3 mobile broadband

fayraz

vertical_fool wrote: »

Quidco appears to pay :

£8for MB1 - 12 month on 1GB or 3GB

£16for MB2- 18/24 month on 1GB or 3GB

£32for MB3- All 7GB

No mention of £55.

Vertical

Your right looks like they have changed it; those options were not there before, I just got credited £55 to my account for this.

michilin27

michilin27 wrote: »

guess wat happened today?? another alert telling that since my last bill i have used over 3372 mb which is over my allowance of 3072 my allowance but when i check on my 3 i still have allownance left??

i dont want to put anyone off- so far i havent been charged anything extra so far and their customer service (apart from this issue) has been second to none


will watch this space!!!

after several phone calls and getting no where, i decided to email customer services themselves regarding the above- here is the reply

> I'm sorry for the inconvenience caused to you due to incorrect usage
> notification sent to you.
>
> I understand that your modem gives you a pop up that you've used all your
> allowance. However, the best way to check your usage is using My3. The
> tracker on the Modem Manager application, doesn't take into account billing
> dates when your monthly allowance is refreshed, therefore it can give an
> inaccurate picture. I'd request you to check your usage from My3 as the
> information updated in real time.
>
> I confirm that the remaining allowance reflecting on My3 is accurate. Your
> current remaining monthly allowance is 1488.397 Mb. Your Price Plan gives
> you 3GB of data allowance every month, which gets refreshed on eighteenth of
> each month. To stop receiving the messages, I'd recommend resetting the
> usage meter on your modem manager. To do this open up the modem manager on
> your computer >> Go to the Main screen >> The Traffic Summary will tell you
> how much data you have used >> under volume statistic click on clear.
>
> This will help however, if you need any further assistance, please call us
> on 08707 330333 (charged at national rate).

at last, an answer that actually makes sense!!v fast reply too- i only sent an email last night and got a reply today!!!

:j :j :j

StaffsSW

I'm on Vodaphone Mobile - both through the phone and via the USB Modem.

The phone connection is £7.50 per month for 120mb - ideal for emails and checking ebay with images disabled, but the USB modem is £30 for 3gig - better for when I am onsite or overnight trips with work etc.

The 2G coverage ispretty infallible, and although slow, it is useable. 3G is noticeabley better and is available pretty much everywhere in built up areas, and 3g broadband is no different to my home connection - when it works..!

I'm more than happy with the customer service levels of Vodaphone, and all UK call centres is a major plus point.

forcedv

Anyone tried the new pay as you go 3 mobile broadband ?

If I get this £10 per month servive, and as long as i don't download stuff, can I stay connected all day for 30 days (just surfing and skype) and remain within the 1Gb usage limit ?

JKB_3

I posted about my troubles with my 3 modem earlier in this thread, so in the interests of fairness I thought I'd better report that it's now working. I've lost track of how long I've owned it, but after what I promised myself would be my last conversation with their helpline[1] it's actually working! It's supposed to seek out the best available signal on its own, but there's a craftily-hidden manual search facility that I hadn't sussed which allowed me to tell it what signal to latch on to. I've now got it running at 3.6Mb/s and it's downloading websites and *everything* If it carries on like this it'll save me about £150/month compared to the cost of using the wireless at Travel Inns.
3, eh? Won't hear a word said against them.

[1]My karma couldn't have stood another one. If it hadn't got sorted
this time I was going to stop the direct debit and see what they did.

FannyHill

I'm still out on this as the reports are mixed and vary quite a bit. I know the 3 mobile in Ireland hasn't been smooth sailing because so many people joined and the service couldn't cope.
I'm always wary of something that gets worse as more people join.

I think eventually once the teething troubles are over it may hopefully eventually work well both in the UK and Ireland.

I would like to hear more reports from UK subscribers.

From what I've read on a 3 mobile BB Irish forum this isn't really a replacement for a fixed BB service it's meant more as an out and about additional service to be used as an extra to your regular BB.

fayraz

forcedv wrote: »

Anyone tried the new pay as you go 3 mobile broadband ?

If I get this £10 per month servive, and as long as i don't download stuff, can I stay connected all day for 30 days (just surfing and skype) and remain within the 1Gb usage limit ?

If you just stick to general web surfing 1GB will be fine but I don't think you will stay in the limit with Skype and also I am not exactly sure it will work with Skype.

Special_Saver2

I got one of these modems from a local 3 shop and it did not work. The modem did absolutely nothing on my computer when I plugged it in (and my computer meets the minimum specifications). On my mother's computer, the software itself without any problems but it kept saying that there was no SIM card in the modem (which there was, I checked the diagram of the installation instructions and I had it in the right way up). I took it back to the shop within 2 days of purchase and they refunded my money without any hassle.

You should also know that the modem is now free with a £10 per month, 24 month contract (was £49.99). If you use quidco too, then that means that you could have 1Gb per month with a free modem for less than £10 per month.

I might consider it again (might ask to swap computers with my mother) but I would definitely buy it from a store in case I get another faulty modem/SIM card. (If you use quidco, you have to order online, so returning a faulty modem or SIM card might be more hassle than the quidco discount is worth.)

bristolian

I've been using this in central Bristol (near Broadmead) since november 2007.

First I failed the credit check. After 3 weeks of going back and forth between 3 and the credit check company (experian) I finally sorted this out (my credit record is spotless) and they posted me the modem. I never found out what the problem was...

My main complaint is that connecting is a real pain. I get best results with the following procedure:

- boot up with modem disconnected
- wait 30 seconds after desktop appears
- plug in modem and wait for USB-device-connected sound
- launch the modem software
- cross fingers
- if it fails disconnect and try again
- if it fails again start over

It often takes 5-10 minutes of this to get connected But once it has connected the first time I can usually disconnect and reconnect without any trouble until I power down the laptop...

I haven't heard of anyone else having this trouble. Any help would be appreciated! This is on a dell inspiron 510m running windows xp.

I use ssh a lot and the connection will die very quickly unless the keepalive
option is turned on. Sending null packets every 10 seconds seems
to keep ssh alive indefinitely (I'm using putty).

One last problem is it often stalls and refuses to load any web pages for anything between a few and 30 seconds. Then suddenly it recovers. Some days this doesn't
happen at all and some days it happens a lot. Ssh and skype never stall so I gather that kind of always-active connection avoids whatever is causing the problem with
loading web pages. A friend thinks it might be possible to fix this by tunneling all traffic through an always-active connection (i.e. an ssh session) on a server somewhere but I haven't looked into this.

On the positive side, once it's connected it stays connected and download speeds
are good enough for me (up to 1.8mbs in practise). Skype is also fine.

I've noticed the allowance reported by my3 is usually higher than expected... I wonder if they increment it by 100MB/day rather than by 3GB at the end of the month...

pauledg

All of you folk who've got the service up and running may count yourselves very lucky. Six weeks into my contract and I still haven't got anything working. Not through lack of effort, I reckon I've been onto customer services, technical support in India and modem support for over 6 hours in total.
Customer support have been obstructive, useless and have done everything in their power to get in the way of progress. Promises are broken, they are programmed to deny any responsibility!
Technical support I found helpful but ultimately unable to find a solution and powerless to persuade customer services to do the necessary.
Modem support made a valiant effort to get the modem my top of the range laptop to communicate but to no avail. After over 2 hours tinkering with settings, drivers and so on they admitted defeat and said the two were just plain incompatible.
After all of this customer services will not accept incompatibility, will not consider the modem might be faulty, will not give me a returns number so I can send the modem for checking, will not allow me to exercise my right under the Sale of Goods Act to receive a refund. I am stuck in a worthless contract with a a modem that crashes the computer as soon as it is plugged in - I've had to do full restores of the system as the modem actually damages the file allocation table and loses vital access to system files.
I can only say to anyone considering 3's service, think again. If it works it is probably good value, if it gives trouble don't expect decent treatment. They'll take your money and leave you high and dry.
Finally, two more gripes. A free phone call to technical support was diverted to modem support and I ended up with £11 charge for a supposedly free call. Second, their map of coverage is nonsense. I am supposed to be in a turbo enabled area, though being on the fringe I would expect some drop in sigmal. But my modem, connected via a friend's laptop and positioned within yards of the transmitter achiever 300-odd kb speed - 3G speed, not turbo. The turbo signal shown on the map was not being transmitted.
I now have three options - take them to court, lose my £360 subscription or buy another computer that will work with the service. Hobson's choice, as even if I take the first option the hassle will continue for months!
Pauledg