Three - worse than dial-up; no cooling off period?

vbt

On Monday I purchased 3's 15GB mobile broadband or 'MiFi' on a 24 month contract. Before hand I'd done a coverage check on their website, and when I bought it they also did another in the shop - it showed as having full coverage. I spent a long time in the shop going through what it would support etc and making sure it would support streaming iPlayer and Spotify etc, as well as software downloads. I was assured that it would.

I connected the device that afternoon and it was was pretty usable and showed flu signal etc. I thought it might speed up after being connected for a while, but when I logged on ago that evening it was unusable; pages wouldn't load, ITV player for example just buffered the whole time I tried to use it and it took me 11 or 12 minutes to get on to the 3 website to find a number for their customer service.

Having spoken to them and explained that the device was unusable during peak times (and pretty poor even during the day) I was told that there was no 'cooling off' or returns period and that I couldn't cancel it. I asked to be put through to a manager, but was told there was "no point" as i'd be told exactly the same thing. After a lot of persuasion I was told I'd receive a call back - a few hours later someone rang me and said the same, and said that they did not do any refunds or returns, and that the device was unlikely to be faulty as it was new. I asked what they expected me to do and the gist of it was that I'd just have to lump it ! :mad:

After further persuasion they promised to call me back within an hour to trouble shoot the problem, that was 6pm last night, it's now 3pm the following day and still no call, despite a further call to remind them at 10am today.

Does anyone know whether this is legal - I thought for all contracts such as this they had to offer a returns/refund policy if the service is not as promised?

Any advice greatly appreciated!

Mark_In_Hampshire

The service is as promised. It's a mobile internet connection with no speed or availability *guarantees* (same as ADSL).

That said, we use it here as our main connection and always get 6Mbps night or day (it can do 11Mbps but our current router can't). iTunes/iPlayer/Spotify etc all work fine and will stream video at the maximum (e.g. YouTube will pick up the 1080p version if there is one by default).

But then we live somewhere rural where not many people use it. Same service in Bishops Stortford last week (admittedly, via my mobile, not dongle) downloaded at 24kbps constantly. Though to be fair I left the 250MB download going and drove home and it fetched the rest on the move which was pretty good.

Problem could be fault, signal strength, contention or a combination.

Point to note: we can get 11Mbps with an E367 modem upstairs in the house outside the window. Downstairs, there is no signal at all. It's that different. The coverage maps show indoor and outdoor availability. Ours shows outdoor only, consistent with the reality.

The MiFi is better than the dongle for reception. Is yours actually connecting as HSPA or HSDPA as shown by the 3 control panel thing? Does it stick on that all the time, or does it drop to GPRS some of the time? Does it drop altogether? What's the signal strength?

Have a look at sitefinder.org.uk and find where the cell is.

Try "that" side of the house, upstairs. Any better? (If so signal might be to blame)

If signal is strong but performance poor it's probably contention. But that's acceptable within contract (sadly). It might get upgraded, it might not. You could move a mile down the road and maybe see 21Mbps from it (unlikely I'll admit, but...) connecting to another cell. So you *can* get up to 21Mbps, but not necessarily in any specific location. (Exactly the same as ADSL)

I had thought that all the 3 stuff comes with a 30 day guarantee precisely because of the random nature of mobile broadband. But I can't find any mention of it on the website

macman

No statutory cooling-off period on in-store sales, only phone or web orders come under the DSR. If the retailer's policy does not offer any cooling off, you are lumbered.
It's up to you to check that you have an adequate 3G signal at the required location before purchasing, the postcode checkers give only a general guide, ad no telcom guaranteees universal mobile coverage.
If the dongle is faulty, or a local mast is down, then of course you are covered.

Buzby

A shame you made such a commitment, 24 months is a heck of a time, but as you could buy the MiFi for £50 and go PAYG, it begs the question why you signed up. The issue of coverage is a bit of a smokescreen, you could have 5 bars and a maximum signal, but if there is high contention (lots of users making data usage) through your base station along with those interconnected to its backhaul service, the resource is rationed.

This will get better (the 4G auctions are supposed to address much of this, and offer speed upgrades), but like ADSL the spped quoted a maximums, and not guaranteed.