Wavering about Three and T-Mobile
I’ve been thinking closely about all the networks and whilst I really like the excellent quality of Vodafone — but I don’t like their pricing structure at all. At all.
So I’m thinking more and more about T-Mobile and Three. I’m reckoning that I might swap, big time, over to Three.
I like all the services, I love X-Series, I like the progressive nature they’ve got moving there, in terms of launching new things and making things happen. I also liked the people I met there. Humans, not arses.
So I’ve been wondering what’s keeping me tied to T-Mobile.
Nothing, really.
I do like their Flext thing. That’s been working well for me. I’ve been using their Flext 75 plan which gives almost 400 quid’s worth of credit each month, that I then do my best to try and blow. 
I haven’t succeeded at all yet. I generally have at least 100 quid’s credit free at the end of the month. Not enough to justify swapping down to the lower plan though.
So what do I like about T-Mobile?
Well, the data plan. The data plan rocks.
The Flext plan works for me. I don’t think about sending texts or calling. I can’t send picture messages (easily) from the Nokia E61 as there’s no camera…
Hmm.
I don’t think that’s enough to keep me. I’m going to really examine the Three price plans.
Any suggestions?
In a moment of exasperation last week, I sent this in to the X-Series Blog.
Am I being hopelessly naive that they’ll see the opportunity to ‘lower the bar’ and/or remove all the ‘added value’ that I’m not interested in?
Skype? No thanks, I’ve already got a voip geographical number and have been happy using SIP for a year!
MSN / Yahoo? Join another closed community? You’ve got to be joking!
Why I’ve STILL not joined Three
I’m not interested in 18-month contracts (every new phone will be out
Posted by HeavyLight on March 10th, 2007 at 5:19 pm.of date in a year) or 750 minutes of voice calls (most 3G phones are
“built” for voip) or bundled video messaging or included song
downloads. Oh, and I couldn’t give a hoot for all your customised
applications…
I want a reliable 3G service with minimal voice and SMS allowances.
I’ll provide the software.
I’ll even go and pay full price for the bloody phone, if that makes it
easier for you.
Just sell me a basic 3G connection on a 12-month contract?
Fascinating HeavyLight. I wonder what sort of response you’ll get?
I mean, I don’t think they’d want to turn away your money. However I think their call centre would. When you phone a call centre, there’s next to no facility for customisation. What you’re asking for there sounds a little but customised. You’re not the average type of customer.
You’re an influencer. It makes a ton of sense to offer a customised service to you — because you’re a brand ambassador. When you’re out and about and when the subject of mobile comes up, if you were getting a wicked service from Three, you’d most probably be a huge influence over ‘normobs’ (normal mobile users).
Posted by ewan on March 10th, 2007 at 5:32 pm.But what about HSDPA? Three don’t have HSDPA support right?
I know its not that important today but in 6 months time when you want to stream live videos from your handset your 60-odd upload kilobits per second is going to look rather poor against 350kbps. And of course, 1-2mbps download speed is seriously useful when you connect your phone to your laptop. (Oops, you can’t do that with Three)
The reason I say all this is that i’m trialing T-Mobiles WebNWalk plus service in Germany at the moment (they are doing 2 month trials with the 3.6mbps HSDPA USB/PCMCIA based modem.) I’ve found the speed to be OK but i’m a bit worried about their port blocking. Everything i have tried so far works OK though so maybe I shouldn’t worry.
Vodafone is an option but you don’t get the Hotspot coverage. T-Mobile is so much better here for hotspots. (Its included in the contract)
I’ll be giving it a big trial in CeBit later this week with lots of blogging and videos so lets see how it goes!! My feeling is that i’ll be giving back the modem, buying an E65 and moving everything over from Vodafone despite having another year on the Vodafone contract.
Regards
Posted by Steve Paine on March 11th, 2007 at 4:34 pm.Steve.
Im on t-mobile and have been thinking of moving to 3 just because all the people I work with use flickr and so the flickr thing would be good.
Posted by mark on March 12th, 2007 at 4:34 pm.But Im just amazed by all the different choices/plans etc does anyone know how many different variations of network/plan there are?