Yeah, my work phone (Voda) is equally GPRS only.

Its okay until you get to the M25. :-/

Same with Waterloo to Alton. You must have no service of any description from any network for a solid 30% of the journey.

Getting rid of unlimited tethering is fine by me, sure it's awesome to have it and good that it's there but it isn't sustainable and therefore I think getting rid of it is a 100% good thing as it eliminates these people who kill the network using it as a home broadband replacement which they shouldn't be doing, so as I rarely tether (and even when I do it's not much) I don't mind. I think it's a good thing as it will make the network better for everyone as Three can be god awful at peak times, congestion can be such a problem.

However I think they should leave the plans and monthly cost the same and just remove the unlimited tethering... The problem with what they are doing is they are getting people to pay MORE and get much LESS on a new plan and it's forced, you have no choice... I think that's a very bad move... Also they have said all loyalty discounts WON'T transfer over...

I think they are going about it in a bad way and it will lead to them losing customers. For me (and many others) Three was so attractive because it was very cheap and the unlimited data... While the unlimited data is staying some people only wanted it for the unlimited tethering and if everyone is going to end up paying much more, why bother with Three? You may as well pay around the same and go to EE with all the benefits they have (unless you use over like 10GB a month).

Three's new (?) tariffs are terrible. 1GB for £18 must be a joke right? That's like EE pricing.

Have you even seen the tariffs?

Because you're just making them up by the looks of it.

Pretty much what I've been saying. Although Three didn't need to do so much of a u-turn like they've done now.

ajh94 makes some good points, although data pricing has been set to rise for a while, giffgaff has also reduced the allowance on unlimited (sounds silly, but you know what I mean) and doubled the price from £10 as it was a while back to £20 a month from March 2015.

Where did you see that? Not even EE charge £18 for a sim plan with a 1GB allowance.

Sorry I made a mistake there, ignore me

AYCE data for £18 is pretty bad, with only 200 minutes?

But why shouldn't they be doing it? Three didn't say they couldn't. Three hasn't cut anyone off for doing it.

I think Three perhaps made a mistake by assuming that people would either tether via USB or at worst create a mobile hotspot, which would have limited usefulness in many homes.

I think the problem is that some people connect their phone to a router and can then connect as many devices as they want, with a virtually unlimited range if used with additional wireless repeaters, powerline adapters, or basic Ethernet cabling.

Yet, Three hasn't actually stated that doing this is 'illegal' either.

What's perhaps surprising (and lucky) is that more people aren't doing this, or aren't even aware of how to do it.

Three has got a problem, but didn't need to overreact so much as it has. At the very least, it could have perhaps offered more than 4GB for tethering. Of course, it could increase this in the future and may have to if it wishes to remain competitive.

After all, Three might offer unlimited data on the handset but some people might need more than 4GB for tethering. If you were on EE with 10GB you could tether all 10GB if you wanted. On Three, 6GB 'extra' for tethering will cost £30!

What's classed as a heavy user is subjective. Is someone who uses 21gb per month a heavy user or only people who use 100gb+ per month.

I would happily sacrifice AYCE handset data, in respect of an EE style tariff from 3 offering 15gb - 25gb which could be shared between handset and tethering. The problem is, its not available.

For a the estimated two million people living in rural areas with ADSL speeds under 2mbps, 3G and 4G are a lifeline, not only for consumers but for farms and small businesses also. At least EE is being proactive towards this Niche', by launching their 4GEE Home tariffs which are currently being trialled in a couple of 4G areas currently. Ok, it may not happen in every slow rural or ADSL notspot for a while, but hey! its the thought that counts

In the meantime, 3 remains fairly stagnant and completely indifferent in respect of its mobile data tariffs, and as somebody reminded me on here the other day, the 15GB mobile broadband option which is the largest that '3' currently offer has been around since 2009, so little has changed or increased in this respect, although there is talk of them being reviewed soon, but with the one plan and tethering going in the short term, it may not be soon enough for a lot of people.

I must admit that i'm very impressed with how the 100gb data sim from EE is working so far. I've now been using it in both a phone (tethered) and a Mifi and its never once dropped below 10mbps (in a 3G area) and occasionally delivers 12 or 13mbps which is a little more than my One Plan ever did.

Although 100gb / month is going to be a pipe dream once these two months and the offer are up, i'm holding out the hope that there will be a tariff in the 20gb - 30gb line from EE which is more affordable, or by some stroke of luck the 4Gee Home comes to the area in 2015. Failing that, i'll be signing up to the 15GB EE Mobile Broadband 30 day Tariff, and bunging a cheap PAYG sim into my phone - I won't burden three with my average of 2 mins of calls and 0 texts per month - I can live without handset data.


Given Three have limited tethering to 4GB and still allow AYCE handset data, I think we have the answer in respect of their network!.

The original plan was for Three to launch new MBB tariffs last summer with a 60GB plan.

But obviously things have changed, stuff was pushed back and now Three are due to launch their new MBB plan in February 2015. As Three seem to want to be a premium network and no longer market themselves as the network for data it seems they may only offer a 25GB package max.

Not great when EE offer double that. It seems Three is doing a complete U-Turn at the moment and are trying to emulate the big 3 by focusing on added value rather than giving their existing customers a reason to stay with them for the reasons they joined them.

As always, take my posts with a pinch of salt.

Any ideas what level of customers leaving would make them change their mind? Im guessing no more than 10%. Get rid of Bandwidth Hogs who they make a loss on they will be happy but if less resource hungry customers leave then that will cause problems. Like ive said before they aimed to be a Value for Money network and doing a 180° turn isn't the best idea.

Three lost 54,000 active subscriptions in Q1 2014. Didn't seem to phase them at all.

In Q2 2014 they gained a total of 104,000 customers and so far are on track to gain ~400,000+ customers in CY2014.

However they did plan to add at least double that. For Three, growth in terms of subscribers is down, margin isn't as high as they would want it to be and profit targets will not be hit. Hence why so much stuff is changing such as price increases, removed tethering and forced upgrades etc...

All Three care about is increasing their profit at the moment and they don't mind customer growth slowing if they can increase profitability through their existing customers and cost reduction.

This is the third large restructure within Three internally. The first was 2007, second in 2010 and now in 2014. This restructure has had very split feedback with a large number of employees opposing a number of the changes.

Its interesting that in contrast i've seen little if any criticism along the same lines in relation to the Free EE 100GB x 2 month offer running currently and these users are paying absolutely nothing towards the data side of the network for the entire duration, and suffice to say there will be people who are using more than 4GB (Three's new tethering allowance) and those with the intention of hammering every last bit of the offered 100GB for each of the two months. Yet it seems that other EE customers are being remarkably tolerant in relation to not blaming them for every single problem on the network.

Your point also doesn't really explain why another network earlier in the year had some horrendous national data speed issues, to the point where an 80+ page forum thread appeared on their own support forums largely full of complaints which ran unresolved for a couple of months. This network, at the time of this occuring, allowed no tethering whatsoever, other than on their limited allowance Data only options, an indication, perhaps, that not all speed / congestion issues are caused by tethering.

I also live in an area with quite a high number of prolific tetherers and Mobile Data users, purely as landline ADSL in the area is unusable and very unstable, despite this I get 10mbps speeds routinely on both 3 and more recently EE even during peak times, and being in the middle of nowhere I suspect we are all running from the same mast with the added problem that 3 and EE are the only 3G providers for several miles so suffice to say that any mobile data use is concentrated between these two networks. If tethering was such a burden, then why am I seeing relatively good and consistent 3G speeds?, even in the summer when the local Caravan park is full of Tourists from July to September.

Didn't know about the restructuring but your point about employees being split is 100% accurate. The problem for some staff is they did well with incentives and commission now this is being changed those that didn't sell as much are potentially looking at an increase versus those who did looking at a loss of income. The retail market has in fairness been slowly ditching the sales based commission in recent years, I hadn't realised some Three stores were still operating in such a way. Last I knew the smaller shops at least, (with less footfall was service based incentives, which imho is better than sales based ones) were more concerned about customer satisfaction. I have to give credit to Three retail it is a standard above others, you wouldn't catch an EE shop giving you a geographical number to contact the store/advisor directly.

I can see in around 12 months or so once everything has cleared up, Three will be in an advantageous position. It should be more cash rich (to a point) and thus one would assume they would have income in which to further upgrade the network. There is one thing Three and O2 have in common is that they aren't cash rich versus that of Vodafone or EE (which probably explains why O2 is a potential target as it could be bought cheaply).

Still once they have churned the heavy users and increased ARPU it will be in a commanding position to challenge the more established players. There is one advantage Three has over the other big boys, its their overheads are considerably less than them. Most of its service operations are offshore which results in cheaper outlays, I am not sure what its overheads are but getting below 20% is considered a good thing, Three must be below 15% at least. Eventually its going to turn into quite the money spinner for Hutchison Whampoa.

I was actually talking about HQ staff and not retail, but now that you mention it, retail will also be affected a lot. New commission structures are being introduced and the head of retail at Three was recently made to leave the organisation. Retail staff will surely have a negative view of this.

And I have to say, excellent excellent post. You've pretty much said what I've wanted to say but haven't been able to put into words as you easily did. Three are focusing more on cost reduction and increased ARPU to create higher profits as at the moment they're not on track to hit their targets. So the moves they've been making recently are an attempt to achieve those targets.

From a consumer point of view the moves aren't going to go down well as shown by peoples reactions on this forum. But Three are still going to grow, not only in customer numbers but in profitability and from a business point of view this makes sense.

The issue I have is how Three have handled this and as I mentioned above the method that Three is using to achieve their targets have been criticised not only by us (consumers) but by staff within Three itself. Kind of reminds me of the staff split during the EE merger.

Really?
So someone who uses 5GB on handset and 5GB tethering is a heavy user, but someone who uses 100GB on the handset and 3GB tethering isn't? Really?

Lets imagine Three do decide to offer what some people are asking for, a capped data allowance that can be used for both mobile and tethering. How do they price it?

You can have unlimited data for as low as £15 but if you only want 20GB that will be how much?

And yes, people who understand the difference will see why you might pay more for a limited amount of data so you can teather but for the average Joe in the street it looks odd.

Best option I could see is to offer add on bundles for addition teathering, pay more when you need it and get more.

Rather than providing a capped data allowance that can be used for both mobile and tethering, the best option would be for Three to keep AYCE handset data and increase the tethering allowance to about 15GB. Then nothing looks odd for the average Joe in the street then. You still have AYCE data on the mobile and a good tethering allowance.

I'm another one who has just left Three, I requested my PAC from them today. I was surprised with how quick it was. In the past, when I've left other networks, they've offered me a bunch of other deals to get me to stay but with Three, it was over in about two minutes. Not that I'm complaining, I wish it was that quick with all companies.

I was asked why I was leaving, and the guy I spoke to completely understood my reasons and sent me my PAC about a minute after the conversation ended. I'm now going to give EE a go as I was very impressed with their 4G coverage and speeds in my area.

Given that is the reality of Three's new tariffs then Yes, it seems that way - Three are still at this moment in time, perfectly happy for customers to use as much handset data as they want - gorge themselves silly on it if they wish, but don't want any customer to be able to tether more than 4GB per month. Do you read it differently?.

For the record, i'm one of the people who fit neatly into your nice little example. I use less than 1GB on the handset and last month used just over 5GB Tethered, and in no one month have I EVER used more than 10GB tethered. This didn't stop Three from sending me a letter though, and no I wouldn't class myself as a heavy user, but by their own actions Three would suggest otherwise, as from the New Year I would be being limited to 4GB tethered.

We can all debate what each person considers to be their own individual opinion of what consitutes to be heavy network use, but its not going to change a thing. I doubt the Key Decision makers at Three are spending their Sunday reading this thread.

The crux of the matter remains - AYCE handset data is staying, tethering is going to be limited to 4GB on even their most expensive tariff(s), thats it, we've reached the end of that chapter,

Data use is data use, but unlimited on a phone is typically going to be be, browsing, email and limited streaming while travelling etc.

When they offered unlimited tethering people were using it for mainstream home internet use, using it for downloading full size PC games on steam, many hours of streaming, you wouldn't sit and watch 4 hours of content on your phone on a daily basis (majority won't) but people will watch a lot more on a big screen. Windows updates can be 100s of megs, as well as other software, desktop browsers pre-fetch more content by default, cloud sync and storage on desktop drives, etc etc etc

They are selling a phone plan, so the primary use of data is designed for the phone, it is nice to have an extra 4GB for tethering and portable hotspot and it means that the plan is profitable for the network, the amount of users previously using it heavily for tethering was adversely affecting the network for the majority of ordinary mobile phone users.

Everyone gets the letter. Doesn't matter if you use 10mb in a month or 100GB in a month.

Everyone will be moved over to one of Three's new tariffs at the standard RRP.