3 as a network...

Blaster99

godskitchen wrote:

Just out of interest, does anyone know who looks after Three's network in this country

BT Ireland.

godskitchen

Blaster99 wrote:

BT Ireland.

So any idea whos heads i need to bang together to get the mast in my area fixed? Its amazing that Three cant sort this problem out, its like Ford coming out and telling you they will sell you cars, but if it goes wrong no one can help.

The_Hustler

Heh, they have mobile tv now but nothing anywhere near enticing enough for me to try. A load of westlife ****e and something else.

quintron

and you have to pay to watch it... lets wait and see...

Crumble Froo

sooo......ill take it i cant just buy a 3 sim, so, and alternate between that and my meteor one? (haha, and my o2 webtexts for overseas;) )... my phone is well unblocked, bought it sim free, and it was grand with my o2 sim, my meteor sim, and even my vodafone new zealand sim!!!

culabula

narco wrote:

sooo......ill take it i cant just buy a 3 sim, so, and alternate between that and my meteor one? (haha, and my o2 webtexts for overseas;) )... my phone is well unblocked, bought it sim free, and it was grand with my o2 sim, my meteor sim, and even my vodafone new zealand sim!!!

No, there are no SIM-only deals yet. You have to buy a pre-pay handset to get the SIM -*then* you can...!

trixter

culabula wrote:

No, there are no SIM-only deals yet. You have to buy a pre-pay handset to get the SIM -*then* you can...!

I just got a sony k610i from 3, mostly for the data plan. I got this phone becuase it was the cheapest (99EUR). I got 10EUR instant credit, 10EUR for porting my number to them, added 20 EUR for the "unlimited broadband" on 3pay, got 2EUR in extra credit for putting 20 on, and over the next 8 months I get 10EUR extra for every 10 EUR I put on the phone. That works out over that 8 month span to a free phone. Yes I had to front the money, but not bad.

I have been playing with the internet via bluetooth lately, and I noticed that if I dial *99***2# on my phone it works much better than *99# or *99***1# since the 2nd profile seems to not drop connection after 1 second of idle time. A couple caveats. https URLS are *not* supported by default, infact only HTTP on port 80 is and only via their proxy which modifies the HTML data. Unlimited really means 2GB/month which should be enough for what I want it for.

I am attempting to see if I can do any workarounds to do a VPN or something else that will give me unmolested internet. I currently was trying to do it from another phone, but am about to just connect it to a laptop instead and try that since it will make it faster and easier for me.

Internet data is piped over to the UK and sent via their existing infrastructure, I do not know what kind of backhaul links they have to that infrastructure or how congested it is, although it appears to be ok for now. As they make a larger push and more people get online that way, its likely that its going to become congested and transfer speeds will diminish with a higher contention rate. Time will tell.

Skary

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.

Interesting view Rebel. How do you know all this information?
I hear that they are opening loads of stores this year and I am sure that there are far more people who are permanent that on a contract - why dont you ask the people that you know who are on those contracts to outsourced companies....
What I find amusing is that O2 have half their call centre in India as well, and watch... Vodafone and Meteor will follow suit.... That will make for interesting conversation

godskitchen

Are some of the Three stores not just franchises?

Vodafone wont be moving their call centers to India anytime soon, its a big selling point in the UK right now to advertise "UK call centers only". The UK has had to put up with outsourcing a lot longer than Ireland and the public are now sick of it. They equate it with poor service and from my experience rightly so.

As for Meteor..............nothing would surprise me with them

Random

3 play on having 50 odd stores by the end of the year in Ireland don't they? This may help in terms of customer service - you can pop into the stores and deal with someone face to face ... punch them rather than just hanging up and what not

godskitchen

I have been into two Three stores, Sligo and Galway, neither were helpful or wanted to do anything to help other than if i was after a new contract.

Random

godskitchen wrote:

I have been into two Three stores, Sligo and Galway, neither were helpful or wanted to do anything to help other than if i was after a new contract.

What did you go in for?

godskitchen

ciaranfo wrote:

What did you go in for?

Directions to the Vodafone shop.....................:D

No i went in to see if they could sort me out a new sim, as the one I had was not working, was told as i got it on line they could not help............rubbish, i have had the same problem with T-Mobile in the uk and vodafone here and its been no problem, and if they are not set up to sort this type of problem then they should be.

Second time was to report that the mast in my area was faulty............for which i received looks i can only describe as "What planet are you from?" Problem is still not resolved.

I worked in the largest electrical retail store in the UK (56,000 Sq Ft) for 6 years, two of which were as a duty manager, Threes customer service will see them go under, well at least what i have had the misfortune to come across will.
:rolleyes:
Clowns

Random

Can 3 shops not do SIM replacements? Do you still have to wait for one to come out in the post?

As for the mast fault - I believe Vodafone/O2/Meteor will just instruct you to ring customer care anyway, or just be able to ring them for you - not a lot the retail side can do.

I've heard storys of their phone customer care though, I keep meaning to pop into one of the shops to see if it's passed over to the stores as you suggest

Urban Weigl

godskitchen wrote:

I worked in the largest electrical retail store in the UK (56,000 Sq Ft) for 6 years, two of which were as a duty manager, Threes customer service will see them go under, well at least what i have had the misfortune to come across will.
:rolleyes:
Clowns

I have to agree with you there. Unless 3 get their act together quickly as far as providing competent customer service who can actually solve problems rather than looking at you funny, it is little wonder why they are failing as a network here. 1.7% market share? It really is a joke of a network at the moment, run by clowns it seems.

That being said, I do have high hopes that they will be able to get their act together eventually. It is a question of when, not if. The question is, how much money are they going to burn through before they finally get things sorted? If I were an investor, I would want heads to roll. 3 Ireland are really hurting their investors with their incompetence.

godskitchen

ciaranfo wrote:

As for the mast fault - I believe Vodafone/O2/Meteor will just instruct you to ring customer care anyway, or just be able to ring them for you - not a lot the retail side can do.

Fine but Three's customer service cant do anything either, they don't even know who runs their network here, I had to explain to the robots in India that Ireland was not in the UK, this is unacceptable.

Data Support in the UK are very helpful and do know what they are talking about, but they don't seem to be able to resolve the problem, as for ringing head office, it just rings out and i leave messages, of course no one gets back to be. There has to be someone in the organisation who knows how to sort this problem..............I very much doubt BT Ireland, who look after Three's network here, are doing everything off their own bat!

Urban Weigl wrote:

If I were an investor, I would want heads to roll. 3 Ireland are really hurting their investors with their incompetence.

Spot on!

Blaster99

When I had a problem with a phone number that wouldn't work, the "robot" in India logged a report with engineering and it got sorted. It's fairly likely that they don't deal with reports of coverage problems.

godskitchen

Blaster99 wrote:

When I had a problem with a phone number that wouldn't work, the "robot" in India logged a report with engineering and it got sorted. It's fairly likely that they don't deal with reports of coverage problems.

Well then they should at least know who does.................i got the number for the UK Data Support off this forum.

Skary

godskitchen wrote:

Are some of the Three stores not just franchises?

Vodafone wont be moving their call centers to India anytime soon, its a big selling point in the UK right now to advertise "UK call centers only". The UK has had to put up with outsourcing a lot longer than Ireland and the public are now sick of it. They equate it with poor service and from my experience rightly so.

As for Meteor..............nothing would surprise me with them

No - all of the 3 Stores are wholly owned by 3 -
I have a sneaky feeling that Vodafone will follow suit - maybe not in the next year - but I think they will soon enough... Meteor - need we say more? I have had a Meteor number for last 4 years - free texts are great, but lo and behold, over the weekend when I tried to dial an international number which I have been dialling for many years, and never had a problem with dialling, I was rudely told that I was restricted from dialling that number from my handset - ??? I phoned Meteor CC and was told that its "not their fault" and that they dont have a roaming agreement with the country in question. When I explained that I had been dialling the number for the past 3 odd years they prtty much told me that it was impossible and that I could not have been dialling that number because they did not have a roaming agreement. . .
On the other side, I have also been with three for the last year and a bit and I have never had ANY issues with them - (I ported from VF after being disgusted with their service)

And another thing - it seems as though the days of waiting for replacement sim cards are over. My colleague walked into a store yesterday in Grafton street and got one over the counter!

testicle

I signed up to 3pay online, told them i wanted to port my VF number. Phone arrived with a 3 sim with a 3 number, and a leaflet i had to fill in to port over my number - send off and it'll be done in 3 days. I sent it off.over a week ago. Still have an 083 and an 087 number....

trixter

testicle wrote:

I signed up to 3pay online, told them i wanted to port my VF number. Phone arrived with a 3 sim with a 3 number, and a leaflet i had to fill in to port over my number - send off and it'll be done in 3 days. I sent it off.over a week ago. Still have an 083 and an 087 number....

I went into a 3 shop and ported my number and they happily did it without any verification that I owned the number. My account with 3 appears to have a 3 specific number associated with it, which I should test out a bit to see if I have 2.

godskitchen

When i first signed up for the Three service, the sim arrived inside 3 days, thats not the problem, the poo hits the fan when you try to do anything out of the norm, like get a replacement sim.

The measure of a good company is not the just quality of the service, but
how they choose to deal with a breakdown in that service. To me Three stink of "we have you by the balls, a 12 month contract, you will wait for us and do as you are told".

Sky also employed this tactic in the early part of this decade in the UK, their subscription dropped 15% over that period, OK it was not all to do with the quality of service (freeview or ITV Digital as it was known back then had just hit the market) but its a good indication of what customers will put up with.

More importantly the bad press Three is getting from their poor customer service is doing more damage than i think they realise, I tell everyone who asks me how poor it is, and im sure like a lot of you on here, i am the first port of call if anyone who knows me wants to get a service like UMTS/HSDPA Broadband.

With less than 2% of the market with only 4 players in that market.................If i had that level after the few years they have been in the market i would fire myself!

Urban Weigl

Even O2 now own 3 in terms of 3G coverage in my area, which only leaves Meteor as having worse 3G coverage than Hutchison 3 here. How ironic. And who knows, now that Meteor have a 3G license, even they may beat 3 to the punch.

All right, I am kidding about that last part (it will likely take Meteor the best part of a year, after all they only recently got the license, and 3 have told me they plan coverage here in the near future), but I still find it surprising that both Vodafone and O2 have rolled out superior 3G coverage here first.

Bulmers

if some people think there is a problem with the mast in ur area, the best thing to do is quote the name of the site to customer support. You can get this off http://www.askcomreg.ie/mobile/View_Mobile_Sites.36.LE.asp

type in the area u live and you should see a map of what sites are around you and who owns them. There will also be a reference no for this site, this is the operator specific site name, this will get you straight to the problem, quote the site ref and explain the problem, usually this will result in a request sent to engineering to interrogate the site, might be of some help.

Note, the comreg site has now been updated with all 3s sites too last week.

godskitchen

Bulmers wrote:

if some people think there is a problem with the mast in ur area, the best thing to do is quote the name of the site to customer support. You can get this off http://www.askcomreg.ie/mobile/View_Mobile_Sites.36.LE.asp

type in the area u live and you should see a map of what sites are around you and who owns them. There will also be a reference no for this site, this is the operator specific site name, this will get you straight to the problem, quote the site ref and explain the problem, usually this will result in a request sent to engineering to interrogate the site, might be of some help.

Note, the comreg site has now been updated with all 3s sites too last week.

Yep i have used the site names from the comreg site for vodafone many times, to check when 3G was coming to my area, very handy and Voda get me the information i need very quickly.....................

Of course its a different story with Three, the robots in India dont have a clue what im on about, and the data team in the UK only cover the UK, the Irish site names/numbers mean nothing to them.

1huge1

Urban Weigl wrote:

Even O2 now own 3 in terms of 3G coverage in my area, which only leaves Meteor as having worse 3G coverage than Hutchison 3 here. How ironic. And who knows, now that Meteor have a 3G license, even they may beat 3 to the punch.

All right, I am kidding about that last part (it will likely take Meteor the best part of a year, after all they only recently got the license, and 3 have told me they plan coverage here in the near future), but I still find it surprising that both Vodafone and O2 have rolled out superior 3G coverage here first.

Thats one thing I wouldn't be giving out to 3 for
their coverage has been the best in ireland since the day their started
hands down
sorry mate ive been to some places in the middle of nowere and had 3 3G coverage and in some big enough towns without vodafone 3G coverage

godskitchen

1huge1 wrote:

Thats one thing I wouldn't be giving out to 3 for
their coverage has been the best in ireland since the day their started
hands down
sorry mate ive been to some places in the middle of nowhere and had 3 3G coverage and in some big enough towns without vodafone 3G coverage

I find their coverage to be fairly good too but to be honest but its no big accomplishment on their part, the number of New masts they would have had to get permission and planning for would be minimal.

Voda/O2/Eircel or whatever they were called would have laid all the ground work, all Three had to do is come along and clamp their stuff on. Of course it cost them but there was/is nothing holding them back from expanding to most places the other networks are. It goes with out saying also that Three did not have to roll out a 2/2.5G network as they use vodafones, so again all they had to concentrate on was 3G.

jimmycrackcorm

1huge1 wrote:

Thats one thing I wouldn't be giving out to 3 for
their coverage has been the best in ireland since the day their started
hands down
sorry mate ive been to some places in the middle of nowere and had 3 3G coverage and in some big enough towns without vodafone 3G coverage

I've had Vodafone, O2, meteor and now Three. Threes coverage reminds me exactly of when I had Eircell in 1995. In Leixleip I had to reboot the phone to get it to pick up Voda 2.5 but in Monaghan, it would not pick up a signal.

I'm not talking about 3G coverage, three's 3G might be better than both O2 and Voda - hence I have three but I'm talking about people being able to call you or even possibly worse - not being able to make a 999 emergency call.

Random

@jimmycrackcorm
If you dial 999 or 112 your handset automatically connects to the first network it can to make a call.

jimmycrackcorm

ciaranfo wrote:

@jimmycrackcorm
If you dial 999 or 112 your handset automatically connects to the first network it can to make a call.

According to Three terms and conditions, if you don't pay your bill then you won't be able to even make a 999 call! It's black and white in their booklet.