3 is the cheapest, but is it best

angelatgraceland

Got the sim out-now I just need someone to lend me a bluetooth 3 phone to send the pics to my pc.

Konamb212

My 3 contract ends on 26th December. (£20p/m 500 Xnetwork minutes 100 texts)
Phone was a refurbished Nokia 6233, which is pretty decent, except the on/off button broke, which apparently is a common fault of this model, and the battery is poor at holding the charge.
The result of the on/off button is that my phone is on all the time, I just trun it to silent if i dont want to hear it. if it powers down at all then when I plug it into the car kit it powers up again, I know this is hassle but I've put up with it the past 3 month - another month wont matter.

anyway coverage is fairly decent in Northern Ireland, and a good point is when travelling to the Irish Republic, provided you get on to 3IRL, your inclusive minutes count as if in UK.

I have contacted customer services a couple of times and whilst a bit hard to understand, any issues I had they resolved fairly smoothly.

My only gripe was yesterday when I called to cancel the contract, giving my 30day notice the Call centre rep spent almost 45mins trying to convince me to renew with "great deals for such a valued and loyal customer" my battery was dying so I ended by telling her I would visit my local 3 shop to check out these "great upgrade offers"
Best they were offering was £25 p/m for 500mins and 1000 texts.

When I got home I finally got speaking to a scottish girl and was able to cancel, she nearly went into the same patter about upgrading , but I cut her short and got it cancelled

lukebunger

Handset:
Nokia N96, Good phone, if a little unstable at the moment

Most commonly used location:
Walsall, West Midlands

Ease and reliability and connection:
I have been on the three network for a little less than a fortnight and thus far, i have to say it's been really very good. The 3g network is still less than perfect, with coverage being, at best hit and miss, however, it is worth remembering that if you don't have 3G coverage, you automatically roll onto Oranges 2G network, which has, in my experience, some of the best coverage of anyone. Basically, it means that you double your chances of having coverage on one of the networks. Of course, if you regularly make video calls or use the 3G network for broadband browsing, that doesn't help you much, but for calling or texting I've found it to be better than all 4 of the other networks. The 3G coverage is more mature than most of the other networks, and about 70% of the time i find myself with at least one bar of 3g coverage (i almost never found 3G on my old orange contract) and when rolling onto the 2g network i have never been without coverage and still get 2.5G edge speeds most of the time when browsing. It's 2 networks for less than the price of 1.

Any other problems:
Customer services are less than helpful at times, and actually speaking to a person can be tricky, but this is true of most networks.

switching from 3g to 2g can lead to dropped data connections, annoying if using services like GPS with traffic updates... doesn't seem to affect calls or switching up from 2g to 3g, though data speeds don't increase without disconnecting from 2g (wap) to 3g service (may be a problem with my phone though).

Annoyingly decided to put a letter in my box telling me my phone would need a firmware update rather than doing the firmware update.

Overall service and rating (out of 10): 9. Seriously, i've never had better coverage

ThrobsBlackHat

I have been with 3 for about two years now.

I came to the end of one contract (18months) and rung up and asked to cancel (not to renew).

They offered me close to double my minutes and double my texts for £7 a month less than the tariff they advertise on their website, and a new nokia phone.

Very happy with them.

I did have a couple of issues with the indian call centre at one point, but now use 01628 765000 (off saynoto0870) to get the glasgow call centre each time.

digitaltoast

ThrobsBlackHat wrote: »

I did have a couple of issues with the indian call centre at one point, but now use 01628 765000 (off saynoto0870) to get the glasgow call centre each time.

Thank you SO much for that number - I've just nearly solved a problem that I had totally given up with the useless Indian call centre. Amazing what can happen when you speak more than 50 words of the same language

ladybolan

Handset:
deal came with a Nokia 6288, phone faulty so had to buy Sony Ericsson k530i

Most commonly used location:
Belfast/Bangor, NI

Ease and reliability and connection:
Up until recently connection in Belfast superb, but over last 2 weeks poor internet access, calls dropped, text messages not sending. Seems to work OK now, after a few badgering calls to customer services. Reception in Bangor always has been poor.

Any other problems:
The usual 3 customer service gripes - rarely veer from the script and don't tend to use a bit of common sense, everything seems to be able to be solved from a strict set of instructions and if these don't solve the problem, well you're at fault. Am eagerly awaiting end of contract.

Overall service and rating (out of 10):
3 (generous)

jamdown

Having called india countless times, i finally sent a complaint by email then 2 recorded letters to Glasgow. Decided to call head office yesterday and told i could cancel both my contracts 1 with 2 months left and the other with 16 months on it.
What a result:j :beer: :money: :T

KTF

PeteHi wrote: »

I just did this and got a good deal. 500 x-net mins or texts, 300 x 3to3 mins and a nokia 6500 slide, for a tenner a month inc vat

This deal was available to new customers for a short time at the end of November/early december thanks to a flaw in the oinline shop. Its a common retention offer which is why it was on their system and processed fine.

I got my K660i using this 'loophole' and no complaints so far. Just waiting for my number from Orange to be moved over. Came with unlimited 3 to 3 minutes as well.

Kellm9

Hi,

Can anyone confirm ?

I thought that the refer a friend cashback was a permanent thing with Three. I was looking under the T&C's and it says that it expired on 30th November 2008. I was hoping to use it when I get my missus a new phone.

Cheers
Kellm9

Sui_Generis

RAF tends to have short expiry dates and then gets offered again though given mobiles are popular at Xmas it may start in January.