I went into 3 shop this weekend to buy the 1 monthly 2000 minutes 1 plan with unlimited data. and I asked about tethering and does the 2 GB limit apply.

It turns out the similar contract (12 months contract, 2000 mins, unlimited data) has the 2 GB tethering limit, but interestingly the one month 1 plan still does not have a limit.

However, the 3 shop told me this is going to change from the 14th July. They did not know exact details, but expected it to have a 2 GB limit.

They also said if you connect to the current 1 month 1 plan, they will not take the unlimited tethering away from you.

So you have 6 days to connect to old plan if unlimited tethering is important to you. Beyond that date, it will probably no longer be available.

The 12 month plan has unlimited tethering as well.

Why do store staff not know this, it seems no company these days can train their staff about anything. I was in an EE store the other day and the guy lied to me about a number of things as well.

Simply because the 1 month plan costs more than the 12 months so they get extra revenue.

Oh well I called 3 to see if I can pay the early termination fee and downgrade to the same One Plan but as a sim only version and they said it's not technically possible and to just wait until my contract ends, but I tried to explain to the guy that when my contract ends the sim only one plan with unlimited tethering wont be available for me anymore... uffff

You'd think the 12 month plan would give extra commission though.


How long have you got left? You could get a new contract, then port your original number out and back again, onto your new contract?

I still have until March 2015 so I'm stuffed... but a new contract sounds like a good idea?

Does anyone know when all of these 'Three tethering ending' threads will be ending?!

I think we've known for months that it's ending. Fair enough this one gives a possible date, but couldn't it be included in another of the many threads that already exist?

I have the 12 month One Plan £15pm. I have no issues using 2+GB pm.

It might cost more but the trend is always geared towards long term commitment, it makes for a better bottom line over the financial year.


Having worked in the industry I can certainly say that is the case, you earn more the longer you get a person to commit...even in some cases you get more for selling a less flashy phone.... Phone selling in retail is certainly not the most honest profession I can say that for sure. You have to lack certain morals to be considered a success, this applies industry wide. When you go into a phone shop of any retailer.....they have generally only have their interests and subsquently pay packets in mind. Its one of the reasons I left after few years, I just couldn't bring myself to almost miss-sell Sim Only deals as being a benefit...given some customers like my grandparents for example barely top up a tenner a month....or those than ring 08 numbers find themselves being charged stupid rates, when previously it came out of their credit.

Back to the original point however, being fair to Three and Vodafone generally their retail staff are pretty honest. My own experience when I got the one plan in January, they gave me the option of the two tariffs there was no pressure, walked out happy.

I was categorically told the 12 month contract plan does not have unlimited tethering? They said the ts&cs had changed recently on them for new contracts.


PS: jonmorris, I started a new thread because I was given a specific date and wanted to make it very visible, as the date is so close.

They are wrong. 100% wrong.

Go read the T&C yourself. Really pisses me off when staff can't be bothered to learn their own company policies and stuff.

To be fair to shop staff, Three has repeatedly messed up the website to make it appear that the current One Plan has lost unlimited tethering. They may well have been incorrectly briefed by someone else, and not all of them will have the time to double check (and nor should they have to in my opinion).

We all know it's not the case (and every time it has been confirmed and corrected by Three) but obviously soon it WILL be - so the same advice given by many stands, and is perhaps more important than ever.

SIGN UP NOW if you want to keep the unlimited tethering. Unlimited tethering IS ending. You have been warned! Sign up now and you'll get it, and it won't stop for you when it does for NEW customers signing up.

Got a question. Im on the One Plan (which im very happy with and want to keep) with a Galaxy S4 and my contract runs till May 2015. Im planning on keeping this plan but instead of upgrading to a new phone im seriously considering keeping the existing phone. What will Three normally do? Will they reduce automatically my monthly payments since I will have paid off the phone or will they just keep taking the usually monthly payment?

Nothing changes, all you have done is complete the minimum term laid out in the contract. The contract continues on a 30 day rolling basis until you change price plan or upgrade and enter into a new minimum term.

Ok wasn't sure what Three do. In the past im think some networks (possibly Orange??)would reduce the monthly payments after the term is up.

Don't think I've ever seen that happen - certainly not automatically anyway. Networks would be more than happy for you to continue paying the same amount forever once the minimum term is up, though often they will try to get you to upgrade just so you recommit to a new minimum term.

I wish a journalist would hold Three's CEO, or at least COO, to account for poor central management. During the unveiling of the Lumia 1020, it was great to hear the journalist grill the Nokia CEO over the poor shopping experience in AT&T stores, and it was a shame that AT&T Mobility CEO had already left the stage.

Not enough journalists ask these powerful people the tough, customer-focused questions - it's as though they're in thrall of them and afraid to see them squirm. Lots of publications - trade and populist - have a 'mystery shopping' section with a running tally, but the resulting interrogation of the organisation is rarely extended beyond a stock sentence from an unnamed PR representative. Individuals and companies need to be held to account.

Not everything on the 3 website appears to be 100% correct though. The traffic sense documents have no mention of VPN traffic being throttled, though it is blatant from simple tests that it is.

I agree. I used to ask tough questions 'back in the day' when working in the trade press, and also wrote a column that for many years was anonymous so afforded me great 'power'.

The problem, I guess, is that these days you need to be in with the PR agencies to be able to attend the events. Ask a tough question and that's it. That's the way it SHOULD be of course, but the problem is that an editor (or more likely publisher) doesn't want its magazine/website blocked - so will tell staff to be nice.

It's therefore a case of hoping that someone else does it, and then report that.

I am not sure how this can or will ever change. It's no longer just Apple that carefully manages its press list and those who are in the 'inner circle' so to speak. They all try and do it.

I am in the same situation as you... I am hoping 3 will just discount the exisiting plan I'm on (currently a phone one plan contract) and hoping they can add rolling discounts to match the same cost of the One Plan as sim only without the loss of unlimited tethering.

I have tested tethering with PPTP and an SSL VPN and no significant difference for me, maybe it's an MTU or window size, peering connection issue to your provider or another issue specific to the VPNs you are using?

Affects my employer (Cisco Anyconnect, which I think is an SSL VPN) and VPNing home (OpenVPN) - I notice a considerable drop in performance when I'm VPNed.

I doubt it's a peering issue because a) my employer is a network equipment manufacturer that is its own ISP (hint) and performance is not an issue when I'm not doing stuff over the VPN to their network, and b) my home VPN isn't set to tunnel everything, only the subnets I use, and performance to the internet is greatly reduced even though that's only going over the 3 network as if I was not VPNed. For OpenVPN it doesn't appear to matter whether it is TCP or UDP or the port.

Something definitely does kick in when I connect the VPN. As I have said repeatedly, it would be great if 3 had a clear and detailed document that tells us how Traffic Sense works, who it works on, when, and on what protocols to what extent and for how long. The OFCOM statement template is crap.

I have to agree about the 3 website, tariff guide often being wrong, inconsistent and displaying incorrect information.

Surely its not that difficult for one reasonably competent person to make sure that the tariffs/allowances/costs are correct in both the sales site, and the price guide?

And when 3 make changes to their plans, it cant be that hard to update the details correctly, and check that before making them live?

Although they are nowhere near as bad at T-Mobile/EE, who have quite possibly the worst website on the internet!!

It looks like the new sim only one plans are now capped at 2GB according to recent customer tweets.

The chance of that is somewhere between zero and nil...