The people with phones on contracts that allow unlimited tethering are the ones that will lose out here.

For example, let's say you're paying £39 for The One Plan with an iPhone 5S.

Now, that £39 includes a portion of the price of the phone and the One Plan tariff.

Once you're £39 contract is up (after 24 months for example), it's decision time for you, if you want to keep unlimited tethering you'll have to carry on paying £39 for your existing tariff, or, you can change to the One Plan SIM Only at (let's assume) £23 per month.

You'll save £16 per month, but you'll go onto the new 4GB tethering allowance tariffs, with free 0800 calls.

Its a sim only contract I am on. So are you saying that since I am on sim only contract when my 12 months contract finishes early next year even though I decide to continue with it my contract will be downgraded to 4GB tethering limit?

If it's a sim only contract the contract typically continues on the same terms once the minimum term has been reached. So unless either party terminates the contract it will just continue on the same terms as before. So if it's The One Plan after 12 months just continues on a rolling basis and will still offer AYCE tethering.

"I’ve checked the most recent price guide and the 25GB data limit is only mentioned when you’re using your phone in a ‘Feel at Home’ country. This would be one of the 16 countries where you can use your Three phone and price plan, as if you were still in the UK."

Is the most recent the wrong price guide ?

Page 22 of the most recent price guide (sim product from 15/07/2014) explains all you can eat data and states at usage cap of 1000GB per month and how units can be converted from this for Feel at Home roaming upto 25GB.

Thats good to know. Atleast I know I'll keep with Three.

E-mailed Executive.Office@three.co.uk

I called Three UK head offices up and they confirmed it's a error on the price guide and are changing it sooner today

Also a email confirming it ;-

Executive Office (Executive.Office@three.co.uk)
To:
Executive.Office@three.co.uk

Hello Mr Johnson

Thank you for your reply.



There is a mistake on the price guide and it’s currently being corrected. It will be updated on the website this afternoon.



Just to confirm, the 25GB data allowance cap will only apply to usage while in a ‘Feel at Home’ country.



Once again, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

Keri *****

Executive Office Administrator
Last edited by Jack_Wilson2 : 16-07-2014 at 14:57

Thats good to know thanks for asking

Theres a lot to like about three and what they've tried to do in the mobile market and i for one am happy with the service i get with my One Plan sim only.

But one area they really do need to work on is communication which is ironic for a communications company.This is yet another example of how poor they are at it.

Agreed, they really do need to step up on this area.

What a completely unnecessary and avoidable mess! I looked at the new SIM-only price guide just past midnight on Tuesday (i.e. late Monday night), and after just a minute or two of perusing it, I came to the conclusion it was very muddled regarding AYCE data. Like Jon Morris said a little earlier, do they not get anyone to proof read these things? (The cost of doing so would surely be outweighed by the savings made from Three not having to deal with confused calls and correspondence from customers and potential punters!)

Anyhow well done Jack_Wilson2 for getting an answer from the horses mouth, and sharing it with us!

Now that's been cleared up (though we wait for the clarified price guide to be published), there remains question of the use of these odd voice, text and data 'units' - why have they done this if they correlate 1:1? Is it to give themselves the opportunity to change what a unit means in the future? I can't imagine that going down very well at all, let alone with Ofcom. Or is it just a painful way of selling an amount of airtime but then also having a minimum charge of 1 minute (aka 1 voice unit) for any calls, including those taken from the inclusive allowance?

Lastly, is the DS Mobile forum now acting as a free consulting service to Three's muddleheaded pricing and marketing departments?

It's been updated check the price plan

To be fair, I was expecting to be annoyed by the new sim only plans. But actually, by offering 4GB of tethering, assuming the plans are the same when my current 24 month contract finishes, they will still have my custom going forward.

Yes all you can eat data on the phone (or if it its 25GB then so be it) and 4GB of tethering data is worse than the previous all you can eat data including tethering, but it is still very very competitative when you look at what the other networks offer. Hell EE maximum sim only deal only offers 4GB of data to be used full stop.

It's already been published, although they are still using the 'Units' as a measurement of 'Minutes/Texts' It's a little confusing the whole new system and no-one from the Indian Call centre appears to be aware about the whole 'New Tariffs' It clearly states on the price guide what they mean via a 'Unit' ;-

http://www.three.co.uk/ThreePortal/S...&ssbinary=true

Page 2 ;-

'Your data units can be converted into megabytes (MB) of data. One data unit is equivalent to 1 MB but 1 GB of data is comprised of 1,000 units.'

(That's basically saying instead of '1024' they use '1,000' to make it easier to calculate)

Page 23 ;-

'The total number of units each plan is comprised of is also set out on page 2 of this Price Guide. 1 unit = 1 minute, 1 text or 1MB of data (1GB of data is treated here as 1000 data units).'

'An example of the unit costs for a tariff such as the 2GB Data, 600 Minute Plan is as
follows: 3.070p per minute, 0.0.074p per text and 0.0.050p per megabyte. These aren’t charges for going over your allowance: these units are included in your plan. They also don’t include any one-off reductions, discounts or any Add-on allowances – the unit costs for Add-on allowances are shown in the table on page 6'

And so on throughout the pages

I'll say this once again I am so happy I took The One Plan contract out before these changes was taken into effect (The One Plan doesn't exist any-more)
Last edited by Jack_Wilson2 : 16-07-2014 at 17:12

Either Three was trying to pull a fast one or they genuinely messed up the price guide.

So just to confirm. AYCE means ayce. No fair use policies. Forget the whole 3000,5000,25GB. That's for feel at home.

No AYCE means '1000GB'.

As explained on page 22 ;-

'If you have all-you-can-eat data units as part of your package or with an Add-on, there are no hidden “fair use policies”. All-you-can-eat data units should give you all the access to the internet you would normally need, without worrying about hefty bills. It’s worth noting that even if you used your phone for every minute of every day you’d only use, subject to TrafficSense™, around 1000GB each month. That’s why we’ve set a usage cap at 1000GB, in order to identify commercial use of the service, for example, which is not permitted under the Terms for Three Services'

The cap is in place to 'identify commercial use of the service'
Last edited by Jack_Wilson2 : 16-07-2014 at 17:22

I thought the 1000GB thing wasn't really a cap, more of an impossible to use more than 1000GB type thing?

It clearly says a usage cap has been set at '1000GB' but I am not going to complain

Never got to 1000GB friends have got to 250GB and myself have got to around 300GB but not enough hard drives to download that much

Sorry, meant to say forget the 25GB thing, in that AYCE isn't 25GB, it's more.

AYCE data is subject to 1000GB cap. But it's a soft cap anyway. You can go over it (with heavily throttled speeds) as long as it's not for business use.

Aha it has been now - I did check before I posted my earlier comments, and the revised/clarified price guide had not yet been uploaded - I checked the document properties in Adobe Reader and it was still showing a creation date of 14/07/2014 10:04:50, the revised price guide that's now available shows 16/07/2014 14:12:18 - i.e. it was apparently finalised early this afternoon.

AYCE it certainly more!

Should use the 1000GB I think it would look more appealing against EE's 50GB for £70 tariff LOL

Just a quick question... Do people use tethering because they don't have Landline Broadband? Genuine question btw I'm just intrigued.

Honestly I do as there's not much choice in broadband here in Hull

I use it when I'm away from home most days for tablet and/or laptop. Have Virgin fibre at home.

Got virgin 156mb but on lunch I use my iphone personal hotspot when I'm using my iPad to watch netflix, I'm never in the same area so no guarantee and even some wifi networks restrict netflix sky go stuff.