WARNING Three Mobile are THROTTLING All You Can Eat Data

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newbintraining

Senior Member
May 31, 2012
159
4
Just had a chat to the exec office after getting fed up of waiting for them, all they are willing to do is give a month or two of line rental, no way were they offering me a cancellation. Told them about the poor signal and speeds and they said to talk to the diagnostic team about it, but they swear blind that traffic sense was a trial.
 

dellaclearing

Senior Member
Nov 30, 2010
51
2
@dellaclearing - Are you able to take your Three mobile device to anywhere near a Three mast? You could use the OFCOM Sitefinder to locate the nearest mast that serves your area. That would help eliminate, or at least reduce the likelihood of, you being in a marginal signal area.

sounds more like a mast fault in your area.
So I finished work today and took the train a bit further to find the mast. I followed where the Ofcom site told me the mast was, stood as close as I could get and I had constant network connection issues. Only managed to complete 3 speedtests, all the others I tried kept timing out due to network issues.
The tests that actually finished resulted in:

Down: 586 kbps Up: 686 kbps Ping: 294
Down: 283 kbps Up: 468 kbps Ping: 1149
Down: 381 kbps Up: 272 kbps Ping: 386

I then got bored standing around waiting for tests to finish without network errors so just decided to keep testing while walking down Wood Green High Road towards Turnpike Lane.

Down: 1240 kbps Up: 332 kbps Ping: 311
Down: 615 kbps Up: 751 kbps Ping: 393
Down: 643 kbps Up: 668 kbps Ping: 295
Down: 540 kbps Up: 711 kbps Ping: 402
Down: 327 kbps Up: 309 kbps Ping: 351
Down: 758 kbps Up: 606 kbps Ping: 313
Down: 956 kbps Up: 692 kbps Ping: 350
Down: 949 kbps Up: 702 kbps Ping: 318
Down: 482 kbps Up: 859 kbps Ping: 300
Down: 328 kbps Up: 153 kbps Ping: 300

All these tests were carried out from 7:13pm to 7:36pm.
Pretty poor results really if you ask me. Certainly not what I expected when I signed up to Three. Samsung Galaxy S2 if that makes a difference, Rooted Paranoid Android Hybrid ROM, KP8 modem.

I'd try Twitter for that sort of thing.

If you tweet @ThreeUKSupport with a post code, they'll be able to do a detailed coverage check for you, including current maintenance and any planned improvements.
Sorry to be a complete Noob, but I've never used Twitter, do I have to sign up to it to be able to post on their Twitter page?!
 

VirtualMark

Member
Jun 4, 2012
8
2
Well my speeds are back up to normal this week, after being limited to 0.5mbps for days and days. So i'm guessing that some other poor sod was in the 5% 'punishment zone' and is now getting the terrible service i had to put up with.

I was being throttled on my tethering, as my phone connected at 5.5 mbps whereas the laptop got 0.5mbps, even though i'm on the one plan.

I'll be monitoring my speeds and usage for the next few weeks. The executive office have been pretty useless about it and just said that i 'shouldn't be' experiencing slow speeds as far as they know. Anyhow, i'm glad this topic is here as i've seen several posts with exactly the same issues i've had.
 

dellaclearing

Senior Member
Nov 30, 2010
51
2
You can also contact Three's Social Media support by posting a comment on the 3Blog - They will usually e-mail you and thus allowing a e-mail exchange to resolve a issue.

Thanks, that's where I've been posting for 2 weeks and only today, after asking 3 times I've finally received an answer...

"@Dan – Just checked for any issues in your area and a local mast is currently faulty. This will fixed as a matter of urgency, but can not give you an exact timescale just yet. Sorry for any inconvenience caused."
 

blair287

Senior Member
Jan 15, 2012
456
49
Im still waiting for a call back from the executive office im still going to push for a cancellation based on poor speeds and signal quality plus terrible customer service and being constantly lied too over and over.
 

SpiralTrance

New member
Jun 14, 2012
1
0
The way I see it Three are comlying with OfCom rule 9.3



The offer to leave is not a good will gesture, it's something they HAVE to offer as TrafficSense, they know will not stand up to being just call traffic traffic management for long.

There for Three T&C 2.3 applies

Everytime I go into a three store they insist they don't throttle. Does what the sales man tell you allow you to cancel a contract if the service isn't as he said it would be?

Also has throttling now been wrote into the small print of the one plan contract?
 
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jonmorris

Senior Member
Apr 22, 2012
1,719
478
Hatfield, UK
www.jmcomms.com
Ask the sales person to put it in writing, stating that you'll take what is said as a verbal contract.

While you might find in court you'll still find yourself bound by the T&Cs from Three itself, I bet the sales person won't fancy being held personally liable for a counter claim against him/her!

I am not a lawyer, but these days I wouldn't trust any salesperson. I generally buy things when I've decided what to buy in advance, having done plenty of research. All I want someone in a shop to do is go and get the product and accept payment!!
 

AlecE

New member
May 28, 2012
4
2
@dellaclearing - Are you able to take your Three mobile device to anywhere near a Three mast? You could use the OFCOM Sitefinder to locate the nearest mast that serves your area. That would help eliminate, or at least reduce the likelihood of, you being in a marginal signal area.
Be aware that SiteFinder is quite out of date. T-Mobile (as was) hasn't supplied data since 2005, Orange (as was) since 2010 and some other networks have similarly withheld data for a while now I believe. Your best bet is to send @ThreeUKSupport a tweet with your full postcode (if you'd rather not send your full postcode publicly ask them to follow you and then send it as a direct message) and they'll report back what the 3G coverage is like, any local problems (upgrades, faults etc) and whether 2G fallback is available (if you specifically ask them).

Alec
 
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dgreen2298

New member
Apr 6, 2012
2
0
Still being throttled here it does seem to have been eased up slightly but its still defo there before 3 i get speeds fine 1.5 to 3 meg and pings of about 80ms 1 min after 3pm and i get pings of about 300ms to 3000ms and speeds of 200kbps to 500kps it was down to 10kbps but like i said it does seem to have been relaxed a little this has been happening for weeks now and i haven't even been going on it after 3pm just may be take the odd speed test just to see the results so the coming off it after 5 days or wot ever is crap three are coming back saying they are not throttling they are bare faced lies wot do they want me to believe at 3.01pm every day with out fail everyone jumps on the internet around my area i do not think it will change i think they have over sold there product i am jumping ship asap just because i hate lieing company's they have gone down in my estimate and i believe they should be fined for there lie:mad:s
 

HarrowingLife

Senior Member
May 28, 2012
75
8
I downloaded 20GB yesterday between 12AM-3PM and haven't been hit by any throttling since the initial issue. Between 3PM-12AM I've been watching 720p YouTube and a few documentaries on Netflix and had no issues either averaging around 2-4GB a day between these hours.

People that are still getting hit by TrafficSense, are you honestly not running Torrent Clients? (Torrents are a nightmare on the ISP side I believe, even if all the Torrents are legal due to the amount of TCP Connections and constant Uploading)
 

ahmadcentral

Senior Member
Oct 28, 2011
219
30
London
You guys know that the salespeople in stores job is to sell only. None of them actually know anything about traffic sense in my local store and still push AYCE data as the only truly unlimited option with tethering.
 

jonmorris

Senior Member
Apr 22, 2012
1,719
478
Hatfield, UK
www.jmcomms.com
Three has now got a European AYCE deal for £5 per day. Pretty impressive compared to what was available before (or not), forgetting 3LikeHome from a few years ago.

Wonder if the other networks will speed cap?
 

HarrowingLife

Senior Member
May 28, 2012
75
8
I am now firmly in the belief that Three have too many customers in certain area's.

Everythings fine here, no congestion, 1.2MegaByte/second average at 4PM. No TrafficSense.

However today I had nothing to do and felt like a nice day out in the sun, so I travelled a little and straight away after getting off the train I was able to see this building and do a Speedtest! (Note, I did not take the following picture, I'm running ICS on a Desire HD and haven't got a decent camera app installed and main camera app doesn't work at all, nor does video recording. Something about drivers, you can read the Desire HD ICS Threads here for details - The Speedtest.net Screenshot from phone is of course mine though)
2468594387ba20d90e5e.jpg


20120615164014.png


I really get the impression that Three urgently need more Spectrum. This 4G auction needs to happen right now, but the other operators are likely to attempt to kill Three off with the auction due to the pairing up. (Orange/T-Mobile and o2/Vodaphone)

Three has now got a European AYCE deal for £5 per day.

This is a major push forward for those travelling abroad. Good on Three, I hope other networks follow.
 
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jonmorris

Senior Member
Apr 22, 2012
1,719
478
Hatfield, UK
www.jmcomms.com
Other networks are doing similar. They know they're going to be forced to - and ultimately the EU is pushing for EU-wide tariffs one day. No roaming costs whatsoever within the EU - that will be a dream come true. God help anyone going beyond the EU borders though!!

Networks can either hold out until the last minute, or score some PR-points by announcing things before they have to.

Three has done well, although while £5 is great for a business trip, I'd also like to see a rate for a week or month (for holidays). To be honest, I'd have been happy for them to just charge the same rates for mobile broadband as they do in the UK. No need for unlimited, as I'd have happily paid £15 for 3GB. I doubt many people going abroad really need no limit - and to offer it means that network will probably seek to impose caps on roaming users.
 

HarrowingLife

Senior Member
May 28, 2012
75
8
I think I'm being throttled again, video streaming has been weird since 3:09PM but downloads have been respectable speeds. Seems I'm throttled to 2Mbps for video streaming.

3.8 is perfectly good, 3.5mbps = 720p flash video with out caching the video.

Why can't Three lower everyone, and I mean everyone from 16.00 to 22.00 to 3.8mbps, and the real mick takers get 1.5 mbps

would ease the strain massively and would be fair, and could be truly called "All You Can Eat"

I really have to disagree with this suggestion. While 3.8Mbps is fine for 720p YouTube and BBC iPlayer. It is a disaster for anything Silverlight based, Vevo, Netflix, etc which would end up as SD only with less than 4.5Mbps.

Silverlight uses multiple video streams, starting with low quality all the way to 1080p. It always maintains the lowest quality one at the same time as buffering the highest quality one it decides your connection can handle. 3.8Mbps would mean DVD Quality The 2.3Mbps Stream + Backup 1.25Mbps Stream, not HD.

Right now, it was able to get the 1.75Mbps stream on Three, not even close to HD.
7389294548_ab5840d6e2.jpg

I've given up on trying to watch this video. Its in 3D, which really does require the full HD Stream.
 
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Nick Fury

Senior Member
May 24, 2012
1,680
1,718
Coventry
A little bit of advice for all those on the one plan who have had there contracts changed without being informed and who are also thinking about changing networks or going to payg.

Normally if you want to end your contract early they will agree but you must pay the Early Termination Fee. Which equal your normal monthly amount times by the remaining months of your contract.

Now if they have changed your contract terms without informing you then you can phone them up, tell them you want to end your contract and demand to speak to somebody in charge. Explain your reasons why you wish to leave, and explain that you are not will to pay the Early Termination Fee as they have broken the rules of your contract by failing to inform you of the change.

Also it is a well known fact that a contract is a 2 way deal. You agree to paying for the services provided for as long as that same service is being delivered to you.

And then very nicely explain that if there is no agreement that can be made that you will have no choice but to seek advice from Citizens Advice Bureau which may lead to a full report being handed in to Ofcom and other Governing Bodies.

I know this from first hand experience as i had a dongle on contract with Orange a few years back and when i was getting no internet service on a dongle made for that only purpose i rang up and keep ringing up and they never gave me a straight answer. So i told them i wasnt going to pay for a service i wasnt getting and explained all my rights to them and explained all there legal obligations to them. Then told them i would be taking it above them and reporting them and they then wrote to me 6 weeks later telling me they have cancelled my contract for no charge to me. Also gave me back the Money i had paid them for the contract. And also gave me £100 as an apology and good will gesture.

So basically all im saying people is that you do have rights and even a google search will give you all this information and more.

Hope this helps and sorry it was so long lol.

Have a good day.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda premium
 
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    All-you-can-eat data on The One Plan.
    What's the limit?
    There are no restrictions for the all-you-can-eat data that now comes with The One Plan. This means you can use your smartphone as you like - so you can download apps, browse the web, look at maps and check your emails as often as you like.

    This is what Three post on their website. however the moderators on their blog say this:

    You’ll only have your traffic managed if you are a disproportionately high data user (in the top 5% of high data users) and when you are using data in a busy cell site area between peak hours of 6pm to 12am. Try to move some of your data usage outside of these hours. You should see a speed improvement after seven days.

    However they seem to forget that they throttle you down to 75Kbps which is near dial up speed. I actually get 0.02Mb/s now.

    They created the one plan and all you can eat data as a limit free data usage service they appear to have back tracked on their promise and breached contracts that where out before this http://support.three.co.uk/srvs/cgi-...fic mana*'came into affect.

    However they still claim this when you ask them:

    I can confirm that with all-you-can-eat data there are no restrictions or hidden ‘fair use’ policies on the amount of data you can use. This means you can use your smartphone as you like – so you can download apps, browse the web, look at maps and check your emails as often as you like without worrying about going over a data allowance. I’m afraid it does not cover sending a MMS, it’s best to check out our pricing guide to confirm how much this would be.

    My contract is a year old and predates traffic sense i found this http://consumers.ofcom.org.uk/2011/0...your-contract/ so im cancelling my contract Three are meant to be ringing back in 24 hours to discuss it.
    As this is a breach of our right as not only did they do it without notifying us they changed our contract for the worse.

    and i used 10GB over 2 months so 5gb a month i hardly think that a lot.

    Ofcom


    020 7981 3040 option 1

    ASA

    http://www.asa.org.uk/Complaints/How...orm/Step2.aspx

    BBC WatchDog

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/watchdog/gotastory/


    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/bin...Ofcom_Tra1.pdf

    Page 5, point 17.

    This is exactly what three has done


    Unconstrained traffic management has the potential for consumer/citizen harm if:
    1. it is used as pretext for potentially unfair discrimination; or
    2. it leads to consumer misunderstanding or mistrust of the service that they had expected.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwiIB2wYJIo
    2
    some people here seem to be missing the point.

    Three have marketed heavily recently and presumably have had lots of signups, each of which is a new revenue stream. If people then start using the service that they've paid for and it reaches capacity, then all Three have to do is use these increased revenue streams to increase the capacity of the network. If they went from 2 million customers to 4 million customers then they've got twice as much load on the network, but twice as much revenue to ensure the network runs as it did previously.

    Second of all there's a philosophical/discrimination issue here. Why does someone who uses a network less have a greater right to speed at a given time than someone who uses it regularly? Surely everyone (assuming they pay the same amount) has the same right to speed and access at all times.
    2
    Do these sound like the words of someone who had all he could eat?
    2
    This is how I would manage the network for peak time

    00.00 to 14.59 leave it as is

    15.00 to 23.59

    Network wide speed for everyone of 3.8mbps (3.5mbps is enough for 720p streaming video)

    Anyone breaching 3GB in that time gets reduced to 1/1.5mbps till 23.59


    Anyone breaching 3GB 3 times in a week gets 1/1.5mbps reduction for the next 7 days peak time.

    Everyone gets the internet, even the abusers get a usable connection.
    2
    Thought

    This capping the top 5% will create a new top 5%, who will get capped, will create a new top 5%, who will get capped, will create a new top 5%, who will get capped, will create a new top 5%, who will get capped, will create a new top 5% who will get capped, will create a new top 5%, who will get capped.


    I am being stupid here, or did that make sense ?