[chris7494]

Firstly, id like to say hi to everyone! Im new but this seems to be a very friendly board and im looking forward to parcipitating, big word for 4am!!

Im a loyal three customer usually and have never had any problems what so ever, I find that you need to play the customer services to get what you want and never has the net work given me any trouble, untill a week ago last monday, the problem still stands, in the leeds area I am not getting any 3g signal what so ever, neither is the 3g network being listen on any of my three phones, of which i have 3. IS anyone else experiencing this problem, as the three network is not even listing in my area of leeds, not only for me but everyone i know who`s on three and its coming up to being a 2 week problem on monday, engineers are supposed to be working on the problem but no far no luck on getting it fixed.

Please tell me its happening in other areas as well as im afriad they may have taken one of the base stations down and its cutting us out now!

Any input would be greatly appreciated as im expecting another call from the engineers again on friday, late evening!

Cheers everyone! Sorry for such a long 1st message! Im just stressed as I use the wireless web add on for my full internet connection and having to suffer on pathetic speeds of 2g is just not acceptable at £45 pm!

thanks guys and gals

Chris

[Hands0n]

Hello Chris7494, welcome to Talk3G, good to have you along. I'm not absolutely certain but you may well be our first 3 £45'er (I've not yet seen anyone else on here own up to subscribing to their full internet service).

I'm down here in North Kent and there have been absolutely no 3G problems such as you describe in my area of living and work. What you describe does sound like it may well be a very localised problem as you refer to "one of the base stations" being down. These do not typically cover a huge area - so if it is more widespread in Leeds then it may be more than one that is out of operation.

When I had a new transmitter misbehaving nearby I reported it via eMail. It did take three goes to get them to properly understand what I was reporting but within a few days it was in operation and has been 100% ever since. I did it all by eMail as the phone call to Mumbai CS elicited a screen-based scripted response only and no further action.

For your problem to be two weeks old suggests that it is either fairly major or that it is not being properly escalated within 3's engineering organisation. I would be inclined to doubt that they are "waiting on a replacement part". If you haven't already I'd suggest trying the email approach to their CS and see if thats any quicker (at least it is an auditable record of your communications with them), try [email protected]

3 is a good network these days but their back-end ops and CS can leave something to be desired. And it is in that area that they tend to draw the most flak, and rightly so.

Do let us know how you get on with this problem.

[a_ukboy]

Hiya guys, Well i've just called 333 and a recorded message states that they're aware some customers are experiancing problems with thier 3g services and are working to try and resolve the issue as soon as possible!

Hopefully your problem will be solved shortly :)

[chris7494]

Nothing as yet! But cheers for the email for 3CS, I`ll give that a try today. I have been struggling with the indian call centre for a while but the last person I spoke to was very helpful and she did get on to the engineers for me about this, so hopefully might have got somewhere.

Kills me to say it, and i have no doubt ill get flamed big time for it, but I love 3 and have never had one major bad experience from them in my area, everything has always been great, signal, coverage and support has greatly improved in the last year in my opinion. I was gutted when the network went down to be honest as i expected to see it back within a few mins but waited and waited and waited..... i think you get the idea!

On the wireless web front however, once again I can only highly recommend it, its fast, normally reliable and I dont think its that expensive for 512meg to be honest when you weigh up the pros and cons, and also it obviously gives my a1000 full internet access or can be shared with the laptop and used `normaly`. Only hit a few blocked ports which I can understand, they arent going to want people running ftp servers and clients clogging up the network etc! All in all well worth the 45quid in my eyes, i even use it at home instead of my broadband a lot as its nice to have a mobile connection to go with my laptop. I get regular download speeds of between 14 and 18kbps which is nowhere near 3g full capability but its good for quick browsing and small downloads etc, im actually using the connection on the 2g network right now to write this and believe me its very slow compared to usual!

Back to the problem, I guess you guys will know your stuff about 3 much more than i will as I havent experienced any problems or had anyone complaining to me about their phones so I dont know what happens, but im hoping it will be repaired soon as its killing me on 2g all the time, the way i see it, if i wanted o2 id have bought o2 (they have very bad coverege in my area, so decided not to go with them)

Have to say, I have a bit of info for you guys that you might like, i bought a z500 on ebay the other day which was originally on the o2 network, having put in my 3 sim, it came up no problem and works a treat but, it seems to be able to get a connection to o2`s 3g network for a while at times and shares with my pc via bluetooth and download speeds are showing that it is a true 3g connection and slightly faster than 3`s. Does anyone know if this genuinly o2`s 3g network its using? it only works for a short time and then the roaming icon returns and back with a poor signal, but I have a 6680, a1000 and n70 all showing no 3, 3g network and yet the z500 has this! What do you guys think?

Thanks for the welcome introduction to the site, sorry to say so much, but im new and have plenty to say!!

Cheers guys

[Hands0n]

We don't do "flaming" on Talk3G, any are deleted immediately they are seen and the offender given a very serious staring at :D Besides which, there are plenty of happy 3 punters on Talk3G and, for balance, there are a few not so happy punters and ex-punters of that company. My own experience is of a pretty good network from launch (cr*ppy handsets notwithstanding) but they killed it for me first time with a totally inept CS and Backoffice bunch of tw*ts (use an "i" or an "a" as you see fit). Statdler and Waldorf (Muppet Show) could have done a better job! I came back when the E1000 came out, it was simply a must have :)

You are very welcome to say as much as you like [about 3G stuff], so long as Ben has enough disk space on his server :eek: All contributions are actively encouraged on here as it all adds to the quality of the forum. Any that go slightly astray are guided back again by the Admin and us Mods, it don't happen often as everyone on here has got a good grip of what we're trying to do on Talk3G - that is keep it all nice and business like :) while keeping it light and fun too. So, as someone may have once said, "knock yourself out" lol and have some fun.

Re your tale of the Z500 - it does indeed sound to me like the Z500 is picking up O2's 3G signal intermittently, and thinking about it logically there is probably no reason why it shouldn't given that O2 are 3's backup to their own 3G network. But what a riot that is! picking up O2/3G when you cant get 3/3G - possibly the best of both worlds!! I can't help feeling that O2 will put a stop to that happening though, once they realise it is going on, if they can. Great for you but not so great for O2's own 3G customers who may not be able to access their own 3G network because all the local 3 customers are on there :eek:

[chris7494]

Yeah it makes sense to me too i guess, its really good though, the problem with it seems to be a couple of mins inactivity and it drops 3g on o2 for a few mins and then locks back on again, sticks with the 3g till another data connection is done and then same again etc etc.

Just spoken to 3CS again just now and then cannot tell me any more about the problem, but are prepared to put my a £20 good will gesture credit to my bill, dont know if this means they`ll deduct it off my next months bill or give me £20 worth of content free, but hey, its a step in the right direction! Never expected to get it, so i`m rather impressed, the indian girl i was speaking to was a supervisor, she said the usual call centre staff can put £5 good will gesture on for anyone who they feel the need to do it for, didnt know that before, but im glad i do now!

Thanks for all your info, and this no flaming thing sounds good! Im used to uk.telecom.mobile and its a killer on there!

Cheers HandsOn

[Ben]

the indian girl i was speaking to was a supervisor, she said the usual call centre staff can put £5 good will gesture on for anyone who they feel the need to do it for, didnt know that before, but im glad i do now!
Thanks for that, handy info!

I use a Vodafone datacard for my laptops connectivity. It costs £45/month also (though, unfortunately for non-business users, that price excludes VAT) for 'unlimited' (read 1GB, but not enforced) usage. I wasn't sure if I'd like using a datacard after having used my handsets as modems for years (Orange always did nicely for me in that regard), but if you're using it a lot then it's worth considering!

Seems very odd that you've lost 3G coverage for so long :\ You may wish to try [email protected] if you feel like you're not getting anywhere.

I hope you're enjoying your stay here - and keep on loving Three!

[chris7494]

Cheers ben! Yeah i considered a datacard but I can never be bothered swapping my sim cards all the time, I have a few contracts and all of them to three so I may be able to juggle them about and dedicate one sim card for just data, but the a100 works as a 3g modem beautifully if you dont use their `simplify` manager which is just terrible! i find good old *99# gets you much further and faster! I appreciate the info on exec office, didnt know that one either! I just told them ill wait till monday before i kick off any more but if its not done by then ill get some emailing done!

Still loving three though even through all this, who else gives so much for so little, technical support is bad i hear, but if you know how to play the staff to make them do what you need its not so bad, but if I get told to take out my battery, wait 30 seconds and put it back in again to see if i get a 3g signal, im going to start falling out with people! last time i asked if I should do that on all my phones that arent getting a 3g signal and the guy said yes, i wasnt expecting that answer!!

Chris

[Ben]

The Vodafone solution has a dedicated SIM card just for the datacard - you can use it for SMS as well if you like, but I just use it for the data. That way my main phone is always free for calls and texts, and the battery isn't low all the time like it used to be ;)

Keep us posted on the situation with Three, it'd be useful to know what finally gets the issue resolved.

[chris7494]

No problems, I will indeed keep you posted on all info they give me!
I appreciate the info on voda Datacard, ill call into the leeds store this weekend and see whats on offer there, sounds like a good deal. Is it just 45quid line rental and you can download up to a gig then?

[Ben]

Yup, that's it. The card is free on the £45 (+VAT) plan. Vodafone used a different manufacturer for their datacards than Orange, O2 and T-Mobile - and it was a far superior choice as has been covered here before. Short term obviously you need to get Three sorted out, but long term you may find the Vodafone 3G Connect a much better (and faster) alternative for your data needs.

[chris7494]

What sort of speeds do you get from your datacard? I may sign up this weekend to vodafone if they have any available! Sounds like a good deal for a dedicated data connection, i also imagine that vodafone have a more reliable 3g network, thought I personally havent had any problems with three in the past, 2 weeks without a 3g service is a bit over the top in my opinion, if it happens again after its fixed or takes more than a few more days to fix ill be starting to fall out with three!

[Hands0n]

My daughter uses a Voda datacard for her work (they provide it), she is in the Eastbourne area and gets a solid 3G signal in all of her area of operation (most of that area of East Sussex and Kent). Typical download speeds for her are around the 384Kbps (three hundred and eightyfour tousand bits per second only) give or take a few tens of Kbps as the signal varies. The uplink was only 64Kbps fairly consistently.

If I had a business need for such mobile broadband then the £45 pcm would be fine for me, but I'd only make occasional use and so there needs to be a much cheaper tariff for me (and I daresay most others) - even though in my own business and offsettable against income tax it does not work out for me.

[chris7494]

Thats a very good speed really thought when you consider its the upper limit if the network, I would be very happy with that, mine is more like 128kbps, i made a mistake in my earlier post, i meant the download speed is roughly 16k/s meaning my connection is about 128Kbps, god im a computer hardware engineer and i make these mistakes, tut. I find for business i couldnt do without it and it keeps my ebay account afloat as I need to list things as I see them from suppliers etc, as I have a very bad memory, too much mobile phone usage methinks, or thats my excuse! But thats another matter!
Thanks very much for your input, im enjoying this forum very much already!

Chris

[chris7494]

Hey Guys

Thought Id let you know, finally back on the 3G network as of this morning, working faster than ever at the moment, so three are back in my good books again! Getting much faster download speeds now too, shame they have actually decided to enforce the 512meg limit though!!

Chris

[3GScottishUser]

Last time I used my Samsung Z500 on Vodafone 3G as a modem I was delighted at the 270Kbs I got. Not quite the 384 upper limit but good enough for browsing and in user terms little different for web page viewing than my BT Broadband (2Mbs Connection).

HSDPA should make things much better but I am sure you need an HSDPA compatable handset or datacard to take advantage of the improved throughput.

[chris7494]

I was just touching on about 350kbps just then, usually nowhere near on three, they must have taken a bandwidth limiter off or something, bet it doesnt last too long!

Im going to be using vodafone 3g datacard from january, went in to buy one the other day but the staff said best wait till jan as there will be much better deals on there!

Strangely enough, my z500 gets the best data speed, beats my 6680 and a1000 which i didnt expect!

I didnt know High speed data was available on 3g? Thought it was just a full bandwidth packet data connection?

Chris

[Ben]

HSDPA is an improvement to WCDMA to allow better packet data throughput, that's all. Unfortunately though, as 3GSU said, we'll all need new handsets/datacards to take advantage of it.

ETA for commercial availability is summer next year.

[3GScottishUser]

Are'nt 02 and Vodafone on the case with HSPDA? 02 are making lots of announcements about a rollout by Q3 2006. Good timing for me as thats when my phone will be eligable for an upgrade!