Glad you got the offer too. That is £10 a month we saved. But we still got 14 days change our minds.

I hardly use my mob for texts and calls.I just liked the piece of mind unlimited calls. I think it poor people get different deals.

Thanks for posting that retentions number. Makes it much quicker to get through.
Tried a couple of times and both times got through to India and offered the same 2 deals, both 12 months, unlimited texts and calls. Unlimited data (12gb tethering) for £20 or 4 Gb data for £9. For some reason they couldn't offer 8GB for less than £24 which is a little odd. Will keep trying as I would prefer to get 8GB for £15 or less.

If you think Three are random about offering deals like this to random customers try Speaking to EE!! I just left them for BT Mobile as they wouldn't give me any more than 2gb data for £15.99 a month even after trying a few times with retention.

I'm still within my 14 days with BT Mobile 20gb data unlim everything else for £16 p/m but tempted with Three's £20 200 mins deal.

Decisions

I just got off live chat, asking for my PAC from Three. I was told that my plan (200 mins, 5000 text, AYCE Data, £12.90) is NOT being discontinued and it was only One Plan customers who would see a change.

I said that I'd heard all legacy tariffs were being discontinued and he replied 'no'.

I asked if this is guaranteed and he replied 'nothing is guaranteed in life but rest assured your plan will not change'.

I've had CS bend the truth a few times so I'm not sure whether to believe this information.

At the moment it's only the One Plan. If anything changes they'll let you know. No company is going to promise something forever or that nothing will change in the future.

Interesting to see that the Three app (beta) reckons you can stay on the One Plan if you don't give notice.

I think they ought to fix that before it goes final!

https://goo.gl/photos/ayQJKxQjvq1Kpvza8

Meanwhile, they're offering me the 2000 Three to Three minutes I forgot to ask for. https://goo.gl/photos/ZYcrNPp4ubRiiHTM9

If they do it once, they'll do it twice.

That's possible, however the motivator here was getting people off unlimited tethering. They didn't do it on any of the other plans.

Was told that offer is if you buy an addional contract from the those listed at the same address. Both the new additional number and existing number get the minutes hence the - "As a thank you, simplay call 333 and we'll also add 2000 free Three to Three minutes a month to your original Three phone number"

Just hope we don’t all have to pay 100 quid or more per month for the benefit of still receiving AYCE data within the next 5/10 years.

Has anyone brokered a deal with retentions for 600 min ayce 12g tethering around about the £15 mark? Or is it ayce everything and 12g for £20 or nothing?

Have been looking at voda as an exit strategy but its coverage in bristol is stone age. Never seen so much edge and gprs for abut 10 years!

And the coverage map should be nominated for the best work of fiction. Glad i grabbed a payg sim before jumping

So it’s much the same as o2 then around these parts.

My daughter renewed her contract with o2 last month (I don’t know why) and of course her new phone is her first 4G phone and she was asking me why she rarely sees a 4G icon on the information bar and this was easy for me to answer because I said “it’s because you’re on o2”.

Vodafone and O2 are of course working area by area, not one site here and there.

The obvious result is that once you get 4G, you get pretty good coverage and faster (heck, working) 3G. Even 2G becomes usable.

The downside is that there will still be places with lousy 2G and 3G.

Clearly where you live, work and travel to will decide if Vodafone or O2 are viable options. I said back in 2014 that both would eventually be radically transformed and I'm now starting to see that more and more.

4G on Vodafone is now becoming the norm on my daily travels, and I am now getting more 4G indoors than I do on Three and EE.

But Three has also come on, and where EE is available it's likely much, much faster.

By the end of this year and into 2017, there will be a lot less emphasis on coverage as all should be pretty solid. That won't be the issue, but rather things like cost, speed, roaming costs and so on.

I get the distinct feeling Three will be the odd one out, they don't seem to be expanding their network much of late and what they have at the moment is patchy. With speed I find Three is sometimes and increasingly often faster on 3G than 4G as well

With limited 4G coverage in places, albeit improved recently with the extra spectrum, 3G can certainly offer better speeds in some places. The downside being higher ping times, lower upload speeds and cell breathing meaning things can vary a lot at different times of the day.

But we must remember that Three has a pretty solid DC-HSPA network nationally.

A lot of O2 and Vodafone 3G sites are stuck in the stone age, with equally pathetic backhaul. But they're going to be upgraded.

That's true, I've noticed a small improvement in signal since they rolled out super voice to my area.

My guess for 4G networks in a year or so will be EE > VF > O2 > 3. With 3G on them all being roughly the same.

I would certainly be nice if Three rolled out Feel at Home to more countries, especially in Europe. Competition in other areas away from raw speed and coverage would be great.

Received my letter this morning (although only for one of two accounts we have on the one plan - they've both been on the rolling £15 monthly deal & out of contract for 2 years), will call the alternative number in a bit & see what they can do, the £15 8Gb deal mentioned would work well. (although My3 is broken so I can't see my bills to check...)

It won't be long until EU roaming isn't an issue, and Three loses one of its unique selling points. Of course, Feel at Home can still extend outside of Europe where some networks still seem to think it's fine to charge up to £6 per megabyte!

For sure, that will be a great day. Roaming charges out of Europe are insane, I think that's arguably where Three could keep one of their selling points provided they expand it further than it is at the moment.

It's an issue for them, they've increased their prices to a point where they're nearly as expensive as everyone else but without the network performance or USPs to make them seem like a good value proposition.

It's clearly why the purchase of O2 is so vital. Now Three no longer wants to be the consumer champion (despite advertising to the contrary), it has to become the major player or fall behind.

I'm sure I read somewhere that 3UK has a partnership with Virgin Media Business to provide its backhaul?. If this is correct what happens if you live in a Town or area which has no VM Infrastructure or service (or are the TV/Broadband infrastructures different to the ones feeding the 3 Backhaul)

Where do you think the mobile networks will make up the loss of revenue? Anyway, we maybe leaving the EU soon but that's another issue he he.

On the third attempt I got hold of someone who would help, mentioned the Vodafone offer & what could they do. I ended up on 8Gb & unlimited mins & texts for £16/month & my wife (also on the one plan but a very light user) on 4Gb & unlimited mins & texts for £12/month so our overall costs are lower, looking at our bills I haven't exceeded 6.5Gb in the last year & my wife 1.5Gb so the changes are fine.

The 0800 number mentioned above wouldn't play ball when I tried them - no deals or nothing, went through to cancellations in the end via 333 who were a lot more flexible (I asked about 12Gb for £20 & they denied it exists, sounds almost like there's some pre-determined deals available on a customer by customer basis).

There's definitely offers on a per customer basis. My retention offer was AYCE mins with 4GB data for £14 on a 12 month contract. The pricing of them is also even more random as above this deal was has for £12.

There's not much of a link between Virgin's fibre network and Virgin's "fibre" network (i.e. their copper coaxial cable TV one).

In places like Cornwall, where Virgin won't have much infrastructure of their own, they're clearly using the fibre network owned by the local electricity network operator (based on the network maps of both and where the PoPs are) and someone who has fibre along the railway line. No doubt they have their own fibre in their own ducts where they have cable TV, though, and I'd imagine they're reliant on someone else (e.g. BT) to get the fibre all the way to cell sites where they can't do it themselves

(Cornwall could also be a special case, since it's where many transatlantic/transcontinental fibre cables land - YMMV)