3 cops to bad mobile broadband experience for some

Mon 30 Nov 2009 9 Comments

3 to release customers from contracts where service is poor

If you're a 3 customer and you can't maintain a 3G signal for long enough to send an email then help may be at hand, with the company looking to make amends to anyone let down by its 3G coverage.

Mobile broadband operator 3 has announced today that it intends to make amends to those suffering with poor 3G services on its network, including allowing customers to cancel their contracts or receive discounts if their local 3G service is too weak to allow them to perform basic functions online such as browsing and sending emails. The company has also said that it is suspending dongle sales in areas where coverage is known to be poor - although unsurprisingly it has not released details on which areas are deemed to be affected.

Director of corporate affairs at 3 Hugh Davies said today "At the moment, we have some internal standards and, if you come within those and we can't resolve it technically or through a change to your terms, we wouldn't hold you to your contract." Speaking to representatives of technology news website ZDNet UK, Davies suggested that customers getting a 'degraded experience' would first be offered a discount before being allowed out of their contracts.

With the users permission, 3 can put in place technology which helps customers to realistically evaluate their mobile broadband service, but Davies was also keen to point out that the concessions did not mean that the company was admitting to falling short of unreasonable expectations. "When the whole mobile broadband thing took off, it was very much geared around browsing and email, and we've never said we'd be able to compete with high-speed fixed broadband," he said. "Where someone calls up and says they're not able to download videos or do streaming, that's not what it was intended for."

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Comments

  • unhappy

    by loui at 21:14 on 4 Dec 2009Report abuse

    i would no ever go with 3 mobile again, very poor customer services in india that dont understand anything. luckly my contract has just finished and i am happy to say i wont stay with you neither will my family and friends. i have had 24 months of hell with 3 mobile internet with no help at all
    perhaps getting a england call center would help.

  • neutral

    by ChrisK at 17:00 on 6 Dec 2009Report abuse

    Fat chance of that working.

    I am able to connect to the 3 network (not that I use 3 very often any more) with three bars and reasonable connection only dropping once every hour but my daughter living a 150 Mtrs down the road is lucky for 1 bar and drops connection every minute.

    She is in a contract that expires this month and then 3 is history in her book.

    I have brought her a PAYG Vodafone dongle which has exactly the same signal strength as 3 (main masts are about half a mile away with 3 & Vodafones being about 500 Mtrs apart) which maintain there connection even when no signal bars are showing.

    You get lots of Bytes for your money with Three but its not worth a carrot if the connections keep dropping and you will have hell of a time convincing them you can't get a signal when their network maps show “Very Good coverage” and technically you can get a signal but it keeps dropping.

    To be fare, all networks have there problems with speed and dropped connection but I think with Three their past is catching up with them. Every week they come up with something to smooth over past annoyances with the likes of “we are improving the network” and “we are joining forces with T-Mobile” or whoever to make the network stronger but still no improvements, but in the mean time they have pick up some more customers.

    Just as a foot note, I also have a o2 dongle that works fine at my home address yet o2's network coverage maps say's that they don't recommend the use of dongles in this area. ??? , although I don't use it at home, if I did then o2 could be losing customers for being over honest.

  • unhappy

    by craig at 18:21 on 8 Dec 2009Report abuse

    3 mobile hmmm well where do i start with this!! i have a mobile with them also mobile broadband i cant get a signal on my mobile whilst at work and i can only surf without interuption after 9 at night on my dongle. im stuck with them both for another 10 months and no mater how much i try to tell customer services about my problems with there network i still dont get anywere they dont understand what im saying there rude and only care when im ringing up to pay my bill. i cant wait till my contracts up with 3 so i can get rid of a service thats no good for me i end up putting £20 a month on a separate pay as you go phone that i have with orange just so i can call people when im at work so dont i see the point in having a contract phone at all. iv had coversations with 3 were iv asked them to cansel my contract because of the problem with my signals and they have put the phone down on me! now to me thats not customer service its dam rite rude so i advise anyone that is considering going with 3g to ask about and find out what other people think of 3g in your area and what the sgnals like in your area and if you do have to speak to customer services then good luck your going to need it.

  • unhappy

    by d lewis at 01:01 on 12 Feb 2010Report abuse

    I have nothing good to say about this so called company , i would also like to add after reading the above article re Hugh Davies ending statement.... "Where someone calls up and says they're not able to download videos or do streaming, that's not what it was intended for.".....if this is the case then why when a 3 broadband sales person pitches the memory sizes they do this by download capacity ie x amount of tracks ,x amount of movie clips and x amount of surfing time ? ....when actually they should add on the end of the statement ''as long as you were with a reputable broadband provider and not ourselves''. ...3 broadband is a complete rip off ! 0/10

  • unhappy

    by barbara at 13:47 on 13 Feb 2010Report abuse

    same prob keep losing connection, they're supposed to have done work in this area, thats when i got the problems, have to keep disconnecting and reconnecting. have spoken to cs who just ask the same questions. i cant understand them half the time, have now mailed ceo of three, will i get a reply...there goes another pig in the sky.
    i think three is crap

  • unhappy

    by Rosemary Thomson at 13:13 on 18 Feb 2010Report abuse

    Where do I start. I received a call asking me to take a contract with 3 Mobile. The caller stated that they represented 3 Mobiles. I was then promised If I took a second phone I would get the 1st month free, I took the offer and guess what!!! I received a bill for both phones, I called 3 and was told that because I used a 3rd party that I would have to call them. I asked to speak to a manager and the girl refused and hung up on mee. My contract is now up and all payments have been made except the last one which shouldn't be due. I called again today I fould out that they only cancelled 1 of the phones and tried to make me cancel it from today's date, However when I told then that this was their fault ( I had to say this 5 times) I eventually got the cancellation back dated to last month.

    This still leaves me with a bill which isn't due, When 3 or other mobile companies use 3rd party companies represent them to sell thier goods the pay these companies a commission, So I feel that that this last bill is not due

  • neutral

    by Vicky at 22:31 on 22 Feb 2010Report abuse

    NEVER NEVER EVER take calls from sales people WHOEVER they say they are from. Just hang up on them. Wait till YOU decide what to do, and YOU call them or go to the shop or whatever. I have this happen to me also once and now am wise to it.

  • unhappy

    by P. George Stewart at 21:07 on 27 May 2010Report abuse

    That's quite a cheeky comment from the 3 rep. "unreasonable expectations". The bottom line is, 3 mobile "broadband" is basically unusable for all but email and basic text-based browsing (forget about anything streaming like BBC or YouTube) between 7 and around midnight in the UK. At around 3 am in the morning, the service is great - but who is awake at that time to take advantage of it?

  • happy

    by Lawrence at 18:43 on 11 Jun 2010Report abuse

    I live in a flat in a big complex and have a 3 Network dongle. Initially I had real problems connecting via 3 in the apartment - weak to know signal and dropping out once one did connect , but found it pretty good in other places, but then I lost my dongle somewhere - possibly in the USA. Once I had checked everywhere I could think of and still couldn't find it I phoned 3 up and was amazed with the service. I got a new SIM card and dongle (a huawei E122) which arrived special delivery the next day and, following instructions unloaded the old connection software, installed the new software and bingo - it now works beautifully in my flat - usually 3 bars - and find using it almost as quick as my admittedly fairly slow broadband wifi. The cost of replacement sim and dongle was very reasonable - for less than I see dongles advertised on e-bay. I was very impressed with the 3 service and with the connection speeds with Huawei E122.

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