Paul Wright16 July 2007, 7:35 AM
Three has the cheapest data plans of any carrier in Australia, and is very aggressive in the marketplace. It has HSDPA across its entire network now.
Three has the cheapest data plans of any carrier in Australia, and is very aggressive in the marketplace. It has HSDPA across its entire network now.
The problem, however, is that its network is not very big: it only covers around 50% of the population, and in other areas, customers have to roam to Telstra's 2.5G network. The upside is that Telstra offers EDGE on its 2.5G network, which is faster and more usable than the GPRS offered on Vodafone or Optus' 2G networks.
Unfortunately while Three does not charge more for voice calls made when roaming on Telstra, it does charge an additional $1.65 per megabyte for wireless data usage.
This may sound OK for some users, but it does mean a single web and emall session of 10MB usage could add $16.50 to your monthly bill -- not to mention that the speed won't be broadband.
Users complain that it can be hard to know that they are in roaming mode, so it's too easy to run up big roaming bills. Three has now addressed this problem by making it possible to lock their modems to 3G mode only, which guards against the risk of bill-shock at the end of the month, but also means you simply won't get a connection outside of Three's coverage zone.
You can (and are encouraged to by Three) use a Three X-Series handset with a USB cable or Bluetooth to access the net. This has the advantage of allowing you to avoid buying a modem, but it's usually not possible to lock a Three handset to 3G-only.
Three offers mobile broadband plans available on 12 or 24 month contracts including a free USB/ExpressCard modem ($49 2GB plan or above), or customers can bring their own and pay for the service month-to-month without a contract.
If you want to sign on to the $29 1GB plan (amusingly, five times better value than Telstra ADSL at the same price point) you have to buy the modem for $399 up-front, or you can pay for it over the course of a contract at $20 per month over a 12 month contract, or $10 a month over a 24 month contract.
Three's X-Series phones offer big volumes of wireless broadband data at cheap rates, starting at $20 for 500MB. You can hook an X-Series phone up to your laptop using USB or Bluetooth. However, Three recently revised its laptop mobile broadband plans to be even better value than X-Series, so unless you actually want the features of X-Series such as Skype calling and video playback from your home PC via your mobile phone, it's better to go with the laptop service.
If you are within Three's coverage zone, it's worth exploring Three's service before jumping on board with the other carriers, but its also worth keeping in mind you get what you pay for and it's probable that Three has the highest network utilisation of any of the networks due to its low rates. You may run into slow speed and congestion issues in peak hours of usage, though this hasn't been a significant problem to date.
Three does not offer any wireless internet services to prepaid customers, so you must be a monthly-billed account holder to be able to use any of Three's wireless broadband services.
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