Three are an absolute disgrace. The regulator needs to deal with the. I have had similar issues as many reported here. No signal no service, cannot access the internet, and when I can it takes forever to load a page like even the Three homepage. Thee technical support have very limited knowledge and will tell you the most obvious stuff. The main issue is that their coverage is extremely poor but they will not own up to this. Comreg please sort this crowd out. Nobody here should have to deal with an Indian call centre who cannot resolve connection issues. They told me the mast in my area was being upgraded – this ws going on for months. Please log complaints about them with comreg. If I could give a zero rating I would. Stay away from this crowd of imposters.

Exact same issue..but we have no other choice here in west Kerry…I ring them about every 3 days since December.so so so sick of it!

Stay away from 3,i always had a problem with speed,coverage and customer services. They do not help the customer at all. Its the worst broadband out there.

I was signed up with 3 for 3 years and they are a bunch of money grabbing beeps! They overcharged me several times so I signed up with 02 instead! Now I have received yet another bill saying I owe another E60 because even though I told customer care I did NOT want to renew my contract,they are now saying I rang the wrong department on 3!!! This is bull,they are trying to ***** me for whatever they can! They say I am still their customer even though I stopped direct debit and rang their customer care the month my contract was up! The coverage is not very good and they don’rt seem to care when you cannot get coverage for days! They are so rude to deal with and you cannot understand their broken english ! PLEASE PEOPLE STAY AWAY FROM 3 AS IT ONLY CAUSES STRESS EVEN WHEN YOU ARE A LOYAL CUSTOMER!!!!!!!!! Karen

When you have no choice for an ISP, you have to stick with this useless shower of B******S, slow speed, limited access, speak to people who can’t understand you and you can’t understand them, there would be a better connection in Timbucktoo.

Not going to bother ringing customer service because of slow speeds, it seems everyone has the same problem. I did a Magnet Speed test. I waited for 20 mins, the download test was still being prepared, and there’s a ping of 2996ms. High is bad with the ping speed aparently, so I’m gonna hope it picks up with upgrades to their system. Fingers crossed it gets better!

bought a b260a router from 3 last week..30 euro a month for 60gb.. i stuck it up in the attic where the signal is best.. speeds are ranging from.7mb at worst to 3.5mb… i find it fairly good at the minute considering digiweb couldnt pick up a signal here.. bit nervous looking at all the previous comments though.. but so far, its good..eircom and upc arent in my area yet either so i have limited choice

I have been with 3 for about 4 years and have just discovered this site – wish I had seen it before.
I joined 3 via Carphone Warehouse and have been thru’ 3 sets of dongles from the E220, E5830 and now the E585. As I too live in rural Ireland, I accepted that the service would be poor but not THAT slow. I was getting kbs and did not realise that 1mb or higher was available, till I went to my sons place in London. Whoa, like S**t off a shovel.
I have been thru’ the gamut of Customer “dis”Service, Tech Support and the usual Call Centre robots.
I finally cracked and cancelled my Direct Debit after verbally giving them 30 days notice. The calls have now started but we just leave them dangling online till they hang up. I am awaiting the next steps – they claim they have a call recording stating that I agreed to extend for a further 18 mths contract when they sent me the “upgrade” E585. I intend to ask for a copy of that recording to send to Com Reg.
The company Hutchison Whampoa own Hutchison 3G Ireland Limited, PO Box 333, Dublin 2, Ireland,and are the overall owners and from the number of complaints I have read, we really should be thinking of a class action against them.
If any legal firm were to take on a no win, no fee case, I would be willing to sign up.

Absolute shower of c****s,stay away from them. rang a few days due to lack of signal, was asked to take modem into garden to check signal, like a fool I went out and checked signal around garden, I then asked why as I would not be able to power the modem anywhere in the garden, the idiot could not answer my question. I finally got a signal and was online for less than 15 mins before I lost signal again. I rang them again a was asked how I know I have no signal….well firstly mt computer wont connect, secondly our 2 smart phones say there is no signal and thirdly my mi-fi says “NO SIGNAL”….man in Mumbi asked if i am sure, you could probably hear me shout in the next county.

A few days later same thing, woman says she would check coverage in my area, 2 mins later she came back and said she could not find my area on the map…..I asked where she was looking…turns out she was looking for my house name not the area that I live in…when she finally fond me on the map she said I should have no problem as there is a full signal….20 mins later after many tests/reconfigerations/resets and being on hold for 5 mins she said there was a problem and it would be escalated to there tech division and would hear via sms onwhat is happening……..3 days later and getting a very very sasmodic service I still have not heard a word from them.

When I paid my latest bill I was quized as to why I paid 1 day late by a very aggresive woman, when I explained why she was not in any way supportive and was told in no uncertain terms if I was late again it would affect my credit raiting.

I even rang the Irish number for 3 and was told I would get a call back within 3 days 4 months later still waiting for this call.

I now have a direct phone number for the office of communications so will be ringing them in future.

so in my advice keep away from this company at all costs.

If I could give a minus raiting for this company I would its just a scam to make money as I cannot even watch a streamed football match.

Got this 3 Mobile broadband over a year ago. Used to get about 2 mb/s download (supposed to be up to 7) could watch RTEplayer and youtube. In last 6 months have never gone over 1 mb/s in the evenings mostly below 0.5. Can’t see RTEplayer or youtube without incessant stops. Just about good enough to read emails. Did manage a once-off value of 4 mb/s (This was a best ever, and I do check it when it’s working ok) that afternoon I managed to watch a full youtube without stops. This is not good enough. I will change to another supplier soon.
If I could leave no stars I would for all categories. Another thing is their “service” centre is in Mumbai and the guys there have no idea what I’m talking about(or pretend not to). They asked me what part of the country I was in and I told them “it’s mobile broadband” and it’s poor anywhere I try it, in the car, on a bus , in a train, in dublin house and in wexford house.

I can see everybody are disappointed with this crappy service,so am I!it was working not too bad in our last apartment (there were no land line), but we moved just around the corner, and there’s little signal or no at all! Avoid! Going to cancel next week…

Same trouble in the UK with 3 broadband,last few days nothing,on for a couple of hours at 04.00 then off for the rest of the day.As an alternative buy a dongle and sim from “ABROADBAND” online from Austrian telecom,no kidding,only pay when you use it at 56 cents per MB worldwide,picks up the strongest signal and locks onto that,never expires,only need to use it once a year then you don’t pay the 10 Euro yearly charge,basically use it pay,don’t use it don’t pay.Seemples!!

Dreadful product and company to deal with. Highest speed I have achieved is 1.3 and usually attain betwwen .2 and .8
I called to cancel in 14 day cooling of period but told no as I have speed of .4. An absolute joke. I can’t believe this shower
have the govenment contract for mobile broadband. They are a nightmare to deal with. New Delhi robots. Can not believe I
am stuck with this shite for a year. Stay away

slowest stuff ever… i joined three because the 60GB data allowance. My computer is now online 24/7 30 days a month, and still can’t use the whole limit. The download speed is 8kB/s at this moment. I have an O2 internet as well for surf the web. If I make a speed test with it it’s usually give me between 500 – 700 kB/s. ALMOST 1000% SPEED DIFFERENCE!

Have the same experience as most if not all of above
How do they get away with it ????

Today I picked up 3′s E586 modem, one hour after activation I was on to their tech support. The shop assistant promised me speeds of up to 14.0mbps, I some what knew this was not possible but the product information recommended speeds up to 21.1mbps so I was hoping for around 5-7mbps which isn’t bad. After my speedtest.net results I laughed, 0.75mbps! Their costumer support told me “this was adequate for surfing” ( maybe in dream land) and then told me to “ring back in a while”
I’m returning their modem in the morning and unfortunately broadbandless for another week

Possibly the worst service I have ever used!

I got the E586 modem which from reviews is supposed to be a very good Modem.. Not with these shower of ***** at 3 .. They are such a waste of space F”*^ing useless broadband speeds , Broadband ! That’s a laugh.. And Typical of us paddy’s to let them take over the NBS .. What a Waste..

I uploaded 2 long videos to you tube which totalled 2GB, it used 20GB of my monthly allowance and took 2 days, what a waste of space these people r, i emailed them and someone in India replies who can’t answer and tells me my allowance is nearly up, i didn’t think anyone in 3 were that smart.

I got their 21 mbps dongle on the NBS . It has an easy life as it rarely has to deal with more than 1 mbps . Tonight it is down to 60kbps down and 70kbps up , and thats good for Good Friday . If you have spare time between 1am and 5am it can be OK as I once hit 7mbps at 3.30am . Unfortunately I dont have any other choice in west Kerry

Worst service ever – both broadband and customer service! Was promised up to 21mbps, on average 0.50mbps download, and 0.05 mbps upload! Phoned up within 14 days ‘cooling off period’ and have been getting the runaround trying to get the contract cancelled since. Worst customer service ever experienced. DO NOT GO NEAR!!!

totally unusable during the day,speeds drop to below dial-up speeds,and thats if i am lucky.They were looking 3hundred and sumtin euro to get outa contract.Im ****** that i didnt find this site before i joined this shower of *****.Some people are saying bout low signal strength affecting speeds,but ive got great signal and coverage but still shite speeds during the day.Then around midnight ,i get great speeds, 2-5mb,and good enough ping to play xbox live games, so needless to say i get crap nites sleep if i need to look up sumtin on the net. Stay away from this shower of ******** if you can.

I have no choice where I live in west Kerry
But if I had I would get rid of 3 broadband Tomorrow !!.last September I had 2 entire weeks of speeds between 4 and 6 mb 24 hours a day -so the technology is there …..than it went shite again few times it works well in the mornings not much good to me so since I am not home.It is an absolute joke that the government is still supporting them -after all it is more than 5 years ago that deal was done ….wish I knew anybody in the dail to help sorting this out.Customer service yes should def. be based in Ireland not in new Delhi …

I only use it as I live in countryside with no other 3G or cable service available. I despise them. A. Going to try Sat.

It is so frustrating to deal with these guys. STAY AWAY from three.ie

I would advise you not to ring them unless it is a real last resort. First up the stafff in India are just reading a script out to you, best thing you can do is just ask them to skip to the end of their script where they tell you there is a problem with the mast and that they will escalate the call to the “network team”

NBS is a joke, but the alternative where I live is a crowd that want €35 a month for 2MB, plus €135 installation, plus €99 for the router

If only eircom would upgrade all the exchanges, at least I’d have an alternative.

3 broadband so rubbish after 20 phone calls about slow speeds 0.26kb to 0.78kb was told the max speed they have to supply is 0.40kb .bad customers service bad service bad speeds BAD DONT GO NEAR THIS SHOWER
****

DO NOT GO NEAR THEM WITH A BARGE POLE! they are the worst internet provider in history. i could get faster speeds back in 1997 with a 33.6k modem. they won’t listen to complains, they only give you the run around, or make up some complete BS story as to why you are not getting reasonable speeds. i happen to live near a mast also, but it doesn’t matter whether i am next to it, or a few kms away, the results are the same. works during the day, but come 4.30pm it slows to a crawl and does not let up until the middle of the night. what a waste of money. STAY AWAY!!!!

Keep FAR, FAR away from these people. I work in customer service and after calling them being as polite and courteous as could be in relation to a NAT query to play on Xbox, I was told to be quiet numerous times… THEN told to search Google for an answer because they had no expertise on Port settings?

Absolute JOKE! Seriously, you’d get better service jail!!!

Hello,

I highly recommend to avoid this company in a miles steps. This company provides extremely poor customer service, technical parameters are very poor and the speeds in the evening after you come back from work are not more that 20 KB/s. It happens also very often that the speeds are even lover or the services are offline. If you want to complain, it is only a waste of the time. Customer agents are OK and polite, managers are very very arogant and do not let you speak out what you have to say. In the end effect their policy is: If it is working, no matter how slow or unstable… you have nothing to complain about. If it is not working you need to give them time to resolve the issue. Well they do not give you time to pay on the other side. DO NOT OPEN A CONTRACT WITH THIS COMPANY! SPEEDS ARE EXTREMLY SLOW!!!!!

All I can say is THEY ARE SHIT. SHIT BROADBAND, SHIT CUSTOMER SERVICE. I am going to take legal action with the amount for Indian calls that I get up to 3 daily have told them to stop but no good. Their is a new law that it is unlawful for any company to make more then 5 calls in a month I get 42 a week.

do not deal with this company…..absolute worst shower of ****** on the planet!! and thats being nice to them!!! never ever ever again…..rude- ignorant- con artists………. go elsewhere for your mobile network

RUDE ARROGANT AND NASTY PEOPLE TO DEAL WITH… DO NOT GET INVOLVED WITH THIS COMPANY…POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE POOR SIGNAL DREADFUL AFTERSALES AND NO SUPPORT PACK OF MUPPETS… BE WARNED NO MATTER WHAT YOU READ OR HEAR THIS IS THE TRUTH YOU WILL BE SORRY… I could tell story after story about Three all of it bad bad bad…

I provide IT services to SMEs. I have just completed an evaluation of mobile broadband for a client in the Dublin 17 area. Three ISPs were evaluated – 3, O2 and Vodafone.
The 3 modem , a Huawei E1820 device, connected without any difficulty to the network giving a download speed estimated to be between 2Mb/s and 3Mb/s. Although much slower than hoped for – the Huawei device being capable of speeds up to 21.6Mb/s – this is a workable rate (the current Eircom landline achieves a download speed of just over 500kb/s at best). Still this is a little disappointing as the 3 cell is only a few hundred yards away.
Over the 1 month evaluation 1 network outage ocurred. 3 customer support said that the cell had experienced some problem, cause not known.
However a much more signficant problem ocurred with email delivery. Incoming email collection ceased on a regular basis. The email could be collected by switching to any other ISP. After the inbound email had been collected it was possible to collect new inbound email using the 3 network for a period of up to a few days before the problem would reoccur. As 3 support could not recognise that the problem is theirs there is no hope that the problem could be resolved. Promises to call back were never honoured.
After the 1 month trial of the 3 network had been completed an O2 device was configured for tests (see O2 section) and the 3 Huawei modem was moved back to my base in the Dublin 15 area.
I have just completed further tests on the 3 network using this device, the Huawei E1820. Network connectivity is very poor during the daytime – say 8am -> 6pm – and non-existent from 6pm to midnight. During the daytime, connection to the 3 network can usually be achieved but download speeds range from perhaps 2-3kb/s to perhaps 30kb/s. After midnight the download speed can be as much as 300kb/s.
There is certainly a big difference in performance between the two cells.
3 customer support is simply not up to the job.

I have given 3 two stars for Performance and 2 stars for Reliability because these were not the worst aspects of their offering. I have given 3 one star for each of the categories Customer Service, Value for Money and Overall Rating because I might yet come across a provider that is worse.

These are only my experiences. You may find that 3 works well in your location. Should you encounter any difficulties however you cannot expect that 3 will have the ability to resolve these in any timely or professional manner.

three nbs………….oh my God….. I had dealings with “3″ a few years ago and made a promise to myself to never deal with them again. But due to my bad memory and hope for better things I joind them for the NBS. I had O2 and it worked great but only had 15gig for the month….. 3 offered 25gig hence the temptation. BIG MISTAKE. Coverage looked good….. speed sucked! I ordered their top wifi router…. got that but also got 2 black repeated boxes that I just didnt want to be plugging in every time we neaded the internet….its just not practical or economical. Rang 3 to complain but OMG what a disaster….. IT WAS ALL MY FAULT!!!! they tried to mess me around…check this check that etc…etc…. I told them I want OUT ……no problem Sir- that will be 400euro!!!!!!WHAT!!!!! cancellation fee etc!!!!!
Luck Iam inside the 14day money back guarantee. I hope it works out and there isint a sting in the tail but Iam waiting for their courier to collect this stuff.
Take my advice EVERYONE- go to any other provider- do not use “3″…… they will take years off your life!!!! and money!!!!!

I’ve been with 3 for a couple of years. I’ve had a few arguements with their tech support regarding the speed I get. Seeing as I live on the north Donegal coast I knew that I’d struggle to get a good connection. I was with O2 before 3 – they let me out of my contract early because their service was below specs. When I went to 3, the people in the shop straight away ordered the booster for me cos of where I lived. The boosters worked great for a while – granted I came from 0.4Mbps to 0.6Mbps with O2 (and a lot slower using dialup). After a few months, whenever I turned on the boosters, my signal went to hell – back to O2 speeds. After a hell of a lot of calls to 3 (where they refunded me for days that I was below NBS speeds) they finally managed to repair the transmitters. Now I have a constant minimum speed of 1Mbps – before I started writing this I ran a test and it hit 6.16Mbps (I know, its the middle of the night!!!). But I know that if I hit low speeds during the day, all I have to do is call them, give them the speeds that are reported and they refund the days payment.

I’ve worked on tech support lines (Dell, HP, Compaq) and I know that if someone came on the line and started moaning straight away I would have been as bitchy as possible (I got paid whether I resolved their problem or not lol (but I always tried my hardest to help them)). A wee bit of courtesy always helps when you are dealing with people who spend their lives on the phone, and it makes such a difference to how they treat you – been there, bought the tshirt Try calling them and smiling while you talk – believe it or not, it translates to your voice and you’d be surprised how different they’ll treat you! Also, if you start your call with “Can you help me please……” you’ll be shocked – it’s simple psychology…..people are more likely to help you if you ask for help rather than straight away screaming

I’ve used my 3 dongle all around Ireland and found a hell of a lot of places that are better and worse than my home signal. 3 broadband is a mobile broadband service, and as such depends on the phone signal available. I live in a house that is built of granite stone with walls nearly 2 foot thick…..there are a lot of places in my house that no mobile phone will work! I’ve used the dongle in most counties in the country and have found that sometimes the signal will be non-existant but half a mile up the road I’d be able to watch streaming TV – it all depends on the signal!

And to anyone who thinks I work for 3, in the words of Bender from Futurama…..”Kiss my shiny metal ***!” lol. I’m just a user that is technically savvy and one that has worked tech support.

All in all, if you are in an area covered by UPC or Eircom I would suggest getting your broadband from either of them before signing up to a 12 or 18 month contract with 3 (unless you can get a trial from 3 – not sure if they are still doing that). Is always a good idea to research before sigining up to a contract that is a waste of time and money.

A Three Irish customer care person rang me from India today …. unknown number showed up on my mobile …. demanded money from me for 2 months even though I had cancelled direct debit as it was out of contract … put through numerous departments to follow their cancellation process .. involving providing them with the serial number of the free booster they gave because their signal is soooo crap.

I cannot believe the Irish government have paid this company for NBS broadband scheme and never checked the coverage. The service has never worked for me.

They need to provide proper broadband funding to rollout fibre to rural towns as in Northern Ireland.

Three should be told to move their customer care centre to Ireland so Irish customers can be understood and dealt with in a courteous manner … not some Indian ignoramous. Provide Irish jobs for Irish people who have paid for the rollout of the NBS scheme through their taxes.
Who in the government signed of on the final contract for this shit network.

I still dont know if I am cancelled as some muppet has to call to my house to collect the crap booster. I only hope he is not travelling from Mumbai.

Poor quality signal and brutal quality customer service avoid!!!!!!!!!!!

ZERO STARS!

Only that I have to click on a star I wouldnt give them any stars for Customer service

I just got cancelled from them yesterday. To anyone thinking of joining 3 DONT!! They are the worst broadband provider and the signal is not over 1mb no matter where you go. Then after that you might aswel have no contact with them at all because the Indians who call you and demand money or to stay on the contract and renew are blatantly rude. I couldnt afford my bill and I am recently unemployed and waiting on the dole. I tried to explain I was waiting on my backpayment and I would pay as soon as I could but they wernt having any on it. I simply had no money and they told me to go get a job its not that simple in Ireland at the minute and the dole has me waiting 10 weeks now. I got a lend and payed them off just glad to have them off my back. Crowd of hateful ********.

Rubbish!!! very frustrating experience with three broadband. Slow speed and unreliable connection. Unhelpful customers service agents who went through the same steps again and again and reassured me there was no problem with the connection!!! too expensive for what you get.

I am glad to say I am no longer a customer of 3 Broadband. For the 2 years I was with them I rarely had internet that worked properly, always slow or not working at all. When problems occured their technicians advised me to get in my car and drive down the road with my laptop. Now that I have disconnected the service I am am being charged a €15 fee even though I had no broadband service what so ever for an entire 3 months. I disputed the bill with them and have been harrassed by up to 3 calls per day from different agents asking me for the “€15″. Do yourself a favour and go with UPC – excellent broadband service, fast and reasonably priced.

3 have a contract as part of the National Broadband scheme,so they are LEGALLY obliged to supply you the service, and you can request a booster which they will send you if you cant get good reception or need extra reception.

Ending soon thank god I wont be with them much longer. Biggest pile of sh*t ever. Always an Indian calling you and you cant understand them and they cant pronounce your name correctly. Service stops now and again and the Modem is useless and very easily hit and break. Didn’t want to let me leave and I got abuse from some Indian shouting her mouth out at me to get a job to pay my bill for being late on 2 Months out of an 18month contract. Dont go to THREE because they are USELESS believe me the reviews here say it all.

Only two months left on my contract thank god ill never have to deal with 3 again words can’t describe how bad a service this is.If you’re thinking to yourself surely they can’t be that bad STOP right now.A big fat 0 for 3 broadband

Three are a thieving shower of scobes.. I personally would have no problem putting the cubts behind three up against the nearest wall and shooting the lot of them. Hard to find info on just who they are though.
Luckily, I put my faith in natural justice. Therefore I take it as a given that they will suffer.
I blame the government of course who have allowed criminal corporations like three to operate under liscdnce with the full backing of the courts. (ministerial payouts, brown envelopes etc)
Three are scum.
Keep away from three to safeguard your own good health.

I think your man Andy works for three, is he for real or just stupid, Agree with Maureen they are a pack of ******** cop on people they are a waste of time and will ***** you and take the pleasure of having internet away from you. Happy christmas to all at three and may you all rot in hell you shower of *******…

This must be some sort of joke… they are aggressivse rude and do not offer any tech support. They want 150e from me for a phone that would not accept calls and a modem that i reckon was bought from the 2euro store.
What a complete load of nonsense, get stuck with three and they will make your life a living hell. Betterof not having a phone at this rate, cant wait to see how long they wait for payment from me. STAY AWAY FROM THESE SHITE BAGS AND THE SHITE THEY ARE SELLING…I have askedaround and 8 people i know have the same problems as me and have cancelled also. SPREAD THE WORD PEOPLE these bastarrds will bleed you dry and keep coming back for more.

BRUTAL CONNECTION, BRUTAL SERVICE, BRUTAL BROADBAND ,NEED I SAY MORE

After spending 10 years with Vodafone without any complaints I decided to switch to Three 6 months ago because of the All-You-Can-Eat data offer.

So far I am very happy with the service. Average download speeds I get are around 1 – 2mbps. Though they can drop to 0.5mbps and even below occasionally in the evenings. But, understanding the limitations of a mobile network, I can live with this, as the speed is usually at least enough to stream video etc (plus I’m sure the network speed / capacity will be upgraded over time). The highest speeds I get are in and around 3mbps, though I have got 7 – 8mbps at times! Upload speed averages 1 – 3mbps.

Ping ranges from 70ms – 130ms average but it can be higher at times. I have played CoD online on XBox and it is fine, but if you are a serious gamer I would suggest using a DSL or Cable connection as it can lag sometimes, especially if someone else uses the connection simultaneously (even though there could be plenty of bandwidth, it must drive up the ping or something).

I live in Limerick City, so results will obviously vary drastically depending on your location, distance from mast, contention etc. But my experience has been great so far, and the All-You-Can-Eat data is just brilliant.

I have been with three for almost 2 years now and it wasr pretty ok considering nothing else works here. But I wanted faster than 1meg for work purposes. I spoke with a young lady who works for three who informed me that she had a private guy come and install a booster ariel outside her house…..I got the guys number from her and now I sometimes hit 4.5 meg I am thrilled with the service I am getting . Only for three service in my area I’d be still in the dark ages…the guy has a website and trades under the name peter3gsolutions I asked him would I get it much faster s I only had one bar of signal on my modem..he informed me that once I have any three signal in the vacinity of my property inside or outside he could get proper broadband for me. I have to say this was the best investment I ever made.

Three ireland are the pits. I had no service for two or three weeks and kept ringing only to be told it would be fixed soon. I cancelled and stopped my direct debit. they keep sending me bills even though I have cancelled, i have told them and they say they will not send any more but they are absolutely imcompetent, as are their Indian friends at customer servce (don’t get me started), but the bills keep coming.

They rang me three times a day for at least a month, from an unknown number and expescted me to give personal details for security, what about my security, an unknown number can be anybody.

The customer service agents are incomprehensible, ignorant and some are downright rude.

DO NOT GET INTO A CONTRACT WITH THREE!!! You will be sorry if you do.

WESTNET in Mayo are brill!!

I can only agree wholeheartedly with the sentiments of all the disgruntled suckers who have been taken for a ride by the 3 chancers, Having been ripped off by Vodafone I was sold a pig in a poke by 3 who promised me the service I expected. I signed up, got the dongle in the post two days later and it hasn’t worked since. It’s worse than Vodafone (as if that were possible!). When I called 1913 I was given the usual blandishments, (Our engineers have checked the site, there was a problem with the site but it’s been fixed now, you should have a perfect signal blah, blah, blah.). They told me I might need a booster or possibly Satellite, an engineer would call to assess which. Upon investigation it turns out I’m actually in a ‘Blackspot’. No engineer has called and they’re still looking into it. Meanwhile I’m still being charged. When it comes right down to it the responsibilty lies with Pat Rabbitte, the Minister for Communications, Energy and Resources. I would strongly urge all complainants to flood his office with ‘Snailmail’ which thankfully is quite efficient. I am going to instruct my bank not to pay one cent to these crooks and if they wish to take me to court we’ll see exactly who is in breach of contract! I would give you a contact number for myself but it will undoubtly be censored. We should take a class action suit against the Government and 3. Maybe we can find a way to take these people on.

Bad Bad Bad nothing more from three other a completely shite service bad customer service and as for tech support, they told me to hang the modem out the window for a better signal…Honestly. Shower of *****. DO NOT GET STUCK WITH THIS PACK OF ROBBING ********

If only I had found this site before I made the dreadful mistake of acxcepting their broadband ‘service’ (term used advisedly). Like many in Ireland at the moment I’m trying every means possible to cut down on my bills, so in March 2010 decided I could live without my landline service and opted to go broadband instead. I stressed to staff at the Sligo 3 store I only had €40 a month available for an internet service and was recommended to take their mid-prioce service. I was alos told it was virtually impossible to exceed the data allowance and if I did, the service would cut out. A month later when my screen ‘froze’ I found out the truth about their pricing policy and that I had been well and truly duped. After complaining vociferously to the store amanager I paid what I owed (reluctantly) and returned to Eircom as I was so disgusted by what happened. I cancelled the direct debit, complained about misselling to 3′s Dublin HQ, and closed my current account as they tried to take more money from me. This was just the start as I was bombarded day and night with calls from the ‘Indian mafia’ and send further bills. This is despite of me sending letters and so on to all and sundry. In no time atall I was also getting demands from a UK debt collection agency…. On and on it went. A compalaint to Comreg was futile as all 3 did was to speak to the staff in store who said “they followed correct procedures”. No surprise there as it’s unlikely they’ll admit to scamming customers as THEY ARE PAID A COMMISSION ON EVERY SALE!! In order to end this nightmare I have now sought the help of a solicitor who is going to seek a refund and obtain an order prevent enforcement of the contract as it is null and void. As I am still getting invoices and phone calls eash and every day. My advise is go to UTV, fantastic prices, lovely english speaking staff who are friendly and sound like they really appreciate their customers. Why, oh why, did I ever leave them? After dealing with this lot you will never ever moan about Ryanair again!! Truly vile operation with no semblance of a customer service whatsoever.

the network is crap… honest. I have 3 for 6 months into an 18 months contract and i never have 3G – i can see the mobile antennas from my apartment and they say they have to check my phone settings – what bullocks. I have checked it – its simple cause its an iphone and when i switch on my Meteor BB it connects no problem, i surf away..
i should have stuck to meteor for my phone as welll.. well i will migtrate now its not worth the headache bye bye 3 u are crap !

I live in north county Cork. Was originally on O2 which was terrible and only worked upstairs in my house. 3 was an improvement when it arrived. Its not super but it is only €20 per month and it works. Of late I find it slows down on Sunday and Mondays – has anyone else found this??

The speed will fluctuate with downloads as low as .2 Mb/s up to 2.5 Mb/s – which would be good if you could get it constantly. I’ve had upload speeds of 0 to 1.3 Mb/s.

I wish it was a bit more reliable speed wise but from the reviews I’ve read on this site its pretty good for service in country areas.

Great site thanks to all for your reviews

Linda Rezacova 11.10.2011
So my husband bought the mobile broadband just yesterday,29,99E per month direct debit.so as most people wrote the speed is terrible and connection is failing all the time, we went back to shop ,they told us call the CS and get cancellation code,so few calls to costumer service and nobody are authorized to cancel.This is a joke! Would anybody know how to cancel the contract if we are still in 14 days money back guarantee? But they don’t want to here anything about it.Does anybody know which authority in Ireland to contact if they want cancel it in a few days from know.We will keep calling them but I am really worried.Thanks for any info

zero rating

I signed up to 3 mobile late in 2008. I signed a direct debit to pay the 19.99 each month. Needless to say the service was crap it was slow and often frooze completely. I was very disappointed but since I had signed up for1 year I was stuck with them for the year. In late 2010 I singed up to Eircom broadband and rang 3 to tell them I was no longer using their service. The guy could hardly speak english and I found him hard to understand. He was arrogant and rude and told me that I would have to ring another mumber to cancel the service. I told him I had a years contract and that I was telling him I no longer wanted the service and I hung up. I cancelled the direct debit some time after this.

Now I am receiving bills regularly from them and the india mafia keep ringing sometimes twice a day. Its like dealing with the mafia. I recieved a bill today for over €60. I have tried to get the terms and conditions for 3 broadband on their website and its impossible.

Rating – they are worse than the mafia and dont care about their customers. The men in India are rude and agressive in their manner – rating zero Have nothing to do with these poeople or you will live to regret it.

Advice please – what should I do -to pay or not to pay.

if i could give less i would, all i am told is i have marginal coverage, sone 1 will get back to u in 24 to 48 hours, “but do the” NO NO NO but the keep charging me for nothing i just want something that works 25 to 30% of the time would be nice very unhappy 3 years on…

I live in a remote area in Co Wexford and have tried them all, 3 as mentioned customer service is appaling, I have spent many many hours wasted time with their customer service constantly being disconnected and going days without connection but when I was being asked questions like how thick the walls are to my home how many windows do I have what is in my attic am I facing the mast when I didnt even know where the mast was I thought time to deal with these people right now, don’t be fooled with the 12 month contract rubbish do as I did and tell them your contract is to supply me with broadband and by not doing that you are in breach of your contract and for that reason I will see you in court, they were not long in removing me from their so called contract, the best I think is Vodafone I have had some problems with this but nothing compared to the others it very rarely disconnects, I don’t understand here we are in 2011 struggling to recieve a broadband connection yet on the 3rd November 1957 Laika, a Russian dog, was the first animal in orbit, he died a few hours later from STRESS and OVERHEATING resulting from a failure of the temperature control system. (SORT IT OUT)…

I went with 3 Mobile Broadband in Ballymacool Wood in Letterkenny. Don’t make the same mistake as I did. It has been an absolutely terrible service and to think these guys have the national broadband rights. Am unable to connect half the time, or I keep getting disconnected and the speeds are incredibly slow. Don’t go with 3 broadband, pure crap. I’ve been on to complain to them so many times but to no avail apart from running through the same steps over and over again. They won’t escalate it to their network team as I don’t live in a “National Broadband area”. They tell you they’ll escalate it and then you don’t hear anything for a week and you phone them back and they tell you it wasn’t even escalated. A telephony company who won’t even give you a call. Says all you need to know about their customer service. Oh, and their broadband service is crap too…just in case I hadn’t mentioned that.

0 out of 5 for me on all counts

Have no other choice at the moment, other broadband servers not available in our area. Our connection is so slow . Tried talking to customer service ………….. forget that option.They tried to brain wash…………Madam I assure you I have sorted your problem. It is so stressful trying to communicate with them. I am tied into a contract for 18 months, the joy of it.

No other choice but to use 3 National Broadband Scheme, no alternative in this area, due to hills around the house and no cable Broadband. Continuous variation in speeds or breaking down. Customer Service in India will run you through the same settings changes each time you ring, even though you know this will not improve speed or stop intermittent breakdowns, after about 20 minutes you are still further on.
An hour later things improve for a few weeks, leading you to believe that the signal is increased in certain areas for a while and then you are back to square one.
How much of our money have the Government wasted on this terrible service, how much were 3 paid to provide a useless service by them.

Absolutely useless, dial up would be quicker. Constantly drops connection, and even when it is connected, I’d be quicker walking to a library to search for information rather than trying to surf while connected with 3.

00000 rating for them totally crap..please avoid signing up a contract with 3 broadband.honestly bad connection.you can only get 1mbbps for your download and it is fluctuating.I will never deal with this provider ever again.

Correction: didn’t realize that my marking the stars actually gave them a RATING!!!!
Asolutely No rating at all for this lot . . . .

Absolutely useless! Customer care is non existent, as is your connection. The singular worst transaction I ever made was paying this banana outfit for an internet connection which I NEVER received!!!! I gave them back their ‘dongle’ and told them to ‘shove it’, but only after trying every avenue available to speak to someone in their ‘customer care’ that gave a **** about the fact that I did not receive the product I paid for. Could not find any such person. In fact it was very difficult to speak with anybody at all because of their poor English. All customer care agents I spoke with had a blatantly complacant attitude, some even rude and aggressive, but absolutely never, never in the least helpful. I stopped my direct debit payments to this company after three months without service. This outfit are under the impression that they are entitled to payment for the remainder of my contract (9 months). They still bill me regularly. Avoid these MUPPETS at all costs, they are pure and utter rubbish.

I was with 3 for a year.
Every time I complained they gave me a free month (not that it made the Internet work)
At the end of the year I had complained so much that they actually sent ME a cheque for all the free credits i’d built up.

AVOID AVOID AVOID AVOID AVOID AVOID AVOID AVOID AVOID AVOID AVOID
Dial up is better than ’3′ TRUST ME.
They’re script monkeys in Mumbai are really annoying.
They know nothing about anything and you’ll get a different answer on each call.
I never want to here “What kind of laptop are you using” ever again.
I don’t even use a laptop !!

AGGHHH
Even now two years later I still hate them, but then Vodafone (their replacement) are a slimy bunch of bottom dwellers so probably no better.

I use a usb extension cable.180 cm Monster cable.I made a mini dish antenna from a sieve.I get double th average download speed of up to 4.7mb

i could not even rate this company. they are so hard to deal with. (lets just say my indian is very poor. i have been paying my bill by bank giro every month. as it turns out 3 wont accept this they are insisting i pay by direct debit. i explained to the mullingar store manager i would only pay by giro when i purchased the modem. he was only too happy with this arrangement. now 4 months on i am been persecuted by phone calls and letters demanding payments even though they have recieved my payment every month. this is a joke. in these serious times paying bills by direct debit is madness. we are trying to save money not spent it on charges to the banks who have us on our knees. i really am stressed about the level of harrasement i am getting. im a pensioner and every penny counts. my advise is DO NOT USE 3 BROADBAND. HOWEVER BAD THE SIGNAL IS THE CUSTOMER SERVICE IS THE WORST IN THE WORLD. (was going to say ireland but it in india or mumbai)

Everyone reading this do yourself a favour and stay well clear of 3 broadband it is truly terrible. 3 are by a long long way the worst isp in the country.

All I can say is wireless broadband is only for somebody whos badly stuck for broadband, who arent 100% reliable on it. Its not for high speed internet usage i.e. gaming, constent video streaming. Its for someone who wants to browse fb, maybe download afw songs nn6tting more. I would recomend people not to sign up by contrant with them, as herd aefew storys that their cu**s to get of contract with. Go pre pay I thnk is best. K maybe l6dss GB usage than pay mthly plans. But you keep ur cost monitored. And spend whatever you need. Customer service had ring them afew times over loss of signal etc. There based in india. Hard to understand sometimes helpful other times not. Oh yea they 2could sell ya your own pair shoes to ya ur wearing without ya noticing So be weary of that. Im in Offaly north part. And service in my house is grand. 3,4 hspda bars most time. Once every month or so service could be down for a day or two. Best speed is at night after midnight. during day is mostly shite. Only works fast when ur stationd near window never anywhere else in house due to wall cavitity blockn signal. Make sure to check all the Providers, Vodafone, O2, Meteor before buying. Bought meteor bb stick recently broadband in and arnd Birr area have improved massively over last few mths (June 2011 now) also i hav the E180 dongle 4 both. Great speeds fr
Them had other models speeds were shit compared. Same area an all. Hoped this helped haha.

Living in a rural part of the country here. Have no option but to go with three. They promise 7mb download but I only get 1 at best. Not good enough. Customer service is terrible for dealing with problems. One guy from Mumbai once told me his name was Seamus:-) Although I find when you want to buy something from them, they transform into a model of excellence.

Absolutely AWFUL! I don’t think I can add anything new to what has been written above, just PLEASE don’t believe anything 3 tells you to make the sale. I repeatedly called to complain I couldn’t get connected and repeatedly was told (by someone in India) that there was nothing wrong. I said “How do you know there’s nothing wrong, you’re in India! Come here and check my connection and tell me there’s nothing wrong!”

We moved here from the UK and it’s an absolute DISGRACE how ripped off Irish consumers are for broadband services across the board. €60 a month minimum from Eircom for a service that costs £20 a month in the UK! And don’t get me started on mobile phone charges! We should all RISE UP and DEMAND our broadband needs are met properly and adequately across the entire country and not pay through the nose for it! I love Ireland, I love living here, don’t get me wrong it’s not a criticism of this beautiful country but the shysters and shylocks who think they can wring every last dime out of us without providing a gold-plated service to match.

The only option in rural Westmeath where Eircom refuse to upgrade the exchange to real BB. The 3 dongle is the only option. It works: sort of. 1-2Mbs during the day and 3-5mb at night with a steady 1.5Mb upload. I don’t like it: Our Dublin office has 100Mb UPC fibre system which is no comparision..but hey..I’m out in the 18th century in the sticks.

Its not broadband as we know it Jim but a whole load better than dialup…

Just avoid the Mumbai script monkeys and their disgraceful excuse for customer service.
James.

I have been with 3 for over 4 years and to be fair I’ve never had much of a problem until this week when broadband was shut down. I rang “customer service” in India and was told that I had used up my 15Gb and also a further €70! I don’t know how this is humanly possible.. I rarely download films and never in my 4 years with 3 have I used my 15Gb. Of course on ringing accounts I got to speak to a robot who just repeated “the SIM card shows that you downloaded this and you will have to pay”.
Is there no cap at which info is downloaded?
I have cancelled my direct debit and am contacting Consumer Advice.

Robbers wear masks.

Absolute Muck!

Very poor service, you may get lucky now and again and get a decent speed but overall very poor, if it was reliable it would be quite good value, but as it stands very poor!!

3 are the worst broadband providers ever, their customer service team is a joke, you get put through to people in india/pakistan somewhere like that and the staff are cheeky, unprofessional and annoying and some of them can’t even speak proper english. The download speeds are terrible 0.52 download and 0.04 upload. i like in kilkenny in the city center so you would think this would be much better than this.

The worst internet service. I am living in the countryside but I am about 500metres away from the signal mast so you would think I would get great service. NO I DONT. Speeds of 0.05 download and 0.03 upload are not uncommon the best speed I have recorded is 0.99 download and 0.84 upload.
Customer care is a waste of time its like they are given a script to read from and just repeat this over and over. When I called to complain about my speed I was told I should call them every time I have a speed problem, am I supposed to call them everyday? and spend 15mins on hold listening to the white noise hold music?
My advice stay away from 3

i am currently on a 20euro /month (25GB allowance) plan. i have recently been sent a 55euro bill!upon closer examination, i see i have gone over my monthly limit by 683MB. i watched one film extra on my laptop and it cost me 35euros!! i rang 3 about my dongle not working 3 weeks before this bill, and the lady told me i had reached my limit and it would refresh itself on a new month in a few days. that was fine, but no mention of being 35 quid over the limit. upon ringing 3, i casually get bounced through operators 7000 miles away who don’t seem to give a ****, and respond in condescending manner. apparently its in the “fine print” that i can extend my pay limit to 40 euros, despite me not requesting it, i.e. my max bill can be 40 euros. when i asked them to explain how my bill jumped from a maximum of 40 to 55, they replied “let me make this very simple for you”. apparently its “when the computer generates the next bill” that determines my overall bill, amongst other apparently random variables that they have “no control over”. therefore i can use up my allowance very quickly and add 40euros to my bill if i do it before the next bill generates. i.e. my max bill is now 60euros, not as per small print apparently. their system lag and bill generation procedure is as late as possible to suck you in for more money. this is absolutely disgusting in my opinion. if every MB over the limit is 5cent, the value of my 25GB is a whooping 1280 euros. something is very badly wrong here. on a similar dongle on a prepay option, you would not get a single cent over the money you have prepaid! why is this any different???i asked them to reduce the limit to zero, a perfectly reasonable request, and they said that wasn’t possible. obviously because it doesn’t pay for us to be frugal. i’m absolutely livid with this.

in saying ALL that, despite living in the country, i can stream and watch a film without stopping and the connection is good. it is good value for money, if you don’t step over your limit. (believe me, lesson learned). word of advice though, just don’t bother ringing customer services. they really don’t give a shit about you or their product. who would, being 7000 miles away.

its a shocking bad service, fails to connect, takes forever to load a page, compleatly random as to wheither you have service or not. its guaranteed to go well when its money time but two minutes later its back to slug service. its just a robbery by faceless suits robbing customers and then spouting soft rubbish talk etc. just like the irish banks no come back on their version of organised crime.

I don’t use as my main broadband connection becasue I have had some reliability issues. There are few options in this area so I am reluctant totally ditch a crap Eircom FWA for mail (for which I must have reliability). 3 is good (not great) as an option for more speed (than I have on FWA) but it is still poor in comparision to towns. Living in the countryside you expect to get crap almost everything for more money to their credit at least Three don’t charge more and in my opinion are an acceptable option if not mind boggling brilliant.
3 is getting better but not yet good enough to give me total confidence. Particularly like the ability to use in UK, Italy and OZ for the same cost as home, that is brilliant and also cost effective.
On negative I got hit for a big bill once after I installed Sky Anytime which chewed mega Gigs of data in a month.
Service from India is hopeless! Mannerly but none the less hopless, its a management issue in my opinion – local support is needed or a well documented support section would be better. Dongle drops out if PC is put in Hibernate which needs resetting but unplugging and plugging in again.
Will be grand in a couple of years for now as good as most in a poor marketplace.

3 Broadband should be rebranded 3 DialUp because that’s what it is. My brother is on dial up, and his is sometimes quicker. 3 Broadband drops out frequently, and when it does work, I get a stunningly fast 0.12MB/s download, and 0.06 MB/s upload during the day. My signal is excellent at 4-5 bars HSDPA contantly, which according to 3 Broadband is the quickest data service the modem will get, at UP TO 21.6MB/s. Well they’re not lying though – 0.12MB/s is UP TO 21.6MB/s! The guy in the shop said they will be trying to get to 14MB/s by the end of the year – I’d settle for 5 or 6 MB/s if I could get it. On a 1 minute 36 second Youtube clip, it stopped four times to load more information.

However, there is an upside. the service will get approximately 3-5MB/s dowload, and about 1.2MB/s upload during the night (00:00 to 07:30), when most other people are in bed, so if you have a habit of being completely noctural, this service might just be acceptable for you. I’ve done this a few times, so I know of what I speak. If on the other hand, you like to sleep at night, it’s probably better to avoid 3 broadband altogether. If you are out and about, it might be OK for speed. I got a friend to test out the modem on his laptop in Dundrum, Dublin, and he got 2.79MB/s at 18:00 in the evening.

I too have had the Mumbai experience, but thankfully, 3 Broadband are letting me out of the contract early due to their woefully poor service.

So the moral of the story is:

3 Mobile Broadband might be just enough, if all the planets align, and the moon is just right, when you’re out and about, and you have absolutely no other choice for logging on to the net, and, you have to log on. Speed wise, even at its best during the day, it’s about 1 small step up from the speed of your smartphone (if you have one). I’ve never measured the actual speed on the phone, but it seems only slightly slower. Even then though, 3 Broadband could not be relied on to actually work, or indeed not drop out pretty frequently, and often just at that critical last step when you’re on Ebay. For home use, if you work, or want to do most things on the internet during the night, and are happy to sleep during the day, it might be just about OK to use, but this really depends on your location. My location is rough!

Pretty reliable 2.5 to 5mbs speeds for me but customer service and tech support based in mumbai are poor and ill equipped for questions beyond the basic procedures they have before them. language barrier is an issue with english been spoken poorly and turn around times for tech issues are too long and several times they have failed to call back

overall – avoid mobile broadband unless its necessary

threes mobile service is adaquate at times but it doesnt compare to fixed or fiber

Crap…..Avoid

The customer service would be minus multiple stars. Firstly you cannot understand a word they say and then they lie through their teeth to you.
We went over our limit by 1gb, we are on 30gb for approx 28 euro, they charged us 75 euro on top our normal package. I had no idea this was how they operated and it is nothing but a total rip off.
I would advise anybody not to use three mobile broadband, you will be sorry.

I live in Cavan there is no broadband line here and very few options for Broadband. We went with 3 because the offered much better prices than any of the competitors in the area. Big mistake.

So far we have had a lot of problems, we were double charged and have still not gotten the money they owe us back. We were told we would get a download allowance of 20GB (due to being in a national broadband area) however 3 have been giving us 15GB claiming we are not in NBS (trust me, we are). We have been throttled badly, often the down speed drops below 0.2 down and 0.05 up.

The real killer however is the horrible service, we have repeatedly called 3 to sort out these problems the call center in India is no use, they follow what the computer screen tells them to do and you will spend 40 minutes getting transferred between departments, we challenged one on why we hand been charged twice a month and he hung up on us! The people we talk to in Ireland were better for a while however they still haven’t sorted out many problems and have stopped returning our calls.

I have been with many ISPs in my life (mostly when i lived in the UK) but without a doubt 3 are the worst i’ve ever dealt with. Word of warning for anyone considering broadband, don’t make the same mistake as me, avoid 3.

I have the opposite experience to most reviews on this site. I live in rural west Cork where there is no fixed line broadband. I used to have Vodafone’s mobile broadband which was truly awful – slower than a dial up connection when it worked at all. Changed to Three in August last year and am amazed by the performance – average 5Mb/s. It’s real broadband at last. It does disconnect itself a lot if you’re not using it, but on the whole I’m very happy. Three have recently reduced the pay as you go download limit from 10 to 7.5 gigs for 25euro a month which is not cheap. The answer is to pay monthly and get 25 gig for 20 euro which I will do now that I know it works and don’t mind entering into a contract. Hope nothing goes wrong so I don’t experience the hopeless Indian customer service that others complain of!

3 are the worst company I’ve ever dealt with.

They promise speeds of 7.2Mb/sec, I get on average 0.50Mb/sec, going as low as 0.04Mb/sec very often.

They don’t listen.

They are unprofessional.

They are chancers.

Why do ComReg allow them to operate?

I have seen thousands of complaints and ComReg do nothing.

I have had problems for over 6 months and 3 have done nothing. I have a complaint in with ComReg for over one month and they are not doing their job, i.e. legally enforcing 3 to comply with the Communications Act.

Do NOT sign up to 3. If everyone makes a complaint ComReg will be forced to act. There is huge power when people stick together.

3 are an absolute disgrace, what they are doing is illegal. They don’t fulfill their side of their contract and they lure people into false and misleading contracts.

Why is this allowed to happen????

Update on stopping the 3 website from loading at connection. With connect software open, (do not connect) go to SETTINGS>ADVANCED SETTINGS> double click CONNECTIONS>highlight 3G> PROPERTIES>APPLICATIONS tab>click on IE browser>click on delete> click OK and OK and Close. Make sure to click OK both times to exit each step. Now connect and dreaded 3 homepage won’t load.

PS. I’m having the usual problems with 3 broadband tonight!

They don’t even deserve 1 star rating. Works fine sometimes during day. Terrible after 6pm. Stall, slow, drop connection, etc. etc. Have wasted more time on useless calls to customer support, what a joke. Did succeed in stopping the 3 website from loading, but after an uninstall and reinstall of the connect software(on instructions from cus. support) it’s back and the option to stop has gone from the options menu. Customer support keeps insisting it’ my computer is wrong. Now I refuse to change any settings on it, and only deal with them by e-mail. They have sent out engineers on 2 occasions, in the middle of the day of cource when all was running well. Overall it’s a scam. Have 3 months to go in contract and cant wait to tell them to F*** off. Had no other choice for broadband when I signed up but now wired broadband is available.

Three are without doubt the worst company in Ireland to deal with.first off their mobil broadband quite simply does not work in Galway,secondly when this was pointed out to them what followed can only be described as farcical.10 months of phone calls to India.having eventually given up on trying to get them to do anything we stopped paying and returned modem. What followed cN only be described as unbelievable, having agreed the matterwas settled they engaged a debt collection agency to chase “arrears”of 35 euro. They also called at what I can only assume are business hours in India.eventually after 16months they apologised kind of but refused to sedan email saying they don’t do that. I asked if the phonecall was recordedand they told me I kid you not”mind my own business”. You are a disgrace THree mobile and a
Shining example of the absolute disconnect between customers in Europe and call centres in India. You should spend less time spending money sponsoring golf tournaments here and more timeon your clients.

we are on a supposed 9.99 a month package but this month we got a bill for 34e disgraceful

You get what you pay for I suppose!! I’ve had nothing but problems from these guys. My connection was so-so…a little unreliable and pretty slow but I can deal with that!! What I can’t stand is their beyond awful Customer Care. My account was overdrawn so one of my bills didn’t go through, hence I received calls about three times a day for several days and countless letters. When I spoke to them they insisted I pay by Laser and did not seem to understand that I don’t have access to a Laser card. Then they couldn’t tell me how else I could pay and kept insisting I ask someone could I borrow a Laser card.(I had to check the website) Then I was told to pay by 3V vouchers in a 3 store..to the confusion of the 3 manager who said they were just for downloading! I eventually sent off a postal order and got calls every day for the next three weeks insisting they hadn’t got it so I had to pay an 80 euro fee. It wasn’t until I sent them a postal receipt and an email threatening legal action that they suddenly ‘found’ my payment. I continued to get another 80euro fee letter from the debt collectors so I eventually rang them and lost the rag. They never even answered my angry email with an apology.

Slow, unreliable, keeps dropping, if your in Dun Laoghaire avoid like the plague.

i live in carlow and 3 broadband does not work either in town or in tinryland ..when you cancel it (after contract expired ) they will hound you daily from a call center to try and keep you on their books..avoid this at any cost as its not worth it…

I have deliberately given 3 broadband no stars, for anything. I agree, it is a scam. It has been just horrible attempting to use the internet. I have, however, just installed eircom’s wireless broadband, and it’s a dream. Unfortunately, I still have 8 – 9 months left on my contract with 3, (18 mths), and I’m not goingto ComReg – they’re all in it together, just like the bankers, politicians and builders. But I am going to sue them for breach of contract and unfair contract terms – and I’m not going to pay them a penny more.

I agree with all the sentiments expressed about 3. I am currently in contact with Com Reg but I am beginning to believe that Com Reg’s efforts are typically public service style – “who gives a shit anyway !” A concerted effort by the disgruntled persons here should be addressed to the media to shake these people in Com Reg and expose 3 for the Shysters that they are – another UK company ripping us off, not being regulated and running away having stolen our money while being allowed to run amok by an incompetent Regulator. Do we remember Mr Neary the other Regulator who allowed our banks to do the same thing ? Will we ever learn or have the ***** to stand up and deal with these thieves and our regulators who seem to freely collude with them to defraud our decent citizens. My fn blood boils every time I hear one of those caped, tea cosy wearing Mahatmas telling me that the service in my area is fine. Thank you very much please !

Its ok, but that after they installed the external booster on the side of the house to draw the signal into the room i use the computer in. but i reckon I would be limited to just using it in the same room to get the same speeds.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/965615968.png

25GB for €19.99 under NBS is not bad compared to other companies since they will supply you with the booster free of charge if needed. I had to go through two other self install internal boosters before they had to come out a install the external one.

I am thinking of getting another contract with them so that I will have 50GB since i tend to download allot more because of the increased speeds and I find it stupid that they can’t add it to the same number.

This service is not properly rolled out yet. It tries to find a 3 base station, when it can’t find one it latches onto an O2 one and then searches again in a few minutes dropping the connection. Speed varies between what you might expect from a 128k ISDN (but without the reliability of same) and an old 14.4k modem from the mid 90s. Deeply frustrating and they make it very difficult to get out of the contract.

All wireless internet is shit, but 3 are the least shit of them all… but still shit.

I signed up with 3 3 weeks ago, we where really happy with it, until I checked our usage 4 days ago. We had gone over our usage by 20 euro! So i was a little annoyed and talked to my house mate about it. We had both been watching shows online and had skype calls so we thought it was down to this and decided no to do that until next month that we would just be careful not to go over our usage again.
However my house mate wasn’t feeling well and decided to watch one episode of Glee from channel 4. (fair enough i though sure its only a few euro) ONE EPISODE COST US 50EURO!!!!!!!!!!!)
And she didnt even finish watching the whole thing. 50 EURO!!!!!
so we are 3 weeks into our contract and terminating it today, they can take us to court if they want there is no way that can be justified. pure robbery.
although to be fair it is fast and reliable but i live very close to dublin.

Wrote a long review but lost if when connection dropped .
Three crap ,has been for 2 years cancellin tomorrow.
DONT DARE SUBSCRIBE least you love HARDSHIP AND S**T

I used 3 Broadband when I was at college and it was ok in the city, got around 6Mbps max, but downloads were terrible but I really expected this.

Note to people intending to buy this kind of internet

IT IS NOT MEANT FOR DOWNLOADING/YOUTUBE/GAMING ETC. It’s meant for on the go internet, the companies are just pawning it off as home broadband when it really isnt. It’s meant for laptops, not home computers. (ok, maybe if you’re in the city, but then you’d have reg bb.

Anyway, it’s meant for normal browsing, and they gave me 3months free because the modem wasnt working for 3 months. So good on them, I’m still with them, my second year, since Im still a student all Im paying is a tenner a month on top of eircom 66 p/m 7mb. So 77p/m for 2 broadband services aint too shabby (thats with phone)

ANYWAY, yes, get them if you’re a student, and if you arent a student and live in the country or cant get reg bb, MOVE HOUSE BECAUSE IT’S NOT FOR YOU IF YOU WANT REGULAR BROADBAND.

AVOID 3 BROADBAND!!!
JUST SAY NO!
I live in Letterkenny, Co. Donegal. I got 3 broadband (pay monthly, €25) about a month ago. All I can say is, what a WASTE!

Its slower than dial up.
It often disconnects or just won’t do anything.
It wont even load games (facebook type stuff).
Downloading takes forever.

If it were faster and not awful in every way, it would be amazing. My phone is better than it. I was told by the guys in Currys that they have had several people in talking about how bad it is.
My friend got meteor (similar plan) and hers seems MUCH faster than mine. And it actually loads things. I’ve not heard good things about other mobile internet providers, but I think I’ll give one a go.
ANYTHING WOULD BE BETTER THAN 3!

I am living in Kilkishen Co Clare and cannot get eircom or any other broadband to work trust me have tried them all, I then got 3 wireless modem the one thats about the size of a phone stuck it to the side of the window and bingo I always get speeds of 2.6-4.7 mbps and can download an 800 mb movie in 45 mins, I cannot complain I think its really good and I can also use the wireless feature with my laptop or i phone or Xbox etc. 10 out 10

i have been in contract with 3mobile for the last eleven months only 30 days to go…there customer service agents dont understand that when you say you are cancelling your contract,,,,your telling them not asking can you leave please…the service is at best slower than dial up thats when it can stay connected for more than 3 minutes…waste your money on buying betamax tapes to play on your bluray player more chance of it working

After 1.5 years i canceled my 3 broadband and they are asking E13!! For WHAT ? Idiots … it was very slow, but i though it’s my only option. I went to O2 recently and I took student broadband for E10 and it’s much more better. Never ever with 3.

I was told my area was covered under the NBS. I thought Great! So I went out and got Three’s mobile broadband package.

I’ve had it over a week now and will be bringing it straight back. It’s an absoulte joke! THe speeds are so slow and it just keeps dropping out every few minutes (the most annoying part of this is when it connects again it keeps opening up the Three website! arrrrghh).

I cannot believe that my area is covered under the NBS, if this is supposed to be the best service I can get. I’m currently on Vodafone broadband which is not great, but compared to Three it’s streets ahead.

The only good thing about Three is the 15GB download, but I think it would probably take 3 months of downloading to get to this limit with the current speeds.

AVOID THIS PACKAGE!!!

apsaloute shite dats al i wanted 2 say

We are fortunately cancelling this service at last. Not reliable, VERY slow, very often not accessible at all. And I won’t say anything about their customer service because I would need to swear.

I’ve been using the 3 pay as you go broadband now for a couple of months. When i was testing it out, it was very good, but as soon as I signed up for it, the standard dropped dramatically. It now reconnects every 2 minutes at least. It is also extremely slow, so i can forget about downloading anything or even watching anything on rte iplayer.
The other annoying thing is that everytime it reconnects, the three website opens, so I could end up with about 50 of these pages open and I have to keep closing them. DON’T GO with three, whatever you do.
I tried out O2 last week,and it was much much better, but then that was just a trial also, so that might be just as bad if you sign up to it.

well … I’m one of the fortunate users of the Sky version of 3′s broadband. I have to say that so far it wasnt bad (obviously good looks different)

I had twice so far a complet outage of the service while the modem couldnt even connect to the satelite anymore. Since yesterday now I have the incredible speed of about 4kb/s (reminds me on the good old days 10 years ago).

I had several dealings with their customer service and must say it is behond bad (hence no rating at all). They managed to f*** up my direct debit twice and insited they actually went in for the money when clearly they didnt. I’ve been offered twice a call back from the Tech people yet havent received a single one of them (first one was about 4 weeks ago).

All in all I think the idea is good but the execution is terrible, three could be the market leader as they have the technology and money but it seems their concept is just to make a few euro now without interest in the long term customer relationship.

Sad .. really sad

Two words -Absolutely Terrible

I got this initially because I had no landline and the Three/Vodafone/O2 broadband modems were the only other option available to me other than getting a landline in. I went with threebecause they had a decent data cap and were the cheapest (turns out you get what you pay for).

I am an IT engineer and I am on call 24/7 twice a month. In short I need a reliable service. I have had to drive into work on many occasions to deal with call outs when I should have been able to take care of them from home – if the bloody broadband was working. On other occasions I’ve had to delegate high priority calls to colleagues loosing my callout fee. Broadband being down while browsing facebook is very annoying but when you need it for work and it regularly costing you money really makes your day.

I live in an urban high density area so coverage should not be an issue, I am actual shocked that this crowd was awarded the Rural broadband scheme

What have I done ……. Canceled my service, better half has cancelled hers (once our contracts expired), ordered a line in, getting ASDL.

Oh by the way using my Vodafone mobile as a modem, seems to be fine but still don’t trust mobile broadband.

They should rename their service ’3 sh**eband’! Have it nearly a year now, spent numerous phone calls with foreign people in call centres I could not understand,because the signal suddenly drops without warning. I rely on broadband for work as I work remotely and on the road, it is totally inadequate to have your broadband to go down for hours at a time. When it is working, dial up would be faster! Gave my 30 days notice to cancel today and she asked if i had a problem with it!!! PROBLEM!!!!! Too fecking right I have a problem with it!!! Also this phone call took me at least 20min to it cancelled after first being kept on hold for 15min by the Indian contact centre. I feel sorry for anyone who has to work there as they sure as hell would have to put up with some abuse from disgruntled customers who have been hoodwinked into a contract!!!! I’m nearly FREE!!!

3 Broadband service….IS A SCAM BIG TIME !!! PLEASE BE CAREFUL AND STAY AWAY FROM THEM ….EVEN IF IN YOUR AREA SPEED COULD BE BETTER….BE AWARE THAT THEY ARE STILL SCAMING AT SEVERAL THOUSANDS OF DECENT PEOPLE….SOME SOLIDARITY PLEASE….!!!!!

I was thinking strongly to switch over from Lastmile broadband to 3 because of the money. Now I am seriously tinking not to go for it. I live in the west, rural (Sligo). any suggestions any one?

awful speed

a ******* joke….stay well clear of these unreliable cowboys!!

just finished with 3 after a year of trouble with their mobile broadband ‘service’.Appalling is the only word that I can use to describe it. The worst customer service…ever!I had my wifes and my mobile phone on contract with them also and cancelled that with them too in protest.When I called to let them know I was cancelling they asked why.I explained the many reasons and was met with silence on the line. I would also advise to turn down any offer of not charging you for x amount of time,its a fob off,they still charge you.AVOID AT ALL COSTS..

dont know how alot of people on this are having all this trouble with the 3 service im using it now for the past year it hasnt been great but they upgraded the network in my area so im getting speeds of 150kb/s which isnt bad compared to eircoms starter internet can only get 107kb/s pnly annoying thing is that the customer services are based in india!! overall its grand to use for wireless 3G !!dont know why ur all expecting a very fast service this is the best your gona get !!

if i could have given no stars it wouldn’t justify my annoyance with 3. crap is the best word i could use to describe it. extremely slow, and dont even get me started on the evening times when obviously the internet is used most often… 20 mins just for a page to upload and this is only the beginning, 2hrs to reload and send an email!!!!!!!! its ridiculous. and customer service, they don’t understand English and i cant understand Indian either. they changed or upgraded the service as they called it mths ago, but its been unbelievably slow since then, but try ringing anyone…its a no-go area!! if i could break the contract, it would make my day!!

Three’s mobile broadband service at the moment the only choice available to me!
There is days when download speeds are over 1.50mbps (e220)
but then there’s others when you get .60 mbps (e220)
My upload is always at .06 mbps! which I may add as very annoying for uploading photos etc ..
There monthly data allowance is the best 15gb part about the isp. And the fact its €19.99 a month
I had there e220 modem until a few days ago now! Now i have a e1550
Speed’s have deteriorated ever since the purchase. Never hit 1.50mbps yet but on the last modem it was frequent enough! This modem isn’t even on there website ( thanks carphone warehouse )
For reliability… well i have Internet everyday .. What i really mean by this is that threes coverage is quite good.. but what speed you get is a different story unfortunately.

Customer service…pff… Its not near Ireland.. off in timbuktu!

i don’t wanna seem like an auld crab continuously giving out about three but its the experience I’m having with them.. It may be just where i live… i don’t know!

even though the nbs plan covered my area so far no improvements have been made but we’ll see !

As i said before they value for me is the 15gb allowance .. and the fact its €19.99 a month

i needn’t go into it all thats been said before

but i’ll add that they charged me 25 for a replacement modem that I didn’t receive after many hr long chats with indians called billy and jack, they usually took an hour or so and it just went round in circles, so when i didn’t get the modem I didn’t have the energy to contact them again

best thing to be said is that they’re cheap if ur mvin round a bit and u can download up to 10 Gbs, don’t go over tho or they’ll get ya

all in all best avoided

I am with 3 over 6 months now. I live in rural Donegal and find the service quite good. It may not be the fastest but it is my only option apart from Eircom dial up.

I bought their new “7.2mbps” modem and instantly regretted it. Took it back for a refund the next day after clocking the speed at 36KBPS. Customer service was awful, no apology and I’m still getting bills from them. AVOID THREE BROADBAND AT ALL COSTS.

Have been good for me in rural Cork county (even customer service)… Until something happened to the base station, a week ago. No explanation, no timeframe for ongoing works at the base station. There is no mentioning of that on the website at all. Thinkin of early termination…

Really slow but its kinda fast

three ireland is a scam,
their is nobody working for the company in dublin,
the call centre is based in india,
and dont know when the service is on or off,
all the tell you is its been fixed, they are a scam, go to comreg and get your contract broke as they sign it not you, so with out your signature its worth nothing
dont sign up to 3 ireland, its a scam to take your money

I’m using 3 broadband in Tralee, and it’s the worst I’ve ever had, slower than dial-up most of the time. The connection randomly breaks, and takes hours or days to turn back on again.
The price (20 euro) might be appealing to many, but you get what you pay for. I haven’t tried ringing customer service (based in India,apparently), but everyone else says it’s awful, so I won’t bother.
The worst broadband in Ireland.

STAY AWAY FROM 3

this is worst than the old dial-up conections…i really don’t know how they are getting away with calling it broadband…it worked ok for the 2 week trial than it just dropped to very very low speeds. it use to take me literally almost 5 minutes just to acces my e-mail account, and when i rang the customer service the answer was invariably the same: technical difficulties in the area…at some point i was told that i am not in a 3G area but in a 2,5G area…these people will tell anything to get you off the phone. also i found the customer support people to be rude.

i cancelled the service after 1 year and i was told i must give them 30 days notice to do that (and of course they want to charge you for those)…altogether IT WAS A VERY BAD EXPERIENCE. STAY AWAY FROM 3.

I moved to 3 from O2 thinking that their service couldn’t be any worse, how wrong i was!!! (Sidenote: to get out of a 12 month contract with O2 or 3, first of all complain to your ISP by email a couple of times and then complain to COMREG and ask for their help, tell them how bad the service is, ComREG in turn will contact the ISP on your behalf which should result in the ISP terminating your 12/18 month contract). Anyway back to 3, service is apalling, connection drops so frequently that i have got to the stage of actually banging my fist on my computer monitor (it helps – you should try it!). Bad and all as O2 was it would not disconnect as often as 3 does. i live in the Letterkenny area and i am quite near the 3 mast on mountain top so i have a very strong broadband signal, 5 bars most of the time, but this does not seem to help things at all. As for their customer service, its bad, really really bad. Its very hard to get help from a customer service rep when they can hardly speak English. Why they were awarded the broadband contract for Ireland is beyond me. And a customer service centre based in India!! WHAT THE HELL!!! When i purchased my 3 contract in Letterkenny, i asked to test it in their shop, and would you believe it, they dont actually have broadband access in the shop!!!! This should set off ALARM BELLS for anybody thinking of purchasing 3 broadband. I mean if 3 broadband was as good as they say, they why the hell dont they have a display model in their OWN shop!! Oh yeah the TRIAL PERIOD: i read “Deputyjk’s” review below and i have to agree with you. For some suspicious reason the trial period was flawless, speeds were fantastic, connection was great, it rarely dropped!! However its only after the trial period experies that problems (major problems) arise!! Coincidence? I don’t think so!!! (I had the exact same experience with O2) . I thought it was just me until i read “Deputyjk’s” review. Long story short, O2 is bad but 3 is just apalling!!

this ISP is a disgrace. not only do they not provide the service they promise, they also treat your request for cancellation (after the mandatory contract has already been served) as an act of insanity. Long story short, they did not cancel my contract when i asked them to, they reversed the decision on my behalf (how nice of them). It was only after a series of screams and shouts and the use of the word “ComReg” that they backed off and cancelled the account for me without trying to charge me. I have seen posts on various sites around the country with people experiencing the exct same problem. They know full well that what they are doing is illegal. Yet they still continue to operate.

Stay well away!!!

I’d also like to congratulate Luke (the reviewer below me) for his mediocre and transparent attempt at astroturfing. Your bosses at Three must be very proud.

Overall I find them good enough better than O2 and Vodafone. Other posts here give me the impression that they seem to be the Customers who just like to complicate things. Its slow sometimes but like all broadband wireless on fixed it all depends how many are online and the weather conditions.
3 OK service ,Good value for money, Excellent Customer Care.
02 Well it looks good on paper their performance is a disaster. Hidden cost too if your not careful
Vodafone Pure Dirt OVERPRICED but what else is vodafone famed for.

The best speed I got was 3.3mbps my adverage is 2.5 sometimes higher sometimes lower.

Very poor service, drops like a stone frequently. Software difficult to use let alone understand. Topping up procedure seems easy ut in fact is a farce. How our Government awarded this shower the award to distribute broadband to those parts of the country without broadband is beyond me! Also why have a call & tecnical centre in India. SAys a lot about the crap service. To be fair when broadband is available -on the train its notbad but a total fiasco at home. Thank God I only have top up service. O2 by the way is crap in East Meath as well. Thumbs for Vodaphone although they are miserable with their 5gb per month.

SHocking performance. Impossibly slow and unreliable. Hence I got a download optimizer. I ran over my download limit and the software despite having a display labeled current usage did not show me my usage until I’d run up 50Eur extra. When I queried why I’d not been alerted to my usage and why I was being charged without first being told about my usage they refused to comment adequately except to say that the software doesn’t automatically update! 3G it is not, despite calling itself that. If the modem makes a 3g connection it almost immediately drops it and the only way to get any connection is on the hdma connection. When I asked what the contention ratio was on this service before buying it they couldn’t tell me, said I’d have to call the premium cost technical help line. I should have seen the warning signs. The modem software bundled with the package is unreliable and the call center is terrible. When I complained and asked to terminate my contract they insisted I pay up the total contract years costs in advance, which was about 10months at 20Eur a month so I’m still with them for another few months.

Absolutely awful, after 18months I have finally lost it and I am thinking very much about changing. Where to start..well as in other reviews the speed is terrible, it constantly disconnects, rarely do you get a decent service, the call centre is a joke and what is even funnier is that they rang telling of how they are going to upgrade the service to 7mb from 3mb for free and you get a free phone if you want that will only cost €20 a month extra…notice something wrong with that!!! thinking of ntl ,I have heard of some problems but to be honest my old dial-up was quicker than this…Avoid for the sake of your wallet and mental health!!!

very bad download(0.8M on good day) and upload speed. Keeps disconnecting. There customer service is very bad….stay well clear of these, you can’t break your one year contract either. If I could give zero stars I would.

Me again. Spoke too soon about 500kbits…

for the last 2 weeks, it has dropped to < 50kbits on the download.

Switching to O2 to see if they are any better.

Shockingly Awful. Had a 14 day trial in whick speed was ok at 600 – 700 kbs. As soon at trial was up speeds droped to 30 – 40 kbs, if you could connect. Despite several calls to call center in India!!!!!!!!! no change. Just fobbed of by customer service saying “technical difficulties today”. If I said I had a problem since last week “technical difficulties all week”

Bought the O2 modem this week and much better service. 1 – 2 Mbs. Thats 50 times faster! I called three to cancel and I am locked into giving 30 days notice (have it 16 months) even though I cant connect at all. I couldnt connect for the past 2 weeks. I asked how can you hold me to the contract while three are in breach of contract by not providing the service. This did no good as you are just dealing with an idiot in India who is reading form a script.

Three are the worst company I have ever had the misfortune of dealing with. I am refusing to pay the rental for the next 30 days as I cant connect anyway but three said I have to and will be billing me anyway. Looking forward to the debt collectors now!!!!!

What a company!!!

With me living in Newbridge, i thought that there service would be fairly good. How wrong was i, in fact it poxy at most times.

My connection has a very low speed of the broadband. Thw worst times being between 5pm to 10pm weekdays. The only time the speeds are anywhere near advertised rates is during the night.

Unfortunately 3 were the only provider I could use as I live in a rural area.

The main issue is the very low speed of the broadband. I am abput 25miles from Dublin in rural Co meath and I have never got download better than 500-600Kbit/s

Support calls are routed to a call centre in India which are equiped to deal with only very basic problems.

Its a good job its only 19euro a month. How these guys got awarded the national broadband contract is beyond me….

If there was any other option for me, I would change…

Service is so-so, went through a long period with random outages for 24hr periods… Customer service broke my heart & continue to do so. After a lengthy series of issues with service, I was happy to cancel my contract long before the minimum had expired… The only time I got any real satisfaction in response to my concerns was when I contacted them through their website, which ironically you can’t do when the service is down…

I found their Customer Service appalling.Following an unhappy service agreement I received calls up to twice daily several days in a row from their Collections Department. Then despite my telling them I wanted to terminate the contract at the earliest possible opportunity to get out of the 12 month minimum contract, this fell on deaf ears as I had not said this to the correct department! No one told me this. I found the people I dealt with to be inflexible and not interested or alarmed by my increasing levels of frustration. The T’s & C’s are unclear and poorly communicated. The so called ‘Customer Service’ department works in silos, with Collections & Cancellations failing to share information. When I asked for a copy of the invoices to date I was told that it would cost me €7.50 for such a luxury! I will never deal with this provider again as I think that in this day and age Customer Service is a a basic and fair expectation.