[solo12002]

Three are offering the mix and match 1100 price plan that is normally 327 pounds for a month over the weekend for only £19.50 normal call charges etc on 18 month contract.

Worth looking at:

http://threestore.three.co.uk/mixnmatchtariff.aspx?tariff=0&id=1201

[getti]

Also starting tomorrow, 6 month contracts (YES 6 MONTH CONTRACTS) on the LG U300 or Skype Phone on either Mix & Match 300 or 500

[Hands0n]

Wow! What an astonishing value plan. One wonders if they could not run that permanently rather than just over the weekend :D It does make the rest look rather silly though. But obviously targetted at T-Mobile's Flext35 (its close enough in mins/txt allowance). If I were buying it would tempt me for sure, especially if buying a data add-on too, making the entire mobil;e voice/data proposition well worth having.

Six month contracts? Now thats what we like to see. The LG U300 is not exactly a "pretty" phone though :eek:

It is interesting seeing 3 do this kind of stuff. Quite in contrast to that idiot ex-CEO Bob Fuller's slagging off of "the wrong kind of customer".

For sure 3 have come a long way in a very short time under the stewardship of Kevin Russell who, for my money, is doing a great job to date. He does need to tackle the Mumbai CS much more aggressively, or sort out an alternative to them, but maybe even his hands are somewhat tied. Nevertheless, it has to be said that 3's portfolio has gone from strength to strength.

Were I in the market for a mobile service I would take a very serious look at 3 - even though they did burn me twice before. Moth to a flame? No just a pragmatist, they are doing a lot of very right things at the moment. Let us hope it lasts.

[3GScottishUser]

Wow - 6 month contracts on the LG U300 and Skypephones?

Cor blimey. That just proves how desparate things are at 3 UK when they have to give away handsets with such a short commitment period to attract customers onto what are decent value price plans.

The Mix & Match 1100 deal was a belter too at £19.50 a month but one has to wonder just why 3 have to slash prices so much to gain customers. I suspect it's because they are findfing it hard to compete with the others who still have some very attractive GSM kit on offer. Pradas, Armanis and Samsungs seem to be popular with younger folks despite having no 3G.

Kevin Russell seem to be happy to throw out anything that stands in the way of growing the customer base but having dumped the discounting dealers 3 themselves now seem to be having to pitch the product at similar rates. This is OK and probably still cheaper than paying a 3rd party to sell the kit but is it really where they want to be in terms of image etc?

Whatever the business plan it's great for customers although I have noticed that 3 are not the only ones dropping prices and perhaps the 6 month contract move reveals that the mobile market is now more competitive than ever!

[Hands0n]

Cor blimey.
Can a Scotsman say "Cor blimey"? I thought that was talk reserved for my neck of the woods :D


That just proves how desparate things are at 3 UK when they have to give away handsets with such a short commitment period to attract customers onto what are decent value price plans.

Awww, where's your charity, man?



Whatever the business plan it's great for customers although I have noticed that 3 are not the only ones dropping prices and perhaps the 6 month contract move reveals that the mobile market is now more competitive than ever!

It reckon you've got it there geezer. There is a big downward push on tariffs to attract the low spender. My youngest (13) is on a Vodafone 30-day contract for £15 with 225 mins and 100 texts - not a good number of texts for a kid. So the other week I was considering moving him to O2's new SIM-only tariffs and took a last look at Vodafone who just in time matched O2 and we changed him to their latest SIM-only offer of £15 for 150 mins and 500 texts, much more up his street. The only downside is he does not get Stop The Clock on SIM-only, but those 150 mins are quite sufficient.

I think we could be due to see a flat-rate all you can eat Voice, SMS, MMS and Data before 4Q 2009 (very unlikely before).

[3GScottishUser]

No doubt about it. The flat rate all you can eat for voice and text looks a certinty this year at around the key £35-40 price point per month on contracts.

Mobile Internet use looks attractive at the £5 a month price point with mobile broadband a prospect at about £10 a month.

Expect to see some 'fair use' clauses, like max voice 2000 mins to 01/02/03/07 numbers and unlimited texts. Mobile Boradband will probably settle at about 3GB limit but that equates to 90 hours bowsing which should be plenty for most personal users.

I guess the length of the contract depends on the period required to recoup the handset subsidy and if you have warehouses full of rapidly aging consumer electronics depreciating then the sums might add up if you have to clear the stock.

3 seem to be more flexible now, or maybe more desparate depending on your viewpoint. I stated a long while ago that I thought Hutchison Whampoa would do whatever it takes to compete as they have no serious buyer and a company worth less than 1/2 what they have invested developing it to date. Russell is fairly and squarley in the mobile competition ring and has placed HWL's UK mobile offering in a more prominent position. 3 are hungry again and appear to be keen to offer anything that sells and that is dangerous for others who would prefer to drip feed new products to customers in a cosy cartel fashion.

[solo12002]

" Cor blimey. That just proves how desparate things are at 3 UK when they have to give away handsets with such a short commitment period to attract customers onto what are decent value price plans"

I dont think they are desparate at all. Three are staring to do things right, I mean they got you on board again for a start 3GSU.

They have good data plans and mobile broadband, good price plans which include free voicemail ( remember that T- Mobile) free 300 three to three mins, the cheapest roaming rates on any UK network , never mind skype and messager.

It may make sense for three to offer 6 month contracts to get rid of older mobiles as they currently dont have a sim only deal, plus it ties you into 6 months not 30 days, so they may get something from it.

Their weekend offer for mix and match 1100 was unbeatable and I know myself, and two of my bros signed up for it, so Im sure its been a good weekend. Lets face facts offering deals like this on the web via three I sure does not cost anymore that dealers doing it funded by three.

If three can work on their CS staff, they could turn this network round to be a real threat to the other UK networks.

[3GScottishUser]

There is no doubt the offers are tempting... I have been attracted back to 3 and now have a main mobile, a secondary one and a data dongle but I'm not sure if I qualify as a typical customer!

3's biggest problem is their distribution. You just don't see much evidence of them around compared to the presence of the big 4 in both their own stores and the independent chains. A whopping deal on a website and in company stores is a great limited offer but one wonders what kind of impact it can make and perhaps may put off potential customers who may put off buying in the hope it may return! It's always easy reducing prices but it's a hard task then trying to increase them!

With pre-pay still a major product for customers 3 are pretty well excluded from a huge segment of the market. Bear in mind it's Argos, supermarkets and Woolies and the like that shift most prepay handsets in the UK.

I'm sure Kevin Russell is doing what he can to gain as much as he can with what he has to offer now but the consolodation of the networks I think suggests there are just too many now fighting to attract customers in what is a very developed market.

There will come a point when it's just not viable to continue to drop prices and I suspect we are not far away from it.

[Ben]

Just a quick note WRT offers on Three's website:

This graph shows (http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/three.co.uk?site0=three.co.uk&site1=vodafone.co.uk&site2=orange.co.uk&site3=o2.co.uk&site4=t-mobile.co.uk&y=r&z=3&h=400&w=700&range=5y&size=Large) that Three's website has now caught up to its rivals, meaning that the online offers it posts are no longer a niche affair. Orange? Well, they're dirty rotten cheats, we can disregard their data as it's clear when they rebranded their ISP :p O2 remain strong, of course - they built their online business right back from Genie and spend a gazillion pounds a second on free SIM promotions and other online advertising.

So yes, Three's online distribution is strong, and I'm seeing a lot of Three stores when out and about these days - even if they are quiet :D

[3GScottishUser]

Mix & Match 1100 is reduced to £20.25 a month for this weekend only.

See banner ad at the top of the 3 Store webpages. (Telephone Order Exclusive 0800-358-4607)

[Hands0n]

Good Lord man, that is a whole 75p more than it was at the last promotion! Outrageous. A complete rip-off :D

They don't say what mobiles that offer is with. Is it the full or a reduced range?

[getti]

Full range as this price is on the basic plan. So a N95 8GB would be £20.25 + £15.00 = £35.25 a month