3 is the cheapest, but is it best

sammylou100

Well I went for it! Got a new white iphone 4, which should be with me on Saturday! Thanks for all your help guys!

WhitmoreReans

YESSSS!!! I AM FREE OF THREE!!! Finally, after hours of arguing Three have agreed to terminate my contract. I have, over the years, been with just about all of the major networks and Three are easily the worst that I have ever had to deal with. Despite them saying that 'we can guarantee coverage where you are' they couldn't and this has cost me money in lost work opportunities. I've bought an Orange San Francisco , unlocked it and am using an o2 PAYG until I find a contract I'm happy with. One thing I can say for sure, is that I will never be a customer of Three again, and I certainly won't be going for another 24 month contract. Rubbish network and truly appalling customer services.
p.s., thanks to clkaz for the info.

watcherman

WhitmoreReans wrote: »

Despite them saying that 'we can guarantee coverage where you are' .....

Rubbish network and truly appalling customer services.
p.s., thanks to clkaz for the info.

How did you confirm the coverage? The only way to be sure is to test where you spend time with a PAYG sim, not verbal say so from a network, or by using their coverage checkers.

I am with Three and have no issues where I frequent, the next network you change to may be "rubbish" for me

WelshBluebird

WhitmoreReans wrote: »

Despite them saying that 'we can guarantee coverage where you are' they couldn't

To be fair, that is the same with pretty much all the networks.
Orange, T-Mobile and O2 claim perfect signal where I live. The reality is that on all three, signal is pretty much not existant. Three on the other hand are more accurate, and say that coverage may be a bit dodgy (which is exactly true).

Yolina

I've just ditched Vodafail and gone to 3. So far so good, and I am actually rather pleased with them (well for now anyway).

Signal:
My signal at home is one bar less than on Voda, which was expected as I am closer to the voda mast than the three mast, but calls and data are absolutely fine. I am now also able to use my phone around Canary Wharf - with Voda I was getting a full signal there, but because of "capacity issues" during daytime data was pretty much unusable and calls would often get dropped.

Online account:
Compared to Voda, 3's online account is a pure joy to use 1) it works 2) it's fast 3) the allowance remaining info isn't 2 days behind and it gives data usage (no more downloading into excel and adding up...) 4) downloading a full itemised bill is staightforward

Customer service:
I've called them twice so far (once to port my number and then a second time to enable roaming). Once I got past the irritating but standard "for ... press 1, for ... press 2" menu, my calls were answered immediately and they didn't cut me off I was also pleasantly surprised that the CS assistant actually volunteered useful info, such as when allowances would reset, etc...

So I'll see how things go, but right now I'm much happier with them than with Voda

WhitmoreReans

WelshBluebird wrote: »

To be fair, that is the same with pretty much all the networks.
Orange, T-Mobile and O2 claim perfect signal where I live. The reality is that on all three, signal is pretty much not existant. Three on the other hand are more accurate, and say that coverage may be a bit dodgy (which is exactly true).

Sorry, I should have been a little clearer. This 'guarantee' was in relation to a roaming issue. Since having the Three phone I found that it had no service when abroad, before I went on holiday a few weeks ago I called Three to check that we would have service where we were going to be and they were insistent that I would be able to use the phone whilst abroad. At the time I was expecting calls regarding work (some of which has now gone to other people as they could not contact me) and instead I had absolutely no service. Prior to this I had lost all signal when Three ended their agreement with Orange so it was useless when at home or in the surrounding area. With all of the problems that I have had with Three I found their customer services to be the worst I have ever experienced and I've had the joys of dealing with CS at Megafon (Russian mobile operator) who I though couldn't be beaten for being useless!

littlerat

Well, just joined 3! Best overall deal for my new phone (not cheapest full stop but a LOT of mins/texts/data on their one plan), at home I'm getting 2-3/4 bars (compared to 4 average for orange), but it's picking up 3G very well whereas orange doesn't at home. Getting texts immediately, my old phone didn't but can't say if that was a phone or network issue.

Didn't have any hard-sell at all in the shop either, although obviously I was buying a depend amount plan anyway - in fact he said they did mobile insurance but I could get a better deal elsewhere, so none of the spiel about that. Got a bit of money off a bill too (I never thought about coming home and doing it via their website for cashback, bad moneysaver here!), generally a pleasant experience. *Should* get good signal up my grandparents too as it turns out the mast near them is a Three 3G mast, so fingers crossed!

allan673

elvinag79 wrote: »

In uk network quality wise vodafone is best but its expensive, O2 is good value for money. 3 network is cheap but poor. T mobile and orange are recently merged so their customer can use both network reception. honestly I love to join O2, but 3 network give me cheap contract Because I m loyal customer since 5 years.

i dont agree with this statement, i found vodafones 3g coverage extremely poor in the large area i cover for work. o2 was also poor, orange was slightly better, but 3 is excellent for me.
tbh it all depends on your personal location. whats good for me might not be so good for someone else.

WelshBluebird

TessCrawford wrote: »

The deal I am on with 02 is brilliant- 600mins and 1000 texts each month, £15 rolling month to month contract! Only bad news is that I have to buy the iPhone outright at the beggining, but the money saved over the course outweighs it quite a lot

How much data though? Somehow I doubt it compares to the "all you can eat" with Three.

M1k1e

My experience with '3'.

PAYG
£10 buys me 300 free texts, free calls to other 3 phones, 150Mb internet and a few other incidentals. These last, not for a month, but 3 months and is fine for my use. So, I top up £10 every 3 months.
The top up I sometimes use for the £5 for a month unlimited internet add on. For about £16 to Skype, I get 150 minutes of free calls to standard UK land lines, anytime, for a year. I can't use my mobile to do this directly, but if I plug my mobile into the laptop it becomes a mobile modem enabling me to use the Skype facilities to the full.
So I did away with my BT land line and Internet service provider saving at least £30 a month. Then via 3 mobile and a laptop I get the same thing for at most £5.50 a month and I live in the wilds of Wales!
So to recap; £5.50 a month for free mobile use, unlimited internet, and free calls to UK land lines. Ok, so I'm not a heavy user, but then I never received concessions from BT or my ISP for being a light user. An extra bonus is no cold callers!