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Problems with 3 & O2 services since merger?

  • 21-03-2015 10:37am
    #1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 233 ✭✭


    I don't use 3 or O2 myself, but I have been having problems calling several friends formerly on O2 since the merger. I typically get through to their voicemails at busy times although when I message them, they are not on voice calls. There is also a large number of complaints on the Three & O2 forums. Not sure how widespread the problems are - some of the problems seem to be specific to locations and times of day. The problems reported seem to include the following,
    • Calls going to O2/Three customers going to voicemail when line not busy
    • No O2/Three coverage where there was good coverage previously
    • Poor data speeds where there were good data speeds before
    • Problems logging into Three website and webtext from phone or web
    • Customer Care very poor and in denial of problems
    • Bills not arriving or being incorrect

    Presumably the Coverage and Capacity problems are likely due to fact that Three Customers who were previously roaming on the Vodafone network(particularly for voice calls) are now overloading an already heavily loaded (re-branded) O2 network?

    It would be interesting to get a cross section of votes from Three (inc former O2) customers who are experiencing any of these problems, but anyone can vote who is also having difficulty reaching these networks. Tesco & 48 users should also vote if they have experiences, as they are also using the Three network.

    Problems with O2/Three services since Merger (inc, coverage, data speed etc)? 47 votes

    Improvement in service
    0% 0 votes
    Deterioration in service
    6% 3 votes
    No change
    93% 44 votes


Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,575 ✭✭✭ZiabR


    I bought my first phone in 1998. A Nokia 3210 on O2. I was with them for 16 years, never moved networks until last Monday that it. The mobile phone signal was just terrible. I was getting no signal or 1 bar in my house where I used to get 3 bars. People were no longer able to contact me when I was at home so I moved to Vodafone on Monday and I have 5 bars signal now and I am paying no more.

    I don't understand how my signal dropped so much when three took over, I thought three and o2 used the same network anyway.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 233 ✭✭bugfreebob


    logik wrote: »
    I bought my first phone in 1998. A Nokia 3210 on O2. I was with them for 16 years, never moved networks until last Monday that it. The mobile phone signal was just terrible. I was getting no signal or 1 bar in my house where I used to get 3 bars. People were no longer able to contact me when I was at home so I moved to Vodafone on Monday and I have 5 bars signal now and I am paying no more.

    I don't understand how my signal dropped so much when three took over, I thought three and o2 used the same network anyway.

    Three and former O2 do not use the same network. They are still effectively separate networks - just linked by a roaming agreement and a common brand. It seems like the Three customers have seriously overloaded the old O2 network in places, which was probably already suffering from lack of investment and lack of 4G. Whereas before the merger, the Three customers roamed onto the Vodafone network these customers are now roaming onto the old O2 network already full with former O2 customers. While Three have some 4G, it's not available to old O2 customers adding to the pressure on the old O2 2G & 3G networks. When a 3G network gets overloaded, the cells shrink in size which could explain why you were seeing fewer bars.

    The Talk-to-Three boards are full of customers moaning about these problems and getting no satisfaction from the customer care desk in India - who seem to deny most of the problems. It doesn't look like there is any quick fix. You made the right decision to abandon ship. Judging by the poll results - these problems are not affecting all customers all of the time - but they are likely to affect all customers some of the time and some customers all of the time if they are unfortunate enough to live in heavily congested cells.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,363 ✭✭✭Popoutman


    My personal handset is with Three - no change in service.

    My work phone, is a blackberry, and it stopped receiving emails a few days ago - something that screwed up on the service provider end of things. Took ~1 week to resolve, which was a little awkward as I have to be able to receive pages via email on that device. We worked around it by changing the Blackberry to an iPhone..


  • Registered Users Posts: 252 ✭✭Adrian4


    Webtexts from phone or web still not sending.

    Priority Moments not working.

    I think I will look for a replacement Sim Card.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 233 ✭✭bugfreebob


    Adrian4 wrote: »
    Webtexts from phone or web still not sending.

    Priority Moments not working.

    I think I will look for a replacement Sim Card.

    I would recommend that you have a look at all the people who are having issues on the Talk-to-Three forum. Three seem to initially fob customers off by telling them to clean and change SIM's. There appears to be general consensus on the forum that most problems are in the networks and IT systems, and not in the SIMs. Last night's massive outage on the Three network was the last straw for several friends of mine.

    Also, be careful if you sign up for a new SIM that you are not also signing up for a new contract, or you could end up locked in for a long period of time.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 181 ✭✭Strum


    logik wrote: »

    I don't understand how my signal dropped so much when three took over,

    I use the dongle and my connection is dropping 2-3 times a day now. Yesterday I couldn't connect for 2 hours. :mad:


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,003 ✭✭✭B17G




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,964 ✭✭✭Cherry Blossom


    B17G wrote: »

    Thanks for this, I thought my ancient phone had finally packed in. Oddly my broadband is three as well and it's working fine.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 233 ✭✭bugfreebob


    B17G wrote: »

    Everyone should keep an accurate record of these outages and how you are affected by them. Make sure to complain in writing. The frequency and severity of the outages should be serious enough to justify customers breaking contracts. It really helps that the issues are finally getting the attention of the national media.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 28,944 ✭✭✭✭_Kaiser_


    Thanks for this, I thought my ancient phone had finally packed in. Oddly my broadband is three as well and it's working fine.

    From what I've pieced together on the 3 Forum here, the issues seem to be affecting former-O2 customers. I'm on 3 Business and it's been fine today.. only found out there was an issue when I saw the news.

    The much poorer signal quality (to the point of unusable a lot of the time) since they took over O2 is a much bigger issue, but as I just posted in another thread, options are limited - emobile/meteor have godawful backoffice support, (billing/support - I know this from experience unfortunately), Vodafone is overpriced with uncompetitive bundles, the rest are MVNO's (Tesco, 48)

    Doesn't leave many options :(


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,003 ✭✭✭B17G


    Thanks for this, I thought my ancient phone had finally packed in. Oddly my broadband is three as well and it's working fine.

    Tried to send an SMS text just now and it failed. Same here with the broadband (ex O2), it's been working all the time.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,964 ✭✭✭Cherry Blossom


    Yes i'm ex o2 on both phone and broadband, haven't checked my texts yet but calls are back working and i'm posting from my phone now - data back up and running just in the last few minutes.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 25,495 ✭✭✭✭coylemj


    I'm ex-O2 and thought my SIM had packed up because the phone said it was disabled and I could only make emergency calls. Was just about to phone them when I spotted the Indo article on Twitter, it's back now.


  • Registered Users Posts: 181 ✭✭Strum


    B17G wrote: »



    Tell me about it, tearing my hair out now man, like being back in the old dial-up days, ffsnakes, progress in technology? Hahaha, arseho*es on dope more like. :mad:
    Remember the changeover charter? something like "Don't worry - nothing will change in the merger between us sleezebag corporations, all will be resumed when we get around to it, in the meantime, suck it up and please do not use a hammer on your laptop"


    Time for a different server I think. Grrr...:mad: :cool:


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,180 ✭✭✭hfallada


    Honestly you cant say the standard of the service is horrific due to a single outage. My parents use o2 and they were used to network outages constantly on a Friday at 5-8pm up until about 5/6 years ago. Most Friday evenings they usually expected issues with making calls due to the network being over capacity.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 233 ✭✭bugfreebob


    hfallada wrote: »
    Honestly you cant say the standard of the service is horrific due to a single outage. My parents use o2 and they were used to network outages constantly on a Friday at 5-8pm up until about 5/6 years ago. Most Friday evenings they usually expected issues with making calls due to the network being over capacity.

    It might be reasonable to tolerate a short localised outage on a few base-stations caused by something like lightning or power failure - but yesterdays outage impacted 2 Million customers and was widely reported in the National Media! Three have said it was a fault in a data center. However, standard practice for data centres is geographic diversity across more than one site. You wouldn't back up your PC to a cloud provider such as Google or Dropbox if you didn't think they had geographically diverse back-up data centres. It is inexcusable that a large mobile operator doesn't have this standard level of diversity in it's core platforms.

    Also it wasn't just one outage. Yesterday may have been the biggest one - but this poll was started more than 2 weeks ago because many Three customers were already experiencing serious problems. The poll was already very much swinging towards the deterioration in service since the merger before everyone got hit with yesterdays big outage. Many customers are still experiencing problems even today - have a look at the Talk-to-Three board. Yesterdays big problem may have been fixed - but have they suddenly conjured up geographically diverse data centres to eliminate the risk of a repeat, and when are they going to fix all the other problems with the merger?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,413 ✭✭✭✭Trojan


    Three are losing 5 customers I know of: myself, my gf, my sister and my parents, all formerly o2 and all moving elsewhere (some to Vodafone, some to Meteor).

    Just to clarify, this is nothing at all to do with Monday's outage, decision made well before that due to massive degradation in phone service over the past month (sounds like the cell shrinkage mentioned above).

    I'm getting No Service about 75% of the time at home now where it was 5-10% before.

    They're batting 5/5 in this small customer pool. Not sure what average total lifetime value of a mobile phone customer is, probably in the high 3 figures, maybe low 4 figures, and if that's happening everywhere it's going to hurt.


  • Registered Users Posts: 181 ✭✭Strum


    Good post Bob. All I can say is that I've been using 02 for almost 6 years with no problems, except for a dodgy dongle once and they replaced it and gave me credit for the hassle.
    Since this merger I've cursed a lot with all the recent outages. So much for "nothing will change" well if they don't get the finger out very soon I'm off, and I'm posting on behalf of a few others too.
    02 used to send a message if there was going to be an outage for site upgrade or maintenance or whatever, and that was rare, but at least you knew instead of losing connection in the middle of an online project. BAH to three!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 233 ✭✭bugfreebob


    Strum wrote: »
    Good post Bob. All I can say is that I've been using 02 for almost 6 years with no problems, except for a dodgy dongle once and they replaced it and gave me credit for the hassle.
    Since this merger I've cursed a lot with all the recent outages. So much for "nothing will change" well if they don't get the finger out very soon I'm off, and I'm posting on behalf of a few others too.
    02 used to send a message if there was going to be an outage for site upgrade or maintenance or whatever, and that was rare, but at least you knew instead of losing connection in the middle of an online project. BAH to three!

    Thanks Strum. Three have to keep up the delusion that nothing has changed and that the problems are minor and only affecting a few customers. If they admit the true extent of the problems, everyone will be entitled to default on their contracts.

    Any customer who had good service with O2 and who now has little or no service should have a very strong case under consumer law to break their contract. The customer entered into a contract with O2 in good faith, and may have had good service until the merger. However you would need to keep very good records, and give Three a number of reasonable opportunities to fix the problems before the case would stand up.

    I don't believe they will be able to fix these problems any time soon - because they won't want to invest in expanding the old O2 network, and they can't move all O2 customers onto the old Three network yet until it is expanded and built out at the O2/eircom site-share locations. Moving the customers prematurely to the old Three network and plans would definitely give the customers grounds to break contracts. They also won't want to lose the revenue from migrating O2 customers on high tariffs to Three contracts with lower tariffs. Instead they will probably need to establish a glide path to increase the Three prices to closer to O2 levels before they do widespread migration.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 695 ✭✭✭zombieHanalei


    Switched from O2 to Vodafone in January, my gut feeling was the expanded network would operate using the Three model instead of the O2 model. They made a big song and dance over acquiring O2's customer care call centres but from what I can see they are basically being made to operate exactly like Three's customer care (switch your phone off and on again, blame a faulty sim, promise call backs that never come, etc.) In the long run this merger will be the best thing that ever happened to Meteor and Vodafone.

    I seem to have regular issues calling former O2 customers now, calls going straight to voicemail and messages not being received straight away and so on, never used to happen before March.

    My experience on Three about four years ago ended due to clueless customer care combined with a network that gave me the impression that it was operating over capacity. If they can barely handle 8 or 9% of the market then I'd be very skeptical to say the least regarding their ability to handle an extra 1.5M customers.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 233 ✭✭bugfreebob


    The latest problem reported on the Talk to Three forum is worth taking note of. It results in mis-routing of Freephone type numbers for former O2 customers. For example the Permanent TSB Open24 number routes to Irish Water!

    It is interesting because it appears to be affecting all former O2 customers irrespective of location, and is repeatable. This is important for anyone trying to build a case for breaking contract. Also, each 1890 call that is mis-routed is also being charged out-of-bundle - so there is a definite case of over-charging, which is unquestionably a reason to demand a refund. Everyone who is trying to get out of contract with Three should make a number of these types of calls and log the details. When combined with the big outage on Monday, and all the other issues, this could be important evidence of the failure of Three to provide the service that they have been contracted to provide.

    It looks like Three have corrupted their database of Freephone routing - perhaps during the merger, or maybe during Monday's outage?

    Undoubtedly, Three support in India will again tell customers that they mustn't be cleaning their SIM cards hard enough in Eire, and that nothing has changed and there are no problems!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 233 ✭✭bugfreebob


    Has anyone succeeded in getting any refunds yet for the service issues, or has anyone managed to break contracts due to the loss of service in areas and at times where they previously had it?

    Interesting to see that eircom are giving refunds for loss of service during last years severe storms. If anything, storms could be covered under Force Majeure clauses and were obviously outside the control of the company, and yet customers are getting refunds. By comparison the O2/Three outages and service issues are clearly within the control of Three - and Comreg should force Three to give a big refund and allow early exit from contracts.

    It is vital that everyone with problems logs them as "Formal Complaints" with Three and follows up with Comreg afterwards when they are not sorted within a reasonable period.


  • Registered Users Posts: 533 ✭✭✭tv3tg4


    They admit that only 95% of my webtexts are delivered = but have not intention of bothering to fix the fault.

    The text based customer care responses leave a lot to be desired.

    My advice is keep to your old 02 price plans -


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 28,944 ✭✭✭✭_Kaiser_


    I'm on their Sim Only Business Plan which up until 2 months ago was perfect.. since they "merged" the networks though, speed and signal levels have gone to shyte and while they're well aware of the issues (you only need to have a look at their Talk To forum here), there's no resolution forthcoming.

    I'm seriously considering switching networks, but realistically my options are eircom (meteor/emobile) or Vodafone

    - I've been with eircom's offering before and had massive billing issues to the point of having to get Comreg and eircom Corporate involved twice
    - Vodafone is overpriced and the bundles are poor IMO (especially their data!!)

    Just wondering what others who've found themselves in this situation lately are doing?


  • Registered Users Posts: 643 ✭✭✭Nickindublin


    Kaiser we have 6 active lines with o2/Three.... Living in Dublin and have not noticed to much issues except for the outage on the Bank Holiday and one of our numbers had issues sending texts one day. All contracts are up inside the next 6 months so i am willing to wait and see what the service is like from the network and customer service. I would think that there was no real investment from Telefonica in o2 for the last number of years.

    As for porting to Vodafone or Emobile i agree with what you said.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,905 ✭✭✭✭Bob24


    _Kaiser_ wrote: »
    I'm on their Sim Only Business Plan which up until 2 months ago was perfect.. since they "merged" the networks though, speed and signal levels have gone to shyte and while they're well aware of the issues (you only need to have a look at their Talk To forum here), there's no resolution forthcoming.

    I'm seriously considering switching networks, but realistically my options are eircom (meteor/emobile) or Vodafone

    - I've been with eircom's offering before and had massive billing issues to the point of having to get Comreg and eircom Corporate involved twice
    - Vodafone is overpriced and the bundles are poor IMO (especially their data!!)

    Just wondering what others who've found themselves in this situation lately are doing?

    Interestingly I am not too keen on moving to Eircom/Vodafone for the exact same reasons as yours.

    Also had billing issues with Meteor - their customer service was awful and kept assuming they were right without trying to understand my bills whereas I was raising genuine issues (I wasted hours trying to explain the issue to them and eventually also had to go to ComReg for them to look into the issue seriously and admit their mistakes).

    And as I am am a heavy enough data user (not crazy - 10gigs per month), Vodafone doesn't have an sim only deal that works for me.

    So while the data service on Three is not great - I am not too sure what other options I have.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 233 ✭✭bugfreebob


    Three Ireland network seems to have sat down again this evening. According to posts on Talk-to-Three, a large proportion of both former O2 and Three native customers seem to be off the air. Widely reported in the National Media - so this should help to build the case for anyone trying to escape from a contract.

    http://www.siliconrepublic.com/comms/item/41785-three-s-network-in-ireland


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 233 ✭✭bugfreebob


    bugfreebob wrote: »
    Three Ireland network seems to have sat down again this evening. According to posts on Talk-to-Three, a large proportion of both former O2 and Three native customers seem to be off the air. Widely reported in the National Media - so this should help to build the case for anyone trying to escape from a contract.

    http://www.siliconrepublic.com/comms/item/41785-three-s-network-in-ireland

    Of course, maybe they are just celebrating Morse Code Day? They issued this Tweet this morning :D

    https://twitter.com/ThreeCare/status/592599131820023810


  • Registered Users Posts: 252 ✭✭Adrian4


    I rang them again last week - It keeps looking for an authentication code when I send webtexts.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,083 ✭✭✭Rubberchikken


    Thought i was the only one!
    On 3 past year. Usually fine. Since merger, i'm seriously considering moving to vodaphone.
    My daughter was with O2. Never had a bother. Great reception etc. since the merger, it's been mothing but poor/no service etc.

    Very disappointed with things in this house:(


  • Registered Users Posts: 70 ✭✭rosb


    I am on bill phone with 3 (formerly with O2 before merger). My Internet on phone slows right down in the evening, and often does not work at all. Happens at 9.30 or 10pm.

    In contract for another year.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 233 ✭✭bugfreebob


    rosb wrote: »
    I am on bill phone with 3 (formerly with O2 before merger). My Internet on phone slows right down in the evening, and often does not work at all. Happens at 9.30 or 10pm.

    In contract for another year.

    The small print in those contracts doesn't take away your basic rights under consumer law.

    http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/consumer_affairs/consumer_protection/consumer_rights/consumers_and_the_law_in_ireland.html

    The recent outages and day-to-day issues since the Three/O2 merger give plenty of scope to challenge these contracts, particularly since the big outages have been nationwide and well reported in the media. You would need to keep a precise log of your problems, make a Formal Complaint, follow up by complaining to Comreg etc. You should probably give Three a reasonable chance to fix your evening congestion problem. I guarantee they won't be able to fix it in a reasonable time. They have too many problems and have totally underestimated the complexity of merging two incompatible networks. It will take them at least 3 years to fix this mess. The merger of Orange & T-Mobile in the UK took 3 years, and they were in much better shape to start with than O2 or Three Ireland.

    Three wouldn't have a leg to stand on because the current level of service is not fit-for-purpose by any standards. Any court would rule in favour of the Consumer. If necessary you could threaten to go to the Small Claims Court - it will just cost you the €25 fee. Three will allow you back down on your contract rather than pay a solicitor to go to the Small Claims Court. It will take a little effort on your part, but there is no reason to put up with this disastrous service from Three.

    eMobile, Meteor and Vodafone are far more reliable alternatives, and all offer 4G.


  • Registered Users Posts: 70 ✭✭rosb


    bugfreebob wrote: »
    The small print in those contracts doesn't take away your basic rights under consumer law.

    http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/consumer_affairs/consumer_protection/consumer_rights/consumers_and_the_law_in_ireland.html

    Thanks very much for that. I had not even thought of challenging my contract. Will keep a record as you advised.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 185 ✭✭keavebm


    3 and 02 are a load of ****.im locked into a 2 year contract.my wife is on O2 and it's the worst signal ever.ever since 3 took over.ring them up and a bunch of clowns answer the phone that haven't got a clue


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 233 ✭✭bugfreebob


    The scripted response to all the recent problems from Three "Customer Care" in Mumbai is to tell the customer that the SIM card is probably faulty and should be changed.

    In twenty years of using GSM phones, I have never ever come a across a faulty SIM. I'm not saying they don't happen. Maybe if you leave your SIM lying around in the kitchen it might get greasy - but if the SIM is in the phone, it seems very unlikely that it would go faulty out of the blue. Even more unlikely that 1.5Million customers would all experience faulty SIMs in "Eire" at the same time.

    Well it seems that the Mumbai faulty SIM script is starting to backfire on Three. Apparently their stores are starting to run out of SIMs because thousands of customers are being told by Mumbai to go to their local store and get a new SIM!


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,905 ✭✭✭✭Bob24


    bugfreebob wrote: »
    Well it seems that the Mumbai faulty SIM script is starting to backfire on Three. Apparently their stores are starting to run out of SIMs because thousands of customers are being told by Mumbai to go to their local store and get a new SIM!

    If correct this is just ridiculous :-D


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 233 ✭✭bugfreebob


    Bob24 wrote: »
    If correct this is just ridiculous :-D

    Have a look at the Talk-to-Three forum. The standard response from the official Three reps on there is that your SIM is probably faulty and must first be ruled out before anything else! You will also see many postings referring to having first been told the same by the Mumbai agents on the phone. There is no question about it. There is also no question about the proportion of their customers that are having problems since the merger. This poll confirms that as does almost any Three customer I have spoken to. How widespread the problem of shops running out of SIMs is or whether it is a temporary stock problem - I don't know this, but some friends have hit it, and you also see references to it on Talk-to-Three. I am helping some friends to try to get out of contracts. It is very laborious - but my advice is to follow any advice from Three first however daft it seems, so as to be seen to have followed due process.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,671 ✭✭✭✭machiavellianme


    Both my wife and I are on o2 prepay and our signal reception has gone from 4 or 5 bars to between 0 and 2 bars. We are in various locations in the Leinster area (most often in Dublin) and are wondering if 3 prepay has the same issues or is it just ex o2? I'm sick of not being able to make or receive calls and data is practically non existent unless on edge.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 233 ✭✭bugfreebob


    Both my wife and I are on o2 prepay and our signal reception has gone from 4 or 5 bars to between 0 and 2 bars. We are in various locations in the Leinster area (most often in Dublin) and are wondering if 3 prepay has the same issues or is it just ex o2? I'm sick of not being able to make or receive calls and data is practically non existent unless on edge.

    The problems experienced by former O2 customers and native Three customers are slightly different - but most customers on both networks are experiencing major problems on a daily basis. The problems are time dependent and geo dependent, so it is difficult to generalise. This poll and the daily feedback on the Talk-to-Three forum give a good indication of the extent of the problems.

    Most of the problems stem from the fact that Three have very poor native coverage (mostly 3G with no 2G which is important for indoor voice). They were heavily dependent on a roaming agreement with Vodafone which gave the impression that they had good national and indoor coverage. Now that they have bought O2, the Three customers have been switched to roaming on the old O2 network which was already creaking at the seams due to lack of investment and no 4G. Hence O2 customers who had a reasonable 2G/3G service are now experiencing congestion as you have described. Three customers have lost the good Vodafone coverage and are also experiencing dropped calls and congestion. There are lots of other problems too - but these are the main ones.

    The customer care staff on Talk-to-Three have stopped recommending SIM swaps (the shops were starting to run out of SIMS!), and although they can't admit the extent of the problems they are now admitting that the network merger is going to take at least 2 years.

    The network merger will involve Three building new base-stations hundreds of old O2 locations where O2 had base-stations previously. The existing O2 base-stations will need to be de-commissioned as they are from a different supplier and don't support 4G. Three may choose to consolidate some O2/Three base-stations in the process rather than have two located near each other. This is a huge engineering task - and will likely take 2-3 years. In the meantime, expect the service problems to continue.

    If you are pre-pay, you need to get off the Three network to get away from these problems for the next couple of years. It will probably eventually get fixed - as Three have deep pockets and should be able to afford to do this. However, why put up with the pain for next couple of years? There is no point moving to Tesco, 48, Lyca or Blueface as they all use the Three network also. You need to move to eMobile, Meteor or Vodafone as they have separate networks. In general, eMobile have the best bundled deals with Broadband, phone & TV. Meteor have the best pre-pay deals.


  • Registered Users Posts: 181 ✭✭Strum


    In the 16 years I have been on the internet, three is THE WORST service I have EVER encountered and I'm definitely leaving now and look for something more reliable.

    Every night at the same time the dongle shuts off and restarts while I'm in the middle of whatever I'm doing. If I didn't have it set to automatically restart I would be shut out of the connection. What's that about? Upgrading or what? A warning would be appreciated.

    When I need to top up I have to call customer service to do it for me because I cannot open any links whatsoever on the main page, "page not found" etc.

    I'm here now moaning because I was shut out for 30 minutes earlier, (in the middle of a conversation) and sometimes the server is down for up to an hour.

    Best joke when the changeover with O2 happened it was stated "absolutely nothing will change" haha priceless, seeing as I was with them for 6 years without problems. :pac:


    I've been moaning about it to people for a while but time now to go public about this useless service. Forms don't do anything. Bah! :mad:


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