Three to add Spain and New Zealand to Feel At Home roaming

[HEXUS]

The initiative allows roaming users to call, text and use the internet at no extra cost.

Read more.

[Jowsey]

So... 3 just keep giving extra's at no cost? 4G, can tether to create hotspots (some restrictions now) and free roaming in selected countries.

Guess I won't be changing provider when my current contract runs out in August, unless something big persuades me.

[Dooms]

Moved from Giff Gaff to 3 about 8 months ago and much happier. Coverage is much better in my areas, LTE more or less everywhere, my trips to Ireland and Italy were made soooooo much easier by being able to use Google Maps etc on the go and as I have my rolling contract before they changed I still have unlimited tethering (4gb on new people).

Heard their customer service is terrible but then I don't think any provider is actually good in that dept. Lets just hope I never have to use them

£16 p/m
5000 3-3 Minutes
5000 txt
2000 minutes
Unlimited Data, 4G + Tethering
No Contract - 1 Month rolling

There new deals aren't as good but still better than other offers

[Jowsey]

snip my trips to Ireland and Italy were made soooooo much easier by being able to use Google Maps etcsnip

+1 to this!

My trip to Hong Kong was largely made possible because of GoogleMaps, there is so much to do in that (country/state/SAR... whatever you prefer to refer to it as). My girlfriend wanted to go to a cat Cafe so we googled it, found the closest and used maps to get us there, very easy in the end!

[CustardInc]

Heard their customer service is terrible but then I don't think any provider is actually good in that dept.

I've got nothing but good things to say about them; they fix my problems, give me credit when it takes longer than expected, call me back when they say they're going to, add benefits to using them as a carrier and remain the cheapest for my needs.

[crossy]

So... 3 just keep giving extra's at no cost? 4G, can tether to create hotspots (some restrictions now) and free roaming in selected countries. Guess I won't be changing provider when my current contract runs out in August, unless something big persuades me.

Tethering is still there with the AYCE plans, and to be honest I only moved from Virgin Mobile to Three because I want to use the Feel@Home when I'm on holiday in the US in the autumn, (sorry "fall"). Customer service is still meh, the coverage ain't the best, and some of the packages are pretty hopeless wrt texts and minutes. When you can get coverage though, 3G is pretty quick, and 4G was like having home broadband on the move. Just slightly annoyed that EE upped their rollout schedule and beat Three to the punch locally.

Got PAYG SIMs for my kids when they went on a school trip to Italy and it worked out very well indeed. Certainly less worrying than the prospect of a mega bill for roaming from EE for them both.

However, a slight catch is that the network will in fact charge you extra if you call and text non-UK numbers, such as local numbers for the country you're in, though it's often easy to skip round these charges by using IM or VoIP apps.

I hadn't realised that - I'd assumed that in-country calls would be at whatever rate the local provider was charging. Anyone got any more info on this?

[Dooms]

I hadn't realised that - I'd assumed that in-country calls would be at whatever rate the local provider was charging. Anyone got any more info on this?

Details are a bit of a pain to find out but it does appear to be the case. Feel at home basically treats your phone as if it was in the UK so data/calling and texting UK numbers is covered but calling local numbers would be like calling from UK to <Insert Country Here>.

Its a bit of a strange one and must be somewhere in the fine print but as I generally only want the data and to be able to keep in contact with my friends/family its not a problem (and can use VOIP )

[aniilv]

Tethering on pay as you go is not allowed (10kB/s limit)

It's just so no one gets the idea of getting pay`n`go sim for vacation with 15£ all you can eat data to browse internet on laptop You can still get a sim just to go abroad and browse google maps tho

[aidanjt]

I visited the North for Christmas to spend time with family, relying on three's roaming to serve me up data while I was away. Nope.. Totally screwed me. Called them, got screwed €10 for the phone call, and zero help. With my whining on facebook I found out that someone I know also got screwed by Three Ireland and data roaming. Worse than useless customer service and plain non-existent service.

[1stRaven]

I had no issues using them in Ireland when I visited in April and I am off to Tenerife in the Summer so this new update will help out a lot.

[aidanjt]

I had no issues using them in Ireland when I visited in April and I am off to Tenerife in the Summer so this new update will help out a lot.

Yeah it might just be issues with Irish Three customers visiting non-Irish locales.

[Attila the Bun]

I've got nothing but good things to say about them; they fix my problems, give me credit when it takes longer than expected, call me back when they say they're going to, add benefits to using them as a carrier and remain the cheapest for my needs.

I'm pleased for you and award you the "Only person I've ever of having a good 3 customer experience award".

I myself am happy with the services that 3 provide and of all the providers only O2 has a better signal in all of the places I am regularly in situ. But, sorry, their customer service is a thing of legend for it's awfulness, in my experience only British Gas have been worse (so bad in fact that I haven't used them for over 10 years and unless they are the only utility company left I will never use them again).

I hadn't realised that - I'd assumed that in-country calls would be at whatever rate the local provider was charging. Anyone got any more info on this?

Crossy, my step-daughter is currently working in Italy and as it is part of this 3 roaming thingy I got her an account so that she could stay in touch with her Mum and friends without running up massive bills. Works well but we found out early on that using it for "local calls" is expensive but we can at least phone or text her without incurring additional charges as the system does indeed think she is still in the UK.

[crossy]

To all who replied on my Feel@Home and local calls "in country", thanks have been sent. I didn't come across this last time I was in the US because I took advice and bought a (PAYG?) StraightTalk SIM from Walmart. Walmart even delivered it to the hotel for me.

One thing I've got to wonder about Feel@Home - it strikes me as a pretty strong selling point for Three, so how long before other teleco's are forced to offer something similar? When BT get EE, I assume that it'd be theoretically possible for some deal to be made for EE customers with AT&T in the US. Similarly if Telefonica hold onto O2 then free roaming to Spain for O2 customers would seem to be achievable. Given EE's Deutche Telecom/Orange background I'm actually suprised that they haven't done a European equivalent already.

I had a call from EE last night (one of the kids phones is with them). After the usual "are you happy with the service" they tried to get me to switch from Three, until I pointed out that I was only with Three because of the free 4G upgrade, tethering and of course Feel@Home. Conversation wound down after that.