Wow that's amazing. I wish we got half that with 3 over here. The fastest I've ever gotten with them is 2-3mb but it's usually under 1..
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Nearly a year of O2 vs. almost 2 weeks of 3 (UK)
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Wow that's amazing. I wish we got half that with 3 over here. The fastest I've ever gotten with them is 2-3mb but it's usually under 1..
I've read that Three (UK) has a soft cap of about 450GB per month (which is very difficult to reach), at which point they simply contact you to ensure that you're sticking to the rules of the contract (i.e. non-commercial, personal use only).
There's no extra fee or throttling though.
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My plan with Three UK (as mentioned by the OP) gives me:
2000 minutes to any UK landline/mobile
5000 minutes to other Three UK customers
5000 Text Messages
Unlimited Data (including Tethering)
for £25 per month ($33.50 excluding tax) on a 30 day contract.
If you go with a 24 month contract, the same plan costs £34 ($55) per month and includes an iPhone 4S 16GB - with a £49 ($79 including tax) upfront cost.
There's no extra fee or throttling though.
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My plan with Three UK (as mentioned by the OP) gives me:
2000 minutes to any UK landline/mobile
5000 minutes to other Three UK customers
5000 Text Messages
Unlimited Data (including Tethering)
for £25 per month ($33.50 excluding tax) on a 30 day contract.
If you go with a 24 month contract, the same plan costs £34 ($55) per month and includes an iPhone 4S 16GB - with a £49 ($79 including tax) upfront cost.
Wow all the UK plans sound so much cheaper than what a similar single line plan costs in the USA.
But what about family plans? Do UK carriers offer family plans with similar pricing?
In the USA, it makes more sense to go prepaid (we have many prepaid plans that costs anywhere between $30-50 unlimited minutes/texts/data...cough cough the data usually is soft cap between 2GB and 5GB but they still advertised it as unlimited).
But if you are on a family plan with more than 4 lines, it's actually cheaper than prepaid.
We don't really do family plans here. You can often add a new line and maybe get a small discount but thats it (Nothing official either, You might not get anything extra). The new line is completely separately though and has its own text, minute and data allowance.
They don't offer plans like that here.
You'd just have separate plans, but the benefit of that is that you could have a variety of plans to suit each person's needs.
My mother pays £5 ($8) a month including tax for 100 mins/3000 texts (Virgin Mobile) - she doesn't need data. For her to be getting a similar tariff to me would be crazy overkill.
Ok, that makes sense. So I have 4 lines (3 unlimited iphone data plans (ATT really caps us around 3GB here), plus 700 rollover minutes, free any mobile calling and unlimited family texts. So I have one line that doesn't have data. And I pay $175 including taxes. So that's about $130-135 euros roughly each month for 4 lines.
So the people who really get a bad deal in the USA are really the single lines or those who have 2 lines.
Either way, you guys are so much choice in the UK and other areas. In the US (and I think Canada is even worse), the carriers dictate everything. We are stuck with the same monthly rate/data plan regardless if you pay full price for the phone or not.
T-Mobile USA tried to do the European/Asian model with full price phones/monthly discounts but had a hard time convincing Americans that paying full price would be cheaper. Americans just do not do well with math.
Remember we're a small island! It's easier for the phone companies to set up (less antennas to be built & maintain). To cover an area the size of the US must be a mighty expense especially in the very dense areas with low populations. Therefore the UK networks are probably able to offer cheaper deals.