3 as a network...

Stegiles

I was looking at 3's website and they seem good but they're a new network and I was looking to see what they are really like from the people that use them. Any information is kindy appreciated. Thanks

Shredneck

Never judge a book by its cover

kensutz

I'm with them for the past 6 months and no problems here so far. 1 or 2 days with limited coverage but that was due to upgrades.

plonk

I've been with them since august 05 and find them pretty good, warnings though,
you will have to buy a 3 phone
If it breaks or is lost you pay 50 euro and your contract restarts
25 euro to unlock your phone at end of contract
Roaming and sending sms to other countries pretty crap

Positives
Really cheap
Unlimited bb
3 like home in a number of countries
Use half your minutes in uk or ringing uk
Same coverage as vodafone with a better 3g network I think

Edit: CV will come in and add a coulpe more

Urban Weigl

To be quite honest, I would not trust 3 Ireland to run a junkyard, never mind a mobile phone network. They could not even manage to provision my account correctly, and calls kept dropping all over the place as their 3G coverage is not as extensive as Vodafone's in my area.

They recently hired someone from O2, though, so perhaps things will improve. Here's hoping, I know they seem to be doing better in other markets. Also, I have recently been told that they will be at least matching Vodafone's 3G coverage in my area next month.

Sam Vimes

plonk wrote:

I've been with them since august 05 and find them pretty good, warnings though,
you will have to buy a 3 phone
If it breaks or is lost you pay 50 euro and your contract restarts
25 euro to unlock your phone at end of contract
Roaming and sending sms to other countries pretty crap

Positives
Really cheap
Unlimited bb
3 like home in a number of countries
Use half your minutes in uk or ringing uk
Same coverage as vodafone with a better 3g network I think

Edit: CV will come in and add a coulpe more

okelydokely you've covered the main stuff


negatives:
customer care in mumbai who are basically drones and don't seem to know the difference between england and ireland

they won't unlock your phone while in contract. if you request the code, the contract is cancelled and you have to pay the termination fee. this is one of a few ridiculous terms and conditions that make them worse unnecessarily.

very high roaming charges in countries where they don't have a network (if it even works as plonk pointed out)

while you can call most countries you can't text a lot of them and often they only have a connectivity agreement with one network in the country, usually the one that was cheapest to get a deal with rather than the best one (no vodafone in germany for example)

no webtexts <---huge drawback for an AFT user

positives:
cheap but for myself meteor payg is actually a bit cheaper because my calls are mostly to meteor numbers. if you don't call mostly one network they can be a good bit cheaper than the rest.

having said that, their call rate outside the inclusive minutes is 30c so they lose their cheap edge very quickly once you go outside your minutes

plonk is right in saying they have better coverage. they have all of vodafone's 2g coverage and 85% 3g coverage compared to vodafone's 70%.

3 like home as plonk mentioned. in countries that have 3 networks you can use your phone at no extra cost but this is more than outweighed by their charges in other countries.

very good data add-ons, even on pre pay. the minimum is €5.99 for 100MB. the same on meteor would cost €2000. however there's no pay as you use option. you have to get the €5.99 add on or nothing


lots of good stuff on their web portal like sports clips and news and movie reviews etc. some of its free and some not

Stegiles

Thank you so much for all your information. They don't seem so good anymore to be quite honest. I am tied to my father's Vodafone account at the moment but he's considering a move to o2. Oh well, I guess I'll just go with him. Thanks once again for all the info

plonk

Personally If I wasnt on 3 bill pay the only other network I would even consider is Meteor and in that I would go PAYG anytime(this is a ridiculously cheap tariff and with free meteor to meteor texts or aft it works out cheaper again).

The reason im not with meteor (even though most of my mates are) is that they dont have a great selection of phones, and they arent 3g.

Im very happy with 3, they make the odd mistake( maybe more for other people) I dont go abroad much and when I do I just get a PAYG sim on the network which has cheapest roaming in that given country.

With 3 I can ring my bro in the uk and not have to worry about extra charges. Now im paying 35euro for 200 mins and 200 texts but I have to agree with CV in that if you go over the 200 mins your bill can increase very rapidly indeed.

Edit: Also you can pay 4euro for an add on for unlimited calls to other 3 customers and it comes free with the 49 euro package or higher. I got this add on last month and its very handy as I can ring my brother for as long as I want

Minto

plonk wrote:

The reason im not with meteor (even though most of my mates are) is that they dont have a great selection of phones, and they arent 3g.

A guy in the Meteor shop told me that they have gotten a 3g license and they should be introducing phones like the w850i and other quality phones soon, but he wouldn't say just when it would happen. So hopefully good things are to come from meteor.

nick23

Commander Vimes wrote:

negatives:
customer care in mumbai who are basically drones and don't seem to know the difference between england and ireland

they won't unlock your phone while in contract. if you request the code, the contract is cancelled and you have to pay the termination fee. this is one of a few ridiculous terms and conditions that make them worse unnecessarily.

very high roaming charges in countries where they don't have a network (if it even works as plonk pointed out)

while you can call most countries you can't text a lot of them and often they only have a connectivity agreement with one network in the country, usually the one that was cheapest to get a deal with rather than the best one (no vodafone in germany for example)

no webtexts <---huge drawback for an AFT user

These far outweigh any positives that three have. I was with them for a year (recently moved to o2) and it is one of the best decisions i have made in a long time. They are incompetent as a phone network and their customer service is atrocious! If u feel like having constant headaches and have your phone working about half the time please feel free to join three.

But i wouldnt recommend it....

rebel.ranter

The main reason i would not recommend 3 over the other networks is that hey have very few people employed in this country, the other 3 networks have a decent employee presence here. Anyone I know working for 3 is on contract to an outsourced company. I don't know if that holds any weight with you but I thought I'd mention it.

Blaster99

The thing I like about 3 is on the other hand that they don't have a bloated Irish organisation that doesn't do anything that couldn't be done from the parent organisation in the UK. They're also trying a few different things and offer pricing on those different things that is miles cheaper than anyone else.

Vodafone's 3G coverage does indeed seem to be superior.

Bulmers

Minto wrote:

A guy in the Meteor shop told me that they have gotten a 3g license and they should be introducing phones like the w850i and other quality phones soon, but he wouldn't say just when it would happen. So hopefully good things are to come from meteor.

long long way away yet, eircom only accepted the licence 3 months ago and no news on what they are planning to do so you'd be looking at at least 2 yrs before meteor/eircom will go 3g...

rebel.ranter wrote:

The main reason i would not recommend 3 over the other networks is that hey have very few people employed in this country, the other 3 networks have a decent employee presence here. Anyone I know working for 3 is on contract to an outsourced company. I don't know if that holds any weight with you but I thought I'd mention it.

what about their retail set up, that's employing alot of people, their network rollout is oursourced ( BT etc ) but mainly Irish people working on it on contract. Network is controlled from the UK, irish network is more or less extension of UK...most irish operators will soon go down this road anyway, outsourcing is the name of the game in telecoms at the moment.....

Sam Vimes

Blaster99 wrote:

Vodafone's 3G coverage does indeed seem to be superior.

it might seem to be but its not. the figures are 85% vs 70%

Bulmers wrote:

what about their retail set up, that's employing alot of people

they only have 3 or 4 stores. the rest is in 3g, carphone warehouse and xtra vision who'd be employed anyway

Urban Weigl

Commander Vimes wrote:

it might seem to be but its not. the figures are 85% vs 70%

Where I live I have solid to acceptable 3G coverage with Vodafone, but 3 Ireland's 3G coverage here is atrocious. There's either none at all, or calls keep dropping all over the place.

Vodafone also tell me they have 85% 3G coverage now. I don't know if that is true, all I can say is that for me, their 3G coverage is superior. To be fair to 3, they might have better 3G coverage in Donegal compared to Vodafone. But since I am hardly ever in Donegal, it does not help me...

Update: To be entirely fair, I should mention that 3 have told me that they will probably be able to at least match Vodafone's 3G coverage in my area some time in May.

Sam Vimes

Urban Weigl wrote:

Where I live I have solid to acceptable 3G coverage with Vodafone, but 3 Ireland's 3G coverage here is atrocious. There's either none at all, or calls keep dropping all over the place.

every network has its blackspots. in my house i have full 3g coverage from 3 and none from vodafone. what matters is who has the most blackspots

jimmycrackcorm

Urban Weigl wrote:

Where I live I have solid to acceptable 3G coverage with Vodafone, but 3 Ireland's 3G coverage here is atrocious. There's either none at all, or calls keep dropping all over the place.

Vodafone also tell me they have 85% 3G coverage now. I don't know if that is true, all I can say is that for me, their 3G coverage is superior. To be fair to 3, they might have better 3G coverage in Donegal compared to Vodafone. But since I am hardly ever in Donegal, it does not help me...

Update: To be entirely fair, I should mention that 3 have told me that they will probably be able to at least match Vodafone's 3G coverage in my area some time in May.

Where I live I have Three HSDPA. Swings and roundabouts. For me the three broadand add on more than outweighs the disadvantages.

1huge1

plonk wrote:

Personally If I wasnt on 3 bill pay the only other network I would even consider is Meteor and in that I would go PAYG anytime(this is a ridiculously cheap tariff and with free meteor to meteor texts or aft it works out cheaper again).

The reason im not with meteor (even though most of my mates are) is that they dont have a great selection of phones, and they arent 3g.

Im very happy with 3, they make the odd mistake( maybe more for other people) I dont go abroad much and when I do I just get a PAYG sim on the network which has cheapest roaming in that given country.

With 3 I can ring my bro in the uk and not have to worry about extra charges. Now im paying 35euro for 200 mins and 200 texts but I have to agree with CV in that if you go over the 200 mins your bill can increase very rapidly indeed.

Edit: Also you can pay 4euro for an add on for unlimited calls to other 3 customers and it comes free with the 49 euro package or higher. I got this add on last month and its very handy as I can ring my brother for as long as I want

Ya I agree i'd be with meteor pay as you go if it wasnt for 3's bill pay with 3G and range of phones

For the most part i'm very happy with 3

neilled

Various people have stated that they are unhappy with three - l on the other hand am very satisfied with them. I'm on talk 200 anytime - 200 anytime minutes, half of which can be used to call northern ireland and the uk including mobiles. Then theres the ability to receive calls out of minutes for free whilst i'm up north which is dead handy. 29 quid on vodafone gets you half the minutes.....

3G coverage as far as i'm concerned is pretty good as things go in the areas that i've travelled around the country and they certainly have invested in areas that UK networks would never bother in - 3 has coverage in Manorhamilton in Letrim, a town of just under one and a half thousand. My hometown of enniskillen in Co.Fermanagh with a vastly bigger population has no 3g coverage from 3uk, orange, o2, vodafone or t-mobile.

Their mobile internet packages are pretty good as well - €6 gets you 100mb of data. I've a k800 and use opera mini on a daily basis as well as the gmail app and still have plenty of data left. The same amount of data on other networks would cost a small fortune.

Theres lots of other neat little touches as well like "my3" which keep track of useage.

Regarding problems that other people seem to have experienced - it hasn't happened to me.

Downsides? No webtexts, customised phone firmware (then again vodafone are the same and hardly anyone complains) and ridiculous quirks about unlocking contract handsets.

Urban Weigl

It is certainly nice to know that not everyone is having a bad experience with 3. I know people usually tend to only write about a service when there are problems, and keep quiet about it when the service is working as expected. I know I have been guilty of doing that myself in the past.

culabula

neilled wrote:

Various people have stated that they are unhappy with three - l on the other hand am very satisfied with them. I'm on talk 200 anytime - 200 anytime minutes, half of which can be used to call northern ireland and the uk including mobiles. Then theres the ability to receive calls out of minutes for free whilst i'm up north which is dead handy. 29 quid on vodafone gets you half the minutes.....

3G coverage as far as i'm concerned is pretty good as things go in the areas that i've travelled around the country and they certainly have invested in areas that UK networks would never bother in - 3 has coverage in Manorhamilton in Letrim, a town of just under one and a half thousand. My hometown of enniskillen in Co.Fermanagh with a vastly bigger population has no 3g coverage from 3uk, orange, o2, vodafone or t-mobile.

Their mobile internet packages are pretty good as well - €6 gets you 100mb of data. I've a k800 and use opera mini on a daily basis as well as the gmail app and still have plenty of data left. The same amount of data on other networks would cost a small fortune.

Theres lots of other neat little touches as well like "my3" which keep track of useage.

Regarding problems that other people seem to have experienced - it hasn't happened to me.

Downsides? No webtexts, customised phone firmware (then again vodafone are the same and hardly anyone complains) and ridiculous quirks about unlocking contract handsets.

I agree with you -my problems have been almost non-existent and I'm using a 3IRL SIM mainly in Belfast.

I don't follow all of your comments though: there is NO charge to receive calls on either Vodafone Irl or 3 IRL (or O2/Meteor) while roaming in the north or in the UK. Calls received do not come out of your minutes at all -unless I have misread your post.

There is also a suggestion that ALL of your 3 Ireland minutes can now be used to phone the UK, since 3 Like Home was launched. Certainly 100% of data is available where it was once 50% so this is quite possibly accurate; but whether or not it is true and that it is still just 50%, it is certainly preferable to the 3UK offerings which, while pretty good, do not reciprocate with free calls to Ireland.

neilled

Culabula - my understanding from when i was working in o2 that their all ireland package only applied to the north of ireland - not the entire uk which was what i meant to get across. I haven't been on their website in a bit though so this could well have changed. Prior to 3 like home launching i used more than half of my minutes to call the uk but lets keep a lid on it - lest they start enforcing t's and c's!

culabula

neilled wrote:

Culabula - my understanding from when i was working in o2 that their all ireland package only applied to the north of ireland - not the entire uk which was what i meant to get across. I haven't been on their website in a bit though so this could well have changed. Prior to 3 like home launching i used more than half of my minutes to call the uk but lets keep a lid on it - lest they start enforcing t's and c's!

No longer: O2 IRL is now north of Ireland plus the UK: it was business only at first but they had to fall into line with Voodoo when they introduced it via passport.

culabula

Don't think there is any need to keep a lid on 3's minutes to the UK now -it seems to be policy. They did say so in the shop to me and many have said on these forums that it is (possibly) now the case. Looks as though it is.

Urban Weigl

culabula wrote:

No longer: O2 IRL is now north of Ireland plus the UK: it was business only at first but they had to fall into line with Voodoo when they introduced it via passport.

My mother is with O2, and appears to have been billed €0.99 per minute while in the UK recently. Is it possible this ONLY applies to bill customers?

culabula

Urban Weigl wrote:

My mother is with O2, and appears to have been billed €0.99 per minute while in the UK recently. Is it possible this ONLY applies to bill customers?

Quite possible:when you say 0,99€ per minute, do you mean to receive?
It is definitely free to receive when roaming on O2 NI, pre and post-pay.

Wasn't it O2 who had the image of Dublin buses against a London background to hammer home the image of use your phone in the UK just as in Ireland? (or something akin to that)

Urban Weigl

I will double check tomorrow, but I believe it was BOTH receiving and making calls that were billed at €0.99 a minute. That's also the rate that the O2 web site quotes for the United Kingdom for customers on Speakeasy.

neilled

culabula wrote:

Quite possible:when you say 0,99€ per minute, do you mean to receive?
It is definitely free to receive when roaming on O2 NI, pre and post-pay.

Wasn't it O2 who had the image of Dublin buses against a London background to hammer home the image of use your phone in the UK just as in Ireland? (or something akin to that)

That was aimed squarely at business customers when it first came out - though you could be right and they might have recycled the add for use for consumers.

rogue-entity

Just to add my 2c, I have been with 3 since September 2005 and most of the problems I had were when I roamed onto the Vodafone network. Other then that I have never had an issue.

godskitchen

3 as a network?...............

SHOCKING, My sim card went wrong, have a guess how long it took me them to send me out a new one....................FOUR weeks, yes 4 weeks. OK new card...............doesnt work, another week!

This was TWO yes 2 months ago, since then the "Cell" in my area has been down, giving me a connection of about 128K when connected to 3G in my area. The mast is in LOS and very close. Its not three telling me the mast is at fault, its me telling them, as the data card works fine everywhere else there is coverage. The have still to sort the problem.

But by all means go with Three if you like talking to robots in India, but please under no circumstances attempt to ask them questions other than "how much data have i used?" or "when is my next bill coming?" if you do ask them anything other than this they WILL explode and suddenly loose the ability to speak coherent english.

Go with Three if you want no help from their network of shops.

Go with Three is you like being treated as a second class customer who is just a back street branch of their Uk business.

you have been warned!

Just out of interest, does anyone know who looks after Three's network in this country, i have spoken to the data team in the UK and whilst they are helpful they have not been able to help me as yet. I have also been calling the head office in Dublin, of course no one answers the phone.

culabula

godskitchen wrote:

3 as a network?...............

SHOCKING, My sim card went wrong, have a guess how long it took me them to send me out a new one....................FOUR weeks, yes 4 weeks. OK new card...............doesnt work, another week!

This was TWO yes 2 months ago, since then the "Cell" in my area has been down, giving me a connection of about 128K when connected to 3G in my area. The mast is in LOS and very close. Its not three telling me the mast is at fault, its me telling them, as the data card works fine everywhere else there is coverage. The have still to sort the problem.

But by all means go with Three if you like talking to robots in India, but please under no circumstances attempt to ask them questions other than "how much data have i used?" or "when is my next bill coming?" if you do ask them anything other than this they WILL explode and suddenly loose the ability to speak coherent english.

Go with Three if you want no help from their network of shops.

Go with Three is you like being treated as a second class customer who is just a back street branch of their Uk business.

you have been warned!

Just out of interest, does anyone know who looks after Three's network in this country, i have spoken to the data team in the UK and whilst they are helpful they have not been able to help me as yet. I have also been calling the head office in Dublin, of course no one answers the phone.

My replacement 3UK SIM took EIGHT weeks to replace, so 4 ain't so bad!
Basically I would lay the blame for 3's foibles in this country at the door of 3UK who, for the moment, unfortunately run the show.
Having said that I have had first class treatment and help from their shops in this country -a demand from me for a refund was dealt with immediately and the new minus balance was posted on My 3 five minutes later.A RAZR V3XX returned by me was dealt with as quickly as possible and my money was refunded in 48 hours.

However questions like 'how much data' and 'next bill' do not require phoning Mumbai -the answer is on My 3.

As for 'loose the ability to speak coherent English' -ahem!