Worst customer service I have ever known. They even make it difficult to top up.
Three mobile broadband
Three overview
- Wide range of packages including pay monthly contracts with 1GB, 5GB or 15GB data allowance
- PAYG mobile broadband available with data included - ideal for gifts
- Great range of laptop specs available with a mobile broadband month contract
- If you're an existing Three Mobile customer, you get 25% off any 18 month mobile broadband package.
- Free delivery and 14 day returns policy
Best selling Three mobile broadband deals
- Payg dongles
iPad micro-SIM PAYG+1
- £10.49 one off cost
- Pay as you go price plan*£2/500MB/day
£10/1GB/30 days
£15/3GB/30 days
£25/7GB/30 days - Up to 7.2Mb max speed
ONLINE OFFER
- Tablet deals
iPad with Retina Display Refreshed: 16GB Wi-Fi + 3G
- £20 tablet + SIM
- £29/mth for 24 months
- Up to 21Mb max speed
ONLINE OFFER
- Pay Monthly dongles
Value MiFi Broadband 15GB
- FREE dongle + £18.99/mth
- 15GB/mth downloads
- Up to 7.2Mb max speed
Or Call 0800 988 8147
Three Broadband Genie Road Test results
Three Road test
- Downloads
5 stars- Uploads
4 stars- Streaming
3 stars- Coverage & stability
- 5 stars
- Feelgood factor
- 5 stars
- Dongle software
- 3 stars
- Overall rating
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May 2013
Broadband Genie Road Trip 2013 Winner
Three has consistently been among the top performers in previous Road Trip outings, and that sterling track record hasn’t changed in 2013. It once again came out on top in almost every area, far ahead of most other providers, proving that true to their word it really is the network “built for internetting”.
Three supplied the Huawei E3256 dongle for this year’s tests, which is its latest model of “Premium dongle”. The difference being support for ultra-fast DC-HSDPA connections and a swivel head USB adapter that supposedly helps improve reception. Installation was quick and painless; as with other Huawei dongles the software is not intrusive.
It had the highest number of successful tests, completing 30 of the 37, including all but one of the speed tests. Its speed test ratings were very impressive, we hit a top downstream rate of 8.66Mb at one point, showing that the ultra-fast DC-HSDPA upgrades are having an impact. Its overall average was 1.87Mb down, which is actually very slightly slower than last year, but still significantly better than every other provider apart from EE.
Upload speeds didn’t hit quite the same high numbers, but with a peak of 2.15Mb and an average 0.94Mb were still very respectable.
Three did reasonably well on the streaming video and audio side of things, completing four of the 11 videos, and coming very close to finishing two other streams before running out of time. That doesn’t sound amazing but no other provider managed to finish more than five of these demanding tasks.
It stormed the file download and upload tests, successfully completing ten of the 11 different tasks with some very fast times. That it managed to pull down a file of over 100MB in size while on a fast moving train, something no other provider managed, is a testament to Three’s ability to hold onto a connection for long periods. That’s extremely important for mobile broadband, and one of many reasons we had no hesitation in declaring Three the winner of the 2013 Mobile Broadband Road Trip.
Overall analysis of the Mobile Broadband Genie Road Trip 2013
by May 2013
About Three
While Three mobile broadband may have been late to the party as far as mobile network operators are concerned (being the fifth and final one to gain a 3G licence), it has concentrated hard on trying to lead the pack in terms of 3G mobile broadband. So far, it has pretty much succeeded.
UK residents have been bombarded with everything from free Three mobile broadband dongles and MiFi units to aggressive pricing campaigns. Over the past few years it has pulled back on some of its customer service problems too, while its network has gone from also-ran to contender.
Launched as a brand of the Hong Kong-based Hutchinson Whampoa Corporation, 3 UK's mobile network arrived in 2003. The company launched its mobile broadband in August 2007, undercutting its rivals, while its pay as you go version followed in December of the same year. 3 became the first mobile broadband operator to launch 'free' laptop deals in July 2008 and it now offers mobile internet contracts from less than £10 per month. It was also the first to market with mobile Wi-Fi dongles, which it has dubbed MiFi.
In 2008, 3 signed an agreement with rival network T-Mobile to combine their 3G access networks: at the time the biggest agreement of its type (it has since been trumped by a similar deal between Vodafone and O2). In 2011 Three began to offer truly unlimited mobile broadband to its smartphone customers, while also offering the biggest range of mobile broadband deals on dongles, MiFis and laptops in terms of data allowances.
Three customer reviews
Show all 668 Three Mobile Broadband reviews»
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I have one of these Huawei mifi devices with Three. I live in a big town centre and always get full strength reception, have also tried using the device around London, Leicester and Birmingham. What I find is that the download speeds are decent when I first connect but for most of the time they are absolutely abysmal, certainly not fast enough for streaming video, and often a simple page like google search will take minutes to load. It should not be called a broadband service, more equivalent to patchy dial-up. This has been the case ever since I got the device six months ago. The rates for bandwidth are also astronomical and the fact a top-up expires after 30 days is a total scam. Three customer support is dire. I'm going to ebay my device in the coming weeks and I feel really sorry for whoever buys it from me.
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3.what can I say thay don't care after you singed there contract . customer service what customer service put on hold 4 ages time and time again nothing gets done about my complaints about paying 4 a service thay just don't give I feel like iv been scammed my advice save your time and money look else were.
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Report abuseBeen using 3 dongles of various types for 4 years as our location is rural and too far away from an exchange. We do have a land line connection but this is intermittent and runs 300/400 mbps at best so the dongle was our only way of getting better results. My first dongles would get me a connection if I used a long lead and placed it in the window, not ideal but they worked. When 3 made the E585 MiFi available that solved my problems, being a WiFi router in itself I could now position it in the highest window of the house which gave me a 5 bar signal and could then connect up to 5 devices to it (2 laptops and my smartphone currently connect to it) with a 15Gb monthly allowance. Download speeds can be as high as 4.5 Mbps and Uploads 2.5 Mbps during daytime, it slows down during the evening (as I type it's 3.38 Mbps & 1.74 Mbps) Can't speak about Customer Services as never had to contact them. On the technical and results front I'm very happy.
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