iPhone 4 on Three Ireland Network.

OgreSwamp

Another terrible thing - no PR people from Three here. If it will be O2 - they'll response in a minute. Three just ignoring their customers. Shame to Thee. Epic fail.

paulhaze

cian1500ww wrote: »

Thanks for letting us know, are they going to enable data on 2G or sort out the problem of the phone not switching back to 3G ??

The e-mail from head office only dealt with the issue of not being able to go to 2g. Whats the 3g problem, maybe I'm experiencing it without realising

corklad32

paulhaze wrote: »

The e-mail from head office only dealt with the issue of not being able to go to 2g. Whats the 3g problem, maybe I'm experiencing it without realising

The 3g problem is when you do manage to get a 3g signal half the apps, pages etc will not load cos the network is so stretched. Can you explain exactly you're problem so maybe more people can force 3 to extend the 14 day period. I suggested this to 3 as it benefits customers by giving 3 a chance to sort the issues and benefits 3 by not having a load of second hand iphones. needless to mention no response. Please detail your issue and did they give you a copy of the head offices email?

cian1500ww

paulhaze wrote: »

The e-mail from head office only dealt with the issue of not being able to go to 2g. Whats the 3g problem, maybe I'm experiencing it without realising

The 2G problem is where the phone has no data access on the 2G network. The 3G problem is where the phone switches back to the 2G network where there is no 3G but doesn't switch back to the 3G network when it becomes available again.

corklad32

Ok. I think the whole country is practically effected by the 2g problem. In that case three should have to allow everyone to extend the colling off period - no?

gerbo

So, if while out and about you have no need for data services and merely need to make calls and send texts and while at home you have a wi-fi service, you essentially have no problem?

paulhaze

corklad32 wrote: »

The 3g problem is when you do manage to get a 3g signal half the apps, pages etc will not load cos the network is so stretched. Can you explain exactly you're problem so maybe more people can force 3 to extend the 14 day period. I suggested this to 3 as it benefits customers by giving 3 a chance to sort the issues and benefits 3 by not having a load of second hand iphones. needless to mention no response. Please detail your issue and did they give you a copy of the head offices email?

I didn't get a copy but I know the store manager, so should be ok. She rang up the very polite Indian customer service guy and he put a note on my account. Getting notes put on your account by polite Indians is very important to the whole 3 operation!
3 have admitted that currently they cannot access 2g but that from the 13th they will be able to.
My advice 1) ring the polite Indian with your complaint and get him to put a note on your account (he will make you do a number of resets on you phone but they won't work, homour him, he is very nice)
2) go back to the store and get them to ring the Indian and extend the 14 day period
3)On the weekend of the 13th test if 3 have done what they say they will
4)If not return phone on Monday 16

squonk

gerbo wrote: »

So, if while out and about you have no need for data services and merely need to make calls and send texts and while at home you have a wi-fi service, you essentially have no problem?

Yeah, that's right but, if that's the case, why do you want an iPhone then? Even more so, why are you paying for a price plan that includes a data element, paying more for something that you're not going to use?

paulhaze

cian1500ww wrote: »

The 2G problem is where the phone has no data access on the 2G network. The 3G problem is where the phone switches back to the 2G network where there is no 3G but doesn't switch back to the 3G network when it becomes available again.

Confused. 3 have said that they have no 2g network so what happens on your phone when it switches from 3g to 2g? On mine I just lose 3g but it isn't replaced by anything

corklad32

paulhaze wrote: »

I didn't get a copy but I know the store manager, so should be ok. She rang up the very polite Indian customer service guy and he put a note on my account. Getting notes put on your account by polite Indians is very important to the whole 3 operation!
3 have admitted that currently they cannot access 2g but that from the 13th they will be able to.
My advice 1) ring the polite Indian with your complaint and get him to put a note on your account (he will make you do a number of resets on you phone but they won't work, homour him, he is very nice)
2) go back to the store and get them to ring the Indian and extend the 14 day period
3)On the weekend of the 13th test if 3 have done what they say they will
4)If not return phone on Monday 16

Any idea as to how long the extended cooling off period is?

cian1500ww

paulhaze wrote: »

Confused. 3 have said that they have no 2g network so what happens on your phone when it switches from 3g to 2g? On mine I just lose 3g but it isn't replaced by anything

3 use Vodafones network when there's no 3 G coverage. 3G is a completely different network,

Stuxnet

paulhaze wrote: »

Confused. 3 have said that they have no 2g network so what happens on your phone when it switches from 3g to 2g? On mine I just lose 3g but it isn't replaced by anything

we'll call it "2g",
its vodafones network it hops onto, with edge and gprs disabled afaik, so you cant do anything data wise till you get back into 3g range

load of bollix really

gerbo

squonk wrote: »

Yeah, that's right but, if that's the case, why do you want an iPhone then? Even more so, why are you paying for a price plan that includes a data element, paying more for something that you're not going to use?

There is a long list of reasons why you might want an iPhone other than its ability to access 3G. So to imply that anybody that wants an iphone should only get one if they wish to access the internet on the move is nonsense.

If you want an iPhone you are forced on all the contracts available with the different carriers to have a data element. Unless of course you buy sim-free and since I have no intention of leaving my carrier, it makes no sense to buy sim-free when I can get a subsidised iphone.

squonk

Some people were asking earlier about how to cancel with 3. I'll tell you my experience yesterday. I bought my phone off the online store. I rang 3 up, got through to the Indian lads who were helpful. I mentioned that I wanted to cancel the contract because the data coverage issue meant that the service wasn't adequate for what I needed it for. I got put through to a guy in Tech support who told me that I could only get data coverage on 3G and not on 2G. He then put me through to another person to cancel my account.

She was helpful but tried to fob me off by asking me to go to one of the stores. I'm in Skerries and the nearest stores are in Swords. I reckoned that Swords was probably in one of the 3G areas, and I didn't feel like being given a run around by someone in a shop trying to keep me on the network for longer than the 14 days cooling off period.

I mentioned that going to a shop was all well and good but that I had not had data issues/reception issues on my previous network and that I didn't really care about hearing reasons, I had no real service and I wasn't going to pay for that.

I was very adamant that I wanted to cancel my account. In the end the lady said she'd ring me back in half an hour. I had been on the phone over 45 minutes at this point with them. I didn't believe she'd ring back but had decided to pop into a store if nothing happened anyway.

In fairness to the lady, she did ring back about 3 hours later. I missed that call and rang back a while later. I got on to a rep who wouldn't forward my call to the lady I was previously dealing with. They were adamant that they could help me. They listened to my query, put me on to Tech support (again) and the guy (again) said he'd forward me to the cancellation service. I spent the next 55 minutes on hold waiting for a phone to be picked up. In the end the battery on the phone started to die so I hung up.

I tried again later and, by sheer luck, ended up talking to the lady who had rang me earlier in the day. She asked me to package up the phone, send it back to them by registered post to a PO box address in Swords, including the IMEI number and the price of the handset (not the price I paid for it) which is E560. The address I need to send the handset to is:

PO Box 11564
SWORDS
Co. Dublin

She also gave me a case number so I'm not sure if you need to have one of those before you send back your phone but if any of you feel like you've had enough of 3's service, you could try just sending the phone back anyway.

Regarding porting, I was told yesterday there were technical issues with porting my number from o2 to 3. Later, after I decided to cancel, I asked a rep to stop the port process and was told that it would be done and there would be no problem. Later yesterday I noticed my o2 phone could get calls in but couldn't make calls out. I rang o2 who told me that, low and behold, a port request had been received, 2 hours after I had asked to have the port process stopped. o2, to be fair to them, tried to help and said that they couldn't do anything at their end right away. They will log the port as an error and take the number back but told me to ring 3 anyway. I rang 3 this morning who told me they'd cancel the port once it's complete and to ring back in 24 hours! All this for a process that's supposed to take a max of 2 hours to complete!

I hope this helps someone out there. I have never, ever dealt with a company as bad as 3 are. My opinion right now is that they should have their licence taken away from them immediately. If you can't provide any half decent service, either phone or customer, then the message should be given that there's no place for you in this country. I think they really fully personify the whole 'Cowboy' concept.

paulhaze

corklad32 wrote: »

Any idea as to how long the extended cooling off period is?

They have given me til Monday 16th to test it out and decide

scwazrh

Three have just told me that they are aware that the phone drops 3g , doesnt pick up 2g and sometime does not go back to 3g.They have said that this is an issue that Apple are working on. There will be a new update released from Apple soon and that this will fix it.He said they havn't been giving an exact date but he thinks it will be next weekend

?????

Got my number successfully ported. O2 wouldn't do it until I paid up for a month I didn't use. Was told I'll get refund in September.

slasher_65

After 10 minutes on the phone with Three, it seems that the guy on the other end had no idea what I was talking about when it comes to the FaceTime international SMS messages being sent to 00447786205094. He just kept asking over and over again if I had sent international text messages to phones in the UK. I said that I did, and told him the phone number of the one that I had sent, and he then said that billing would get back to me about it, but I would have to pay charges for all texts that I sent. I almost RAGED at that point, because I had explained over and over again that I had not sent those texts.

Oh well, let's see what Billing says.

couerdelion

squonk wrote: »

Some people were asking earlier about how to cancel with 3. I'll tell you my experience yesterday. I bought my phone off the online store. I rang 3 up, got through to the Indian lads who were helpful. I mentioned that I wanted to cancel the contract because the data coverage issue meant that the service wasn't adequate for what I needed it for. I got put through to a guy in Tech support who told me that I could only get data coverage on 3G and not on 2G. He then put me through to another person to cancel my account.

She was helpful but tried to fob me off by asking me to go to one of the stores. I'm in Skerries and the nearest stores are in Swords. I reckoned that Swords was probably in one of the 3G areas, and I didn't feel like being given a run around by someone in a shop trying to keep me on the network for longer than the 14 days cooling off period.

I mentioned that going to a shop was all well and good but that I had not had data issues/reception issues on my previous network and that I didn't really care about hearing reasons, I had no real service and I wasn't going to pay for that.

I was very adamant that I wanted to cancel my account. In the end the lady said she'd ring me back in half an hour. I had been on the phone over 45 minutes at this point with them. I didn't believe she'd ring back but had decided to pop into a store if nothing happened anyway.

In fairness to the lady, she did ring back about 3 hours later. I missed that call and rang back a while later. I got on to a rep who wouldn't forward my call to the lady I was previously dealing with. They were adamant that they could help me. They listened to my query, put me on to Tech support (again) and the guy (again) said he'd forward me to the cancellation service. I spent the next 55 minutes on hold waiting for a phone to be picked up. In the end the battery on the phone started to die so I hung up.

I tried again later and, by sheer luck, ended up talking to the lady who had rang me earlier in the day. She asked me to package up the phone, send it back to them by registered post to a PO box address in Swords, including the IMEI number and the price of the handset (not the price I paid for it) which is E560. The address I need to send the handset to is:

PO Box 11564
SWORDS
Co. Dublin

She also gave me a case number so I'm not sure if you need to have one of those before you send back your phone but if any of you feel like you've had enough of 3's service, you could try just sending the phone back anyway.

Regarding porting, I was told yesterday there were technical issues with porting my number from o2 to 3. Later, after I decided to cancel, I asked a rep to stop the port process and was told that it would be done and there would be no problem. Later yesterday I noticed my o2 phone could get calls in but couldn't make calls out. I rang o2 who told me that, low and behold, a port request had been received, 2 hours after I had asked to have the port process stopped. o2, to be fair to them, tried to help and said that they couldn't do anything at their end right away. They will log the port as an error and take the number back but told me to ring 3 anyway. I rang 3 this morning who told me they'd cancel the port once it's complete and to ring back in 24 hours! All this for a process that's supposed to take a max of 2 hours to complete!

I hope this helps someone out there. I have never, ever dealt with a company as bad as 3 are. My opinion right now is that they should have their licence taken away from them immediately. If you can't provide any half decent service, either phone or customer, then the message should be given that there's no place for you in this country. I think they really fully personify the whole 'Cowboy' concept.

I think 3 are getting a little bit of unfair stick over the iphone issue.

The time it takes on the phone to finally get through to the correct person is unacceptable. But I have managed to get through to the same person 3 days in a row when I had problems.

You've bought a 3g phone and then found out you haven't got 3g coverage. Hardly 3's fault but fair enough they've now accepted it under their 14 return. You've complained that they aid they would ring back in 30 mins and it took them 3 hours and then in the next paragraph complain that they've set more realistic expectations in regards to the time to port it over when it should be quicker.

Some of the complaints against 3 especially in respect to the dropping of 3g and inability to reconnect are warranted. Some others aren't and are along the lines of...

"I bought a speedboat from boat'r'us yesterday but I don't have a lake next to my house so here's a warning... don't buy a boat from boat'r'us"
or to put into a consumer electronics context
"I bought a fridge yesterday and it doesn't work. they never told me I needed electricity!"

They've just launched a new phone and are inundated. I'm not surprised when I ring and they're busier than normal. Still enjoy O2 and their 'superior' service. I'm sure its worth the extra money.

Scottish

2 Hours later in the centre of Dublin (I've been walking around a bit with the phone as well) and it is yet to move back to the 3G network on it's own.

The iPhone seems to be quite happy on Vodafone's network. Maybe I will be as well.

corklad32

3 HQ are having conf calls at 4pm today with their 3 stores. It's in relation to the cooling off period. I have a contact i will phone after 4.30 and update people with the official 3 position. At a guess they will extend it for an additional 2 weeks

squonk

couerdelion wrote: »

You've bought a 3g phone and then found out you haven't got 3g coverage.

You're missing the point! Yeah, I bought a 3G phone, but on the assumption that I would have some form of data coverage even if 3G wasn't available. A reasonable expectation... no?

Yes, it's a new phone, yes they *might* iron out the issues in time but my 24 hours dealing with them was so bad, I'm not prepared to spend a further 18 months dealing with them.

As for your analogy, I bought a boat from Boats'r'us but I don't have a lake beside me house. I have a river though but it turns out the boat has a hull that scrapes along the bottom of the river as it's an unusual boat in that it can only work in lakes but nobody at boats'r'us mentioned this, so I can't use the boat. That's a better analogy. Don't get me started on 3's 'coverage' map. It's highly optimistic by my observations so far, allbeit over only 24 hours.

thomasj

Was told over the phone by 3 they are having major network issues

Was told to retry 6pm this evening

So will GPRS be enabled on the 13th on the 3 network

With regards to 3s coverage while travelling by rail, it doesn't work when on a maynooth line train between Clonsilla and ashtown or by bus in the castleknock-blackhorse ave area

deep1

Scottish wrote: »

2 Hours later in the centre of Dublin (I've been walking around a bit with the phone as well) and it is yet to move back to the 3G network on it's own.

The iPhone seems to be quite happy on Vodafone's network. Maybe I will be as well.

Are you sure you have set the carrier setting to Automatic?

Scottish

deep1 wrote: »

Are you sure you have set the carrier setting to Automatic?

It doesn't matter what configuration I give it, but yes it's on automatic, data roaming on, and network setting was only reset this morning (which means putting my home wifi password in for the 7th time since I moved to 3).

Like I said, I'm trying everything. I'm willing to give them some time to sort it out too, which is why I'm encouraged by some of the posts on here about a fix. When I spoke to them today, there was no issue and no fix coming. That was at 10am this morning. There has obviously been a deluge of people complaining, leaving or threatening to leave if they are trying to get it sorted.

If there is EDGE on the vodafone fall back, proper switching back to 3G (with the internet actually connecting without a reset) then I'll stay because when it works its REALLY fast, and 3 at home is just a great thing for me.

cian1500ww

I've got on to them on twitter as well and mightn't be any harm if everyone else does the same: @3online

squonk

or ComReg!!

corklad32

Whilst 3 are responding to no-one directly they are well aware of whats going on hence this afternoons conf call to 3 stores @4pm. I would advise people to hold off returning their handsets until we know what comes out of that in the afternoon. As the song goes things can only get better - they certainly can't get worse - can they?

cian1500ww

corklad32 wrote: »

Whilst 3 are responding to no-one directly they are well aware of whats going on hence this afternoons conf call to 3 stores @4pm. I would advise people to hold off returning their handsets until we know what comes out of that in the afternoon. As the song goes things can only get better - they certainly can't get worse - can they?

True, hopefully they'll be talking about the solution and not about how to stop customers from cancelling...
Mine has been switching to the 3G better now but I really think they should allow for data on 2G.

corklad32

Well if they extend the cooling off period i will stay with them until the very last day. The 2g has to be resolved very soon - it's going to be a complete showstopper for iphone 4 on 3 otherwise and they know that only too well