We use to have phones with 3 and although the network etc and in-store service was good. Customer services not so good, had very bad attitudes and refused to replace a phone which had broken down 3 times which they claimed to have 'fixed' 3 times. The offers they gave us were phones that were inferior to the one we had, so we blocked the direct debit and went in store and gave the faulty phone back. Just awful customer services...

But as i said earlier, the network is very good IMO and i do have a mobile broadband dongle which performs excellently!

Try Vodafone, you will soon go running back to Three !

i have been with 3 for 2 months and rely on orange 2g at work (south yorkshire area). imagine my surprise last week when my iphone started to show no service at work!!! but credit to 3 a phone call to c/s and 2 return calls from other departments and they agree to cancel my contract and give me my pac and my £100 for iphone plus a pre paid envelope to send iphone back to them. already used pac and gone back to the superior vodafone

We've been with 3 for years now. I've only really had to talk with customer services twice when a problem has arisen.

One was my own fault. I lost my phone whilst in Geneva. I phoned 3 using my w1fe's phone. The phone and sim were cancelled there and then. The CS however tried to charge me for a refurb and new sim to replace my phone. I refused. On arriving back in the UK I contacted them for a pac. Long story short. Free phone, sim, cheaper contract, more mins etc. Happy customer

The next time was last year when the signal kept failing on my N97 at home. Phone returned for repair. Replacement arrived 3 (no pun intended) days later all fixed. Happy customer again

The network and coverage has got better over the years along with more roaming countries.

Would recommend 3 to anyone. But check coverage in the main areas you will be using it.

I did toy with the idea of dumping my ISP for 3 mobile bb. 3 were going to let me try it out and if not satisfied would have happily cancelled and refunded any up front costs. But decided to stay with my ISP, only because they came up with a cheaper offer.

Thanks for all the comments.
It has put my mind at rest and I will make the switch to 3

rather you than me!! im just leaving due to them removing 2g coverage

G@V.....just noted that you are posting from Scotland. Had 3 for a while when I lived in the Central Belt - between GLA and EDI! Poor signal for a good deal of the time. Great IN GLASGOW and EDINBURGH but lousy inbetween. Sad, as great prices. Customer service very poor of the few occassions I had to phone their "out of country" call centres.
However....now in Ayrshire and 3 have spend a good deal of money improving their service here and is very popular here both for fones and mobile internet.
However I stay with 02 - simplicity one-month rolling SIM. 800 mins...800 texts...free 02 to 02 calls. and have always had a good signal all over the UK.

Hows you O2 3G/HSDPA coverage across the Uk though?

Well we know the answer to that - shocking unless you are in a town or city.

You won't get any 3G/HSDPA outside of main towns or cities, you can see that from the coverage maps if you click on the 'mobile internet coverage' section of the website.

So if you live in a small village or are on a train, bus or car wanting to stream or listen to content, if you're camping, visiting a country pub (as I do weekly) etc you will be stuck on 2G, however in addition to my O2 sim I'm lucky enough to have a 3 sim which gives me HSDPA in all the places mentioned above, while my friends on O2 and other networks get slow speeds.

It gets quite amusing when we go out and want to look something up on the internet because I'm the only one that ever has HSDPA coverage wherever we go throughout the countryside in pub gardens in the summer or wherever.

i have iphone 4 on 3 had it a couple of months now and not had any reception issues at all, found the customer services helpful when i was transfering my number over.

this is first time ever being on contract after years on orange pay as you go, the 30 pound per month for internet texter 500 is around the same as the credit i was putting on the orange phone.

just like others have said make sure of reception in the areas you regulary visit etc

3 are withdrawing 2G (GSM) coverage (Orange roaming) in many areas..... with UMTS 2100Mhz coverage less robust especially indoors they are taking a huge gamble.

For folks who need reliable communication 3 have always been a poor choice thanks to the unavailabilty of seamless call switching to their roaming partners but without any GSM backup that issue has been solved with no service at all in poor UMTS coverage areas!

Vodafone, 02, T-Mobile & Orange will maintain GSM and UMTS networks for some time to come so for circuit switched (voice) call reliablity on mobiles those look like a far better bet than 3.