Three UK Donates 1 Million GigaBytes to the National Databank
Mobile operator Three UK has today become the latest provider to join the Good Things Foundation’s charitable National Databank scheme, which aims to provide free mobile broadband data to community groups and the people they support to aid internet connectivity – either via SIM cards or vouchers.
As reported earlier this year, Vodafone has already pledged to provide 24 million GigaBytes (GB) of data to the National Databank, which they claimed at the time was enough to connect 200,000 people for six months. Prior to that, O2 (VMO2) had also donated 7.5 million GB of mobile data, which they said would “help over 200,000 people get connected by the end of 2023” (some interesting sums being used here).
By comparison, Three UK has today donated just 1 million GB of data, which they say “will help an estimated 40,000 people to get connected,” although it does seem to be a bit weedy next to the prior donations.
Elaine Carey, COO of Three UK, said:
“We are committed to providing better connectivity, responsibly. Having online access is something most of us take for granted, yet 6% of UK households don’t have this luxury. By joining the UK National Databank, we want to help close this divide and work together to end data poverty, so everyone can benefit from the many opportunities that digital access offers.”
The Good Things Foundation is once again calling on other mobile operators to join the National Databank (hint.. hint.. BT / EE). They are aiming to drive collaboration between public, private and community sector organisations and deliver sustainable solutions that will end data poverty in the UK by 2024, which is certainly a bold ambition, but it may take more than that.
As we’ve already seen with social broadband tariffs, one of the biggest challenges is with making people aware that such schemes even exist in the first place.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and Linkedin.
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Charity or just a tax writer off?
Go on, make a donation and write it off and tell us if it made you financially better off.
It’s basically paying for advertising without having to pay VAT.
Three is known to be the most congested network in the UK why as we can see the low prices they offer dont complain its expected mainly in urban and city areas.
Now they are donating which is good but adds more pressure to the most congested network.
Snice lockdown and Before people who cant get FTTC or FFTP stuck with ADSL rely on 4G Broadband or 5G as it gives better speeds then ADSL with 5G it’s Expected to be far better if you have coverage im getting over 100mbps as im on the edge of 5G coverage.
4G speeds might be then your ADSL above 10mbps it depends I dont get 10mbps on 4G but happy with 5G speeds at the moment not mind blowing speeds tho.
That is a fair point, I’m also right on the 5G edge with Three and my piss poor speeds go right up to 100mbps+ when it connects to 5G but I will says wherever (at least round my area) they’ve put the 5G kit in I’ve noticed 4G get really good too.
So going closer to the 5G mast typically means I have over 100mbps 4G speeds no problem too.
Why are they using “millions of gigabytes” instead of petabytes?
Because it look far a bigger number, thus making them look more generous than they are.
I imagine because most people have a vague understanding of how much a gigabyte is (the data allowance with their plan is specified in gigabytes) but most probably have no clue how much a petabyte is.
Mark, whilst I get the point that it does look smaller than other donations; it’s still a sizable one and to be applauded. Worth saying that thier pricing is also the lowest so they may make less margin to be giving stuff away with.
Much better than EE/BT who as always are conspicuous by thier absence
If Three want to do something good.. why dont they stop ‘charge to mobile’? (third party theft/ scams/ fraud). They dont even offer any choice for the user to bar ‘charge to mobile’.