Results matching “Three mobile” from irishsilicon.com
A very polite manager from Three customer services rang me at the weekend to explain that they charge for email and even though their terms and conditions don't reflect this, they mean to continue charging.
He requested my assistance on this matter and was hoping I would help them in rewriting their terms and conditions so that IT WOULD BE CLEAR THAT EMAIL IS NOT INCLUDED UNDER THEIR 100 MB BROADBAND package.
This request seemed a bit strange as I would be capitulating and helping Three to charge customers for a service which they shouldn't be charged for (based on their very vague and non descript terms and conditions)
I am also getting wound up about this at the moment as Three have a radio ad on Today fm where a customer gushes about the fact that she can check her emails as she has three mobile broadband for her mobile phone. Well that customer better check her bill very carefully.
I took some advice from comments left on the previous article and contacted the national consumer agency. They recommended that I send a registered letter to their customer service requesting the terms and conditions in writing from them, They are also recommending the small claims court.
I am not sure what if any effect the small claims court would have on this, if a ruling was made in favour is it legally binding for all customers? If you have some experience of this please email me at lnoonan_blog at yahoo.ie
I had my sixth telephone conversation wtih Three customer services (never the same person twice) today regarding the issue that they charge me for email eventhough I pay for a 100MB broadband package for my mobile phone. (This was filed with Comreg on 28/2/08 and logged with three as a formal complaint)
Their position is:
1 - They will not make available online the exact terms and conditions of their Mobile broadband 100 product.
2- They charge for email regardless even though they have sold me a mobile broadband package and refuse to define what ports mobilebroadband uses.
3 - They have listed on their website the charges for email therefore they are entitiled to charge me eventhough I have a broadband package. They refuse to recognise or acknowledge the fact that I have purchased 100MB data download per month when calculating email billing (which uses the internet protocol IMAP)
Comreg have been contacted and the case has been escalated Three now have 7 working days to resolve this. But they told be today they wouldn't.
Any one any ideas?
I have an Irish mobile phone opertor mobile phone broadband package supplied by three which gives me 100 MB of data for 6 euros. Three are curently billing me for emails I send via IMAP even though it is not listed any where in their terms and conditions. I am vert familiar with telecomms and IP systems, and therefore can identify that IMAP is only a type iof interent data i.e. it uses a port number etc similar to all other broadband data.
Three have a problem explaining to me why they bill seperately for emails and to date have produced no supporting documentation. I have logged this with Comreg. They advised me to request a complaint ref no from three and if they wouldn't provide to obtain the customer services agents name. I emailed three cust support and they rang back, they wouldn't give me a customer complaint ref number and had great difficulty in accepting that I could notify them verbally that I had raised the complaint eventhough comreg advised me that I could. They asked me again to email the same email address with the details, which I did as a matter of courtesy. The ball however is their court and they have 10 days to come back to me with either a resolution or an explanation which points out exactly in their terms and conditions email messages are classified as a non broadband product. If they do not come back to me within 10 days Comreg will be persuing the matter with them.
This whole episode got me thinking that this practice may not be restricted to three. Are other mobile phone operators billing their customers for email eventhough they have mobile phone broadband packages? Do their terms and conditions stipulate that they can do this?
As consumers of technology that utilise microbilling we often let these things slip under the radar due to complaceny or lack of understanding.
Your feedback and comments on this would be welcome.
IMAP is a very useful protocol for collecting and sending email. It is the defacto standard for corporate email Microsoft Exchange servers. Nokia have released apps for their S60 series phones that can connect to exchange servers via IMAP. For a variety of security reasons corporate entities often choose to have IMAP access only to their email systems.
Therefore It was very annoying to discover that the Irish mobile phone operator three do not allow IMAP access from their handsets. They only allow POP access, why is this the case?
My professional opinion cannot fathom a reason for this short sighted approach.
The much hyped Skype service for monthly contract customers is subject to users paying an extra 14.99 a month for an X-series silver package which allows unlimited data etc.
If you have the 5.99 100Mb per month package you cannot use Skype. As a user who switched to three so as to enjoy Skype I am pretty annoyed with their restrictive implementation. I have no intention at the moment to pay an extra 15 euros a month to use Skype.
Three are very restrictive on their broadband packages as they don't allow IMAP access from your mobile phone to your corporate exchange server.
I think three only want to appeal to the pay as you go young customer whose parents are handing them credit and don't appreciate the costs and models being used to maximise their revenue.
The traditional bill/contract customer is being ignored and made to pay exorbitant prices for add ons that other companies provide as default. This is very silly and dangerous strategy to adopt as it will alienate a more predictable a lucrative source of income i.e. bill pay customers
If you are unhappy with this implementation email 3 and let them know
I just had an interesting conversation with Gary in the Carphone warehouse head office in Dublin. He finally shed some light on the availability of Skype for 3 bill pay customers.
Bill pay customers can download a Skype app from the planet 3 service for their phone e.g a Nokia N73. It does require 3G coverage and you will be charged for data traffic. 3 offer 100Mb of data a month for 5.99.
Nov 23rd Update - Having read the install instructions for Skype it appears that a customer has to buy a X-series silver package for 14 euros per month approx to use the Skype service. This doesn't seem to make marketing sense to me and is something I will be taking up with three.
The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) recently announced the adoption of Bluetooth Core Specification Version 2.0 + EDR (Enhanced Data Rate). Increased data rates – up to three times current levels – and lower power consumption will improve the Bluetooth user experience when running multiple Bluetooth devices simultaneously and transferring large data files, as well as enabling longer battery life in mobile devices.
The main features of Bluetooth Core Specification Version 2.0 + EDR are:
• 3 times faster transmission speed (up to 10 times in certain cases)
• Lower power consumption through reduced duty cycle
• Simplification of multi-link scenarios due to more available bandwidth
• Backwards compatible to earlier versions
• Further improved BER (Bit Error Rate) performance
