X-Series (UK) goes live - pricing announced.

quintron

X-series is live in the UK.
http://www.three.co.uk/xseries/get_x_series/index.omp

Pricing here:
http://www.three.co.uk/xseries/get_x_series/get_it_now.omp

What u all think?
Diff setup over there but how do you think it will translate to prices over here next year?

Creamy Goodness

love the way they say...

it's easy

1. pick your phone
2. pick your price plan
3. pick silver or gold.

you can only pick one phone. :rolleyes:

quintron

guess they haven't quite worked out those *cough* opera issues on the w950i :rolleyes:
in fairness to them though, they are on schedule...
Hope they stick to it over here!

neilled

Its quite hard to know. I'm on the Video Talk and Text 600 for €60 pm which i consider good value for the irish market. And you can use half your mins to call ni or the uk (includes mobilies) but if you compare what you get for €60 over there (it goes an awful lot further)........

Well for existing customers its £5 for silver and £10 for gold so i would say call it €12.50-€15 for the silver and anywhere between €15-€20 for the gold.

quintron

I think €15 for gold would certainly be reasonable. Hope they do a good deal on a slingbox!

Urban Weigl

€7.50 and €15 would make sense (for Silver and Gold respectively). I have noticed that 3's pricing in Austria is significantly more reasonable than their pricing in the UK.

quintron

Didn't see x-series pricing for 3 in Austria...
Regular pricing seems cheaper though..
http://www.drei.at/SelectMenu.wa?seIDM=F0E41F4A-F3E9-4426-A030-14AC743CACE9

Notice that Hong Kong only seem to have have MSN as their x-series offering at the moment.. for once EU gets a technological milestone before they do.
http://xseries.three.com.hk/website/index.shtml

Cabaal

Data transfer is ok in fairness, I mean just how much data are you going to transfer on a mobile, 5k min on skype is pretty good as is 80hours on slingbox

Overall lets hope they keep them similar for Ireland

The small print

We want you to have an enjoyable and unlimited experience of X-Series on 3. But as you’ll understand we need to manage this, so here are some things you should know.
About X-Series Gold and Silver

To use X-Series services, you need to buy an X-Series mobile, sign up to a Pay Monthly price plan, and buy X-Series Gold or Silver – all from 3. You can only use our X-Series services on X-Series mobiles.

If you also buy a Slingbox, you'll need to take X-Series Gold for a minimum of 12 months. Otherwise, X-Series Gold and Silver are for a minimum period of 6 months when bought on connection to 3. Or if bought after connection there's no minimum period. After this they will stay active on your account until you cancel the one you’ve chosen.

If you don’t use your monthly allowance it doesn’t roll over to the next month.
More on X-Series Gold

Mobile access to Orb or Slingbox does not include using your mobile as a modem.

For Orb and Slingbox you’ll need minimum PC software, PC and router specification and broadband at home.

Slingbox and Orb are for personal use only and you mustn’t breach copyright or get around copyright protection.

To watch home TV on your mobile you need to have a TV service that you can legally view.

Slingbox is sold separately and contains a Freeview receiver so you’ll need a TV licence if you haven’t already got one.

You’re responsible for your compliance with all of these terms.
Our fair use policy

We have fair use limits and hope you’ll use your common sense. These limits should be big enough for you to do all the things you want to do. But we’ll get in touch with you if we think you’re using our services unfairly, and especially if you’re abusing them. If we find people are using X-Series above these limits, we’ll review them. Here’s our take on fair use:

* Unlimited data is 1GB per month. Also, your data usage doesn’t include using your mobile as a modem.
* Windows Live Messenger won’t count towards your monthly data fair use limit but has its own limit of 10,000 messages per month.
* Skype on 3 is 5,000 minutes per month. If you go over this you’ll need to wait until the start of the next bill month for the service to resume, however Skype calls can still be received.
* Orb and Slingbox have a total combined limit of 80 hours a month.

Where can I access X-Series?

All X-Series services will work when there’s video coverage on 3’s networks in the UK or overseas and, except for Orb and Sling, will work in our UK standard coverage as well. International roaming voice call charges will apply when making Skype calls from 3's networks overseas.
When you’re online

When using the internet, you can’t use some websites (including adult websites) and some websites aren’t compatible with all mobiles.

Some email accounts might need a premium service upgrade from your supplier.
What else?

Blaster99

Unlimited data is 1GB per month

Would that be unlimited as in limited?

mcguyver

How much dies it cost to use it as a modem with your laptop can you do that?

quintron

mcguyver wrote:

How much dies it cost to use it as a modem with your laptop can you do that?

All reports say no. At least not as part of your unlimited data usage.

mcguyver

Thats prety crap so!

Urban Weigl

Aye, but I think it actually works, it's just against their terms? As long as you don't abuse it and download things off eDonkey.

gunnerfitzy

Just been checking out some of the discussion boards on this topic from the UK. Apparently users over there have been able to use their phone as a modem with x-series although it is against the t&c. I've just finished my contract with 3 and was going to chance companies but I think I'll hold out and see pricings for this when released.

SE handset looks the best of the two. It's probably going to be pricey though.

Would be nice to have a better idea of the release date. I got the usual response from 3 CS - "Keep checking the website" :-(

Urban Weigl

gunnerfitzy, do you happen to have links to these forums? I was Googling for them earlier, but wasn't able to find anything of interest.

gunnerfitzy

Urban Weigl wrote:

gunnerfitzy, do you happen to have links to these forums? I was Googling for them earlier, but wasn't able to find anything of interest.

There are a number of forums on www.3g.co.uk that discuss x-series. This seems to be one of the main ones:


http://www.3g.co.uk/3GForum/showthread.php?t=48617&highlight=x-series

3 CS rang me today to tell me they do not know the launch date in Ireland yet. The guy should have saved the company the price of the call. I suppose I have to give them marks for responding customer queries.

guess what? He told me to "keep checking the website"

Urban Weigl

Blaster99 wrote:

Would that be unlimited as in limited?

In fairness to 3, and I have criticised them often, it is basically "unlimited" for what it was designed for: surfing the web on your mobile and downloading things to your mobile. You would be hard pressed exceeding the limits doing that, I think.

Of course if you break the terms and use it with a laptop, 1GB is definitely nowhere near "unlimited", but it's not being sold for that, so really it is "unlimited" in that you'd be hard pressed to exceed the fair use clauses without actually using it with a laptop, which it wasn't designed for. I don't have anything against anybody breaking that terms, because it's a stupid limit, just remember that the claim of "unlimited" is in the context of a mobile phone. Sorry for rambling on there...

Just spoke to 3 today, they're now saying it will launch in early January in Ireland.

quintron

have to agree with Urban Weigl on 3 "quantifying unlimited". 1GB for mobile webpages and emails (even with sizeable attachments on a regular basis) is a decent offering and under fair use you can go over that occasionally...

I also have been first to criticize three on various shortcomings such as their walled garden, delay in handset releases and apparent unability to unlock nokia phones among other things.

In this very insular irish market, the x-series approach (if priced on a par with uk!) is exactly whats needed to shake up the stagnant, not to mention overly monopolis mobile market here, and reflect what consumers really want in a mobile provider.

Coming late in the game as they did against o2, voda, meteor was always going to be difficult.
Offering a "walled garden" albeit free was not hugely successful introduction, and their limited range of handsets didn't help either.
This new standard should see them capture more of the market and it will be interesting to see what response it elicits from the other providers.

gunnerfitzy

i would like to think it would definitely shake up the market here but i have my doubts. Meteor have told me they will to introduce a combined voice and data plan in the new year using EDGE. It will be interesting if it is competitively priced but i wouldn't imagine it will have anywhere near 1GB of a download limit. I have vodafone data unlimited and am paying €49 for a FUP of 5GB so really somewhere in about €10 for 1GB isn't totally mind-blowing, especially when 3 are restricting you to your mobile in the T&C. But at the very least 3 are trying. Data charges are presently outrageous in Ireland!!!

quintron

gunnerfitzy wrote:

Data charges are presently outrageous in Ireland!!!

agreed! its daylight robbery, and has been going on for too long.
3 will undoubtedly put some heavy media spin on the forthcoming x-series launch, so, while unlimited data plans currently exist from other providers, they don't filter directly to the lowest common denominator, the regular phone user. Thats has to be three's target market ultimately. Buy more tracks from the 3 online music store etc...
It's great for people who use smartphones because it will equate to push email like functionality without the data overheads and business users (I'm sure businesses don't currently make up a large percentage of their market as three don't seem to offer office plans?) will be enticed by a flat rate for their workers... It takes the doubt out of your monthly bill. That alone for a regular user has to be a welcome thought.
Plus the agreements with Yahoo, Skype, Slingbox & Orb among others make this data integration package very appealing to the average user, and users who have never used a mobile data card or who have shyed away from data bundles as they are not value for money or don't fit customers needs etc.
It will certainly be a massive hit in the states where the mobile operators have as bad a reputation there when it comes to mobile data extortionist pricing.
Anyway ranty over.. roll on Jan or Feb or whenever.. just make it soon..

quintron

from the x-series uk blog: furthur clarification of fair use...

"A few weeks have now passed since we announced the X-Series from 3, and a full week since we launched in the UK. So far the response has been overwhelmingly positive for which I really thank you all. Still, some people have been seeing ghosts in the wording of our Fair Use thresholds in our UK offer. So at the risk of sounding like a broken record, let me go over this area one more time.

First of all, it’s fair use, not a cap or a limit. The X-Series is about moving away from the old world of charging per byte, per minute, per message, and entering a new world where it’s free when you use it once you have paid your monthly access fee.

The Fair Use policy is really just about protecting ourselves from the crooks who might seriously abuse what we are offering to the detriment of those using X-Series services fairly.

So what does this mean?

Well, one of my colleagues suggested the best way to describe it is by using an analogy of visiting a friend’s house for dinner. They say to you: “Would you like a drink?” and they point to the drinks cabinet and say, “Help yourself, have whatever drinks you want."

They mean it - have whatever drinks you want, and as many as you want.

However, if they see you starting to put all their bottles in cardboard boxes and loading them into the boot of your car - well, would they think this was covered by their 'Help yourself policy'?

I think not. This is all the X-Series Fair Use policy means.

As another example, we truly believe that a fair user will be hard pressed to use more than 5,000 Skype minutes a month. But imagine they did. Imagine an instance where they had a sick relative in Australia and went way beyond that limit? I would make personally sure that the fair use definition was not invoked to limit their use.

If on the other hand, someone was using Skype on X-Series to run a long distance call centre, well, I’d be equally determined to make sure they were shut down.

That's it. Simple as that. So if you think "Fair Use" is being used unfairly in your case, as always, you know where to find me!

this is also interesting.....

Roaming charges for X-Series?
Tony writes: Hi there, quick questions about the X-Series Gold Package.

1. Is there a roaming charge for internet usage abroad? I know there is a charge for Skype calls but what about 'normal' web browsing?


2. Does Slingbox work from other countries i.e., Hong Kong with 3G coverage? Additional cost?

These answers will determine a new contract next week!

3 UK writes: The services on X-Series Gold (including Slingbox access) will only work when you are in the video coverage areas on 3's networks abroad, including when in Hong Kong.

When on 3's networks you will not incur any roaming charges for using X-Series Gold services (other than Skype). This means no additional charges when using Slingbox, Messenger or surfing the web -- and it all remains free and unlimited (subject to the normal fair use limits).

Currently the only service that attracts roaming charges is Skype to Skype calls where you will pay voice roaming charges.

But watch this space as we are currently looking at the roaming charges for Skype.

fifth

Well, it's a start. But 1GB 'fair use' doesn't necessarily mean 'unlimited'. I hope they don't start plastering this 'unlimited access' all over the place with advertisements as I'll be the first on the phone to their marketing department to complain.

Hope vodafone offer something like this, as I am buying a new phone - not one of those x-series as I don't fancy the handsets - but I would love a flat fee for data usage, as it's barbaric in Ireland the charges we pay at the moment.

(being an n-gage arena user + heavy gprs user for a few years now, I've felt the sting of gprs data charges on more than one occasion.)

Urban Weigl

In fairness funkyflea they make the fair use terms exceedingly clear, and they aren't there to make more money off customers, but rather due to limitations in 3G technology. It's also advertised within the realm of using it on your mobile and not using it as a modem to connect a laptop. Would you really be able to (or indeed want to) watch more than 80 hours of TV and surf over 1GB of web pages on your mobile in a single month?

quintron

was on to 3 yesterday.. they now say "early" jan for x-series release here.. believe it when i see it etc etc..

interestingly the sales rep said they had both the N73 & w950i in stock already but are currently sold out?? sounds like sales gip to me. couldn't give me an upgrade price of course....
be interested to hear what others have been told?

fifth

Urban Weigl wrote:

In fairness funkyflea they make the fair use terms exceedingly clear, and they aren't there to make more money off customers, but rather due to limitations in 3G technology. It's also advertised within the realm of using it on your mobile and not using it as a modem to connect a laptop. Would you really be able to (or indeed want to) watch more than 80 hours of TV and surf over 1GB of web pages on your mobile in a single month?

If that 1GB includes uploading data as well, then yes I would probably breach it.

quintron

a review of the x-series here:
http://digital-lifestyles.info/display_page.asp?section=platforms&id=3961


another update from the xseries uk blog re data roaming...

A lot of people have asked what the situation is re. international data roaming, so this X-Series Q&A addresses this issue.

Nigel writes: What about data roaming to other, non-3, partners? Currently there's none/very little, although I'm *sure* that I managed to get my phone's imap4 client to connect to 3mail and download mail when on the south of France (Orange France) over the summer...

3 UK writes: Regarding your connection in the south of France, there are no non-3 networks overseas that currently support using X-Series services. If for any reason you manage to connect and use data services when overseas then you will be charged our standard international roaming data charges.

However, the good news is you should be able to use the same services you can access in the UK when you use X-Series services on 3's networks abroad. However, as is the case when you are in the UK, we cannot cannot guarantee that 3's networks overseas will permit access to all websites and web applications.

Except for Skype, you will not pay international roaming rates when you use X-Series services on 3's networks abroad. Note that 3Mail is not included in X-Series as it is a different non-web based email service.

god's toy

I would be willing to move from Vodafone to 3 now if it meant I would get the 'upgrade' offer, as the full price is too much IMO. Do you think it would be that easy?

1huge1

I'm on the €25 price plan and got offered a upgrade 2 months ago (still havent used it) its only €20 less than the normal price on my price plan so it isnt no big difference

you wont get an upgrade any other way though
best off starting a new contract or maybe a friend who is on 3 could give you his upgrade and you could get a 3pay sim card...

god's toy

Sorry mate I was talking about the upgrade to get the gold or silver X-series added my tariff not an upgrade for a phone. It's my fault for not making that clear. I feel they are asking for too much just to join up to X-series if don't have an account with them so I'm thinking of joining up now and adding it on later for a much cheaper price.

1huge1

my appologies for not getting that.
I'm going to wait on to see how it goes I was one of the 1st to jump on the 3 bandwagon when they 1st came out and regretted it slightly as they had a lot of glitches so to speak when they 1st set up their network

Ill just wait for the opinions to start flying onto boards