Story here.

Pity CEO Kevin Russell hasn't applied the same aim to their off-shore customer services. It's not even luke warm Kevin, it's just sh*t.

Shite is only hot when it's fresh and new, after that it festers and smells worse

It is just a shame that 3 doesn't have many great handsets.

Lol, thats so true. Colleague is on 3, he's trying to get a decent Blackberry package - they just don't offer anything even remotely decent.

Interesting comment about the customer services - thats exactly what I thought. Whats the use in upgrading the infrastructure if you don't have the backend support up to speed.

3 are not good at all. The signal where I live is not good. I spend most of my telephone conversations saying "say that again!"

Customer service is awful, I have to go through all different menus just to speak to someone and when I get through, its someone who cannot understand what I'm talking about.

I was killing time at the weekend and went into the local Three outlet to try the BB 9700. Within seconds a salesman struck up a conversation, gave me a sales pitch on the BB. I told him I had a BB 9000 on Vodafone, not up for renewal for a few months. He then went into a tirade about Voda's customer care. I told him when I was with Three I didn't have much success with Three's, then he started an onslaught against his own customer service about how bad it was. Is this a sales ploy to empathise with the customer, for a sale?

He couldn't match my current deal anyway. Even on-line their BB plans don't look great.

No matter how much 3 improve their 3G network they will always have the issue of call handovers to a 2G network (currently Orange) when their 2100Mhz UMTS signal becomes unusable. When that happens a voice call drops as a new connection including authentication is needed to access the 2G network. That happens a lot sadly as 3G signals are nowhere near as robust as the 900Mhz GSM signals. This problem is unique for 3 as all other UK networks have GSM (900/1800 networks or both) as well as 2100 UMTS. If you are on Orange, Voadfone, 02 or T-Mobile the frequency range and type of transmission does not matter, a totally seamless voice call handover can be done as the user is on a single home Location Register.

This only applies to circuit switched voice calls, data like mobile broadband is IP based and connectionless so handovers are seamless.

I doubt if 3 will see out 2010. There is little market for them to capture and the high value customers have better alternatives elsewhere. The Mumbai call centre is a big negative and 3 are once again flooding the market with cheap Chineese 3G handsets which will attract low spenders who can dump their phones as soon as they have enough to get a better product.

I would put money on Vodafone absorbing 3 UK this year.

That would be an improvement, particularly given that it's been impossible to get past Planet 3 and out onto the big wide internet in West London at all for the past few days.

You really do have it in for 3 for some reason, recently you've posted a raft of negative posts with little substance.

Three is the biggest mobile broadband provider in the UK (and by some distance), it has the largest and fastest growing 3g network in terms of coverage. I rarely lose 3g signal due to the massive coverage (especially when compared to the likes of O2).

Absorb is an interesting phrase to use to describe the possibility of Vodafone buying 3, a rumour that you and you alone started in a thread by saying that there had been "industry rumours". Seeing as you don't work in the "industry" and it's not been reported by any notable publication or website, we can only assume that it's another example of a recent trend you have in creating negative 3 posts one after another.

Your last anti-Three thread 2 days ago "Beware 3 now have 24 month contracts" ended with another poster posting the comment "I must say this is totally out of character for you to say anything negative about 3, wavejock.. is everything ok? "

It was reported a year ago by the Times and The Register on the back of a merger between Vodafone and Three in Australia.

That's a year old, and the article a year ago said nothing more than "The deal is likely to reignite speculation about a tie-up between Vodafone and 3 in the UK." The Register didn't even go that far and suggest there was any speculation in the UK.

Wavejock posted about it just a few days ago and there's been nothing of note in the press for a year, and even then it was a rumour of speculation all that time ago. He posted no source to suggest there was any renewed speculation.

And another thing, 2G / 3G switching during a call does work now Wavejock, although not on all handsets. This change happened about 2 years ago when 3 switched to Orange for 2g coverage. When you do a network search it will show 3 (3G) and 3, instead of Orange. You will never see Orange listed in the list of available networks when doing a manual search on 3 because it's sees Oranges 2G network as if it were 3's own. You can hot-swap during a call, depending on the handset you have.

i hope 3 go down, i have no signal here only o2,

Recently?! It's his life's work! I do wonder what happened to inspire all this negativity.. did they turn you down for a job in their Glasgow CS centre, wavejock?

I think the the title of this thread should be called 3 are SH%T. Lousy price plan Lousy coverage and no CS at all. Yes I dont like 3 and would be more then happy for them to go bust.

Aw, that's a shame. I found their price plans to be excellent, and their network and CS to be very good. Mind you, I can speak clear English myself, so perhaps that's whay I had no trouble communicating with the Indian CS staff.

I'm only with Orange now because I found a slightly better deal for the phone I wanted, due to it being a cashback deal.. there's no way I'd pay full price for Orange's tariffs.

3's handsets have never shown anything other than '3' when roaming on GSM. Even old NECs displayed 3 when roaming on 02! I am not aware of any way a subscriber can be on two networks at the same time as cellular technology would not know how to route a call if this happened. It's only possible to do seamless circuit switched calls on an integrated 3G/GSM network. If anyone has any published evidence to the contrary I would be pleased to be given a reference to it.

3 no longer own a network themselves, they have a joint company called Mobile Broadband Limited which also serves T-Mobile. It's unclear how the proposed T-Mobile/Orange merger will affect this arrangment. It is possible the joint company could share costs with 3 to make greater savings. Orange have a a very extensive 3G network also.

Mobile Broadband coverage has always been a strong point for 3 as they were first to market with low cost dongles. They are the network with the largest 3G bandwidth in the UK but that has not helped recently as they have instructed staff not to take new customers in some areras where they have capacity issues. UMTS was never designed to replace wired broadband but it has been sold as an alternative by mobile operators in the UK.

Bottom line re this topic is there are still some issues with 3 re voice call reliability in comaprison with the other 4 operatiors. As far as mobile broadband is concerned 3 have a very extensive UK network but it has to be remembered that they share that with T-Mobile UK so when the integration programme is completed both will be able to claim broadly similar coverage although 3 have more bandwidth available.

I didn't mention accents in my original post. I found if the answer wasn't on the script the query/problem was not resolved.

It doesn't matter to me if they are in Mumbai or Milngavie. I just want a resolution to what I am calling about, especially if my phone is not working.

Why do you want 3 to go down? How would that help you?

I might be wroong but as I understood it 3 have an agreement with O2 that whereever they have poor coverage they will ride on the back of O2.

A few years ago they did, but then they moved it over to Orange. That was around 2007.

three have outstandingly bad coverage and quality, let the big boys handle it better

3 to have 'sh*t hot' 3G network by end of 2010

I really hope that's the tagline they use in an ad campaign

So They Re Just Addin Heat? Take Title - Hot = Current Network

I just came onto to this section to ask about Three.

I am either planning to go PAYG with them, or with Orange, which is more expensive.

Which do you recommend?

Personally, I think you'd get more answers with a new thread as opposed to asking in this one which has turned into a bit of a bitchfest...

Anyway though, as you have asked, this is a good link to start with for checking out 3's PAYG offer; http://www.three.co.uk/Pay_As_You_Go...the_free_stuff

What the big boys like O2? (the largest network by customer numbers).

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/29/o2_apology/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12...t_again_again/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09...own_yet_again/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08...own_yet_again/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/28/o2_down_again/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07...aming_failure/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/22/o2_data_up/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/21/o2_data_down/

Oh and the comparison map between 3 and o2 coverage from Ofcom:

http://www.three.co.uk/Help_Support/...twork_research

and those maps ^ are old and from Ofcom, by the end of 2010 the map will look like the blue map on this page:

http://www.three.co.uk/Help_Support/Coverage - and that's 3G coverage. By the end of the year 3 will have a population coverage of 98.5% 3G coverage.

O2 for your reference SkyPaulusPlus is around 85%, and despite the recent claims by Orange they are NOT the biggest 3G network (hence the pending complaint with Ofcom) as they claim 93%.