3 (Three) Mobile Broadband USB Review - UK

digp

Definitely worth considering suing them. Not fit for purpose?

Lynsey

Full story over here...

Brilliant, very funny and well written, I was laughing out loud as I read it - thanks for making my day.

Two sadder points;

1 - sadly, what you wrote is probably true.........

....................................................and,

2 - my hubby just took out a "gamble" with this for my son, who lives in, yes you guessed it - South (Bloody) London.

Looks like he may have to "dangle his dongle" out of the window.
I'll pass this on, but God I hope he gets the message right. :eek:

Cheers for the read.

Lynsey

neilwheel

Avoid at all costs!

I took out a contract and started using the service in July. During the first month, the network was out for 7 days. This month so far, in my area, there's been a network failure for 10 out of 19 days. That, by anyone's standards, is appalling delivery.

Do not be swayed by the low cost or special offers; I'm stuck with 17 months of an 18 month contract to run for a service that's an absolute P.O.S!!! The telephone tech support is pathetic; written complaints to Customer Services are ignored, and walk into a 3 Store with a 3 modem in your hand and the staff look like they've just won a night out with Gary Glitter!

FannyHill

I'm sure the mobile BB companies will get their act together.........eventually.

Signing a long contract though sounds scary to me,I wouldn't mind if it was monthly and you could cancel with 30 days notice.

I borrowed a dongle from my brother ( not 3 though )......now that's the way to do it. :j

He's abroad at the moment.

rainsong

:mad:

I am one of the lucky few to be in a high coverage area with full signal. Good news is the modem usually works. Bad news is I'm getting 56k dial-up modem speeds, if i'm lucky.

Have to deal with awful customer support in India, I swear I heard someone chasing a snake out of the office last time I called. Anyone had any luck cancelling mid-contract without a hefty fee?

They are picking up my modem to check it for faults - what a waste of time, why don't they just admit that their service is utter crap?

Avoid 3.:money:

redkitty_3

well i've had enough - about to write a complaint to their head office saying that i've only ever had 56k speeds - at best!- and that it constantly cuts out/disconnects. Technically it isn't 'broadband' and I allegedly live in a high speed area, so i'll argue that it's not fit for purpose and am giving them 14 days to cancel my contract.

wish me luck! :rolleyes:

sysadmin

This guy has managed to speed up his three broadband connection with a firmware upgrade... might be worth checking it out...

here's the link

http://www.xdasite.com/showpost.php?p=13171&postcount=2

bullshine

DO NOT BUY!!!

I HAVE NO ISSUES WITH SIGNAL HOWEVER THE SPEEDS AND RELIABILITY IS ABSOLUTELY AWFUL.

For example, it took me 8 minutes!!!! to load this forum. hardly broadband. My session lasts anywgere between 5 minutes to 20 minutes before disconnecting.

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

mess0804

Another negative from me:

I have the 3 mobile broadband for about 6 months on the 7gb for £25. I have a phone contract from them, but when I took the broadband it wasn't on half price offer for customers as it is now.
It works really bad for me, slow speed, keeps disconecting (and I live in London). I am sick of complaining (they keep me on the phone for about 30-40 minutes each time) and I pay for this.... every time I call the Customer support in India, all they do is check my home postcode (WHY???) and tell me their coverage is great in that area ... than they keep me on the phone and put me to clean my cookies, browser history and so on and check my speed on a website. The last time they agreed that it was too slow and sent the modem to repair. It came back working the same.


Luckly I have a one year contract so I have to wait for another 6 months and pay another £150 for something that doesn't work!

If anyone succeded in getting out of the contract please post!

bikeless

Wished I'd read this forum before signing up for mobile broadband.

Awful service over phone + outright lies in 3 store + dodgy connection in central London = Prolonged Frustration

Some venting:
I moved into a flat without a landline and was reluctant to pay the BT 120 pound connection fee, so 3 seemed to be a good option. I brought proof of identity and address to the store to sign up - should have been a red flag when I walked out and looked at the contract, as the salesperson had mangled my name (in several different ways! Catherine became Chathrine and Cathrine in the contract). As I moved to the UK recently, I was not surprised to be asked for a deposit but salesperson told me the time it's held for was a standard six months. When I mentioned I had signed with O2 for mobile and thought it was only three, he claimed he had just moved from Carphone Warehouse and knew it was six for O2. Lo and behold, my O2 deposit comes back after three months - meanwhile the customer service call centre tells me it's actually 12 months for my contract.

All this came after about 2 hours on the phone when I received my first bill as I was hit for charges for going above the data allowance and being transferred back and forth between billing and the "tech team" assuring me they would walk me through how to manage online usage with different settings and passwords - in the end, the only thing they could offer was to check in at mythree. Then, I received a "confirmation letter" saying that I had a different data allowance than the one I had signed up for.

Honestly, it seems the whole operation is in disarray, the poor minions in the Indian call centre seem to just read off the screen - " and how else can I help you today? Thanks for your call! " after 40 fruitless and frustating minutes. And to top it all off, the connection is patchy, I often have to disconnect and reconnect several times before it works at a half decent speed.