Plenty of cells in central london literally grind to a holt. Full 3G yet cannot get on any data services what-so-ever and making calls sometimes doesn't even go through. I've had this on vodafone, t-mobile and 3. So I agree here.

3 only have orange fallback in a very few selected areas and selected masts. It bears no representation of the real orange network.

Bearing in mind as an orange customer you get the following:
1) Access to all orange sites (not just a selected few like on 3)
2) Access to the t-mobile sites too

This makes the orange experience far better than the orange experience on 3.
Saying 3 customers get access to orange masts is just totally wrong nowadays.

Most areas when 3 loses it's 3G it just goes straight to no signal as there's no agreement to share with orange on that mast.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Mon 03-Jun-13 01:20:57)

In reply to a post by izools:

Just took out a Galaxy S4 on contract with Three, on The One Plan which comes bundled with truly unlimited tethering.

Are you sure about this?

To my knowledge, 3 dont do a package with unlimited tethering?

Also, I think you'll find at some point they will throttle your speeds if they think you are a regular torrent user

In reply to a post by izools:

Back in Exeter... Full five bars of "H+" and only getting one meg lol

oh well

1 meg?

Consider yourself lucky!

At my work in Pynes Hill (that's also Exeter for the reference of others) I get a speed test of 324kb DL and 114 DL!

Would've thought in a business location they could do better than that!

(I get approx 2MB on average at home in WSM)

In reply to a post by ncf355:

In reply to a post by izools:

Just took out a Galaxy S4 on contract with Three, on The One Plan which comes bundled with truly unlimited tethering.

Are you sure about this?

To my knowledge, 3 dont do a package with unlimited tethering?

Also, I think you'll find at some point they will throttle your speeds if they think you are a regular torrent user

Yes, Three's "The One Plan" has free unlimited tethering.

When my OH was in hospital last year I took out the one plan on a 30-day and put the sim in a 3G dongle. Three swore blind it wouldn't work but it did and he downloaded / streamed to his hearts content with no charges on the bill.

I have found re-booting my phone lifts the traffic management they put on P2P traffic for a while.

Edited by deleted (Mon 03-Jun-13 08:21:28)

In reply to a post by ncf355:

In reply to a post by izools:

Back in Exeter... Full five bars of "H+" and only getting one meg lol

oh well

1 meg?

Consider yourself lucky!

At my work in Pynes Hill (that's also Exeter for the reference of others) I get a speed test of 324kb DL and 114 DL!

Would've thought in a business location they could do better than that!

(I get approx 2MB on average at home in WSM)

I was surprised to find the coverage so poor in Pynes Hill too... but it isn't just Three

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by izools:

I'll be cancelling my landline when the contract is up!

Mobile speeds can peak very well but you'll find over a 30day period the average is generally a lot lower than a fixed line service.

Don't forget many cell sites will have to slow everyone down just to get the number of customers on the system at the same time.

Indeed. 1Meg last night and phone hasn't moved a single millimeter yet now I'm getting 14 meg...

3 is so bad round here, that I cant even load their site to do topups without images timeout out and waiting 5 minutes.

I used them on a 3g dongle for a while but it was a pretty aweful service, now for 3g I just tether of my O2 phone which is way faster than 3.

Of course O2 dont allow tethering officially but its only occasional use if I have no access to a fixed line broadband service so I get away with it.

O2s charging is a bit confusing also, they list a high charge per mb, but also say the daily fee is capped to £1.01.

I tested it one night be tethering and watching some streams, if the charge wasnt capped I was heading for a bill of at least £50 and got billed £1.01 so O2 seems to be (On web daily) unlimited use for £1 per day. With all the FUP rubbish forbidding high use, tethering etc.

I think mobile broadband is far from ready for heavy use yet.

Edited by deleted (Wed 05-Jun-13 10:29:27)