Three UK stopped 3G data fallback, early contract termination available

[heronlen]

Have a look at my blog post, I would be interested in your comments:

http://thranblog.info/post/10901725517/three-uk-stopped-3g-data-fallback-early-contract

[DaveC]

Welcome to the form.

I think you will find this has been discussed in the past. 3 are slowly, but surely ending fallback onto the 2G network for voice and data in areas they feel that they have adequate 3G cover. This has been going on for over a year now.

[Hands0n]

Hi Heronlen, welcome to Talk3G.

I read through your blog and my first thoughts are that your experience is neither unique nor surprising. I fully sympathise with you in respect to how the decision to phase out the roaming on to Orange has impacted you. And in support, I do think think that Three should have made it a simple matter for people affected by this to have a painless and well proscribed means of leaving the network without having to be particularly persistent and forceful. A lot of folk simply are not.

That said, Three's decision has contributed to them going into profit, finally, at least in the UK mainland. The existing mobile network operator's MTR has been predatory to say the least, making it difficult for the new entrant. Roaming rates, while not published, are likely to have been equally so. Three will have simply been compelled to go it on their own. Hence the massive spend on building out their 3G network in lieu of mutually beneficial roaming arrangements with the other operators.

The model that has been arrived at in the UK, and elsewhere for that matter, is one of each network operator having their own discrete network and never is there to be any kind of meeting between them. However, had we started off with inter-operator roaming being the norm then there would be ubiquitous coverage across the UK without the silly nonsense of black spots and "notwork" areas around the country. History will tell that very bad decisions were initialy made and these were purposely persisted into the early 21st century. Each network existing in a "silo" completely separate from the others.

Your tale is a good warning to those who follow. I always advise that before purchase of any kind of contract or equipment from an operator that the potential customer try a PAYG SIM in a spare device. Find out practically what is, and isn't, available at the place/s that the person lives, works and routinely plays in. Do not go on price alone or disappointment is later likely to arise.

The future may very well see penalty-free roaming across the UK networks. Something has to give. We cannot continue on into the indefinite future with the discrete networks we have today. Personally, I would like to see a future where the physical networks were taken away from the operators, who would all have to become MVNOs of the infrastructure owners. Something along the lines of Railtrack as it was supposed to be. Then we could have ubiquitous coverage across the UK and this kind of stuff will have been consigned to the past.

[Ben]

Hi Heronlen,

Welcome to Talk3G!

I can understand why you'd be angry, I would too if the goalposts had been moved on me, but I don't think Three have made a mistake in this and I'm not sure it's so bad at the end of the day.

Three do have the most extensive 3G network available. For a lot of people, a lot of the time, that's going to be far more important than whether there's some GPRS/EDGE available in less densely populated places. I groan when I fall off 3G on Vodafone in Canterbury, especially because for whatever reason they're so overloaded that 2G is basically the same as having no data at all for me too.

But change is coming. Assuming the new spectrum auctions go ahead in 2012, Three should finally get its hands on low-frequency spectrum that will allow it to take population coverage into the region of 99% and therefore the footprint enjoyed today by 2G services. I don't think Three will waste any time capitalising on this, but sadly it'll be 2013/2014 before we see it. In an ideal world it'd have been far better for them to have retained more of their 2G failover until improvements in their own coverage are available, but the business can't keep operating at a loss indefinitely so I think roaming had to give.

It'd be interesting to hear what network you've gone to and whether the experience is better or worse overall.

[gorilla]

I've ordered a T-Mobile sim (which is pretty daft living in NI) from Chitter Chatter which is £6 per month just to see how good they are. Orange and T-Mobile still haven't merged their 3G networks so I'm not expecting any 3G coverage, but it shows how bad this three situation has got. I sit at work and get little to no data (it kinda freaks me out!).
This time 6 months ago I had no worries.