Switching from O2 to Three, anything to be wary of?

podge018

My current plan, an old one, is: 150mins & 60 texts for €20, add €7.50 for 250mb of data and it's €27.50. I never get near my minute allowance but with extra texts and data my bill is usually around €50.

With Three, on a sim only 30 day contract for €30 I get 350 flexi units, 'All I can eat' data, which is 15GB I'm told, and a freebie add-on of 150 off-peak minutes or texts until the end of the year.

I have a N900 and am happy with it for now so will hang onto it until the iPhone 5 is launched.

I hear Three are fine, and really want to get away from 02 who are robbing me for data and My head is wrecked keeping an eye on it and having my settings at the most basic (no images etc).

Good to go then do you reckon?

reverenddave

worse customer service than eircom
and almost as expensive as vodafone

jay93

how are they nearly as expensive as vodafone?they give 15GB of data now where as vodafone give ya feck all just my toughts
ive never had any problems with them OP

Kristopherus

reverenddave wrote: »

worse customer service than eircom
and almost as expensive as vodafone

Rubbish !!! Way, way better than any of the 2 main networks.And their customer service is as good as the other networks, if you can put up with listening to Indian accents !! As for porting from O2, my experience in porting from them pissed me off so much that I will never go back to them. It took them 3 full weeks to port over my no. when it should have taken 2 - 3 hours at most.:eek:

irishgrover

prices are great, especially if you use a lot of data. Customer service is truly shocking, genuinely unbelievably brutal. But if you don't need to contact them then who cares!

Abelloid

podge018 wrote: »

My current plan, an old one, is: 150mins & 60 texts for €20, add €7.50 for 250mb of data and it's €27.50. I never get near my minute allowance but with extra texts and data my bill is usually around €50.

With Three, on a sim only 30 day contract for €30 I get 350 flexi units, 'All I can eat' data, which is 15GB I'm told, and a freebie add-on of 150 off-peak minutes or texts until the end of the year.

I have a N900 and am happy with it for now so will hang onto it until the iPhone 5 is launched.

I hear Three are fine, and really want to get away from 02 who are robbing me for data and My head is wrecked keeping an eye on it and having my settings at the most basic (no images etc).

Good to go then do you reckon?

Get a free SIM to test first, some areas have terrible coverage and you'll drop from 3G to 2G, which I find useless for data and often even sending a text is a problem too.

jimmycrackcorm

reverenddave wrote: »

worse customer service than eircom
and almost as expensive as vodafone

There are loads of thread about customer service issues with all the operators - people have both good and bad experiences. If someone prefers to pay several hundred Euro per year for an occasional custormer care call then I just think it is bizarre.

QwertyFinger

The only negative I can think of is that nobody is on the network.

Walkman

QwertyFinger wrote: »

The only negative I can think of is that nobody is on the network.

I'm on it ;-)

ingen

QwertyFinger wrote: »

The only negative I can think of is that nobody is on the network.

i reckon now , with their new offers, and with vodafones end of data roaming abroad (live apn) , three will get a lot more business, as their 30 day sim only plans are the best value, ie classic flex max €30 and loads of data, that you can use abroad in locations where three have a network.

i know a good few people on three now, also a bonus with three is the way you can easily check your remaing data and flex unit allocation on iphone4 ,
and its updated in almost real time.. ( unlike other operators that take 5 days to update unbilled calls ).

customer service on three, well you dont spend as long on hold as other operators, the few times i called three customer care, call was answered quickly, issue dealt with quickly ..


the only tweak to classic flex max, i would suggest, is to make voicemail free too!

QwertyFinger

They're new enough so few customers is expected, honestly, I'm considering moving to them for a business phone, but I'm fine as is with my htc desire on meteor, although out of all the other operators, 3 or 02 would be my preference, I've had too many bad experiences with Vodafone to go near them, even though they are marketed towards business.

BostonB

podge018 wrote: »

My current plan, an old one, is: 150mins & 60 texts for €20, add €7.50 for 250mb of data and it's €27.50. I never get near my minute allowance but with extra texts and data my bill is usually around €50.....

No offence, but the problem seems to be you didn't bother changing your plan.

TheBunk1

Well I can only go on my own experience and I can honestly say I've had no major problems whatsoever with 3. Been with them about 6 months now on iPhone 4. While there are many reports of bad customer service, my one experience was fine. I live in Cork city and 3G is generally 3-4 bars, 5 sometimes and only occasionally get a drop in service ( Carragaline) and surprisingly I usually get 5 full bars back home in Clare, which I thought would be worse. I pay 40 notes a month bill pay for 350 flexi units which can be split any way between texts and calls and their new data plan allows unlimited download ( up from my original 2GB). My current data remaining reads over 93GB! Which would be pretty difficult to use on any phone tbh. In fairness 3 are trying new approaches to mobile plans, which may eventually get the ret on board. Personally I think there is a certain snobbery with people not movin to 3, as there was initially with Meteor. Go for it I say.

Nothingbetter2d

reverenddave wrote: »

worse customer service than eircom
and almost as expensive as vodafone

not true about the expense

my bill is never more than €45 a month with three... on vodafone it used to be €65 - €70 a month

podge018

BostonB wrote: »

No offence, but the problem seems to be you didn't bother changing your plan.

I don't agree, the plan is fine considering I don't ever use my minute amount as I use an office phone during the day, and use the cabbagetext. So much so that I have O2 on the blower to me most months looking to change my ,lan only to agree that it's the best one to suit my needs. It's their ****ey data package I want away from.

BostonB

My point is...

Theres no point being on O2 unless the majority of your calls are to O2. Thats the first thing to work out. Then O2 have the worse data offerings. So if you want data, O2 is not the place to be unless the majority of your cost is calls to O2.

IMO, If you keep going out of your plan, then you're on the wrong plan.
You can get Free O2 calls/txt and 100 mins 100 texts for 20 sim free.
You can get Free O2 calls/txt 150 100 and 500mb data for 45.
IMO You're paying 50 for a deal worse than both of those.

That said I wouldn't be on O2 unless most of cost was calls to O2.

flipall

podge018 wrote: »

I don't agree, the plan is fine considering I don't ever use my minute amount as I use an office phone during the day, and use the cabbagetext. So much so that I have O2 on the blower to me most months looking to change my ,lan only to agree that it's the best one to suit my needs. It's their ****ey data package I want away from.

I disagree with you because even if you went on the lowest plan you would be paying 25 a month for 300 units, 1 unit = 1 min/2texts/1MB data, if that isn't enough data the add on is 4.99 so your bill would be 30 quid. The newer price plans are usually much better than the old ones!

podge018

eh? The debate with Boston B was over which is the best O2 plan for me, nothing to do with Three's plans.

Boston B - I couldn't switch to SIM only as I was tied into a contract. I maintain the one I was on was my best option.

BostonB

Simplicity is a sim only contract.

Are you just coming off a 18 month contract or something.

Rowley Birkin QC

I moved from O2 to 3 and can't compliment them enough to be honest.

Bills have literally halved every month and I'm getting way more functionality out of my phone. The new All you can eat data perk is the real icing on the cake. Get away from O2 as quick as you can!

Head for Android too, iPhone schmiPhone.

Petands

I'm thinking of moving from o2 to 3 too. What gets me is they say flexi units, use them any way you like, but in the terms and conditions they say you can only use 50% of you flex units for calls.
Confusing

Mimikyu

This post has been deleted.

Petands

Actually i'm not sure. T&C's were not specific,

http://www.three.ie/terms/paymonthly_terms.html

Petands

I digress, it does specify uk calls

Gerry1995

The free phone and all you can eat data offer, 24 mth contract expires the end of this month, however I think the all you can eat data finishes Dec 31 2011, so what happens then, anyone know what data you have then ?

Kensington

Gerry1995 wrote: »

The free phone and all you can eat data offer, 24 mth contract expires the end of this month, however I think the all you can eat data finishes Dec 31 2011, so what happens then, anyone know what data you have then ?

If they choose not to extend it then:
- anyone who is out of the minimum term of their contract come January, or on a 30-day SIM only version of a Flex Max plan will presumably revert back to the previous allowance which was 2GB per month
- those still within their minimum term come January will continue to receive AYCE data until their minimum term is finished at which point they'll revert back to the previous allowance of 2GB per month

Really remains to be seen what they do. Certainly it seems their network is struggling in certain areas to cope with the demand of offering unlimited data, judging by complaints on their [Talk to Three forum] and over on the [Midband forum] (Three are responsible for the Government National Broadband Scheme (NBS) to bring high speed always on internet to rural areas). However, their network is still in fairly early days in terms of the amount of cells and infrastructure they have in the place compared to the likes of Meteor, O2 or Vodafone's network. If they were prepared to invest in some serious infilling then they may be able to better cope with the demand of AYCE data

Petands

Gerry1995 wrote: »

The free phone and all you can eat data offer, 24 mth contract expires the end of this month, however I think the all you can eat data finishes Dec 31 2011, so what happens then, anyone know what data you have then ?

If you apply for a new contract before dec 31 you will qualify for unlimited data for the duration of yor contract. You have til dec 31/11 to apply.