Metropol

Currently, they're chucking minutes and data at new customers.

iPhone 4 in White, £40 per month for unlimited data, 5000 texts and 500 x-network minutes.

I still have 8 months to go on my contract, but a colleague is interested.

If you use 3, can you vote above on the signal strength you receive? No voting if it based on apocryphal ("my friend said it was shit") testimony, as I've been told their network is significantly stronger in the last few months.

Ta much.

The signal to my dongle has been consistently good on the outskirts of Manchester, and speeds have generally been acceptable.

Can't vote, as Judge Judy would bark "THAT'S HEARSAY", but my brother has been very vocal in his love for them the last year or so - certainly undoing their unfortunate reputation from the early days in terms of signal coverage...

Have been with them for about 3 years now. Signal is good in both Central Scotland and Surrey. They've recently spent several hundred million pounds improving their network to try and overcome the terrible reputation they once enjoyed and this seems to have worked (signal is now better on 3 than on Vodafone in Stirling). There are still dead spots so if you could borrow someone's phone and take it to the places you're likely to be using it I would still recommend that.
The One Plan (the £35 a month one on the iPhone) is fantastic and even includes unlimited data tethering which was a Godsend when the university network died at the weekend and also means I don't have to pay for internet in hotels.
As an additional bonus the plan even comes with free Spotify Premium! What more could you want?

4 out of 5 seem to think they're pretty good.

Seems like a no-brainer to try the service. After all, if a consumer can't get an adequate signal at home and work you can exercise your right to cancel the contract.

Good signal, but I'm sure they're still dreadful for customer service.

Having been recently traumatised by 02* (both stores, online and telephone support), I'm left with the conclusion there's feck all between them. One can only hope that, for the most part, the service works to the extent that you don't have to get in touch.

* Tried in vain to get hold of a bunch of PAYG O2 SIMs for the iPads. Desperate to give them some bloomin' business and met by untrained chimps in their store. Tried to order SIMs online, and they couldn't even manage to send me 2 - even though I checked the "one for you, one for a friend" box.

Perhaps if having a mobile wasn't so essential, they would all raise their game in terms of customer service - but connectivity is like the air we breath, so they get away with being shit.

Sput wrote:Good signal, but I'm sure they're still dreadful for customer service.

Agreed. I get good signal with my dongle pretty much everywhere; the range of places that I get a very weak or no signal seems to be improving on a monthly basis as well.

But the customer service side of things is terrible. A couple of months ago, there was some sort of direct debitastrophe. I still have no idea what happened or why, but essentially 3 didn't take the money from my account, even though the direct debit was still active and there were funds available in my account. Rather than call me or write to me directly, they suspended my account and referred the £15 debt to a debt collection agency.

When I spoke to 3 about this, no-one seemed to think this was an unusual way of handling the situation, no-one thought really cared about my insistence that the direct debit hadn't been cancelled and that I'd confirmed that with my bank, nor that I could prove that there were funds available to satisfy the direct debit, and as for the fact that their having referred this to a credit reference agency will have had an impact on my credit rating, I was told by both a front-line call centre drone and a manager that it was my responsibility to manage my credit rating and not theirs.

Cunts.

Outrageous.

If you can demonstrate that your score has been damaged you can sue them through small claims court.

I would.

adamcobb55 wrote:Have been with them for about 3 years now. Signal is good in both Central Scotland and Surrey. They've recently spent several hundred million pounds improving their network to try and overcome the terrible reputation they once enjoyed and this seems to have worked (signal is now better on 3 than on Vodafone in Stirling).

Part of that was done by setting up a joint venture with T-Mobile, meaning that their 3G (and HSDPA) networks are combined. I think they've started adding Orange's network into this to now (which presumably brings the odd situation that as a T-Mobile customer I can't use Orange 3G but 3's customers can)

Gavin Scott wrote:Having been recently traumatised by 02* (both stores, online and telephone support), I'm left with the conclusion there's feck all between them. One can only hope that, for the most part, the service works to the extent that you don't have to get in touch.

* Tried in vain to get hold of a bunch of PAYG O2 SIMs for the iPads. Desperate to give them some bloomin' business and met by untrained chimps in their store. Tried to order SIMs online, and they couldn't even manage to send me 2 - even though I checked the "one for you, one for a friend" box.

Perhaps if having a mobile wasn't so essential, they would all raise their game in terms of customer service - but connectivity is like the air we breath, so they get away with being shit.

Just put slight variations on your name and address (Mr G Scott, Mr Gavin S, Mr G S, Mr Gav Scott, 1 Acacia Avenue, 1 Acacia Ave., 1 ACACIA AVENUE, etc.) and the system won't know that you're the same person, then you can get a few more SIM cards.

Only Orange still lets you have 4 SIM cards sent out - Virgin used to send out up to four with £1 free airtime each - but alas, no more.