My usage was 1GB to 2 GB of data a month, about 200 minutes a month, a handful of txts a month as most of my txts r iMessages and I very rarely tether.

Baz

I just got offered the same Had to call them again. was very nice, haha.

Took the plunge.

"all you can eat minutes, text, data, 4gb tether, 1 month rolling contract, £15/month"

Hi

Nice one dude Hopefully they won't change this tariff for a few years lol.

Baz

Just phoned the 0800 number as I'm out of contract for my sim only 1 plan 24/1/15. So thought might as well see if i can get a deal now (don't use loads of tethering so 4gb a month fine for me)

Spoke to them and they said they would honour my contract and even after that might not get moved from my current deal.

he had what sounded like a prepared speech about how they weren't going to cancel every 1 plan contract at once as this would be commercial suicide

So not sure whats happening , ill just wait till i get the text and see what i can get out of them, as long as my bill stays the same and i keep ayce handset data and get some tethering ill be happy to stay

Nope, just a customer of Three. You vouchwrong! I work for a large multi-national in an industry not closely related to telecoms! As all companies we need our own infrastructure and I work within our IT business unit.

I like the way you just pull through my posts and select the parts you like and repeat them. You could get a job for Fox News in the US!

I've just been thorough in explaining my thought process, what I think and how I draw my conclusions. You may not appreciate it, and it's a flaw I have of being rather verbose in some ways. At least people can try and understand where I'm coming from.

Just to pick up on a few of your points:

You mis-interpreted my use of "may" to mean "maybe/may or may not" instead of "yes there are most probably". You have pulled that completely out of context to make your next point. You have also misquoted me. I said:


So in full context whilst there are less "people" involved - eg number of people working on a production line vs costs to install a mast, engineers to setup routers, technical support staff, etc may be fewer but they will most likely cost more than those of production line staff in a factory.

Another misquote/out of context point: you said that I agree with you about streamlining costs and advancement of technology. That's not what I said at all - I said whilst it may cut some costs it increases others and explained why!

As you can see, unlike what you've said I don't agree with all you've said. I don't disagree with everything either. Of course I agree that this is about money! But I think that that's not all this is about!

Making a profit is making sure that you're sustainable. If You don't make profit, as a company, you could start making a loss and before long you could go bust. If you're a charity then you could make profit to plough back in. We live in a capitalist world. I'm not saying I agree with everything that that brings, but it's what we've got here and now. For Three to thrive and continue getting investment (both from profits and external sources), then it has to turn a profit and maximise a profit. That's what it's doing.

If this normalises/removes/gets more money from the 10,000 customers that have excessive usage and gives Three more money to re-invest as well as free up some resources for the rest of us then I don't have a problem with that. If at an all you can eat buffet and one table were eating 90% everything brought out then the rest of the restaurant would rightly be a bit miffed.

I would have stayed a Three customer if they had done that. 4GB tethering allowance is far too small.

It's said data costs 78p per GB for the network, but if Three can still offer AYCE data on handsets then why have such a meagre allowance of 4GB for tethering data.

It was all very well providing unlimited tethering when there was lots of spare capacity but there isn't now. 3 are a business and have to try and capture high spec smartphone customers on contracts to remain viable. If some One Plan customers sussed that they could use lots of data and not bother with a fixed line that was tolerated as the One Plan proposition was simple and easy to sell. Now that more customers are using mobile data it simply is not feasible for 3 to continue to have their network used as it has been previously. Folks paying £40-50 a month and more simply won't put up with slow speeds and buffering on high spec mobiles.

Some would say that 3 should not have offered something that they knew they could not sustain but I would disagree as they had spare capacity and used it to gain customers and that is good business. The market has changed and now the priority has to be quality of customers not quantity and if 3 want to compete at the top of the market they have to make some big sacrifices by ensuring their network cannot be used as a home broadband alternative and the scrapping of the One Plan does exactly that. Nobody should feel too aggrieved as many have had far more than they have been realistically paying for, for a very long time.

Looking forward it will take time for 3 to recover from the withdrawal of the One Plan. Customers will feel angry and many may move but for those that remain the user experience should gradually improve and there should be less noticeable effect from TraffficSense in urban areas.

3 appear to be maturing and their offerings are now starting to mirror those of others just as their contract prices have been doing for some time. In a short time 3 will have to be chosen for reasons other than price alone and it remains to be seen if that will work. One more thought, HWL head office must be looking closely at the EE strategy with 4G and wondering if giving lots of stuff free and generating low margins per GB of data if the right way to get a return on the £10+ billion they have invested in 3 (for a few hundred million return) in the UK.

Yeah its crazy how Three reduce the tethering to 4GB yet still offer unlimited AYCE data on handsets especially phablets like the Note 4 and iPhone 6 Plus. Maybe unlimited AYCE data will be next to be reduced to 4GB.

If the data consumption issue comes from tablets and mobile use expect another swift change by 3 to address that. They have some form re this!

Spot on..... The data consumption issue will be solved by limiting tethering but not entirely and I expect further restrictions to limit data consumption.

Question for the techy minded....

Would casting your screen be viewed as tethering?

Miracast and Chromecast operate in two different ways as far as I understand it, but if not seen as tethering it would still make it "workable" for me, use the 4gig tether allowance for browsing and mirror/cast fi!ms/football.

Not tethering.

Cheers jb.

It depends on factors such as if you're connected to your tethered device and what you're actually casting and how you're casting it.

For example you connect your chromecast to your mobile as a hotspot and cast a YouTube video from another phone connected at the same time to the hotspot from your phone you'll use data. (As far as i'm aware for YouTube casting you fire a URL at the chromecast and the chromecast streams the content)

Yeah, kinda thought Chromecast kinda was like that, but miracast isn't.

Just use Wi-Fi for chromecast...?

That's because a Miracast is 'essentially' Wi-Fi direct.

Considering the numbers this will affect it's surprising that the specialist mobile trade publications have not covered this news. Come to think of it, considering the numbers it's surprising the mainstream press have not yet covered this!

Perhaps we will see more interest when expired One Plan contracts are discontinued on the 5th January 2015. The loss of the personal hotspot facility is going to be quite a loss for students and those in temporary accommodation and I expect some may focus on this when the change happens.

Three probably have an agreement with them.

Loss? 4GB is not a loss, and as it's both inclusive in the tariff and separate from any other data allowance, is still a lot better than other networks who will struggle to sell you 1GB for a similar price that is shared between phone and tethering activity.

I was a student in the not too distant past and all of the student accomodation I've been in was usually wired for internet - landlords seem to really love installing Virgin in their places.

Ultimately the unlimited tethering was never sold as a permanent or semi permanent internet connection. 3 could do with overhauling their mobile broadband tariffs though.

They keep pushing it back.... They were meant to have done this before the summer. Now it's pencilled in for Q4 but it looks like that'll be pushed back as well.

It does seem like meeting deadlines isn't something 3 are good at, internally or public.

Doesn't really help the many people with no alternatives, such as those in rural areas, who still live with ADSL speeds which are less than 1 mbps, if you also were to add in those with ADSL speeds of less than 2 mbps, and those who live in Mobile Homes or Canal Boats for large parts of the year, you'll probably have quite a significant total number of people who are either using Mobile Broadband as a full time internet connection, or are using it to occasionally supplement activities, such as streaming which they cannot do easily from a slow internet ADSL connection, and for a lot of them the first time they will learn about this is from a random text message, which they may or may not even read.

It really does need to be communicated more widely and directly, even Three's own blog and facebook page seems devoid of information and customer discussion. Perhaps they want to gauge the potential reaction, by only texting a small sample of their customer base first. One thing that they probably should have done is to review their mobile broadband offerings first before making these changes, then those who don't have a usable ADSL connection would have at least an option. Personally, i'm not going to be paying an increased price for 4gb of Data.

Does anyone have cast iron proof or confirmation that customers on all legacy tariffs not just The One Plan will be moved? So far I haven't seen any.

I've had a lot of hits to my article and lots of RTs on Twitter, so I'm sure some sites will pick up on it in due course.

AFAIK Three hasn't said anything yet (bar on Facebook) and hasn't sent everyone the text. I know a fair few journos who are themselves on the One Plan (and years ago, Three gave 25% off every tariff for journalists, and family of journalists) so I doubt these people will keep quiet when they personally get their texts.

Ultimately, if Three just said that I could keep the One Plan but imposed a limit on tethering (4GB or whatever) then that would be better than people supposedly having to haggle to get put on another tariff without paying more.

Three should be bending over backwards to keep customers happy, and if it's just tethering they want rid of then why mess everyone about?

I can almost certainly live with 4GB of tethering, especially as I have 15GB a month on a separate EE account, and it's the AYCE data on the phone that I'd hate to lose, but I don't see why I have to waste time phoning up to try and beg to go on the top tariff with AYCE data and 4GB tethering and still pay just £15.

If they want to try and encourage me (and others) to switch to a handset tariff and give me a phone for a great price, then that's far better than making it so people will just give their notice and leave. I am sure a fair few will leave EVEN IF the replacement tariff doesn't make them any worse off, simply out of anger for the way Three has acted.

Given Three loves to come up with campaigns to bash the competition, I am certain that once this becomes more known, the rival networks will be finding ways to have not-so-subtle digs about Three and the way it treats customers. It won't matter if the other networks don't have a comparable tariff, as some people will decide they'd rather pay more just to stick it to Three.