I think you need to do it manually.

OK. Thanks. That's a bit rubbish.

But you can load multiple add-ons at the same time (I think 3 months at a go) IIRC.

Oh but it does.
Agree with moox here totally.
To me tethering means I can use the hotspot to connect my laptop when out and about, likewise for my wifi only tablet.
Or, as I did the other day up at Princetown in the snow with the kids, allow my cousin (Vodafone 2G there) to connect to get her photos on Bookface.. hehe!!!

Mobile phone hotspots are not meant to be used continuously anyway since they drop if not used for 2 minutes and the hoops you have to jump though to use it all the time on your home network / PC become a pain in the a***.

At the end of the day, any non techie person is not going to try and do it anyway for the above reason.
Only people like us will have a go and bluntly if you have some knowledge of these things you should also know that bandwidth is limited (even on 4G let alone 3G) and realistically it isn't sustainable.
It's called common sense.

As Jonmorris says, they should never have done it in the first place.
It was a bad business decision which has ultimately resulted in a swamped network, less profit and a crappy 4G rollout.
Don't get me wrong, I want to see Three do well.

Everyone was slating EE 2 years ago....
"it's a rip off", "thieving bastards", "4G is daylight robbery" etc. etc....
Where do you think the cash has come from for the current rollout which by all acounts is one of the fastest we have ever seen and is due to have 90% geographic 4G, WiFi calling, 4G+ and VoLTE with the next couple of years.

My "rip off" monthly sub, that's where.
You don't get ought for nought.

As Three are now calling it "Mobile Hotspot" that gives a much better idea of what they want you to use it for and I suppose therefore it is slightly easier to shame people for using it as a broadband replacement.

However, tethering suggests nothing about the type of usage that is "right" or "wrong" and so I again must reiterate that I feel it is very, very unfair to have a go at people for using it for high amounts of data. If Three didn't want that usage pattern, they shouldn't have sold it. End of.

They sold it on a 1 or 2 year agreement, after which either party can cancel if they wish.

Do you know what, I actually agree with this !!!

I'm sure Three had a business plan in mind when they sold it like it was. At one stage they were selling it as the mobile network for the Internet.

If you give people the opportunity. they will use or abuse any T&C's if given the chance to do so, as in this case.

As they've clearly found out their infrastructure can't cope with the heavy users hence the forcing of people off the old contracts.

EE, in my opinion, have done it better in designing an extremely fast network with decent usage and cap limits so people won't over hog the network and everyone gets their share. My only gripe with EE is that its quite expensive in relation to Three

Tethering doesn't imply anything - it is a factual statement, you can't infer anything from it.

If I tether my tablet to my phone every morning and evening on the train to/from work, it is not occasional and is a permanent solution.

They send those every month.

Except that your train is not your home, you aren't likely to be doing anything too intensive on the network (like large file downloads), you are not likely to be sharing it with multiple people, and more importantly, you aren't bogging down one cell site all the time, as you would be if using it at home for a broadband replacement.

You also can't use it in a 3 supplied mobile broadband router - because they already have a product for home broadband replacement - it's called an actual mobile broadband tariff.

We are still having this argument - jeez.

I don't get why's there's an argument over this: Three sells an unlimited product, people use it as they like. What's wrong with that?

You are of course free to ignore posts about things you don't like to read about.


It was never really unlimited and it seems that 3 didn't like the way some people were using it - hence they are correcting it by taking it away from everyone (and crippling it in the meantime through very heavy handed traffic shaping)

It's like saying that an all-you-can-eat buffet should be fine with you bringing in a load of Tupperware and filling them up with food - it may not explicitly be against any rules, but it's not the intention of the buffet owner for you to do it

Nothing, except it was therefore inevitable that it would get withdrawn, whereas had people used it in the spirit of what it was meant, we might still have it.

But then that's the problem, what do you mean "in the spirit of what it was meant [for]"? They never gave any condition of its use.

When Three first introduced the one plan with unlimited tethering they said that customers can tether as much as they want. It was a selling point.

Clearly it's something Three don't want to offer any more so they've removed it from their new tariffs. They've also decided to discontinue the One Plan for existing customers and move them to new tariffs with capped data. Whilst Three are well within their right to do this it's a move that I don't agree with personally.

I also don't agree with the way Three have tried to claim that Tethering was never sold with the one plan and was just something they didn't block. That's plain wrong.

People who used the one plan as a home broadband replacement only have themselves to blame. But at the end of the day Three didn't just withdraw it due to overuse, they also removed it due to financial reasons. So its not just down to people tethering heavily.

Of course it was unlimited. Who in their right kind would use 1000 GB a month?

I know they never gave any condition, that was my point. But sure as eggs is eggs they didn't intend it as a home broadband substitute - a wireless network will always be more expensive by an order of magnitude than a wired network. The implication in my mind was that tethering is an on-the-road backup to one's home broadband or a public wifi hotspot.

I'm on the £15 one plan.

What plan are they going to put me on as i have seen a good deal with EE, Might switch to that before that expires and i get moved onto a more expensive three plan.

Good question. The SIM only plans have gone up in price recently, so unless they offer some sort of discount it's going to be quite a price rise for some.

Apparently they have said that they are not giving anybody any discounts now.... Which is pretty poor.

I've kept my £5 one plan discount on my AYCE plan. Got AYCE voice texts and minutes for £20 instead of £25.

I pro actively phoned to change as I don't do much if any tethering and was still in the minimum term.

You'll receive a letter from Three stating they're going to move you in 30 days to a new SIM Only tariff. The price quote will be the same as on the website. So for example if you're paying £15 now for the one plan the next equivalent tariff is £27.

However, if you ring up to cancel then chances are they'll move you to that new price plan but at a cheaper cost.

Obviously Three are hoping that people don't ring in and cancel and that people just accept the new plans at RRP.

Who was it that said they weren't going to offer any more discounts then? I'm sure I read it somewhere.

I can't imagine many people would be happy with their £15 bill going up to £27. That's almost double. I won't be paying it, that's for sure.

I assume if they do negotiate and offer any discount, it will be in return for a 12 month commitment, not the 30 days you'll be on by default.

The full retail price of the £27 per month sim only contract is far too expensive.