2 posts tagged “fup”

View other items tagged “fup:” Photos, Audio, Videos, Books or Links. View “fup” on Vox.

3's text warnings waking up the country: Don't lose sleep over it!

May 20, 2008
Post a comment

I got an email from a reader, let's call him Dan as, er that's his name! Anyway, he'd come across a previous blog post of mine whilst seeking out more info on the text message warning he'd received from 3 UK. In my original post: 3, give me back 'data usage', give me a heads up and sort out your FUP as it's FUBAR! I mentioned how I got a text message in the middle of the night telling me I'd gone over my fair use limit and that I should cease using data until the start of my next billing cycle. You can see the text message below:

3 giving me no advanced warning and their link doesn't work either

Today though, it seems Dan wasn't alone - many 3 customers have experienced the same problem in the wee small hours and some, it would appear, have gone nowhere near even the 1 GB limit (let alone the 2 GB that is now the actual "secret" limit). Check out Ben Smith's article on SMS Text News: 3UK data ‘fair use’ policy problem and gerrymoth's: No internet for 7 days, I’ll never survive on his nokiAAddict blog.

The problem now seems to be resolved... at least for the time being. The silver lining is that lots of people have aired their views on 3's notification and billing systems as well as their lack of a data usage meter (we used to have one and it worked but they took it away and don't seem to realise!)

Anyway, other than the beep, beep, beeps of the texts keeping people awake at night, I wouldn't lose any sleep over the warnings. Below you can see my bill that I've just received for the period when I was warned. The first picture is of the summary. The bill quite clearly states that I've not used even one meg outside of the allowance...

3 data usage summary - Bill date: 13th May '08

And below is a break down of each day's use. You can see I kept on using the internet on my phone after the warning, albeit more sparingly! You can also deduce that the fair use allowance is clearly more than the 1 gig mentioned in the small print.

Day by day breakdown (I was warned on the 1st)

It's a shame they haven't gotten their act together on this as otherwise 3 UK's data/internet offerings are great and, IMHO, can't be beat. Having said that I have a sneaky suspicion of late that they may have throttled my service as Nokia Internet Radio isn't working nearly as well as it used to be but I need to do a bit more digging and delving to find out if that reall is the case or not.

3, give me back 'data usage', give me a heads up and sort out your FUP as it's FUBAR!

May 1, 2008
Post a comment

UK mobile operator '3' do so many things right that it really is a shame when they screw up and I feel I have to comment on it. I currently have an add-on called X-Series Silver. Click on the link I just provided and you can see it's a pretty sweet deal. However, the one thing that has always bugged me about the deal was that despite it being advertised as 'unlimited' it's anything but. There is a limit and it's 1GB. It would've bugged me more but that limit was far more generous than any other UK operator and far cheaper too.

So, you may be thinking: What's eating Anthony? Well let me tell you! 3 used to provide a daily update of one's internet usage via their Planet 3 portal. Each day I could check how much I used and it was accurate. I could choose to use the service fairly, reining back my usage if need be. They long ago removed this handy tool (see the bottom picture) for no apparent reason. Since my last billing cycle I've used two different phones, one of which I had to reset (my latest handset, the N95 8GB). Therefore I have no accurate log on the phone telling me of my data use and, like I just explained, no way of checking with 3...

Which leads me to the following text message I received in the wee small hours from 3 (it's the picture just below this paragraph). This jolly note tells me I've reached my allowance and warns me I may be cut off. One presumes they mean just my internet access and not my whole phone service - but it's not 100% clear! Why no advance warning, 3? Maybe a friendly, 'You have 100MB left for the month' or some such thing. And this 'may' lark - what's that about?

3 giving me no advanced warning and their link doesn't work either

As for that link... guess what happens when you click on it? It leads you to the My3 homepage (the section of Planet 3 regarding your account). Despite looking far and wide I came up with no mention of the FUP and, for ships and giggles I decided to check my usage whilst there... Sorry, there is no data usage for this mobile. ARGH!

Yes, I really did check at 1.30am - that was just after they text me!

By the way, despite the terms on 3's website saying there's a 1GB fair use limit, there actually seems to be a far more generous limit of 2GB (judging by my previous paper bills).

I should point out that I have 3 months free mobile broadband from 3 (3 free 3!) thanks to 3mobilebuzz. They recently provided me with a dongle (you may have seen the pictures) so I won't be fully off the grid for the next 11 days! But borrowed, full sized laptops don't fit in one's pockets!