4G Mobile Router;...”to buy or not to buy, that is the question”.

ianmcleod1963

Just read all this. My in-laws are moving into our new extension and I was reluctant to put in another landline. We're fairly rural and fixed broadband is poor (I get around 4Mb/s, most of my neighbours get around 1.5Mb/s). Also because there's no competition in exchange I pay £41 a month for landline, calls and broadband. Bought a B535 and am currently "testing" it for them before they move in. Running speed test I got 3.4Mb/s on fixed landline and 14Mb/s on Three network. Not spectacular but still 4 times the speed and if I sign up for 24 months can get it for £18 a month. Will keep testing it for a while and report back,

mnbvcxz

If you have the router from three on a trial then good luck, its a cost effective way to get the router for free.

If you own the router outright then try a Vodafone sim to compare the speed. Three are not known as a fast network. Vodafone with offers can be had for around £20 a month for 12 months.

Or smarty will probably to an £18 monthly offer on black friday avoiding a long contract, they use three.

Superdrug also weirdly do unlimited on the three network for £20 a month...

EE are meant to be fast but expensive at £30 a month. O2 have a lower usage allowance I believe.

Good luck.

chiny

Well... curses. I’d been thinking along those lines, drop Virgin for Three, first testing etc. Thanks to the OP for doing just that.

So, is the consensus that Three simply won’t honour their offered deal ? I know telecommunications companies are notoriously tricky but not honouring an offer seems outrageous.

I guess I’ll be having my usual 18 monthly discussion with Virgin “disconnections”. Shame.

Biggus_Dickus

chiny wrote: »

Well... curses. I’d been thinking along those lines, drop Virgin for Three, first testing etc. Thanks to the OP for doing just that.

So, is the consensus that Three simply won’t honour their offered deal ? I know telecommunications companies are notoriously tricky but not honouring an offer seems outrageous.

I guess I’ll be having my usual 18 monthly discussion with Virgin “disconnections”. Shame.

OP here;
It really depends on the ‘Three’ mobile signal quality in your area;...before you make any firm commitment you really must try a ‘Three’ 4G router in your own home if possible,...and for an extended period. Don’t rely on ‘Threes’ mobile phone signal strength maps either;...it may say that you are in a ‘Strong’ signal area but that is of no use whatsoever if your ‘strong’ signal intermittently disappears completely for half an hour at a time.

As I said in my earlier posts my daughter, who lives in a rural part of York, has no problem with her ‘Three’ 4G routers. She has two of them,... one at home and one in her office. She bought them both online direct from the ‘Three’ website, both on 24-month contracts (£21/month unlimited data) but she didn’t go through the ‘cashback’ websites.

However, my experience was very disappointing (I live in Cheshire) ;...the ‘Three’ 4G router was fine (very fast) when the connection was ‘up’ but it suffered far too many complete signal outages,...in essence it became unreliable and useless.

As for telecoms companies being ‘notoriously tricky’?,... well, that’s a given, imho. :mad:

I’ve had a number of different issues with ‘Three’ over the years and almost always found their ‘help’ desk staff to be extremely unhelpful, evasive and on more than one occasion blatantly dishonest,...quite the opposite of what you’d expect a ‘Help’ desk to be.

I eventually managed to extricate myself from my ‘Three’ 4G router contract in just 2 phone calls!,...doesn’t sound too bad does it?;...however, the first call was 86mins and the second call was 46mins.

2hrs 12mins worth of calls to stop ‘Three’ taking money from my account for a service they no longer provided!,...it’s safe to say they didn’t make it easy for me.

I’m not inclined to rush back and buy any ‘Three’ product for a while, that’s for sure. Perhaps I’ve just been unlucky.:(

Back with Virgin B/B now;...I opted for a reduced speed (55Mbps) 18-month deal @ £19/month for 6-mths then £24/month for a further 12-mths,... then £37/month...or renegotiate.

Peter999_2

It's a shame that it never worked out with three.    I had a very similar problem with my three contract in that the price they were trying to charge was way above what I'd signed up for.      I got it resolved by phoning 08000338030, choosing option 1 and then spoke to a scottish person.  They were great and fixed it for me there and then,  not had a problem since.

Croft12

Biggus_Dickus said:

chiny wrote: »

Well... curses. I’d been thinking along those lines, drop Virgin for Three, first testing etc. Thanks to the OP for doing just that.

So, is the consensus that Three simply won’t honour their offered deal ? I know telecommunications companies are notoriously tricky but not honouring an offer seems outrageous.

I guess I’ll be having my usual 18 monthly discussion with Virgin “disconnections”. Shame.

OP here;
It really depends on the ‘Three’ mobile signal quality in your area;...before you make any firm commitment you really must try a ‘Three’ 4G router in your own home if possible,...and for an extended period. Don’t rely on ‘Threes’ mobile phone signal strength maps either;...it may say that you are in a ‘Strong’ signal area but that is of no use whatsoever if your ‘strong’ signal intermittently disappears completely for half an hour at a time.

As I said in my earlier posts my daughter, who lives in a rural part of York, has no problem with her ‘Three’ 4G routers. She has two of them,... one at home and one in her office. She bought them both online direct from the ‘Three’ website, both on 24-month contracts (£21/month unlimited data) but she didn’t go through the ‘cashback’ websites.

However, my experience was very disappointing (I live in Cheshire) ;...the ‘Three’ 4G router was fine (very fast) when the connection was ‘up’ but it suffered far too many complete signal outages,...in essence it became unreliable and useless.

As for telecoms companies being ‘notoriously tricky’?,... well, that’s a given, imho. :mad:

I’ve had a number of different issues with ‘Three’ over the years and almost always found their ‘help’ desk staff to be extremely unhelpful, evasive and on more than one occasion blatantly dishonest,...quite the opposite of what you’d expect a ‘Help’ desk to be.

I eventually managed to extricate myself from my ‘Three’ 4G router contract in just 2 phone calls!,...doesn’t sound too bad does it?;...however, the first call was 86mins and the second call was 46mins.

2hrs 12mins worth of calls to stop ‘Three’ taking money from my account for a service they no longer provided!,...it’s safe to say they didn’t make it easy for me.

I’m not inclined to rush back and buy any ‘Three’ product for a while, that’s for sure. Perhaps I’ve just been unlucky.:(

Back with Virgin B/B now;...I opted for a reduced speed (55Mbps) 18-month deal @ £19/month for 6-mths then £24/month for a further 12-mths,... then £37/month...or renegotiate.

My immediate thought would have been to try an outdoor ariel first. They make a massive difference in some locations and are not that expensive.