3 Mobile

[raven]

Anyone use this network?

Ben and I are moving to it tomorrow (yay new phone to play with!!)

I know that I am after the NEC228 and I was wondering if anyone had any experience with this phone? It looks easy to use, but nay feedback would be great!!

One question I do have: can you access regular WAP sites from it like Yahoo or a matrixm locker?

[Chris/Lisa]

oooh video mobile looks cool - please let us know how you get on - also would love to know about the cost of it - how much it is to video link with eachother that sort of thing

[raven]

That I can tell you!!

Video calls 3 to 3 are 50p per minute. We were looking at the brochure and the tariffs just seem so much cheaper than other networks. Even the phone I want is cheap!!
It'll be £44.99 for the phone and that includes £15 pound of credit!!

The credit works in two ways. You can either have VideoTalk or VideoText. We're going for VideoText (I am the text queen!!) So if you buy £25 worth of credit, you get 50 talk minutes and 500 texts, plus £1.50 to spend on any 3 mobile feature (music or music video download, sport....)

[Keith]

I wasn't too impressed sadly with the network, the charges, the phones or the limited internet access.... but I'm a grouch <G>

Now the other networks such as orange/o2/voda have announced 3g services, I think we're going to see a serious price war for the hearts, minds and wallets of customers going on and I think some good deals could come out of that.

There's loads of promise in 3g... but when I last looked at "3" the service provider, you were locked into going to sites they'd put on their network which is no use for me :(

[Chris/Lisa]

Heard on the radio yesterday that DVB was going to be available through mobile networks soon(ish)

Technology moves so fast it is scary sometimes

[Keith]

ain't that the truth!

yeah the mobile device really is getting incredible powerful... 3g is incredible when it works well. A friend was on the orange 3g trial and was downloading data from the internet faster through his cell phone to his laptop than I could with my permanent connetion! Things they are'a'changin!

[ceri b]

3G, well well well, where do I start!! If you don't wanna hear the bad news look away now!!

They suck big time.

Hubby won 2 paid for a year from E4 last year so we were umong the first to have them. In that first year I saw no improvement at all. Basically we got 1000 any time any minutes thrown in, 500 texts etc etc. Well if talking on the phone you could virtually guarantee that if once you get to about 10mins the phone would just cut you off. Callcentres in India, no one had a clue and couldn't give you answers, it took me about 3 hours and 5 calls to cancel the contract and even then I did it by letter as they still didn' stop the contract! The access as Keith says is only to basically 3g sites. You can't picture message cross network and presumably not video call/message either which is fine if all your friends have 3 however me and hubby were the only ones with it. Looked at PAYG but think they are really restricting the customers. You have to choose text or talk? Ok so what happens if you choose text you have used your 50 mins and their is an emergency, you have to buy another £25 but of talk and not text!! And it all has to be used within a month!! and basically to get the cheaper call rate you have to buy bigger vouchers again having to be used within a month! Even free I hated 3g!!
Give me good ole PAYG anyday!!

[raven]

So what's the difference between 3 and 3g???

To be honest, I've been messed about so much by Vodafone and O2 recently, I thought a total change of network would be good.

I have been on Orange (years ago) but looking at what both Orange and T Mobile offer, for the charges it's not worth it! So... 3 it is...

Were there no redeeming features for you at all Keith?

[tushypat]

3 didn't get a very good write up in Which magazine a couple of months ago. Maybe things have improved since then? At the time they reported very poor coverage and the PAYG vouchers were deemed an extremely expensive way to go.

[raven]

Apparantly it's 99% coverage now... Thing is for me, I text loads, so the £25 VideoText would be great for me as it offers 500 texts a month, which I would definately use!

Has anyone had a good experience??? I'm losing my faith in this good idea now........

[ceri b]

Aaaa, they were 3G as in 3rd generation! However I think they dropped the g and are now officially 3.

[Keith]

So what's the difference between 3 and 3g???


3g is 3rd generation cell phone network technology basically it refers to the technology which allows video calls and things that would need faster access than 2g, old style networks like normal o2/voda, would allow.

3 is the first UK network to launch using the new 3rd generation technology but orange/o2/voda have in the last couple of months caught up and are just about offering services based on the same network technology. Orange was in test and it was LOTS better than 3's service.


To be honest, I've been messed about so much by Vodafone and O2 recently, I thought a total change of network would be good.


They're all bad at messing you around :( but orange are possibly the best at customer service.. free to call etc etc.


I have been on Orange (years ago) but looking at what both Orange and T Mobile offer, for the charges it's not worth it! So... 3 it is...

Were there no redeeming features for you at all Keith?

Orange is currently the best IMHO with o2 being second. (it swaps frequently.. a few months ago the best deals were on o2). If you're a student (ie studying ANYTHING even a few hours a week) you can get an NUS card and orange are offering 1000 free texts a month on TOP of whatever they normally give. So you can do 15 quid a month get I think its a hundred or so free texts and then get 1000 on top!

Redeeming features on 3? yeah, that when I made a fuss they let me get out of the contract with no penalties. The phone was clunky compared to the nice new ones on other networks, the video sending rarely worked in my region and anyway, video send to who? it gets old after the first couple of videos.... the internet was limited to 3 sites (orange lets me get anywhere), calls would drop out and so on. It was awful :(

Sorry, I know it's not a great answer for you and obviously you may have a better experience.

[tushypat]

I've been on Orange now for 4 years and couldn't say a bad word against them. A+ in all areas.

[Keith]

yeah I've been pretty impressed with orange I admit. The service is a notch above the others and they seem to genuinely try and sort out any problems you have.

[Chris/Lisa]

Virgin have never steered me wrong and have always been polite and efficient - texts are only 3p between virgins ( :D )

[Keith]

Im a total text addict I must admit :) love getting them and send SO many <G>

[tushypat]

Have you found anyone to text though Chris? ;)

[Chris/Lisa]

:lol: Yes thanks - Lisa has one too

[Whitequeen]

Oh dear, no good news from me either on 3. My eldest daughter has 3! What a load of rubbish. If I want to send her a pic from my phone, her's won't accept it and I would have to download to my PC and then e-mail it to her. Not much point to that. Customer services are, well..............I don't think they have any. :rolleyes:

In this house we have Vodaphone, o2, BT and my Orange. And the winner is......................Orange by miles. It doesn't matter how many free texts, calls & pics a company give you if your phone hasn't got the coverage and can't send something. :shrug:

[raven]

Well, we went ahead anyway..... We saw the Dixons advert on TV that morning saying that the NEC616v was £44.99 including credit, so we thought, "why not?"

No major problems so far, we can't get the "Today on 3" wap thingy to work though. We called customer services a couple of times, the first time we were told to change the service settings to manual and then select 3g. Problem with that was that the phones wouldn't let us select the manual settings.... Hm...
So we called again and the second person we spoke to told us that due to the bad weather the network had gone down (and also said we should've been told that in the first place and she was sorry) and it was simply a case of waiting for the weather to pass...

I am wondering though... We are both payasyougo, anyone know if the wap thingy is actually available on this yet?

[Lisa1976]

Sorry Raven, I have to agree with the others, I hate 3 mobile with a passion. I think our problem is that we bought one of the very first phones that they had and of course 3 had only been going a short time, the phone battery life was awful and so much was restricted.

Their customer service department is dismisal, I think their offices are based in India someone, because everyone you speak to is indian or thereabouts and doesn't speak very good english so thats the first hurdle, secondly they don't help you at all and you get passed around and around until you get so fed up with it, you cancel the contract which is what i did.

[raven]

OK - update...

We got our new phones as I said - NEC 616v... The browser still doesn't work, neither does the photo/video messaging service (which makes sense as they run through the browser anyway)

At first, I was told by the 3 shop to go to Dixons and tell them the problem and they would call 3 customer services and ask them what was happening. Dixons wouldn't help, saying that all I had to do was call 3 and ask them to enable the GPRS on the handsets.

I went back to 3 and told them this and although they were adamant this shouldn't be the case, they put me through to customer services and I asked them to enable the GPRS. They said all 3 handsets are enabled and if I had a problem, then it was cause I was in an area without 3 coverage. I checked this and the area we live in is totally covered by 3...

So...... we are going back to Dixons after Ben finishes work tomorrow and asking if we can change handsets for either a new 616 or the one down (228)... I called them this afternoon and the guy I spoke to had one left, which he has faithfully promised he has put aside..... I am going to put my SIM in it before we leave the shop so I know it works!!

Anyone know if you can transfer credit from one handset to another - we'll have lost £50 otherwise.....

[Keith]

The credit won't be on your handset, it'll be on your sim which will be easy enough to transfer between handsets so don't worry about that.

All I can say though :( is these problems are typical of 3. It could be that the handsets are setup incorrectly and a different type of phone will work better but :/ Im betting it won't be the last you see of these issues with 3.

Really hope it goes well for you both though.. let us know what happens... and if it doesn't work in the shop, don't walk out with it.. reject the phone and the contract and go with orange. Don't let them say "oh well it needs 24hours to register the new handset" or any other rubbish that they tend to say to get you out of the shop.

[raven]

Ok - browser problem sorted!

When I had changed my settings I had forgotten to take out the SIM card and put it back in again (which I'm told resets everything to the new settings and starts the phone with the new stuff).

Once I had remembered to do that, everything worked!!! I've downloaded tons of stuff, the only other problem I had was with one ringtone that didn't open on my handset. I went straight to the 3 shop and the lady there put her SIM into my phone and let me download two!! One still didn't open, but the other did, so I had one for free!!

[Keith]

yayayayayay! excellent! Glad it's all working for you!

[raven]

I will admit that the ringtone that didn't open wa the theme tune from "Rentaghost"... Admitting that to the lady in the 3 shop was amusing... for her...