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Is Three Network truly unlimited compred to other networks

zakir1988

ULTIMATE Member
Hi guys

Im looking at the cheapest option for unlimited sim only. currently im on Three network 5G broadband which my contract finishes in September.

Three network are the slowest out of the four network in upgrading there mast to 5G and putting aplication in to try to install new mast poles I have seen Three network putting applications through to my local council Tower Hamlets which two applications have been refused to put a mast pole up.

Three mostly prefer to upgrade there existing rooftop masts to 5G to the looks of it.

Through uswicth Three network are offering unlimited everything for £16 on a 12month contract and there sibling they run smarty unlimited everything is also £16 on a rolling contact which you can cancel anytime.

When i checked vodafone coverage checker it says i got very good 5G coverage in my area there unlimited is £30 per month same as there sibling they run Voxi. On Voxi its a rolling contract same as Smarty.

Vodafone told me there 5G unlimited max has a fair usage policy of 9tb per month so it would apply to Voxi I presume.

I dont know about 02 there unlimited is £35 per month i have no 5G coverage in my area on 02.

If 5G speeds dont improve on Three network which i get over 100mbps what do I do my Huawei Cpe pro router connects to a 5G mast which is only 10 to 15min away from it. I am told that my local mast is due to be upgraded to 5G which I will have to wait and see.
 
Hi there,

I use all the major networks. O2, Voda, EE and Three. Three are undoubtedly the cheapest for unlimited data, no fair use policy (EE is 650GB) and no speed caps (see my signature for example, I get over 300mbit on three) but they are not without fault. I regularly get busted down from 5G to 4G and well their 4G network isn't the best/fastest but is it the cheapest .. yes .. by a long shot. You can even find cashback deals that would see you spending less than £10 a month for unlimited.

It all depends on what you want from your mobile broadband. If you want the lowest latency, fastest 4G, and least amount of issues, then for most people EE would probably be the best option; it's little surprise that Ofcom the telecom regulator also agrees that EE are the fastest network in the UK. If however price is your ultimate goal then three is probably going to be the best option. You can find many good deals for them. But EE seems to not enjoy giving good deals/discounts/black friday deals so you are going to be paying premium for that benefit.

If you want low latency, fast 4G then go with EE. But beware that their consumer unlimited contracts come with a 650GB fair use policy, which I think is a bit unfair on the most expensive "unlimited" contract. To me, unlimited means there's no fair use policy. If you happen to own a business they do a current deal for £27 as one of our regulars (Lucian) pointed out.

Personally, I use 3 and EE for my home broadband installed in Huawei modems (and I use Voda and O2 in my handset) and I find them equally ok. Three for me is better at 5G and has no fair use garbage... but I'm lucky enough to be in a three 5G area.. if I wasn't then EE would be better in terms of reliability, lower ping and better speed, on 4G. But Three have way more 5G sites and no fair use policy or restrictions on tethering.

By the way, where I live only O2 and Three do 5G and yeah my local council has denied more than 70% of applications to install new 5G masts but Voda/EE haven't even bothered with 5G for us.


Hope this helps.
 
Thanks for that info seems like where one network could be better for you, it could be worse for someone like me.

I heard Vodafone network not good for gaming as there nat type is 3.
 
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@dabigm afaik you don't have to have a business to get a business contract with EE.
 
EEs Fair Usage Policy is 600GB on personal plans and 1000GB on Buisness plans and max 12 Tethering devices (Regularly, one off will be ok afaik) (Correct me if I'm wrong @Lucian cos your the expert on EE 😃). O2's Fair usage on unlimited is 650GB with ultd tethering devices. Three doesn't have a FUP as you know. Vodafones FUP is 9TB as you know as well. Hope this helps, bubbles 🙂
 
Thanks for the info, and I'm not an expert in anything by a long measure. :)
 
EEs Fair Usage Policy is 600GB on personal plans and 1000GB on Buisness plans and max 12 Tethering devices (Regularly, one off will be ok afaik) (Correct me if I'm wrong @Lucian cos your the expert on EE 😃). O2's Fair usage on unlimited is 650GB with ultd tethering devices. Three doesn't have a FUP as you know. Vodafones FUP is 9TB as you know as well. Hope this helps, bubbles 🙂
What do you mean 12 tethering devices? What happens if I put a EE Business Plan sim in a huawei 5G CPE router? would every device connected to it count as tethering?
 
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I think they mean concurrent devices, but from what we could notice these limitations are not actively enforced, plus the tethered limit can be trivially bypassed by putting another router behind the CPE.
 
You can get the business plans cheaper than the private ones and no check to see if you are a business, so question is academic in one point of view.

As to whether EE will see past the router to the connected devices is unknown. I was using a Three sim card many years ago and that knew what devices were connected by sniffing the browser flag that tell the sites if the device is a PC or a mobile and what OS its running. You can use browser extensions to change the flag from PC to a mobile, android or Win10 etc.

I have a router connected to Three and Voda simultaneously with some 30 devices connected, not a peep from either of them.
 
I don't think that kind of sniffing is viable nowadays with so much of the traffic being encrypted.
 
What do you mean 12 tethering devices? What happens if I put a EE Business Plan sim in a huawei 5G CPE router? would every device connected to it count as tethering?
I think as Lucian said, if you are using the internet concurrently on 12 devices often, then you may run into a little trouble. I don't know whether this is the same for business plans though. And also, you can hide the devices behind a seperate router and use the CPE as a modem only with some slight configuration (Turn off WiFi & DHCP, assign the CPE a static IP etc etc etc.)
 
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I think as Lucian said, if you are using the internet concurrently on 12 devices often, then you may run into a little trouble. I don't know whether this is the same for business plans though. And also, you can hide the devices behind a seperate router and use the CPE as a modem only with some slight configuration (Turn off WiFi & DHCP, assign the CPE a static IP etc etc etc.)
Oh I'm leaning so much from this! Could you please provide more details about what would be the ideal configuration?
 
Oh I'm leaning so much from this! Could you please provide more details about what would be the ideal configuration?
You have the Router and the CPE. The CPE will be set up to work purely as a modem. You need to go into its settings, disable the WiFi, Turn off DHCP and assign the CPE a static IP from its admin page. The last bit only really applies to routers that don't use 192.168.1.xxx. this is usually Huawei CPEs but also sometimes TP-Link. Anyways, set the CPE to 192.168.1.1 for an easy to remember IP. Connect the CPE to the Router with an Ethernet cable. Probably best to use a CAT 7+ one for best speeds however this isn't too important. The router will handle DHCP requests and will send the internet traffic to the CPE. I'm not too sure whether you would need to configure the router, hopefully someone will reply on here if there is any configuration required on that side of things.
Hope this helps you 🙂
 
That's because they don't have a tethering device limit. Only EE (And recently found out) O2 as well. O2's limit as also 12 AFAIK.
Just to help someone out, O2 say that if you use 650GB of data or tether and use data on 12 devices at once within a 2 month period they will 'Move you onto a more suitable plan' Buisness plan maybe?
 

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Looking at my contention on three tonight and getting 2mb down and 1mb up, unlimited doesn't mean anything anymore.
 
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Looking at my contention on three tonight and getting 2mb down and 1mb up, unlimited doesn't mean anything anymore.
I rarely see speeds like that. Probably cos I'm in the middle of nowhere - only 4 villages round here and all the masts in those villages are microwave linked onto the main one I'm connected to.
 

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Just to help someone out, O2 say that if you use 650GB of data or tether and use data on 12 devices at once within a 2 month period they will 'Move you onto a more suitable plan' Buisness plan maybe?
Unless one wants to use a battery powered device for such tethering, O2 have far more draconian measures in their FUP (another issue is whether those are enforceable).

Take note of the wording of clause 3.3
66EFABF5-0602-471D-882B-033468E61057.webp
 
Unless one wants to use a battery powered device for such tethering, O2 have far more draconian measures in their FUP (another issue is whether those are enforceable).

Take note of the wording of clause 3.3
View attachment 791
I saw that they were saying you weren't allowed to use SIMs provided by them in devices other than the one it shipped with. Surely this is in breach of Net Neutrality?
 
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