much better results with your connection

  ——-

  I have now been using 3 for around 3 yrs and this is 100% THE best way to get the most out of your crappy service provider

• 463 Royston // Sep 8, 2009 at 5:07 pm

  Well I just done all that tweeking and I now have download=2093 kbps (262kB/s) upload =350 kbps (43.8kB/s)

  I just hope it stays that way rain or shine

• 464 /M // Sep 8, 2009 at 5:11 pm

  Hello Royston

  I just can’t help feeling you might consider a back-up (wireless?) internet.

  This time you got away with discovering something new in the form of “removing three drivers”,

  but what happens if next time you get a heart attack.

  Thats not very worth-while methinks, so, perhaps get a backup wireless service would be just as well.

  All internet providers are not liable for “consequential damages” and three is no exception.

• 465 Royston // Sep 8, 2009 at 5:11 pm

  And here is my proof: http://www.mybroadbandspeed.co.uk/results/04948876.png

• 466 Dave // Sep 8, 2009 at 5:11 pm

  It will still fluctuate, but the speeds and reliability will remain considerably higher than when you were using the 3 software, just remember not to ever connect using their connection manager again or you have to tweak again !

  I only ever use their software after a format, just to create the connection and then close it for good, unless of course you get the dreaded flashing green light saying lost signal and then just re-register to get the signal back and close it again, using windows always to connect.

  It honestly is criminal what they are doing and the way they have their software setup.

• 467 Royston // Sep 8, 2009 at 5:16 pm

  Thanks Dave. I will copy,paste and save the tweek advice.

• 468 Royston // Sep 8, 2009 at 5:20 pm

  hello Ming, Well maybe a heart atack won’t be as distressing as spending hours trying to upload a few megs via a three dongle it was a bit like trying to nailing jelly to a wall!

• 469 moon // Sep 8, 2009 at 6:59 pm

  i had it for 2 years. very very worst epuipment not helped me at anyways. i tried to cancel within the peace of mind limit but the reply was raised my bp. thrown it in a bin for 2 years and paid £15 a month for 2 years.Now it going to end next month so i started to give 30 days notice to end the contract. i never seen such a torture given by the 3 team they not willing to end.i called 13 times in a hour ,everytime in certain time the connection go off. the signal is very good in my side i think they did this purposefully.they asking so many stupid questions. i never seen this type of team in any firm. its very hard time with 3.i wont recomend to anyone even if they given any service for free of cost.

• 470 /M // Sep 8, 2009 at 7:10 pm

  1. “everytime in certain time the connection go off”

  exactly what I found too. The connection mysteriously terminates. exactly what I found too.

  2. “signal is very good in my side i think they did this purposefully.”

  Exactly what I think too. Deliberately disconnecting the customer wishing to terminate.

  3. “they asking so many stupid questions.”

  Exactly what I found too. Too many stupid questions that solve nothing. Too many.

  The customer (service???) is non-existent, is not good, is quite bad, and you really shouldn’t have anything to do with them.

  Three’s customer (service??) is not good at fixing things, wastes your time and money into the bargain.

  Definitely avoid the entire shebang if possible .

• 471 Ming // Sep 9, 2009 at 2:53 am

  Hello Royston

  If time and business is important to you, it would do to have at least one alternative connection.

  All this blood pressure is not worth it.

  One day some time, as Dave said, the connection will come down again.

• 472 Dave // Sep 9, 2009 at 6:54 am

  I think 3 are in the future going to be responsible for some early graves, stress kills, this much stress, 30 times a day, every single day, for 3 years MUST be doing some long term damage.

• 473 /M // Sep 9, 2009 at 4:54 pm

  Hello Dave.

  I too was wondering about you – regards whether you had a backup system, or whether “three” is a backup.

  Am wondering that’s all -but not am actually seeking an answer.

• 474 Dave // Sep 9, 2009 at 5:00 pm

  So do I just say hello I wonder….. lol !

  Well reqardless of whether you want an answer or not I have to now !!

  3 is my sole ISP at the moment, due to the money BT wants to install a phone line in my home, shouldnt be for much longer as im moving to my permanant new house soon which already has a line in… phfewwf ! lol

  So yea over the past 3 yrs or so, I have kinda learned a few…. hmm…. tricks if you want.. to get a semi stable connection.

• 475 /M // Sep 9, 2009 at 5:18 pm

  Hello Dave.

  a. With any luck, (sometimes luck is yours to make) this mobile experience would assist you the next time in going “off piste”, or when traipsing in the countryside.

  b. you might install a BT line. BT internet??? Crickey!! If so, please also get encrypted email, and TOR if you can (!!)

• 476 David Sanderson // Sep 13, 2009 at 12:19 pm

  I notice 3 customer service is still as bad as ever…….

• 477 Mark // Sep 14, 2009 at 8:05 pm

  I have just spent the best part of 5 hours reading all these comments.
  Over the last 18 months I have experienced the same problems as every other person on this forum. I have certainly been stressed by the constant loss of connection and losing 10 minutes of typing by e mail after pressing the send button then spending another 10 re writing it again. 3 kep telling me to adjust my settings or that new cells will soon become active in my area or my modem is faulty – all tosh.

  BBC2′s Top Gear programme do the ‘JD Power surveys to see which cars REALLY are good and which are not, think something similar would be good for Mobile Broadband instead of the public falsely believing what 3 say which is ‘ No 1 Mobile Broadband Provider.

• 478 Dean // Sep 15, 2009 at 10:06 am

  Spammers are always developing new techniques to try and bypass spam filters Dave. Just ignore the messages. I’ve deleted your comment and the spam comment.

• 479 Dave // Sep 15, 2009 at 11:08 am

  Thanks! Anyway.. back on subject… Who thinks 3 sucks ??? Hands Up !!! lol

• 480 /M // Sep 15, 2009 at 6:10 pm

  I wanted to say. According to my notes – at 0015hrs and 0157hrs, three internet slowed to a crawl.

  In my experience, this means the slow-down sometime after 2300hrs, and lasted for some time, certainly till 0200hrs or beyond.

  Virtually unusable. Quite, quite dumpable service.

  This post records the slowdown of 3 internet to unusable speeds.

  Three mobile broadband internet is not getting good reviews, and has not been getting them for a long time now. I see this from the mile high roll of posts on here, now numbering about 500.

• 481 /M // Sep 15, 2009 at 6:25 pm

  Mark asked about the spurious rating of three as the “No 1 mobile provider” in Post 477.

  This concern was raised in Post 89, and never been properly answered.

  The organisation that provided this rating, which is PCW if I recall correctly, has some explaining to do.

  I cannot find The criteria by which this “award” was made, nor any evidence of PCW’s independent testing of 3′s various claims.

  This brings PCW into disrepute.

• 482 Royston // Sep 15, 2009 at 8:55 pm

  I would like to state that three mobile broadband is the best mobile broadband service in the uk. Provided you live exactly 500 meters away from a mast and you are situated exactly one meter above the highest point of the mast. that way you can expect 56kbs download and 10 kbs upload. they also help releive eye strain by disconnecting us from the network every two mins in order to stop us staring at the screen for hours on end waiting for a page to load. They also help to make sure that our local post offices stay in business as by slowing our bandwidth the way that they do, It is often quicker to send a letter than to send an Email. They are so thoughtful , safeguarding thousands of post mens jobs. Also on those cold winter nights the dongle is a life saver, Just place it in your shirt pocket, the heat from it has saved me from hyperthermia on many a cold night. They are such a great company. Oh well its time for me to go down to the doctors now, My medication has allmost run out, If I dont get some more they will put me back in that horrid home again.

• 483 /M // Sep 16, 2009 at 2:50 am

  at 1826hrs 15th Oct 2009 Tue, I observed another breakdown of 3 mobile internet.

  did not bother hanging around after that to find out how long the outage lasted for.

  But the internet was not working.

  Was slow and unusable most of the afternoon, if I recall correctly.

• 484 /M // Sep 16, 2009 at 3:02 am

  sorry, got the month incorrect in the above post.

  should be Sep, and not Oct.

  Rest of the data is correct.

  Apologies.

• 485 adam r // Sep 16, 2009 at 3:36 pm

  i absolutly hate the bastards when i joined up i was inside a turbo area but now after constantly losing my connection (abit like right now) i have to restart it all the time,i have gone from suddenly being in aturbo area to a none turbo area with even moving house how magic!! thanks for that 3 thanks for moving the masks or whatever shit you have done don`t mind me i really don`t mind having a completly shit intermittant connection because im such a nice bloke so don`t worry about it jsy fk me about and rip me off yeh bastards…p.s fking die of cancer..

• 486 adam r // Sep 16, 2009 at 3:40 pm

  if i can prevent just one person from signing up with these shitheads i will have succeded..

• 487 Royston // Sep 16, 2009 at 3:48 pm

  hello Adam, So I take it they are off you christmas card list then?

• 488 /M // Sep 16, 2009 at 5:29 pm

  Hello Royston

  If there’s one aspect of your repeater configuration via your USB that’s good, is that you have managed to place that USB transmitter device at a distance from you.

  Referring to what Adam said about cancer, pushing these transmitter devices further and further away from your physical person is a very good idea; Adam’s post reminded me to say.

  Adam’s post just reiterated the point already made in this post — DO NOT REGARD 3′s estimation of your coverage without lots-of-pinches-of-salt.

• 489 Mark // Sep 17, 2009 at 8:28 pm

  Went down to the ’3′ store again today and stated I wanted my contract to end as they are not providing the service that I had signed up for . I told them a contract was an agreement between them and me , ie I pay, they provide what I signed up for. They went on to talk rubbish yet again saying there is a very good signal in my area etc etc. I obviously was getting nowhere with these fraudsters so I mentioned to them I was going to contact Watchdog along with details of this forum website, they said they were sorry to hear that. Ha. I think though Watchdog should be made aware of ’3′s behaviour. Damn gone off again.

• 490 Royston // Sep 17, 2009 at 11:26 pm

  Well I just did a check and would you beleive it, the domain name http://www.threenetworkmobile.co.uk is up for grabs! Me thinks that for a couple of quid I could do some serious damage. I just happen to have a hosting account that has plenty of room, I am very, very good at S.E.O and I am sure I could get the site to number one on most search engines in no time at all. I am going to give it some serious thought and I will have a chat to my friend who just happens to be a barristor. I am sure she could guide me with what I could and could not post on the pages. This could be fun.

• 491 Pat // Sep 18, 2009 at 5:32 am

  I see 3 won only one award at the latest ISP glad handing awards t,other night, for “best value mobile broadband” Who is the best value for? 3, i think, because they charge for a service they dont deliver so that has to be good value for them as a company, Regards

• 492 /M // Sep 18, 2009 at 8:12 am

  Hello Mark et cie,

  You may be interested to know of the following developments (article refers).

  Having 3 say to you “oh, sorry to hear about it” shouldn’t have to put you off, and isn’t good enough if you wish to take this further.

  The long and short versions of the URL, as well as a description of where to find the article are below.

  1. long URL :

  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/consumertips/household-bills/6197180/Mobile-firms-face-new-fines-for-mis-selling.html

  2. Short URL :

  http://tinyurl.com/3-miselling

  3. Find it yourself :

  see telegraph.co.uk, personal finance section, for article entitled :

  “Mobile firms face new fines for mis-selling”

• 493 /M // Sep 18, 2009 at 8:18 am

  I should also report, yesterday, 17 Sep 2009, Thursday, 1831hrs, I find the 3 mobile internet not working again.

  Impossibly slow.

  Not usable.

  Didn’t hang around to find out how long it lasted for beyond spending around 20 minutes doing 1 email. (remarkable!) and a few most-basic-of-internet-matters.

  Not worth my time acting as an unpaid 3 tester. Suffice for me to note this much – it was not of the intermittant breakdown kind, judging from experience.

  Not related to things 3 frequently trotts out, eg “are you in a valley/tall building/ are your settings OK etc”. Totally unrelated.

  I may end the month again with a record amount of unused data quota.

  What’s the point of having generous data / cheap data if you can’t use it or waste a lot of your time using it?

  ans : not much.

  so, as for an award for cheapest mobile internet? – not worth the paper its printed on.

• 494 Alvaro // Sep 18, 2009 at 8:43 pm

  I bought one dongle at carphone in Yeovil. I paid 100 pounds for enough gigas until I die. On starting to use it the speed was 10 kbs. A few weeks later i moved to dowtown Leicester. It would not do any 1 kbs if it connected at all, and it would disconnect any time. Went to the shop. An Indian girl staff could not care less, she shrugged her shoulders and nearly laughed at me. Another member of staff told me it could be defective. Repair time 2 weeks, could not wait. Bought another one, another 25 pounds to the 100. It did not do more than 0.5 kbs. It would not connect. Rang Three to complaint. I was passed 3 times to different persons and had to explain the case one time after the other. When i was to be passed to the 4th person and asked me to tell me what it was about i put down the telephone. This is a con company and should be closed by the regulatory authorities. We need to file formal complaints to Official Bodies.

• 495 Mark // Sep 18, 2009 at 10:23 pm

  Thanks for that info M .

  I put together an article and sent it off to Watchdog yesterday after hearing their flippant comments. Not sure whether they will take the case on as they apparently get thousands of e mails but certainly worth a shot.

  I think something must be wrong – I have been online for 30 minutes without been cut off ! I have been watching the X Files earlier though.

  I will report any developments.

• 496 Dave // Sep 19, 2009 at 9:47 am

  Alvaro – Why did you get a 3 dongle? Infact why is anyone still buying their shite? Surely it is well known enough now to go search the web for sites like this before buying mobile broadband, when I got my 3 dongle, I had never even heard of mobile broadband before so just dived in with both feet after I found out I could have “Broadband” with no phone line…. hmmm..

• 497 /M // Sep 19, 2009 at 10:29 pm

  Failure reports – 3 mobile internet.

  Have observed, in west london, the following failures :

  a. Failure 3 mobile internet : 18 Sep 2009, Friday 1905hrs on wards. Very slow, unreliable, and unusable connection.

  I think the data unreliability lasted all evening thereafter.

  b. Failure 3 mobile internet : 19 Sep 2009, Sat 1049hrs on wards. 0 data flow, and unusable connection

  c. 3 mobile internet failure : 19 Sep 2009, Friday 1116hrs onwards. Very slow, unreliable, and unusable connection.

  The above are observed failures in 3 mobile internet “service”.

  Failures.

• 498 /M // Sep 19, 2009 at 11:49 pm

  The 3 PR machine seems to have tripped itself up.

  According to the 3′s PR flack :

  a. “Ofcom says 3 has the widest 3G coverage”.

  b. “3 is a purpose designed 3G network”

  and yet, given the above, 3 has only managed to win (so-called) the “cheapest internet service” award?

  If the so-called-cheapest-internet-award is the best somebody with the supposedly [widest coverage] and [purpose built 3G network] can win, I mean … what hope is there?

  I hadn’t realised how broken the model is.

• 499 Pat // Sep 20, 2009 at 8:21 am

  Ming, I suppose it depends on what your definition of service is, also, for something to be broken, it implies it worked in the first place !

• 500 Alvaro // Sep 20, 2009 at 7:12 pm

  You Pat ask me?
  What my definition of service is? There is not a definition of MINE. Said definition is absolute and per se and does not depend on colours. Service is the provision of means to be able to accomplish a task such as being able to log on to an email, read documents, send documents and download or upload standard data, not necessarily heavy data. Thus, 3 is rubbish and does not provide anything close in miles to what a minimum service would be.

• 501 Dave // Sep 20, 2009 at 7:23 pm

  In a Nutshell:

  I have had Faster, More reliable connections through a dialup 14.4k Modem than I have through 3 and their apparently broadband able dongle

• 502 Ming // Sep 21, 2009 at 5:14 am

  Hello Pat and Alvaro

  Rather than getting into some metaphysical discussion, much better to state and repeat plainly -

  if you value your business, time and sanity, DO NOT use Three mobile internet.

  If you intend to use it anyway, make sure you know what you are doing, and above all, ensure you can return ur device within 3 days or so.

  That’s all really. The various blog posts testify to that.

  As I said, Three’s PR flaks have tripped up badly by stating how good the “service” is, but this bluff has been called.

  See above posts for indications why so.

• 503 Pat // Sep 21, 2009 at 7:00 am

  Dear Alvaro, my post was a reply to Mings previous posts 497/498, So i really dont have the foggiest why you are getting on your high horse over a post that had nowt to do with yours, enlighten me, Regards

• 504 Pat // Sep 30, 2009 at 5:19 pm

  Hello,hello, is there anybody there??

• 505 Peter // Oct 6, 2009 at 12:08 pm

  With the dongle connected to an active USB extension lead and placed by a window I generally surf with little problem these days although I do still get the odd dropped connection.

  Not brilliant and I wouldn’t rely on it for home working but for some basic surfing and emailing it seems to be coping. The active USB lead really made a difference.

• 506 Andy // Oct 10, 2009 at 3:40 pm

  I am extrememly disappointed with this product and service. It cost 69 for the dongle and 15 pounds per month for the contract. I am cancelling the contract immediately.

  I live in central London. With the dongle fully charged, in optimal conditions, I consistently get a few hundred bytes per second with about 50% packet loss. In short, the service is abysmal!! It is not even close to dial-up speed, in the evenings it is unusable.

  I can’t beleieve that we have such poor choices for internet in the UK, a supposedly technlogical country. The 5bn that the carries bid for 3G licenses has obviously been squandered. There is no workable 3G infrastructure and the services offered by Huchingson/3 are absolutely terrible.

• 507 Ming // Oct 10, 2009 at 3:52 pm

  Well Andy, you can but try the service, and reject it when you don’t find it up to scratch.

  There must be better ways to spend your money afterall.

  Good luck in your returns.

• 508 Linda deFreitas // Oct 16, 2009 at 4:42 pm

  Well, 3 have added a new reason for not being able to log on or maintain an internet link. I phoned as I was able to log onto the internet after a couple of tries, but it only last for about 15 min, after which it was down graded to Limited connection, which was then quickly down graded to Local connection only, I was told that it was not their fault but Microsoft Vista. I explained that I had Microsoft Vista on this computer for over 6 months, and it was only in the last couple of days I had experienced this problem. It seems that this problem had only come to light recently!!! I wonder if the next reason will be that the earth is not spinning at the right speed. Perhaps the newest joke alt to be What do you suggest your enemy do? Sign up for 3 mobile Broadband!

• 509 Pat // Oct 16, 2009 at 5:51 pm

  While we are on the subject of untruths, excuses and downright lies, i was told that my netbook was “probably not powerful enough, and wouldnt have enough RAM” and “i must have been using it incorrectly” by a not started shaving yet “assistant.” How i laughed as i pummelled him to the floor. Regards to all

• 510 Ming // Oct 16, 2009 at 6:16 pm

  hello Linda

  Please be assured, this is not an issue with Vista. That is a ludicrous matter to suggest. As you correctly suspected, in your post.

  I find exactly the same thing going on my computers.

  ps : I don’t work for Microsoft.

  So Linda, you are right.

• 511 Linda deFreitas // Oct 16, 2009 at 7:34 pm

  Hi Ming

  Thanks.

  I don’t know about you but I try to avoid phoning the 3 “NO” Help Centre unless I really have to, my heart rate, blood pressure and phone bill can’t take it. It just infuriates me that you spend an hour on the phone while they witter on about, what the weather is like etc, and come up with excuses why it’s not their fault, but we the customer is no better off.

  I heard on the grapevine that 3 are suing one of the other providers for their advert. The saying “People in glass house……” comes to mind

• 512 Ming // Oct 16, 2009 at 11:02 pm

  Hello again Linda.

  I haven’t called the so-called “3 customer service” for a long time. Not worth my while. A lot of blather and bullshit of the kind you describe.

  But if you feel the need to call them, please note its free to do so from a 3 chip.

  3 chips are available free of charge. If you have a suitable fone available, your 333 calls are free.

  So you avoid the privilege of paying to call to listen to bullshit.

  Assuming you wish to call them.

• 513 mark // Oct 18, 2009 at 8:30 pm

  i have been on the 15 gig for £15 a month contract for mabye 5 months no, up until 2 weeks ago has been great no unwanted disconnections and able to play my games,

  but have not stayed on for more then 4 minutes

  have dc’d countless times reading these comments

• 514 Pat // Oct 19, 2009 at 8:04 am

  Dear Mark, I,after a year of having a six mile round trip just to get any signal at all, began to be able to get the “service” in my own home. This was about mid August and things went swimmingly for about 6 weeks, download speeds of up to 3meg, but as important, it was stable. Now, like you and countless others, i have dropped connections all the time, day and night. This started about 2 weeks or so ago and now it is a lottery just loading e-mails. I travel a lot with my job and continue to get a good service in other parts of the country (Lancs, Staffs being examples) so i know its not the hardware. That golden six weeks or so when i could receive a proper service at home was a revelation, and now it seems like its going tits up again. Two questions for you all: How can you calculate how much is left on your contract? is it from the initial start (july 08) or from your last data allowance increase. Secondly, if a new mast was installed nearby, is it possible that the “power” was turned down after its initial startup and commisioning? Regards to all

• 515 Peter // Oct 19, 2009 at 11:29 am

  I think I should take back my post about using an active usb lead. Well in part anyway.

  At my mother’s yesterday and had taken the laptop so that I could order a grocery delivery for her. Despite having a signal and hanging the dongle out of the window I couldn’t stay connected for more than 30 seconds at a time.

  Previous day I was away from home and managed some perfectly normal, if slightly slow, browsing.

• 516 /M // Oct 19, 2009 at 12:08 pm

  So, I suppose one can only say – “I told you so”.

  Not very pleasant to say this, but, then again, I did tell you so.

  Please consider also whether three’s servers are up to the job. As have constantly said — this is not just a question of 3′s signal quality.

  OK now, have you guys decided to move to another ISP, or perhaps, to pay 3 in an irregular manner?

  Somebody had a question for three. To which one can only note — its possible to call three (free of charge from a 3 chip, which is itself free of charge), or to send them an email to find out.

• 517 Pat // Oct 19, 2009 at 5:54 pm

  Yes dear Ming, but who do you think i will get a more truthful answer from? The good people on this forum, or the toe the company line (lie) at three? If i can find out when my time is up, i can look around for another ISP. I will shortly be moving house so a clean start, as it were, would be nice. Regards to all

• 518 mark // Oct 19, 2009 at 6:53 pm

  i just cant wait fr this contract to end so i can say bye the three

• 519 /M // Oct 20, 2009 at 6:05 am

  Hello Pat, your question pertains.

  I think you’d get a more accurate and enforceable answer if you ask three about these contract matters.

  Just let them know you are recording your fone conversations (of course, DO actually record it), be prepared to call them twice (or more than once, at any rate) to verify any information, tell them that you will submit this information to Ofcom if necessary, then circle the date in your diary if appropriate.

  And, call from a 3 chip. Its free.

  Probably wise to prepare for a lot of nonsense and subterfuge (what used to, and may still, be known as “spanish practises”) eg disconnected lines, barrages of irrelevant information and questions etc, when you attempt to “drop the subscription”.

  In any case, the latest date you can drop your subscription may be some anniversary of your data increase, and the earliest would be that of when you first took out the contract.

  So the parameters are not totally unknown, one would presume. Plans can be made accordingly.

  The weekend is 4 days away, so its there to spoil with a call to three.

  If you don’t have time to get a free sim chip via post and all that palava, it may be possible to get a 99p one at supersavers. Maybe superdrug may have something for you to0; not too sure about that tho.

  For all you know, you could actually use free mobile skype for a lifetime, ha ha.

  There we go then.

• 520 K // Nov 30, 2009 at 5:41 am

  I got a 3 Dongol, installed it, topped it up with 30 quid, went on youtube and after 5 mins, it spent all the money

  absolute ripoff

• 521 /M // Nov 30, 2009 at 1:26 pm

  Perhaps you should convert your 30 quid to a “bundle” of data quote before going on YOUTUBE, K?

• 522 /M // Nov 30, 2009 at 1:27 pm

  Perhaps you should convert your 30 quid to a “bundle” of data quota before going on YOUTUBE, K?

  30 quid of credit used directly without first converting it into data-quota might go too quickly.

• 523 ant // Dec 6, 2009 at 6:15 pm

  i’d just like to warn people when ending their contracts with 3. i had the 7gb package £15 a month, rang up said i wanted it ending and nothing you will say to me will make me change my mind.
  “ok” said the man,” contract will end in one months time you will not need to pay this month we will take payment in a months time”
  i thought this was a bit odd but was glad to be rid of 3 for good.
  imagine my surprise when i got my final bill and they’d put two months usage into one bill, hoping i would go over the 7gb limit, which luckily i didn’t but only by about 30-40mb. simply because i didn’t use it for the last three weeks or so of the contract, imagine the bill you’d get at 10p per mb for going over.

  very sly very very sly indeed.

• 524 Ming // Dec 7, 2009 at 10:27 pm

  you must have had a shock of your life, Ant.

  But good you didn’t get slugged in the face by that final flying piece of mud you mentioned.

  oh the travails!

• 525 /M // Dec 8, 2009 at 8:35 pm

  Speaking of flying pieces of shite, I just only missed on.

  I got a cold call from somebody asking to speak to me about “my 3 contract”.

  Sadly, I don’t have a 3 contract.

  Contract? What’s that?

  Anyway, I put down the fone. No 3 contracts. Utterly foolish. No where would you see this in 3′s adverts, but NO CONTRACTS is much wiser way to go.

  Couldn’t even conceive of that. A 3 contract? What’s that?(!)

• 526 3 Handy Hints // Dec 8, 2009 at 11:34 pm

  Just a handy hint which I suppose a lot of you are aware about: You can get 3 Mobile Broadband for £5 per month by doing the following:

  1. Get hold of a free 3 SIM card and top it up with £5.
  2. Convert your £5 top up into an ‘internet max’ pay as you go add-on for a month’s use of up to 1GB of data. (you will also receive a free data top up bonus of 150MB which will be used prior to your 1GB limit).
  3. Put your SIM card into a 3 doongle or SIM slot of an embedded 3G PC or use a phone as a modem.
  4. Connect as normal but keep an eye on your useage so you don’t exceed your data limit.

  The worst that can happen is for 3 to disconnect you so you would lose nothing as 3 has already taken your £5 so you could simply get another free 3 SIM. One of the benefits is that you can also use the SIM card for free 3 to 3 calls and you also get a free text allowance.

• 527 /M // Dec 9, 2009 at 12:29 am

  I could be mistaken, but I don’t think the free 150mb allocation will be debited first if you already have already bought an internet allocation.

  At least, that’s what I thot I observed.

  I don’t really know why this is so. Perhaps becos the free 150MB lasts is valid for a longer period, but this is only speculation.

  I believe something similar exists for the calling credit. Ie, the calling credit that expires sooner gets used up first.

• 528 3 Handy Hints // Dec 9, 2009 at 10:40 am

  The 150MB free allowance is used first before any data you’ve paid for. When you log on to the ‘My useage’ page showing your remaining credit and allowances the free allowance will be used first. I checked the terms and conditions which also state that the phone should not be used as a modem to use your internet allowance as broadband (or words to that effect) but I’ve always got away with it. That means 1174 MB of data for £5 amonth if you include the free 150 MB per top up allowance. Pretty good eh ?!

• 529 3 Handy Hints // Dec 15, 2009 at 11:30 pm

  http://www.speedtest.net/result/653797579.png
  Location – East Manchester

• 530 3 Handy Hints // Dec 15, 2009 at 11:43 pm

  The result in comment No 529 above was obtained using a dialup connection I configured in Windows Network and Sharing Centre. If I use 3′s software, or dongle, I only achieve a third of the speeds indicated in my previous post.

• 531 /M // Dec 16, 2009 at 11:19 am

  Good you discovered it “handyhints”!

• 532 3 Handy Hints // Dec 16, 2009 at 11:54 am

  Discovered it quite a while ago but what really surprised me is the stark contrast in speeds by not using 3′s software or hardware etc.

• 533 lonewolfa1 // Dec 16, 2009 at 3:17 pm

  3 mobile broadband rip off see this proof have fun

  google this underneath
  3 to release customers over poor 3g coverage

  its on zednet

• 534 lonewolfa1 // Dec 16, 2009 at 3:18 pm

  before you talk to anyone record your conversations trust me they lie and lie and guess what they lie

• 535 /M // Dec 16, 2009 at 5:01 pm

  People learn so fast.

  Recent posters have learnt some lessons from all the 500 posts that have gone before. Everything from record calls to ditching useless connection software 3 supplies.

  So this is excellent as this is progress.

  Yet more people would be tempted this shopping season with “free laptops” with 3 connections.

  Please return them if you find them useless, and please do know how to deal with these customer service people.

  Lessons are all above, albeit in some jumbled up fashion.

• 536 /M // Dec 16, 2009 at 5:26 pm

  Here’s the URL below? -

  http://www.top10-broadband.co.uk/news/2009/12/3_to_release_customers_over_poor_3g_coverage/

  1) read the comments in the article. there are only 2 so far, but interesting.

  2) Note further :

  “, Hugh Davies, director of corporate affairs at the internet service provider, said that where basic web browsing and email cannot be supported, subscribers may be entitled to either a discount or a full contractual release.”

  .. ho ho, it gets better :

  3) “However, he explained that 3 has never advertised its mobile broadband services as offering a full range of web options, having always concentrated on providing basic browsing and email facilities”

  Ho ho. You got it there.

  Has it made the advertising copy? No?

  In which case, make the copy thus below :

  3 doesn’t promise to offer you much.

  Broadband? Not really.

  Anyway, To save yourself trouble, junk it or avoid it.

  Overall review : BAD.

• 537 /M // Dec 16, 2009 at 5:27 pm

  To post the URL again :

  http://www.top10-broadband.co.uk/news/2009/12/3_to_release_customers_over_poor_3g_coverage/

• 538 lonewolfa1 // Dec 18, 2009 at 10:30 pm

  broadband dongle is dial up time to unjunk i believe

• 539 Alvaro // Dec 23, 2009 at 10:58 pm

  LET’S SUE THESE DISHONEST CONS. THEY ARE A NATIONAL SCAM AND THEY ARE PROTECTED BY A CAPITALIST SYSTEM THAT SHOULD HAVE PUT THEM BEHIND BARS FOR MISSELLING BUT THERE THEY ARE, ON THE HIGH STREET RIPPING PEOPLE OFF EVERYDAY.
  I AM GOING TO COPY THESE COMMENTS AND SEND THEM TO THE CUSTOMERS PROTECTION OFFICE

• 540 lonewolfa1 // Dec 24, 2009 at 9:35 am

  my broadband dongle gets 2g coverage and is a 3g device guess what no broadband more 3g lies
  Mr Russell said: “I am delighted that 3 is teaming-up with T-Mobile to deliver this major step forward for the UK mobile market. It is exciting to consider that within a short period of time wherever you can get 2G mobile coverage today you will be able to access the internet at broadband speeds from a 3G mobile device.”
  http://www.hutchison-whampoa.com/upload_docs/2007/12/Telco/1975/1975_eng.htm

• 541 Ming // Dec 24, 2009 at 10:55 am

  don’t let them keep you hanging on for this “thing” to turn up.

  if it don’t suit you, cut the darned connection, and reconnect later if everything turns out to be alright.

• 542 Ming // Dec 24, 2009 at 10:58 am

  ” 2G mobile coverage today you will be able to access the internet at broadband speeds from a 3G mobile device.” said Mr Russell (reportedly)

  Cleverly, again no mention about whether you are assured of downloading or streaming videos?

  So, what are the performance metrics?

  Much better to test this out for yourself with certain knowledge of the returns policies.

• 543 lonewolfa1 // Dec 27, 2009 at 11:12 pm

  more 3g lies say one thing to media and share holders but lie through there back teeth to customers ,spineless and con artists come to mind
  will see them in court

• 544 Ming // Dec 28, 2009 at 2:17 pm

  Hello Handyhints. Your message 528 refers.

  I can confirm I have observed the free data allowance is used up first, as you said.

  I’d initially thot the free data allowance is used only after the paid for quota has been used up. (Msg 527 refers)

  Seasons greetings!

  –

• 545 David Sanderson // Dec 28, 2009 at 6:00 pm

  T Mobile £15 per month, faster and better connection, you can only download or watch videos at certain times if you use up your allowance but you connect every time, are NEVER stopped from browsing, 3 used to rip me off every