Three Reviews

Tried to cancel last month using online chat. As told it was being done. Today get a call demanding payment for the month as the cancel request didn't go through.

I find it quite convenient that I'm at fault and need to pay for threes mistake. Typical rip off Britain style of operation. Take Advantage of your customers.

As of May-June 2023, Three's stock of their current 5G mobile broadband router, the Zyxel NR5103E, is polluted by a significant number of faulty ones that do not ever receive 5G signal.

Their support is poor. I've had orders fail and go nowhere, exchanges never happen, direct debits continue after cancellation, webchat teams lie promise things that never materialise.

It's been a very bad experience overall.

BT wante me to pay for a cable pull from the exchange to my new house many years ago... so....
As I had Internet at work I only really needed a bit of Browsing and email at home...
So went for a cheap EE deal....
This was ok...
but as years progressed I deal hopped from one to another..
For the Past 2-3 years I have been using Three/Smarty..
Not really had any complaints I pay £16 for unlimited data and minutes but the minutes are not used however i joined here to investigate using the RJ11 port on my ZTE 286..
And disovered a lot about Three branded devices...

I can't reveal too much but I am being sent a raft of routers Three branded and non branded to do some comparisons between what basic functionality is and isn't present in the Three routers..
So will be on here searching for answers and solutions to issues that I find...
I have already been looking at the re flashing of the ZTE 286 router..

It is easy to see that there are some amazingly knowledgeable folk on here... I am nowhere in that league...
But if anyone needs help on Classic Lotuses, Fiat 500s Ducatis or other classic cars just ask...

I rarely call a providers customer service as often it takes too long to get top someone who actually understands...
My last exchange involved someone telling me the Three Network does not support RJ11 i gave up trying to explain that RJ11 was a port type..

I live in a rural area with a useless BT landline, more than 7.5km from their exchange so they can't offer me anything and anyway their line did not work for about 2 months per annum due to falling trees, wrong wind or rain etc etc. I ditched them and my life improved immeasurably!
I've been using a Three broadband router with multiple ethernet and wifi users for over two years and generally it provides speeds of about 25+ mbps down and 3-4 mbps up with a ping of about 75ms.
It used to slow in the evenings to about 5 mbps download, but is better now and has been much improved by phoning 3 Technical and them suggesting
I SET THE Huawei B535-232 ROUTER TO 3G ONLY, NOT AUTOMATIC or 4G, using the Huawei control panel. This change has transformed it's reliability and speeds. I pay about £20 pcm for this and share it around 3 properties nearby where we all watch Netflix etc successfully.
I now can't fault it.

The 5G speeds on three are unbelievable. Nearly all the masts near me are 5G enabled so have amazing 4G too. 4G hits 150mbps in most areas and 5G comfortably does 700mbps. No more of that EE rubbish anymore! I managed to get the unlimited data only sim for £3 a month. I have a dual SIM phone so I use the data only sim for data alongside Sky Mobile for calls and texts. This system works really well alongside the fact my phone has the capability to use the second SIMs data connection as WiFi Calling (Called backup calling on my phone, I believe iPhones can do this to - I'm on a Samsung). Nevertheless, I'm impressed with my 700mbps unlimited everything package for £3 a month!
The deal I used came with 2 unlimited Sims for £6 a month so I stuck the other SIM in my Huawei B535, it does 110-150mbps, I hope to get a 5G router soon so I can get near gigabit for £3!!!!!

mobile broadband,we had 2 4G hubs in the house as we have a slow ADSL line. For the first few months, totally fine no problems. But then covid happened and lockdown happened. As soon as this happened.... it was terrible. Not to the point that I couldn't use it, but literally it can't handle two things at once. Disney plus for example and then me playing online is so annoying. It constantly lags, and sometimes have dropouts. Also, where we live, we've got very good signal strength and usually get around 14mbps... in the mornings. Literally in the morning it's like 12+mbps, which is usable, however at night it drops to as low as like 5mbps. I get network traffic is a thing, but even so... three shouldn't be this slow. Its only decent when it's only me on the Internet, it's normally fine, and I do like that we can take it with us. Although it is better than what our ADSL broadband used to be, its still bad I wouldn't recommend it unless there are no other options. EE it too expensive and has limited data (we have unlimited data plan) ADSL is too unreliable and inconsistent. The only hope of getting better broadband is waiting for FTTP to come, which may not come for another few years...

After a shaky, difficult, time-consuming start trying to set up an account online for Mifi, given that the lockdown at the time prevented shop visits, eventually, all seemed to be in order and the Mifi hub duly arrived. I then had some issues where messages were being sent to the Mifi to reset passwords which I could not read as they did not send me access to the Mifi control panel. A fruitless 1-hour call to Three with an eventual escalation to a more senior advisor resolved this and all worked well for 3 weeks.

We now have virtually no internet access - signal strength to Mifi hub is good and it is reporting a good signal to the mast. But the data speeds from the mast fluctuate daily from less than 0.3Mb/sec up to a current maximum of 1.6Mb/sec which is just barely enough to run a Roku TV box.

All we have seen for at least 4 weeks now is the same report that they are working on a nearby (unspecified) mast and that other masts in the area are slower as they are distributing the additional load. What is suspicious is the fact that the 'fault' report time is always a minute or two before you log in to check on the network status.

Try and talk to Three about this - forget it. At the moment we are at the point of starting an account with another supplier and arguing to cancel early with Three after only 4 months as we have no confidence in them as a supplier.

I Joined three's 4g home mobile broadband service at the end of August 2019. Went to a local three store, signed up, left with a Huawei B535 router. Initial impression was absolutely amazing. During the first fortnight I got over 100Mbps consistently 24/7. However after this point the download speeds started plummeting. If it was a coincidence that this was the end of the cooling off period or not, who knows. By December 2019 I was lucky to see 60Mbps during the day, dropping to 30Mbps in the evenings. Then new year 2019 happened. Between 29th December and 5 January the service nose dived into uselessness with numerous hours in the day having zero connectivity, or just having no bandwidth availability at all. It became the norm during this period to reboot the router numerous times per day just to get connectivity. All during this time my router reported 5 bars and great signal. Over the entire of 2020 the download speed has continued to fall. Now I am lucky to see 40Mbps for 3 hours per day dropping to less than 10Mbps in the evenings. Three customer support proves utterly useless in solving any issues, I wouldn't even recommend ringing them to report problems. It'll just frustrate you even more. Three is well aware of its problems, but continues to ignore its customers whilst signing up more and more to 24 month contracts. High contention is the norm now. Avoid.

I’m on Sky now, but copper cables so decided to try Three 5G, as I was a past relish customer. First off the download speeds are great 50-100MB, I’m in Barnsbury near the Kings Cross 5G mast.

But the broadband is not usable. The upload speed is around 1% of the download speed. I was testing with 100% score on the built in position checker (the thing was dangling out of a top floor window) and with ethernet the upload speeds were terrible (maxed out at 5Mbps).

I’m not sure why they decided an asymmetrical speeds are usable, because as soon as anyone tries to use it for anything other than streaming it will grind to a haunt, it’s not even enough to do a video call.

Ended up cancelling and retuning on day one.

living in a rural area, broadband speeds are terrible. Took about HomeFi with Three and getting speeds of 50meg down and 20meg up.