(You can read the background here.)

The chap I spoke to in “Customer Options” — I think it was called — was rather shocked that the 3UK store told me to take out a new contract to get the iPhone 4S.

“We could have upgraded your existing line!” he cried.

Yup.

So we went through the standard rigmarole and eventually, I got the cancellation figure (£163) which was £196 in total.

Fine. Job done.

That’s me content. I’d have liked to have done things faster though.

[And for the avoidance of doubt, I'm still definitely a Three customer -- with a nice new iPhone 4S instead]

I have to cancel my existing iPhone 4 account. It’s got about 8 months to run and I need to simply pay off the balance and close that account. Because I opened another one to get an iPhone 4S last month. I wanted to extend the existing one, however the chap in the shop (obviously) didn’t want me to do that. Another connection is good news for him, I suppose.

The problem I’ve got is that I need to invest around 20 minutes doing this. Possibly a little longer. I need to explain to the 3UK Indian call centre why I wish to cancel whilst still in commitment. I then need them to process that I am *fine* paying off the balance — I’m concerned, or, at least, my expectations lead me to believe that this will be a big ask for them.

I then expect to have to do the yes-really dance with the various teams there at 3UK’s customer services.

I’ve been putting it off.

I just don’t know if I can be bothered. The inefficiency of it all really bugs me.

Still.

What do you think?

It could be a really simple, pleasant experience. You never know.

This got me thinking.

How much would I be prepared to pay to speak to a British fixer? You know, someone who simply listens to my 10-second request, taps some stuff into the system and tells me, “That’ll be £200 to fix.” I can then respond in the affirmative and be done with it. Job done. Simple. We move on.

I think the answer is £35. Or maybe £25. Something like that. I’d pay a premium to speak to a fully trained British chap or lady who would be available immediately to resolve my query in this particular regard.

Further, I’d probably pay extra per month to have this kind of “consider it done” service integrated into my contract.

Am I alone on this?

No.

On the face of it, probably yes. In reality, if it was branded properly — I would pay something like £5 per month extra to have the 3UK Premier Service that gets you immediate access to an “account manager” who handles everything so you don’t have to think.

What do you think? Have I got my head in the clouds?

Here we go:

Smartphones and Facebook helped to drive a massive 500% surge in New Year’s Eve handset data in just 12-months, according to mobile firm Three.

The amount of data Three’s smartphone customers used on New Year’s Eve leapt from 14 terabytes (TBs) in 2010 to a massive 80TBs in 2011.

To put it in perspective, it’s the equivalent of almost 21m MP3 tracks, or roughly 118,000 DVD movies, downloaded onto smartphones in the UK in just 24-hours.

The trend continued through New Year’s Day, with 74TBs used compared to 14TBs the year before.

Facebook was one of the most popular services as people rung in the New Year, with a 20% jump in traffic between midnight and 1am.

Three expects smartphone adoption among customers to reach almost 100% this year, as more and more people realise their capabilities.

Traditional mobile traffic grew too, but this growth was hugely outstripped by data. SMS levels grew from 36m on New Year’s Eve 2010, to 46m this year, while calls went from 19m last year to 21m.

Three’s Marketing Director Thomas Malleschitz, said: “It’s a phenomenal amount of growth and shows just how much smartphones are changing the way our customers communicate. This kind of demand vindicates Three’s focus on building a network designed for the internet.

“It also shows just how important data bundles are becoming – and of course the value of plans which offer genuinely All-you-can-eat handset data allowances.”

The one thing you simply cannot argue with when it comes to 3UK is data. The company made a bet on 3G data early on — and as a result, it’s very well placed to handle all your burgeoning data demands.

I have to say that I’m thoroughly enjoying their service on my iPhone. I’ve had an iPhone 4 with them since 2010 — and I’ve just recently swapped to an iPhone 4S. Their all-you-can-eat truly unlimited data plans are simply genius. No other UK network competes with it. What’s rather interesting is that I’m using my primary BlackBerry on Vodafone less and less because I’m finding 3′s connectivity so fast.

I also have a MiFi unit from them too. It works really nicely on the train provided I’m in a decent signal area — which is about 80% of my daily commute — so very, very useful. And even at train speeds, the connectivity typically feels the same as a fast fixed line.

Good work 3!

I’ve had my iPhone 4 from 3 for 16 months and it’s on a 24-month contract. The new iPhone 4S is out. I want it.

What do I do?

Well, I walk into the 3 store yesterday and I ask for an iPhone 4S. I was quite prepared to pay some kind of early upgrade charge or .. whatever, really. I didn’t care. I just wanted the iPhone 4S and — like the good Apple consumer I am — I was prepared to pay. My expectation was that the whole experience will cost a bit of cash.

The chap in the store recommended that I take out a new line instead of upgrading the existing line and paying the upgrade charges. I’m sure that this makes his figures look better. It also saved me money.

“Just don’t phone up and cancel your current one immediately!” he said.

Here, then, is what I did with Three.

1. I took out a new contract for an iPhone 4S. I paid £279 up front as I wanted the 64GB version. It’s a 24 month contract. [Interestingly the chap in the shop never ONCE mentioned the contract length. <s>He didn't ask if I wanted 18 months</s>.]

2. I’ve got 8 months left on my iPhone 4 contract.

3. I called up to find out how much it would cost for me to kill this contract today. Answer = £240 charge.

4. I went on to envirofone’s website to see how much they’d pay me for the iPhone 4. Answer = £215.

That’s almost cost neutral.

(When, errrr, you ignore the £279 up front I paid for the 64GB — the 16GB would have been free, I think).

My point is this: Why didn’t 3 just take my old iPhone 4 from me, terminate the existing contract and establish a new one?

Instead we went through the rigmarole of establishing an entirely new line. Great, their figures will be enhanced. That’s another contract customer! Until, that is, I give their retentions team heartburn by phoning up and killing the old contract, adding a churn to the figures.

Still, I’m happy. I’ve got the 4S now and it’s nice and fast.

I wanted to replace the existing iPhone 4 that I have with them.

This was not possible.

For whatever ridiculous reason.

Instead I’ve established a new contract.

Gaaah.

It really is getting silly with all these contracts and policies. I am looking forward to the time the operators can actually facilitate some kind of equipment re-supply deals. All I needed was a new device, not another line. I will sell the existing iPhone and that will pay off the outstanding line rental for the other contract. Why do *I* have to do all this rather than the operator sorting it out?

Still. Job done.

I’m off to Vodafone to get a 16GB one for my wife.

I was annoyed with myself, principally. But I chose to focus that annoyance on Three. Having had the account for 7 years, I wasn’t really using it. I’d been paying 30 quid a month for years. I was way, way out of contract. The experience annoyed the hell out of me. I expected Three to do something about it.

They didn’t, obviously. I didn’t complain loud enough. Come to think of it, I didn’t complain at all. Instead in a fit of emotional frustration (with myself) I phoned up and cancelled the account.

When the chap in India asked why, I mentioned that reason. He didn’t react to it for some reason. He just tried to sell me the same deal for £15 a month. Or something like that.

I refused his every-offer and cancelled the account. It was rather painful watching that extra £120 come out of my account last month.

Today, I walked into the Three store in Richmond to check the status of the account.

I’ve been fantasising — from a technology perspective, I should add — about resurrecting the account. I couldn’t remember when it was officially deactivated so I went into the store and asked the chap.

“Take a seat,” he said, “And I’ll have a look.”

Smart move.

I was already in the ‘buying zone’.

I’m thinking about buying an iPhone 4S, you see. And I’m thinking that perhaps I should have used that existing Three account for the 4S, given it was out of contract and given I have already budgeted for £30-something-a-month for that account.

The chap took my details and the number.

I could feel myself moving into the ‘yes’ zone, firmly, as I looked around the shop and found it empty. Just the way I like it when I’m trying to do a transaction.

My details appeared on screen.

“Right then,” said the chap, “It says here the line was deactivated on the 7th of October.”

“Ok,” I said.

I waited for a moment. I was waiting for the guy to ask something like, “So why do you ask, Sir?” or “Can we reactivate that for you?” or something like that.

At which point I was set to explode with commercial glee. YES PLEASE GIVE ME THE NEW iPHONE 4S.

However, the chap just stared at me. That’s fine. It’s his right. He delivered on my basic expectations — that was, to tell me when the line was deactivated. I was assuming he’d try and up-sell me though.

I thanked him and walked out the shop. I didn’t want to dangle my circa £1,200 custom in front of him too overtly.

I already have an existing account with Three — two, actually. I don’t necessarily need another.

Which brings me to the topic of the next blog post. Standby…

I arrived into my room to find a relic of the cold war ready to supply my every connected need — via fixed line ethernet.

I shit ye not. Here’s the proof:

The iBAHN relic

There’s no WiFi in the room.

So once again I have supplied my own, thanks to the gorgeous Three MiFi E586 unit, currently knocking back the megabits thanks to the plentiful ‘H’ data signal in this area.

No thanks to Hilton.

The room is very nicely appointed, by the way. Lots of dark wood — but crucially, no flat-panel TV. That is, I think, a telling sing. A hotel room that doesn’t have a 42″ TV is.. well, that tells you something nowadays doesn’t it?

It tells you that the management haven’t quite bothered. Not when the rest of the room is very, very nice.

This viewpoint is confirmed when you look at the piece-of-shit iBAHN box on the desk.

Fair enough, keep the wired connectivity. But come on, what about blanket WiFi coverage?

Yet again, a hotel screws it all up.

I’d have paid the £15 they’re demanding for 24 hours of internet access. I would have. It’s — well it’s just natural, right? Especially when it’s a business expense. The silly thing is, the Three MiFi unit is probably faster than the wired connection anyway.

I know the internet costs £15 because there’s a Hilton branded yellow sticker peeling off the top of it containing that information. Quality.

The quality informational sticker

Forget the egyptian cotton sheets for a moment, what about your connected-hotel strategy, Mr Hilton?

It’s rather stimulating nowadays to consider the importance of WiFi.

Think about the tens of millions of folk with iPads expecting to get some kind of connectivity. Or iPhones. Or MacBook Air devices — like the one I’m typing on at the moment. The MacBook Air doesn’t do fixed line ethernet. Not without the little dongle that Apple charge you lots of money for. I have a few of them, obviously.

But I negated to bring one today.

I’ll be using my Amazon app to order one from Amazon to arrive as soon as possible. Not to use at this hotel, though. That’d be rewarding incompetence.

Connectivity incompetence. The rest of the service has met my expectations, Hilton — but the lack of WiFi? What a surprise. I didn’t even bother to check. I just assumed it would be offered in-room.

(For clarity I should point out that rubbish BT Openzone is offered in the public areas and it’s free — if you’ve paid the £15 24-hour access fee.)

Joy.

That image there highlights just how good the all new 3 MiFi (Model: E586) is when it comes to offering a usable internet connection. Indeed, this connection isn’t just usable, according to Speedtest.net, it’s actually better than 65% of the rest of the United Kingdom. Love it.

I’m using this at home in Ascot and anecdotally, the speed and responsiveness feels a lot better than your standard fixed-line broadband connection. It leaves the shared (i.e. slow) connections of BT Openzone and The Cloud in the dust — so once I’ve got my fixed line BT Infinity installed tomorrow, I’ll most definitely still be using the MiFi unit.

I’m particularly pleased with the updated model (I previously had the E585 — very good). The 586 has a nice little button on the side you can press to immediately get a reminder of the MiFi’s access code. Very handy. And it’s super, super fast.

I’ve used 700mb this morning already.

You can pick up one of these from 3 now from £71.99 — which includes 3GB of data to use right-away.

Update: As per the comments, just to be clear, the £71.99 model is the E585 — that’s about a year old now. You can pick up the new E586 that I’m talking about for £84.99 including 3GB of data.

It is with this in mind that I have spunked £120 for your reading pleasure. It wasn’t deliberate, but since I’ve spunked it, I might as well write about it, yes? And therefore extract some value from the bollocks experience.

It’s also a really, really useful example of how operators are handling the data crunch. Sometimes folk don’t believe me when I’m jumping about on stage at events or briefing investment bankers about how dumb the infrastructure (and, often, the thinking and execution) is at operator level.

Right, let’s get to it.

I’ve moved house. There’s no internet connection — obviously — we’re waiting for BT to dance about doing the jiggerypokery that they do in order to make the broadband work.

In the meantime, I had a brilliant idea: Use the MiFi.

For me, that means using my 3 MiFi unit. It’s the one I rave about all the time. Regular readers know this — I do rave about it. (“Three MiFi success yet again: I love it“)

I’ve been using it perfectly fine for, I reckon, a year. Witness, for example, the post I did a few months back explaining why Premier Inn (and Spectrum Interactive) didn’t get any business from me thanks to my 3 MiFi service.

I’ve pummelled the unit. I’m sure I’ve used hundreds of megabytes in a single day. I’m sure I’ve used upwards of a gigabyte in a single day.

I’ve not once had a problem with the SIM.

I bought the MiFi unit last year in Richmond. I think I paid £59 for it, including a tenner’s worth of data (1GB). I went through that across the first month so I bought a few more gigs… and then I decided to take the SIM from my Nokia N86 and use that in the MiFi instead. This is because I’ve unlocked the N86 — and often, I use it without the SIM. I reasoned that I might as well stick it in the MiFi and get some use out of it.

I’m sure I read somewhere that you’re not quite meant to do this. I think it was Ben Smith who pointed out that there’s a rather huge inconsistency with the Three policy. (See point 1 in his overview).

Either way, I stuck the SIM in the MiFi and it’s been working perfectly for about a year.

Over the weekend I looked like a Demi God by supplying internet to my new household via the 3 MiFi. I just stuck it into a plug in the kitchen and it provided connectivity to iPads, MacBooks and even my other Three iPhone. (This is currently supplying the internet because of my borked MiFi SIM.)

My wife was delighted.

Wee Archie — all of 15 months — was supremely impressed at the ability for the Family iPad (WiFi-only) to magically update with new apps to keep him amused now-and-again. He’s teething so anything that keeps his mind off that and enables us to get food into him is a good idea.

I was pretty impressed myself.

The speeds have been near Desktop level. It’s been interesting watching my wife simply pick up her iPad and start using the internet across the weekend, without giving a thought to the actual bearer. It worked well enough that she didn’t notice the difference. This is a testament to Three’s super data network. I find it phenomenally good.

I think we’d used a few hundred meg but the time my wife decided to download an episode of One Tree Hill. Or something like that. She did ask if it would be OK. I said, ‘sure’ — knowing it would be slow, but knowing that a) Three could handle that and b) it would only be 500 odd meg.

Alas my wife fell for the iTunes trick: The first results they present to you are always the £2.49 HD episodes, aren’t they? 1.4 gigabytes.

I only found this out when my wife checked the download to see it was almost finished.

“Geez, that’s quite a lot,” I thought.

It downloaded fine.

I was very impressed.

I made yet another, “Three is flipping brilliant!” note to myself mentally and went about opening boxes and unpacking stuff.

I didn’t give a thought to the cost.

This is Three. Them of the truly unlimited data offering! Truly! They mean it!

Just, not for me.

Not on the price plan the N86 is on.

That was my critical mistake.

I only found out the problem when, today, my wife complained that she couldn’t use the internet.

“It’s saying something about running out of credit,” she said, over the phone.

“You what?” I said, knowing the SIM is running on a monthly contract. For hours I was convinced she’d some how put one of our PAYG SIMS into the MiFi by mistake some how.

I discovered the reality this evening.

Here’s the chronology that I’ve reconstructed from the sodding text messages that arrived into the MiFi warning me that I was exceeding my usage.

We start off with a warning message on Saturday evening:

18:36:59

From 3: You’ve nearly used your internet allowance. Check your remaining allowance for free at My3

This is very sensible. Provided I’m reading the text messages. But I’m not.

Now let’s get to the money texts. Here’s the warning that I’m about to get billed:

13.08 Sunday:

From 3: You’ve reached your internet allowance. You may be charged for further internet use. Check your usage free at My3

Right that’s not at all helpful. I mean, it’s useful to know. But what’s the sodding point in texting it to me? Why not DISPLAY something? Why not make me CLICK a button to continue during my web activity?

13.13:

You have spent £ 2.61 on internet since 02/09/2011 You could save money with an internet add-on. Click here for info http://mobil

13.13:01

You have spent £ 8.43 on internet since 02/09/2011 You could save money with an internet add-on. Click here for info http://mobil

This does show the speed of Three’s network, both in terms of data, and in terms of billing updates. Anyway, one second later I got this…

13.13:02:

You have spent £ 17.74 on internet since 02/09/2011 You could save money with an internet add-on. Click here for info http://mobi

The billing system has noticed something might not quite be right, but things carry on. 43 seconds later, they sent this:

13.13:45

From 3:You have nearly reached your credit limit. If you would like more information or want to make a payment please call 333 or

A few minutes now pass as the system lets me carry on regardless..

13:16:59

You have spent £ 23.56 on internet since 02/09/2011 You could save money with an internet add-on. Click here for info http://mobi

Now for a big jump:

13:19:00

You have spent £ 41.01 on internet since 02/09/2011 You could save money with an internet add-on. Click here for info http://mobi

The outstanding balance has doubled in a few minutes. This is clearly a nice chunk of One Tree Hill downloading. Things are moving so fast that even the SMS delivery servers can’t react fast enough. One second later, this message arrived — rather late:

13:19:01

You have spent £ 20.07 on internet since 02/09/2011 You could save money with an internet add-on. Click here for info http://mobi

And then it’s all good for another few minutes as the billing engine carries on counting the pounds from me before declaring:

13:23:02

You have spent £ 113.36 on internet since 02/09/2011 You could save money with an internet add-on. Click here for info http://mob

And the final text? For some inexplicable reason, that arrived almost twenty minutes later:

13:42:01

You have spent £ 118.02 on internet since 02/09/2011 You could save money with an internet add-on. Click here for info http://mob

And that’s it.

Job done.

For some reason, the system decided not to bother texting me after that — despite the fact that I happily used data from it across the evening, although perhaps not much, given the fact that the final additional data bill is almost £120:

I really didn’t expect a bill from Three.

I thought they’d actually given up on this ‘fair usage policy’ stuff and actually just given everyone unlimited data. I just assumed (“makes an ass out of you and me”) that this SIM contract would carry over.

My real problem is the gratuitous way in which the company’s systems just billed me. I take full responsibility. I will most definitely pay the bill. I’m just seriously disappointed that the only mechanism they thought to employ to warn me was text messaging.

It’s OK.

It’s just not very smart, is it?

The average customer would go absolutely spare at such an occurrence.

The experience really does bring home to me how shit the operators — well, Three in this instance — are at dealing with this kind of usage.

Don’t just send me a text.

How stupid is that? Oh, by all means warn me, but what about the smart thinking? What about the up selling opportunities?

KNOWING that I’m on a price plan that has a defined limit, why didn’t you switch off my internet connection and redirect all browser requests and ask me to specifically approve the STUPID amount of money I spent?

Why didn’t you use a bit of intelligence in the system? “Ewan, it looks like you’re using a lot — and, you know what, you don’t have much headroom in your allowance, so why don’t you buy a bolt-on for this week?”

No.

Here’s the screenshot of the page my wife was talking about:

I don’t know why this wasn’t shown to me (or us) some way through 1pm on Sunday when we were already running up a bill.

I could have bought almost 5x £25 7GB options for the amount they’ve charged me.

I find this level of incompetence extremely irritated.

Yes I should have swapped to an unlimited price plan. I should. That’s my fault. Yes I should have monitored my data usage closely, again, my fault.

Whoever designed and manages the Three data billing policies failed me, utterly. You’re meant to manage the customer, right? Come on, this is donkey stuff. All customers are inherently stupid. And we want to avoid them phoning us up SCREAMING for the CEO’s email address to make a complaint, yes? So make the billing system and ESPECIALLY the bit that the customer interacts with waterproof. Stupidproof.

By not dealing with this issue — by allowing it to happen for whatever reason — Three succeeded in winding up an otherwise very happy customer.

I understand that the cause of the problem was me. I expected more from you, Three. I expected some smarts in the billing team to have identified this possibility and protect me from the shit and, most importantly, as a customer, isolate me from having to deal with exceptions like this.

How simple would it have been on Sunday afternoon?

“What’s this?” my wife would say, handing the iPad to me.

“Ah, yeah it’s ok — just tap on the 7GB option as we’ll be using a lot over the next week or so,” I’d have replied.

Gahhhh.

Routinely, WiFi hotspots are so SHIT that I simply have to rely on my MiFi unit for connectivity. Three’s data network is amongst the best in the business — and the MiFi unit is a brilliant way of unlocking that for all your connectivity needs.

I used to regularly travel up and down the M4 motorway and goodness me, the networks — Three in particular — seem to have got that motorway connected properly. I was able to stay connected at what felt like desktop data speeds for my whole journey. [I want to point out, I wasn't driving!]

The MiFi gets me out of a heck of a lot of tight spots though. You know the scene — turn up at an office and find that their guest WiFi needs 16-layers of security confirmation. Or arrive into a pub to do some work and find that the bollocks BT Openzone wants to charge you on a pence-per-minute basis. Stupid. Scenarios like this have me reaching for the MiFi all the time. I don’t even bother taking it out my bag. I just feel for the power switch, depress it for a second and then see the WiFi connection pop-up.

So I’m a big user. Three’s current MiFi unit is the Huawei E585. Here’s a quick reminder:

It’s great. The battery feels like it lasts most of the business day. In practice after about 4-5 hours of continuous use, I need to power it up. Provided you’re in a city centre location, I generally find the throughput speeds to be comparable to a desktop broadband connection.

That was then.

Now the next generation is upon us: The E586. Let’s have a photo:

Right. This one is HSPA+ which means that you’ll get up to 21.1Mbps down (“HSDPA”) and 5.76Mbps up (“HSUPA”). Amazing. Three reckons it should be about 40% faster. (80% of the operator’s network will be fully HSPA+ compliant by the end of the year.)

They’ve made a few nice improvements — apparently the dashboard has got a nice upgrade. I’m hopeful on this one. It was a little bit ‘Huwaei bog standard’ for my tastes but it certainly did the job. There’s also a smart new feature that enables users to see the WiFi username/password on-screen at the touch of a button, ‘for fast pairing with new gadgets’.

Somebody at Three has obviously given their MiFi a lot of use. One of the slight arses with the MiFi is having to open up the battery case to get the WiFi access code. Good thinking. See the picture above? See the button with the ‘key’ on it, top right on the side? I reckon that’s the one you press to get a reminder of the device password.

If you’re a big user of the internal memory card functionality (so you can access via your connected devices), that’s now upgraded to support 32GB micro SD cards.

And a final new addition? This:

That there is a fancy new charging cradle. This will be highly useful if you’re a regular MiFi user as you’ll want to pop it in the charger often.

This new unit should be available in-store and online from September. There’s no word on costs yet but I’d expect it will be priced similarly (if not exactly the same) as the existing E585. So, on PAYG the E585 costs £71.99 including 3GB of data. I’d expect it to be free on a 20/month contract. I think that’s what I’ll go for when it comes out.

Anyway, stay tuned. I’ll post a note when it’s available.

(See: “Three UK: Fascinating example of a missed sales opportunity“)

Well, it was the same again this afternoon. This time it was a lady, Samantha, calling from India.

“Is there anyone there on PAYG that you’d like to add as a new line?”

“No, I don’t need a new line,” I said, “But I would like to discuss upgrading my existing lines.”

I have 3 different contracts with them.

This is exactly the same as I told the guy who phoned a few months ago.

The lady was very polite.

“I’m afraid I can’t help you there,” she said, “You will need to speak to the Upgrades department.”

Well that’s hardly helpful is it, I thought, if you’re calling to get more business from me?

Anyway. This one surprised me:

“Would you like a new laptop or an iPad?” she asked.

Now then, if she’d been offering a MacBook Air? Yes. But she wasn’t. She was, I suspect (although I didn’t ask) offering one of those laptops the company sells.

“As for an iPad,” I answered, “I’ve just bought one from Vodafone two weeks ago, sorry.”

(Read also: “Vodafone: A fascinating example of a super sales approach“)

“Do you want another one?” She asked.

“Alas no,” I said.

I was being good.

I thanked her. She thanked me and I hung up.

Dear me.

What a shame.

So once again, an outbound sales call seems to mean “add a new line” as far as 3 are concerned.

This time, though, at least the lady was talking about iPads. Alas my situation has changed, because 3 was stupid-slow.

Surely .. SURELY the chap last time should have sent my details over to some bod in the Upgrades team and said, “Look, this chap is ready to spend some cash?”

As it happens, 3′s social media team did their best to connect me, however I was all-over-the-place work wise in the proceeding weeks so didn’t manage to speak to them.

Then Vodafone called out of the blue, offered me an iPad, bang, done.

That money should have gone to 3. If they’d been fast enough. If they hadn’t hamstrung their sales people with these stupid policies.

How STUPID is the 3 sales management team? How STUPID? When your sales people are phoning and I’m saying the equivalent of, “I’d like to give you more money, only not in the configuration in which you expect?”, don’t you think they should be given the opportunity to do business with me?

Isn’t this ridiculous?

At some point I need to re-organise my lines with 3 and that probably means spending more money. Especially when you dangle new stuff in front of me.

So that was a second call from 3 where, due to their own stupid, STUPID service configuration, they can’t help me.

Why didn’t the lady just transfer me to upgrades?

I had no specific intention of dealing with my 3 account this afternoon. It’s been lumbering on. The direct debits come and go. My iPhone 4 is performing fine. I’m still using my 2 broadband accounts with them. I’m reasonably content. Just, I could be up-sold rather dramatically. Since they phoned though, I moved my mindset — I was ready to do business.

Deary me.

£1.28 per meg is really not that relaxing

Another newsletter in from Three this morning.

I commend the team on their communications strategy out to the masses — you see, often, operators are (righty) accused of being rather vague on their pricing strategies, especially when roaming is concerned (See Vodafone’s inexplicably complicated text).

Not Three though.

No, they’ve been entirely clear with their customers.

The only problem? It’s likely to ensure that the overwhelming majority switch their phones off at the airport.

- It will cost you 36.6p a minute to call home
- You will be charged 11.5p a minute if someone calls you
- While it is free for you to receive texts when abroad, it costs 10.2p to send them
- Data charges start at £1.28 per MB – that’s the equivalent of browsing 100 web pages

You’ll also get a free text alert for every £2.50 you spend on data. So if you’re uploading a few pictures to Facebook, expect to get about 10 text messages in a row.

It seems Three still hasn’t quite got the message on roaming. Whilst every other operator is deploying some kind of £2 or £3 for 25-ish megabytes per day, Three is holding fast to it’s policies.

Clearly, the Three roaming manager got a really, really bad deal the last time they sat down with the big european players.

My advice is pretty simple. Do a deal with the Abroadband team who charge €0.59 (£0.52) per megabyte across Europe. Indeed, Three, why don’t you re-sell access to Abroadband? Stick on 10 cents per megabyte margin for doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING and you know what, the cost will still be HALF the flipping price you are charging your customers.

Being open is one thing. Charging stupid prices is another.

At the MACH Insights Forum in Berlin a few months ago I was astonished when their CEO, Morten Brøgger, pointed out that operators’ own figures reveal a massive FORTY PERCENT of subscribers do not ever, EVER roam. To be clear, 40% of subscribers going abroad actually switch their phone off. So they don’t incur any bill shock.

This, unfortunately, is a really, really good policy if you’re a Three customer.

The £1.28 per meg fee is only for Europe. All bets are off once you fly west. America, for example, is a whopping £3 per megabyte. For some inane reason, so is Hong Kong. You know, Hong Kong? Hutchison Whampoa owns half of Hong Kong yet Three UK, it’s little British subsidiary is still knocking out megabytes to customers for £3 a meg.

Here’s the full text of the newsletter:

Dear Ewan,

We want you to feel in control when using your phone abroad.
Everyone knows that it costs more to use your phone on holiday. We’d like to keep you informed about our charges so that you feel confident and relaxed.

You’ll get a free text alert for every £2.50 you spend on data. To make sure you’re protected from big bills we’ve added a data roaming price cap of £43, so that you can enjoy using your phone whilst in the EU, confident that you won’t be facing unexpected charges when you get home.

With our clear roaming charges, you’ll know exactly what everything will cost before you go – no unwelcome surprises.

- It will cost you 36.6p a minute to call home
- You will be charged 11.5p a minute if someone calls you
- While it is free for you to receive texts when abroad, it costs 10.2p to send them
- Data charges start at £1.28 per MB – that’s the equivalent of browsing 100 web pages

If you’re using an iPhone, Android or Windows phone, your data roaming is automatically turned off when you leave the country. To find out how to switch it back on (and information on data roaming settings for all our other devices), visit Three.co.uk/dataroaming

So whether you want to find a restaurant, browse local attractions or simply check up on your flight home, it’s now easy, safe and manageable.

Have a great holiday.

Thanks,
The Three Team

And just a final note. 100 web pages = 1 megabyte? Where? When?

If you happen to use your iPhone to view this page (the Pay Monthly deals page) on Three.co.uk, you’ll use up 1.12 megabytes. So that’s a quid.

Click into the iPhone 4 product information page and that’s almost 400kb. Click on ‘Buy now’ and you’ve done another 400kb.

Perhaps Three.co.uk is free to browse when you’re abroad. I couldn’t find any information about that. Anyway, you get my point..

By the way, the reason Three cancelled the ’3LikeHome’ roaming on their own networks abroad? Reader WeirdShanghai comments:

3 HK used to allow roaming from 3UK but cancelled it after loosing far to much money between exec units. Stupid but true.

I’m a little surprised that there’s no call to action beyond reading the results of a survey. One would hope that, as a customer, I’m already well aware of the super quality service from Three.

However it’s always important to keep reminding folk, to stay front-of-mind.

But here, surely, is an opportunity to market to the customer, no?

Especially the customer flush with a bit of cash.

You know, sometimes I do worry that Three seems to think that everyone of it’s customers is seeking to spent AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE with them. This simply isn’t the case.

Still.. you know what I’d like to see? Something like this:

What do you reckon? Can you spot the difference?

Now then, I’m not saying that EVERYONE would take up the offer — however I’m sure *some* people today, this afternoon, could have been persuaded.

Irrespective, it was nice to hear from you, Three.

I’m stunned.

I just called 3UK *Business support* from a random landline and got the PIN on my voicemail changed, using just the info on my business card.

All they asked for was my mobile number and address/postcode. And what I’d like the PIN reset to, of course. How kind of them.

So anyone finding my business card, or a colleague’s phone, or a vendor/customer’s phone – with my name, my number and my place or work/address, CAN ACCESS MY VM.

And because the PIN is not needed when checking the VM from my mobile, I’d have no idea the PIN had changed until I tried to remotely access it. Which is never, so far.

My name is out there. I am ‘public’, I have a profile on social networks. Who I work for and the address/postcode is 15 seconds on Google away.

Fisher-Price security? More like zero security.

I then called O2 business. I have another phone with them, again on a business account. Completely, utterly different experience.

They insisted on the company details as well, but crucially, they required me to pass through a security procedure involving knowing the business account password, or detailed info like the last billing amount etc.

No matter how much I pleaded, making up a story about urgently needing access to just one VM, etc – no dice. They were adamant. No security, no PIN reset.

3UK, in topical parlance you come a News Of The World last to O2′s shining Guardian. Their CEO should be getting this process changed TODAY.

This comes from a highly technical-savvy mobile industry executive known to me personally.

Deary me.

What were 3UK Business Support thinking? I trust this is an isolated example and not par-for-the-course?

Update: I wrote some more on the wider issues.

I came up from London last night and stayed overnight in the Premier Inn next to the stadium. I then had to make what I’m sure is a very familiar decision to most readers — WiFi or not? Should I give a tenner to Spectrum Interactive (the providers of WiFi at the Premier Inn) or should I simply continue to use my 3 MiFi?

My dilemma was this. I had 1.3GB to download and it would obviously be a lot faster via a fixed connection. However I’ve been to far too many hotels with utterly shit WiFi so I’ve grown very, very wary of wasting my cash unnecessarily. In this context I’d have been happy to pay for the utility.

What’s your perspective?

I took a video and walked through my reasoning. Let me know what you think…

Consumers don’t mind paying a little bit of cash up front, but ideally, they want the device free. Of course, the contracts get longer and longer when you’re after a top of the range device, free of charge.

It’s all about the handset. People still swap networks to get hold of a particular handset.

Which means that operators really need to work hard at pitching their ‘terminals’ (as many senior folk in the industry still refer to them).

Over the years we’ve seen some particularly compelling videos from the teams at Vodafone and Orange (Conor at Orange has been leading the way, especially with some of the higher end Android phones).

Three are no exception. Here’s a great example of a recent video highlighting HTC’s all new BlackBerry-like Android device. The presenter, Sedge, does a super job of delivering a watchable 4 minutes of social media recommendations interspersed with examples of how the HTC works with Facebook. (It’s one of the first to arrive complete with that famous Facebook button). Across the four minutes, Sedge points out the various features of the phone without getting too technical. It’s all filmed ‘on location’ at Windsor, so there’s plenty of nice scenery and backgrounds — the camera work is uber-smooth and it’s got the professional shine of something you might see on the likes of the Gadget show.

I think it does a good job of educating, converting and convincing for anyone who’s half interested in the phone. Nice work!

Here’s the accompanying blog post.

No one has my 3UK iPhone 4 number. I don’t tend to call people on it. Instead I use it as a data consumption and creation device. So when an 0845 number called just a moment ago, I thought it might be 3UK calling.

It was.

The chap calling was one of those highly proficient, very polite and very informed sales guys you often come across. He asked if he could put a special offer to me. I agreed.

I listened. It was a good offer for ‘me or for any friends or family’ — thousands of minutes, thousands of texts, and a free phone all for £15 a month.

I thanked the chap and declined on the basis that I didn’t need a new account from 3UK. I already have 3 contracts with them.

I did explain that I would welcome the opportunity to extend my existing contracts with 3UK. My price plans are wrong, you see. I’d actually like to buy more from the company. I just haven’t taken the time (or, perhaps I don’t quite have the inclination) to deal with their outsourced call centre in India. I have found that this team is very efficient at dealing with standard arrangements. I am not a standard arrangement though. Multiple contracts, multiple devices and so on.

“I imagine you won’t be able to help me,” I said to the chap. I heard him clear his throat as I followed up, “I will probably have to call your call centre, right?”

I could hear the disappointment in his voice.

I’d just explained that I’d like to do WAY more business than a paltry 15 quid a month. I’d like to — for example — add perhaps 2-3 more devices to my existing contracts along with decent £35+ contracts.

“You’re right,” the chap sighed.

He thanked me for my time.

I thanked him.

He hung up.

Isn’t that ridiculous?

Somewhere in a rather flash boardroom in Maidenhead, someone has commissioned this guy to call existing customers to offer them this special offer. I imagine at some point, somebody in the boardroom wondered out loud what their sales people would do if customers had an existing enquiry. And at some point, somebody senior at 3UK will have slapped the idea down with the assumption that if the consumer wants something beyond the basic offer they’re flogging, they can damn well phone customer services. Or go into a shop. Or order online. This outreach is ONLY about the special offer.

Deary me.

Do some segmentation analysis.

Or, no — better still — why don’t you properly equip and empower your sales outreach teams to actually take some cash from me, rather than offering me some (good) but irrelevant deal?

If the chap had asked, i think I’d have told him he could put me down for an HTC Cha Cha, an HTC Flyer, a BlackBerry Bold 9900 and … you know what, this afternoon — right now — I’d have bought another iPad 2. Right now I am in the mood to buy. You know how it is. And this guy was good. I knew it when I heard him speak. He could have sold me a ton of stuff with a few ‘beads to the natives’ sales techniques like doubling the minutes or adding some token stuff to make me feel good and to allow me to spend more with him.

I want to be clear that this is — I dunno — let’s add it up… 35 quid x 4 = £2,520 over 18 months. That’s almost ten times the £15x 18 month target (£270) the sales guy was trying to achieve.

I will probably feel entirely different tomorrow. But right now the sun is shining and it’s just gone 5pm. So I’d have done some deals.

Anyway. We move on.

I’ll get round to sorting out my price plans and getting some new phones at some point with 3UK’s call centre.

In the meantime though my wife will no doubt be happy: To all the executives at 3UK reading this, that two and a half grand additional revenue I would have given you will probably be spent on some curtains.

Update: There’s a possibility that the chap who called was actually calling from a third-party sales agency not working at the direction of 3UK. I hope to have some confirmation from 3UK about this shortly.

So I wrote a little while ago asking if anybody really cares about the upcoming White iPhone.

I don’t.

At least, I don’t think I do. Perhaps that view might change dramatically if I actually had one in my hand.

Come to think of it, I do like the idea of being rather different from the millions of iPhone 4 users I keep seeing around London.

But, to the news. It’s here. Finally! The white iPhone is no longer an apparition drifting in the future geek haze. You can, as Nigel on the Three blog points out, pick one up from any 3Store tomorrow (or buy online).

Who’s getting one then?

I sound like a broken record when it comes to the 3 MiFi units. I’m use mine every day, especially when I’m driving (or, being driven, I should say) up and down the M4. The signal is just brilliant.

Obviously the Deltenna WIBE is the daddy but in terms of ultimate portability, the MiFi combined with 3′s proper 3G (or ‘H’) service is very valuable.

Case in point: Today at the London Book Show exhibition, I needed internet access. I connected to the show’s WiFi and found it rather sluggish. This is understandable given the system was being pummelled by the thousands of people on site. So I flipped on the MiFi and — boom — 15 seconds later I was getting speeds similar to my home BeUnlimited connection.

Krystal, one of our key operations people here at Mobile Industry Review, is heading this way in a few hours. She’s normally based in Canada but she’s popping over this week. She uses Fido.

:: eye roll ::

Fido is .. well, I was going to pick on Fido but, really, it seems like every Canadian operator is out of their mind. They seem to be stuck in the dark ages. I think I’m right in saying that Krystal would pay somewhere around $15-$17 per megabyte for data roaming. Ridiculous.

My solution? Get her a MiFi. Last night I spent 20 seconds on Amazon. I typed in ’3UK MiFi’ and clicked on the one-click button next to the MiFi+3GB bundle option. Boom. (£68). It arrived today.

I thought I might have to do a bit of jiggery pokery getting it set up. I forgot that 3 have made this whole process ultra simple. I put in the SIM card, turned on the MiFi, logged on to the hotspot and .. well, there was nothing to do. 3GB allowance was sitting ready to be used. Smooth.

The one issue? I’d have liked to have ordered directly from 3. But I knew… well, I suspected, the whole thing would be a trillion times faster on Amazon. I think I’m right in saying it was. I didn’t want to have to do the click-click-my-name-is-Ewan, here-is-my-address and sod about with credit card details. It was a point’n'click purchase.

This is perhaps something 3 might like to give some thought to. For any of the donkey stuff — that is, physical products that don’t need contracts or independent verification, let me buy it from Amazon with one click.

Don’t make me faff.

To be fair I haven’t actually experienced the 3 online ordering process. I’m confident the actual delivery would be super-fast. But I was concerned the online experience would be a little bit pedestrian.

I don’t, for example, have an account at 3.

I’ve got three different contracts with them, but I don’t login with a single identity. They don’t have my credit card details stored. I doubt I’d be able to just ‘click-n-order’ something like a MiFi and have them bill me via direct debit.

I think that might be feasible if I phoned-up. But at midnight last night, I’m sure they’d be closed.

Anyway.

Enough of that. The MiFi experience on 3? Love, love love it.

Which means I’m doing about 120mph+ on the Eurostar right now. I’m in the United Kingdom at the moment (barely — the Channel Tunnel is heading this way quickly) and I’m MiFiying like no tomorrow.

I’m thoroughly delighted to say that although I was seriously unhappy with 3UK last week (ONE POUND TWENTY-EIGHT A FLIPPING MEGABYTE? SERIOUSLY? HUGH? COME ON!), I’m very pleased with the 3UK data service via my MiFi in the UK.

The fact it can still deliver whilst I’m zipping through the countryside is a testament to the 3UK network chaps. Love it.

Pick up one for £49 (plus a tenner top up) from any 3UK store on PAYG.

Well then I’ve now had the Samsung Omnia 7 from Three for just under a fortnight and I’m very much enjoying the Windows Phone experience. This has been aided in no small part by the riotous Three data network upon which the Omnia has been screaming with joy. Seeing the 3G+ icon and watching the operating system’s little blue dots zip along swiftly has made me feel very good.

My primary handset is a BlackBerry (Torch — at the moment) on Vodafone’s slightly ailing data network that, no matter what awards they purport to have won, doesn’t always feel at all fast. Especially when I’m in Richmond, where Vodafone hasn’t quite discovered the secret of telecommunications beyond a creaking ‘no signal’ Edge network. In order to try and give the Omnia a bit of a work out, I forwarded all my calls.

And whilst I am most sincerely wedded to RIM’s QWERTY messaging devices, I really did appreciate the Omnia running Windows Phone 7. The screen is huge and wonderfully lit. The curving on the casing makes it feel a lot thinner than anything else in it’s class. The camera is good. The operating system does not get in the way of things happening. Now and again I had to relax into the Microsoft Bosom and accept that it-will-work, rather than demanding some kind of clear demonstration of success. For example, when you tap the little dots to the right of the screen whilst viewing a photo, you are presented with the option to share a photo with one-tap. I would routinely tap to share the photo to my Windows SkyDrive, see the animated blue dots at the top of the screen dance a little and then boom… I’d be … well. I just worried that the photo hadn’t actually uploaded. My worries were unfounded though. It all just works. Obviously some kind of background process was in operation as I didn’t stay on the screen too long. Plus Three’s data network makes short work of even the largest files, especially at 3.5G+ rates.

During setup I configured my ‘Live’ account (e.g. my Hotmail address) and was rather impressed to see my Hotmail contacts already waiting for me when I hit ‘People’. Those Hotmail (or MSN) contacts who’d recently changed their status were also displayed. Responding to their updates requires just a tap. Adding in Google or Facebook (or, in my case, multiple Google Apps accounts) was ridiculously simple. Just the username and password, everything else is sorted by the OS — no exceptions. Contacts were synched, calendars were updated — again, everything just worked. I didn’t have to organise anything — and since most of my address book records are reasonably well organised, the People app worked beautifully, collecting information from Facebook, two Googles Apps accounts and Windows Live into one contact record.

Sharing is a delight. Indeed I felt like I wanted to do more sharing and more interaction thanks to the operating system.

I didn’t tire of the interface either. I was a little concerned about how I would feel about the ‘swipe right/left’ UI that involves incomplete words. (Marketplace is titled ‘Marke’ — and you have to scroll right to see the rest of the word). It actually works really nicely. I’m particularly impressed at how the email works.

The little sounds and transitions are nice too. The way the screen builds when you turn the device, or if you send or delete an email is pleasing.

The Marketplace works swiftly and easily. No arsing around. No ‘would you like to install this application?’ and ‘are you sure’ silly prompts. Tap ‘install’ and woosh, the phone starts downloading and installing the app.

Keyboard input is painless and you really can type fast once you’ve got used to the keyboard — much like the iPhone. Although I really do like the auto-suggest options where the OS shows you an array of possible words. Very useful. Very quick.

The Maps app, powered by Bing, is very pleasing to look at. I like how the map fades in as you zoom and eventually turns to a satellite photo when you zoom closer. I was less impressed by Bing — when I was filming on camera I searched for ‘Tottenham Court Road, London’ and the only result Bing presented on the Maps was ‘Gala Casino, Tottenham Court Road’. Rubbish. Usable — because I could see Tottenham Court Road and the surrounding area, but a little bit silly. Come on Bing! Everything else — from finding my location to plotting directions worked fine.

I’m going to play a little more with ‘Office’ — Word, Excel and PowerPoint, along with Outlook and OneNote. I didn’t get much of a chance to use them during the two weeks as I was mostly stuck in my email, taking photos, answering calls or messing around with Marketplace.

Another element I need to examine more closely is the entertainment capabilities. I don’t have a credit card setup on Zune and I wasn’t able to add that from the device. And I’m an Apple user by default so I had to mess around with VMWare Fusion running Windows Vista to download Zune (the iTunes equivalent). I managed that, but not without a few Microsoftian hiccups (‘install service pack 3′, ‘install failed’, ‘seriously, install service pack 3′, ‘error’, ‘restart’, ‘install failed’). That is one area that the Windows Phone 7 team need to show to love. Carrier billing will no doubt fix that too. So I’ll add a credit card soon and give some of the games, paid-for apps and other content a test. From what I’ve seen of the Marketplace, it’s regularly updated and there’s lots to see.

I’m hearing lots of whispers about better-than-expected results for Windows Phone across the industry and — well, we’ll need to wait until sales figures are announced — but I wouldn’t be surprised if they show positive reception by consumers.

I used to have to hide my pained look whenever I came across someone who’d purchased a handset running Windows Mobile 6.5. Invariably the devices were phenomenally well specified but the slugging 6.5 was abhorrant. Now, when I come across consumers who’ve plumped for WP7, I am genuinely pleased for them — and they too appear to be happy.

My first impressions of Windows Phone? Excellent.

The Samsung Omnia 7? Top marks.

And Three? Yes, yes and thrice yes.

[I should point out that the areas I generally frequent have got really, really good 3.5G+ Three signal.]

I’ve done a video walkthrough of the phone and the OS — I’ll have that online shortly.

You can pick up a Samsung Omnia 7 free for £40/month on a 24-month contract with Three. That includes 2,000 minutes, 5,000 texts, 1GB of data and 5,000 Three-to-Three minutes.

I am now regularly based in Richmond-Upon-Thames.

And what a flipping nightmare it is from a mobile connectivity perspective.

Vodafone struggles to get anything more than Edge. And even when there’s an Edge signal, the 1.5k throughput is sufficient to query Google and nothing else.

Total unmitigated rubbish.

My solution was to refer to my Three handset and find that HSPA+ is rocking across the Richmond valley.

I went out on the second day of working in the town and bought a 3 MiFi unit — the new one, that I reviewed recently.

I patted myself on the back. Multiple times. Total genius, I was. I bougth a gig of data and used about 400mb of it across the week surfing away almost at broadband speeds.

I even connected my Vodafone BlackBerry to the MiFi hotspot. I found that especially galling given the stupid amount of money I pay to Vodafone each month. [Vodafone, you're the subject of another post: Do you seriously mean to tell me that your engineers have spent 6 months trying to get the mast working beyond Edge?]

It’s not like I’m talking about an area located somewhere in North Wales. Richmond-Upon-Thames is 9.2 miles from the Houses of Parliament. It’s as urban as you get.

A few people around me noted the Three MiFi and actually popped down to the local Three shop and picked up one. We’ve all been having a super time. Three’s got some new customers (who otherwise wouldn’t have given a damn about them — after all, the company still suffers from a massive image problem, something I’ve done my best to counter).

Everything was good until yesterday. All of a sudden, the Three data network just stopped working.

Vodafone’s network carried on at a literal snail’s pace.

Three just said NO SIGNAL on my (new) Three iPhone 4 and my MiFi.

I gave it a few minutes.

Nothing.

I waited an hour or so.

Nothing.

A colleague phoned up Three and gave our postcode.

Apparently they knew about the issue.

The afternoon arrived. Nothing.

I recognised that I’d come to depend on Three.

What a mistake to make.

The network was non-existent for most of yesterday.

This morning, nothing.

Mid-way through the day, my MiFi unit suddenly found a signal, send/received 115k of data and … boom… promptly returned to zero signal.

It’s almost been 48-hours.

Again, it’s not like we’re in deepest darkest Wales, where it takes 11 hours via especially equipped Land Rover to reach the mast.

My expectation is that Three is running a carrier grade network.

Carrier grade means… well, let’s see what Wikipedia reckons:

In telecommunication, a “carrier grade” or “carrier class” refers to a system, or a hardware or software component that is extremely reliable, well tested and proven in its capabilities. Carrier grade systems are tested and engineered to meet or exceed “five nines” high availability standards, and provide very fast fault recovery through redundancy (normally less than 50 milliseconds).

To be clear, for most of today it’s been possible to make a telephone call with the Three network. And even send an SMS.

But data?

No.

Absolutely not: About a billion miles away from ‘carrier grade‘. More like ‘hamster grade‘.

If I get to Richmond tomorrow and find there is STILL no data connectivity in the area, I honestly don’t know what I’ll do.

I can’t quite imagine how I’d react to a mobile service provider that can’t provide basic functionality to a reasonable service level, let alone ‘carrier grade’.

If it doesn’t work tomorrow, I will:

- demand a refund of my Three WiFi
- cancel my newly initiated 24-month iPhone 4 contract on Three
- cancel my half-spent 18-month Nokia N86 on Three
- cancel my Three USB dongle

A back-of-the-fag-packet calculation reveals I spend about £1,400 a year with Three alone.

Fix it, Three. Fix it.

Update: Well, I’m pleased to say that Three picked up the post and discovered a fault with the local base station the next morning.  It was back and operational within a few hours.  Good news.

Have you been waiting to get an iPhone on 3? I know quite a few people who have been, especially after their rather attractive pricing.

Just a quick refresher… You can pick up an iPhone 4 16GB for just £99 quid based on a 900 minutes, 5,000 texts, 5,000 three-to-three minutes and 1GB internet plan (24-month contract).

You can pick up a totally free iPhone 4 16GB on their £45/month 24-month plan — gets the same as the above, only you get 2,000 inclusive minutes. If you’ve got your heart set on a 32GB iPhone 4, splash out £89 and you’ll get the same deal.

Not bad. Not bad at all.

Get thee to a 3 shop on Friday.

(You can of course get a free iPhone 3GS from Three right now on a £35 24-month contract)

I got hold of one of the new 3 Mobile WiFi units last week and I’ve been putting it through it’s paces. Regular readers will know that my opinion on MiFi was set to ‘ultra positive’ ever since I tested the Novatel Wireless device last year. Dongles are for dunces. A separate unit that enables multiple devices to share the mobile braodband connection is the way ahead.

I was a fan of 3′s first unit, manufactured by Huawei and although it did it’s job perfectly well at the genius price point of £49 Pay-as-you-go, there was room for improvement.

The first improvement is that you now just switch the device on. That’s it. Switch it on it’ll automatically setup a MiFi mobile broadband connection. On the old version, you had to specifically tell it to start/stop and whatnot. And you had to look at the little coloured flashing buttons to try and determine whether you had a 2G/3G connection. So, no messing around with multiple options or buttons any more. Just switch it on and you’re done.

The next thing they’ve sorted is a screen. And goodness me it’s useful. Here’s a close-up:

You’ve got the signal strength indicator, a connection type indicator (e.g. 3G/HSPA), a WiFi indicator, a connected globe indicator and the battery level. Everything you need. My absolute favourite is the WiFi indicator — do you see the number 1 next to it? That indicates you have one device connected. Connect another device and it increments to 2. This is really, really REALLY useful for me. I sometimes want to know whether or not my laptop/desktop/iPad/whatever is still connected — so a quick glance to that indicator is super. Battery is important too. And if you’re on a train or in the back of a car, you’ll also want to know what kind of signal quality you’ve got.

And I like the black sleek look — attractive, functional, definitely the way ahead.

If you’d like to see the unboxing and demo, here’s the vid I made on Friday:

Inside the box, I’d like to draw your attention to the whizzy cheat cards. It’s a feature they’ve been using over at sister firm, INQ, to avoid having to stick stupidly annoying massive manuals in with their phones. Have a look:

The MiFi comes with 9 of these little pocket cards offering quick guides to setting up the device, getting it started, connecting to it from your computer, that sort of things. The attention to detail is excellent. And, if you’re someone like me who positively does not read the manual (unless the device simply won’t start), they’re a welcome addition.

In terms of cost, here’s where it gets crazy. £49 for the device. You do need to pay a tenner for 1GB as well, so the full walk-out-the-shop price is a minimum of £59.99. But I’d recommend taking a look at the £69.99 PAYG option which includes the MiFi unit and 3GB of data.

If you’ve got an iPad, an iPod Touch, or frankly any device that benefits from WiFi (like a Nintendo DS, laptop), you really should look at getting a MiFi when you’re on the move. The ability to switch on a mobile broadband cloud for all your devices is something I find very valuable, almost every day of the week. I use mine on the train, in meetings, wherever I need data service.

A lot of people I speak to still have a built-in negative perspective on 3. That viewpoint is really out of date now. The company has some of the best and fastest data connectivity in the UK. You will find yourself, on occasion, out of signal. But it’s broadly the same with any of the other network operators. You also benefit from the fact that 3′s network is generally under utilised (in my opinion) by their subscribers so I usually find it super fast. You can use the coverage checker on 3′s site to determine if you’ve got connectivity in your work/home areas.

I’ll post some video of the 3 MiFi unit working with different devices. I haven’t yet used the device long enough to see how long the battery lasts in ‘live’ conditions.

Here’s the set of MiFi photos I took:

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

I thought it was fitting to take a picture of 3′s new MiFi unit operational. In this photo the iPhone is connected to the MiFi unit whilst it uploads the unboxing video!

The best feature of the new device, apart from the rather funky screen? The always-on element. You just switch it on and boom, it connects and gives you a WiFi network. No other buttons required. I shall publish the video shortly.

Posted via email from MIR Live

Here’s the vid…