How good are 3?

[Doctor Drivel]

This mobile network, 3, who appear to be very cheap. Are they any good? Crap service? Hidden T&Cs?

[Andrew Gabriel]

That would be a good question on uk.telecom.mobile

[David WE Roberts]

Their mobile broadband is better than Virgin.

[Tim Watts]

Where there is service, they are excellent. For me, there is service exactly where I need it - my village and 90% of the route into London on the Hastings train. 5% or so are tunnels and the other 5% of no coverage is at Wadhurst.

When it works the speed is excellent - I have pulled several Mbit/sec both down and up.

Good service - but one caveat: *should* you ever need to ring their bloody Indian call center, then yoyu will have a new definition of crap. That is a fairly common opinion.

My advice is to visit one of their shops and deal with everything on the spot. Their shops are good in that they have a lot of demo devices on show with data SIM cards in and if you want to try something not on show, they will go and get one and shove a SIM in and leave you to play with it for as long as you want.

Not that I've noticed. The "Internet" tethering is a bit confusing.

The shop will tell you you need the "One" plan which is unlimited data in most forms and explicitly allows tethering to any device. In terms of amount of data and tethering, both are very explicity stated as "all you can eat" rather than the vaguer term of "unlimited"; the latter meaning they cut you off when you exceed some unwritten threshold that is made up randomly.

Another option they don't tell you is to get another pay-monthy plan and add an optional extra called "Internet Max" which allows IIRC 2GB/month and tethering.

[Peter Johnson]

I think they have the fastest of the highspeed broadband networks. I use their pay (£2) per day service when I'm away from home, and when my landline bb went off a few weeks ago.

[mogga]

£10 every three months gets me internet and £10 of calls. I find the service appalling here but we're not near a 3 tower or one that works anyway.

for seeing who is near where you live/will use it mostly.

[Doctor Drivel]

So the do not cover all the UK?

[Doctor Drivel]

Which is full of fans of one system or another and defend them to the death. The same with smart phones. Cheaper phones like HTC, Sony, etc are equal to an iphone yet many pay a fortune for no better service or functionality. iphone fans illogically defend the expensive purchase to the hilt.

The best views are from those who care not a jot about such matters and want the service and functionality.

[Tim Watts]

Nobody coveral *all* of the UK - and probably never will.

3 are pretty strong - but it would be worth checking the coverage maps for your places of interest - as well as Ofcom's list of base stations.

On an aside, JANET (the UK educational network) I notice have gone with "3" to provide 3G coverage for JANET customers...

[Doctor Drivel]

All major towns and cities, mways, A roads and most villages. The advantage of a mobile phone is that they are useful if you break down in the middle of nowhere, so top coverage is essential.

[D.M.Chapman]

Indeed. Wouldn't take that as a recommendation about anything other that costs though tbh...

I know 3 people who were on Â3. They all moved elsewhere, one before thei contract was up (as it was less hassle to just pay them off).

When it works, it's great. If you have a problem however...

Personally, wouldn't touch them. Things may have improved however, this was a couple of years back now.

Darren

[Steve Firth]

Too good for the likes of you.

[Doctor Drivel]

How about Chavs who drive Fords?

[Steve Firth]

A figment of your imagination. Which is diseased, like you.

[Doctor Drivel]

OH no. You are a Chav Ford driver. That is a known fact. A you have no shame about this either.