I have now been on Three for nearly six months and I am still pleased with the speed of the connection and reliability of the service.
In some areas I am getting nearly 50Mb download speeds.
There are some days when the connection appears to stall, but this is short lived.
I am on an unlimited data contract with Three. This appears to be a full unlimited contract with no “artificial” limits or throttling.
On my previous original T-Mobile (now EE) contract I would usually use less than 2GB. This was partly down to the speed of the 3G connection. On the Three connection I am now using on average 35GB of data. In at least one month I used in excess of 50GB.
As my home broadband is rather slow, I am now using my iPhone connected to the TV via an HDMI adapter for services such as iPlayer, Netflix and other on demand services (well the ones that work through the adapter). As the connection is quite fast, I am able to stream HD video, which probably explains the high data usage!
Nov – 30GB
Dec – 22GB
Jan – 50GB
Feb – 41GB
Mar – 35GB
Checking the bills I used over 7GB on the 7th January, no idea what was happening that day.
There are some aspects that I find frustrating, however these are more down to limitations imposed by others. For example Apple don’t allow you to download software updates, large app updates, movies and TV shows over mobile data, you have to use WiFi. However as my internet contract is much slower compared to the potential speeds I can get on 4G this means that it can be frustrating when I need to download large files.
In terms of signal, one of the reasons I chose Three was the coverage they have for my home address and over Bristol. In other places it has been somewhat sketchy, but was pleased to get a decent signal in Dublin for a conference (and no roaming charges) other places I wasn’t surprised as it was rather rural.
I will say I wasn’t disappointed with the signal of T-Mobile, especially when they merged with Orange. However the lack of an unlimited data contract on 4G meant that I didn’t see it as an option. Though 3G was okay, I do appreciate the faster speeds you get with 4G.
Photo credit: Yanki01 via Visual Hunt / CC BY