These are
comments provided by other 3 Customers. (They are sorted by date of submission/update with the latest first)
To submit
your own comments, send an email to comments@3GinOz.com and I'll attempt to publish as soon
as possible.
Brett from Sydney writes:
I just came across your site and decided to have a quick browse, I was searching for some news of the e616 actually. I looked at the customer service site and had a chuckle then when I read the anonymous one about the sarge my chuckling abated. By the way I too also have a small amount of shares with Hutchinson and am also an Orange customer.
I am having similar problems with the e808 and up to this moment was not aware that the USIM fault which has afflicted my phone from day one is such a known fault. This has constantly been happening with my phone and also the battery has not been holding charge. It also locks up and needs to have the battery disconnected and reconnected to get it working.
Anyway it stopped working completely yesterday and then after more calls to them they mind you suggested that maybe I should leave it on charge overnight to see if it improved. I woke this morning to find that the battery and phone around the battery had melted.........now it aint going to work. The customer service told me to call up their authorised repair centre in Parramatta and since I was unable to get into them they would pick up the phone and leave me a loan phone. I called them up and spoke with Sarah who was most unhelpful and laughed at me and told me that they only do repairs and if I had a problem bad luck. They do not pick up or have loan phones.
I called the customer service back and am still waiting for them to get back to me. I then called sales to see if I could up grade to a Motorola or something as I really need the phone and to be without it for how long is a hassle. They quoted me more that full price............can you believe $798.00 for the A835. Needless to say I told them where to put it. I then called back customer service to enquire as to my issue and was then told that bad luck it was my fault not warranty. I called the curry muncher a few choice words and finally got put on to someone here in Australia who offered to sell me a refurbished phone until such time as I could get mine in the repair centre for evaluation. If it is warranty the they will refund etc.........but if not................... What about the safety issues etc about this. Now I am interested to find others with similar faults in the e808's. Anyway if you need to order a curry then fine from their customer service but for everything else.
Maybe us share holders and customers whose good money is being used to pay these idiots need to take the matter higher. I for one will be at the next shareholders meeting whenever it is. (4/12/2003)
Update: As of yesterday they have it as I am paying $192 for a refurbished model then sending mine back for them to do a post mortem. This was after I called again and got on to someone again in Australia. I am yet to here back regarding my emailed complaint.
Also I'm still trying to hassle/negotiate with them to upgrading me to a Motorola but not much hope, like I said they want to charge me full retail. Oh and by the way the guy I spoke with yesterday (real nice guy but I think his hands were tied somehow and I got the feeling he wanted to do more for me) told me off the record that the e616 should be mid January release date. (6/12/2003)
Update2: Well as stated before I paid my money for the upgraded phone to be sent to me on the condition that I had it by Tuesday. I came home from work on Tuesday night and still no phone so I went out and bought a A920 from someone I knew had one. I called Three the next morning and asked them to cancel my order and don't send the phone. I finally got onto someone here in Australia, Brisbane I believe who was like a breath of fresh air. She actually listened to my whole story which by this time I just blurted out from start to finish, like for the umteempth time. After I had finished she very professionally went through my issues, one by one. She agreed to credit me the money I had paid for the upgraded e808. She also agreed that my issues were valid and we came to a mutual agreement in regards to the non working e808.
Then she took the time to explain the features of the A920 to me. I am now a happy chappy again and am even enjoying using the network again. Sure they have drop outs etc but then again so does my Telstra phone. I actually much prefer using my 3G phone as I find the call clarity heaps clearer that the digital. My digitals are Siemens S55's by the way.
My advise to others is if you have a legitimate complaint hang in there like I did, keep a record of who and when you speak to and what they say. When you finally get the chance to present your case to someone local you will have a much better chance. Remember the staff here in Australia are the ones who have the last say so give them the same respect you expect them to give you. It sure worked for me and I bet it might just do the same for you (12/12/2003)
Michael from Adelaide posts a complaint letter sent to 3:
I have contacted Three on several occasions with regard to a problem with my NEC 808.
I obtained the phone around August / September this year and almost immediately it began telling me to insert the USIM card. The amount of time between this problem arising and me noticing is unknown and as such it is near impossible to estimate how many calls I have missed due to my phone being out of action. I returned to the Three shop (Burnside, Adelaide) where I bought the phone and enquired about getting it fixed. They simply said it must have dirty contacts and removed the USIM card, cleaned both it and the contacts with a piece of cloth, reinserted it and sent me on my merry way.
A few days later it began showing the same symptoms yet again. Due to other commitments I could not return to the store straight away and so persisted with the fault for a number of weeks. Upon returning to the store they then said that the terminals in the phone were faulty and proceeded to bend them out with a scribe. This was carried out by a sales staff member with, I am sure, no technical training and is a practice I am concerned about with respect to warranty implications.
Not long after this episode the phone began showing the same symptoms yet again. I went to the Adelaide city store and reported the problem and enquired about getting a replacement. They told me the same story about the terminals and again proceeded to bend them into the “correct” position. Again this was performed by a sales staff member. I left the store even more frustrated than ever.
I rung the 3 care line and spoke to several people who obviously did not speak English as their first language and got frustrated yet again. These people asked questions which I could not understand and provided a service which could not in any way shape or form come close to being described as care. I was asking a simple question of these people, that being “where is my nearest warranty centre” and they simply referred me back to the store I purchased the phone from, told me they would have someone call me back, or gave me some other totally irrelevant and useless response.
After being fobbed off (and incidentally not having my calls returned as they said they would be) I decided to ring the sales line. This was met with some success initially, that success being in the form of speaking to a person who was fluent in the native language of the country where I purchased my phone and service. After asking for the nearest warranty centre however he said words to the effect of, “Hold on one moment” and promptly put me through to yet another non English speaking individual. Upon hanging up from him I hit redial on the phone and spoke to yet another English fluent person, this time my manner was less than polite given the treatment I had received on previous contacts with Three staff and was finally given the details of the local warranty centre.
After this below average response from Three I contacted the warranty centre who informed me that Three staff should not be modifying the phones at all and affirmed my worries about the warranty implications. They then went on to tell me that the problem was a software issue and that no amount of terminal bending would even come close to fixing this. After this they went on to say that the phone would need to be returned to Melbourne for anywhere up to five days. Upon hearing this I enquired about a replacement phone for this period and was informed that they had none.
It is now December and this fault which has persisted for a number of months is still not rectified. My statutory rights state that I am entitled to a refund if the goods purchased have a defect or do not do what they are supposed to. They also state that a suitable remedy would be to repair or relace the goods. At no time have these remedies been willingly offered by Three.
Further investigation reveals that this is not an isolated case and that a complaint to various authorities may be warranted. Three has rolled out a sub standard network with patchy service, less than adequate support and care for this network, and has ignored my legal rights as a consumer. Not only have they ignored these rights they have willingly jeopardised the statutory warranty of a product they sold to me by having untrained and unqualified staff tamper with it. I think it is not unreasonable to request an upgrade to the Motorola A920 at no cost to myself given the lack of support from Three on this matter.
PS. I will not be at all surprised if this complaint goes totally ignored and does not invoke a response from Three. (9/12/3003)
Update (19/1/2004): Well, they haven’t contacted me at all but I found a note on the 3 website with regard to the USIM error:
Note: * This ARC has the capability to provide a software upgrade for your NEC e808N to fix the USIM error. If you are in any other states, just take your handset into your local ARC and they will dispatch your handset to the ARC in Victoria (turnaround time will be 4-5 days). There will be no charge for this upgrade if your handset is under warranty; if your handset is out of warranty the cost of upgrade will be $44 (inc.GST).
When you do a search on the website under the troubleshooting option (Ask3) this does not show up but when you try to find the nearest Authorised Repair Centre this note is at the bottom of the page.
There is only one place that can do this upgrade which is in Victoria. I took my phone in over a week ago and called to enquire about its status today. I was told I should have it back by Friday so it will be 10 days not the 4-5 they state on the website. Also they do not give you a replacement phone for the time they have yours so god knows how many calls I have missed now.
2nd Update (10/2/2004): I have finally received an offer from 3 of a full refund and a contract cancellation waiver.
My story started last year as you already know and has persisted through to now.
On Jan 29th this year I again made contact with 3 to request a refund since no one had contacted me about problem resolution in the past. I was informed that I had not complained enough yet and was therefore not entitled to a refund. They have a ‘corporate policy’ which states that a customer must complain so many times before a refund is offered but would not tell me how many times I needed to complain.
After stating that I had already complained on several occasions via the phone, in person in two of their shops, and via email they stated that they had record of only one phone call. During this call I made mention of the following:
This leads me to believe that their record keeping efforts are a little dubious. It also makes me wonder what constitutes a complaint in their books and why a call logging numerous faults does not count as more than one complaint. Can I not make several complaints in the one call?
After questioning this dubiousness I then went on to state that this ‘corporate policy’ is in contravention of the Trade Practices Act 1974 and that they were therefore in breach of the law.
The Act clearly states:
You ARE entitled to a full refund when there has been a breach of your statutory conditions and you cancel the contract. These breaches can occur if the goods you bought:
My goods were defective and didn’t do what they were supposed to do. I purchased them under the advice of the trader (main point of advice being coverage and quality of voice service). Nor did they match the description given by the trader, it is a stretch to call this piece of whiz bang electronic gadgetry a phone. Four out of four ain’t bad! The Act also lists remedies other than a refund but 3 offered none of these either.
After stating this to numerous people of varying levels of seniority within the call centres I was finally put through to the ‘Valued Customer Care Centre”. At a point of approximately 45 minutes into the call and after restating my case for the umpteenth time the operator then said to “shut up or I will terminate the call”. At this point I completely lost it at her and terminated the call myself. I then proceeded to return to the place of purchase with the intent of not leaving until the matter was resolved.
Upon restating my case yet again to the sales staff at the store and them taking copious amounts of notes I was informed that the store manager would ring me back. I informed them that if no call was received within five days that I would then be forced into taking my claim to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, the Office of Consumer and Business Affairs, the ACCC and any other body with a sympathetic ear.
About three days later I was pleasantly surprised by a call from the aforementioned store manager. She took it upon herself to resolve the issue and to obtain phone upgrades or a refund on my behalf. A short period after the first call with her was finished she called back to state that one of my phones had a 65% drop out rate and the other had a 35% drop out rate (tell me something I didn’t know) and that this was unsuitable for a business phone (I questioned what it mattered whether it was for business or personal use as a contract is a contract regardless of the end user. She never did give me a straight answer but left me with the impression that personal customers simply do not matter as much as the corporate ones). She also informed me that my residential address did not have sufficient coverage to warrant an upgrade and she would pursue a refund and have some one call me back within seven days to organise this.
Seven days came and went and low and behold no call. At the ten day mark I then reinitiated contact via phone and was told that a contract cancellation waiver had been authorised yet I had not been advised of this. What this meant is that I could hand back the phone and walk away with no obligation to pay anymore but I would forfeit any monies previously paid. Again I reiterated that this is in breach of my statutory rights and was not a suitable resolution. He then back tracked a little and offered a full refund with not too much more hassle.
I can only hazard a guess that they are under instruction to release people from the ongoing obligation to pay but to try and retain all payments up to this cancellation point.
After a long winded and exhausting experience with 3 which was not all bad (when it worked it was good, unfortunately it did not work very much for me) I am finally free from the clutches of yet another corporate bully. They tried to suck me in and keep me there hoping that if they ignored me I would go away. Not so, if you want out then unfortunately you will have to resort to threats (though I wouldn’t advise threats of the physical sort), throw the law in their face, and keep on making noise.
Remember David and Goliath? I like to think that in this case I was David, can you guess who 3 is?
PS. Still to this day my suburb is clearly shown on coverage maps to have full 3G service. Again this raises the question of “Is 3 exercising ethical business practices?” By lying to a customer I can’t help but wonder could the charge of obtaining funds by making a false or misleading statement be applied to 3?
Extract from a complaint messages sent by a user of the service:
I am writing to re-iterate a complaint that has received NO response.
I am pasting the text from my complaint of 2 Nov. However, I must add that between Monday and Wednesday there were three dropped calls, and also two of my contacts have informed me that in this time period they received messages that my number is disconnected when trying to call me.
Please respond to my situation PROMPTLY (at a minimum, acknowledge receipt of this complaint) otherwise I will be forced to assume my queries have been ignored - Thank you
----------------from 2 Nov----------
I am becoming increasingly frustrated with the service (or lack thereof) I have received from three.
After almost five months with three, I am still experiencing continual call dropouts on my NEC e606. I do not care that it does not cost to re-establish the call. It is the simple INCONVENIENCE of drop-outs, and the extent to which that they HAVE NOT IMPROVED over many months, that frustrates me. I feel that I am paying good money for a service that I have not received.
In several years with my previous provider, I do not recall a single dropped call.
It has now reached a point where I do not use the phone while on the move, as I would rather not risk more dropped calls. This is ridiculous- I am paying for a MOBILE service; I should be able to speak WHILE I AM MOBILE.
Calls to the three support line have been useless, but I continue to call at least once a week to inform of continuing problems. The call centre staff are very polite but do not offer any solutions - the response invariably comes down to "we are very sorry, it is a new network and is continually being upgraded". "have you tried resetting your phone, maybe that will help" "we will notify the technicians and they will see if the situation can be fixed"
In the end, it means that my situation does NOT change (as is evident by the continual dropouts) and support staff are unable, through no fault of their own, to actually give me any support.
I tried to call several times today to the 3 support line, and twice the call dropped out - then when I did get through, the voice prompt notified that there are technical difficulties and hence I write here now instead.
Unfortunately, dropped calls are not the only issue I have had. I am becoming continually frustrated with the e606 handset. The menu system is awkward to navigate, and painfully slow to respond. The navigation seems to have been getting slower the more I use the phone. I would say there are serious software issues, as there is no reasonable excuse as to why a "perfectly operating unit" would behave in such a way. The unit also occasionally hangs up on a caller when I press "answer" to an incoming call. This is most embarassing, especially when the call is business related. If a client calls me and I appear to hang up on them, they are unlikely to pursue further contact. I have also been informed by friends who try to contact me, that occasionally (AT LEAST several times per week) they receive a "this number has been disconnected" message, even although my phone appears to be on, in 3g zone, with full service bars displayed.
This is ridiculous - it appears that you have released a product which is not ready to be on the market. I can say this with confidence as I am an Industrial Designer with mobile technology experience and as such am appalled at the standard of operation this unit exhibits.
The situation I have outlined above is frustrating and embarrassing to me both personally and professionally.
I would appreciate some solid response to this complaint, as the usual feedback of "we will look into it" is becoming increasingly less convincing!
I have paid for a service with 3. It is only fair that I receive something that resembles the service I paid for. The situation I find myself in now, is that I have a poor service on a poor quality handset. Please rectify this situation - as I would love to be able to sing the praises of your network, rather than spread bad news. All businesses should be aware that bad news spreads fast, and has far more impace than good news! If a response to my situation is not forthcoming in the near future, I will (regrettably) have to take the matter up with the Telecommunications Ombudsman. I would like to avoid that if possible, as it is not a pleasant process for either myself or for 3.
Many thanks for your interest and support,
Name and address withheld (7/11/2003)
Anonymous writes:
There is indeed a sure way to get results from 3 service. The brute force tactics used by a pensioned off ex-army officer has proven fruitful. Lets call him Sarge.
Sarge initially purchased a 606 on a F&F (family and friends voucher). He had plenty of fun with the new toy as did his kids. One night in desperation to answer a call on his dead phone in order to get the power back up on the phone, he plugged the charger into the phone side desperately. To no avail. Why? The fine pins were all bent down. Note that these sockets are known to be the most delicate of all those on mobile phones to date.
Sarge made attempts with online service 133320 & the Warringah Mall for a replacement with no success. Another week passed they took him seriously after he made a fracas in the Brookvale shop and he claimed he would continue to do the same and at times bring a stool to sit out the front and drive people off. The options Gile's gave him were to get the phone repaired independently at 3's expense, a total refund or accept the a 808 or update to a 920 for $528. To get on with things he did eventually accept an 808 which was the best path for the 3 Shop, or at least they thought so. Good riddance the sales drones at the store sighed in relief to get rid of this pain in the arse.
Our ex-army man got home and without much ado set his new phone up charging the battery etc. Back online, Sarge got in touch with his contacts and caught up with things. Within twenty four hours he got the deadly usim error of which I've yet to hear any 808 is not afflicted with and all 3 Hutchison staff still plead ignorance of. Hutchison 3 are selling faulty units knowingly. He reported this error by 133320 put him off for some time. It was only after swearing and getting abusive that they started to hear him out but still were not keen on giving him a replacement of another phone type, but an 808 again (there is a whole stash of these they can't get rid of and most of the refurbishment pool is full of them). They made it appear they were a bit more willing. He tried again with Giles at Brookvale store and even threatening him with a chainsaw.
As Three were so difficult he figured on upping the ante and asked for a 920 replacement at no extra cost. Many calls to Bombay and to Brisbane and he apparently got a softer ear and with Sarge's ways with words was able to get a direct connection with the 'softer' person rather than having to go through the whole rigmarole of going through his history, though logged. And on and on it went for weeks, to no avail - continues.
This just shows you the lengths one has to go to to get service from Hutchison 3. (2/10/2003)
Anonymous writes:
Its a great deal from Hutchison 3 ..........
The video calling phones available - the true 3G phones - are the Nec 606, 808 and Motorola 920.
The 606 has comfort, convenience and speed of operation, and is the smallest It's enhanced battery which enables you to get more than day or two use out of it without a recharge every 12 - 18hrs with what is initially supplied, adds a bit of bulk and renders a leather case more or less futile. Very few have been reported as troublesome like the terrible 808 that 3 keeps trying to offload to unwary buyers.
The 920 is the very latest technology and is great for video calls using the speakerphone rather than the must have headsets on the 606 & 808. This is a lifestyle product and ideally suited for the desktop or indeed the home phone. Being pda sized, though hardly one, and requiring a stylus (i.e. two hands needed to answer and to hold once out of the case) for most operations, more or less limits its portability and if that is desired then it could be worth waiting for the SonyEricsson Z1010. The a920 is very well laid out and faster downloading but more involved and cumbersome than the 606. The 606 has two cameras that need the grime wiped off often where the 920 has the one camera that you fiddle with and the 920 has 60 sec movie limitation whereas the 606/808 12secs.
No true bluetooth on any though its alleged it will be on the stripped down 920 later in the year when you drop the thing into a repair shop at your cost - that's another opportunity for them to tighten up the firmware further and disable more functions like AGPS/GPS and infrared already is. The random 920 lockups you fix by removing/replacing battery as no buttons will work. Not a problem as you need to change batteries through the day at least twice before work finishes - a couple of minutes of those video call credits chew up a lot of juice too!
The upcoming high energy batteries, various features and specifications and some of the range of accessories for the 920 have disappeared from the 3 web page early September just as its released and I wonder why?.
3 are locking up the
firmware in the Motorola 920 (in fact a Paragon), so you are forced to use their stuff which is restricted - no other Symbian OS 7.0
programs are or will be permitted to be used other than what 3 make available and no doubt a fee each time its used. Other PDA based
phones like the Qtec (O2 xda) have an awesome amount of programs available - from database to games for Windows based mobile phones
from the likes of www.gameloft.com & www.handango.com etc. Its a once only fee for these or in some cases is freeware.
Where
the closed system of Three - not unlike Apples' closed system architecture brought into being in the 1980s and to this very day
their hype machine trundles out propaganda to keep the faith amongst true believers - the religious fervour certainly disappears
with a 3 phone owner when realising the games require a connection i.e. to be in a 3G area and there's a royalty each time to play,
when one could go and play the very latest high resolution game in an arcade parlour for a buck.
Qtec phone packages like Battery Pack and Journal at www.omegaone.com where you can select and preset your news, sports, local weather, stock exchange etc services from around the world and to automatically update when you choose any on GPRS or thru your computer free (when on charge if you like). Your just not stuck on Three's 4 or 5 items that are dated and work within a 3G zone only.
Where the Threes service staff lie, mislead, contradict and use delay tactics - dragging things out to wear you down, Telstra are arrogant and have a public service mentality, Vodafone harass you to use their services, Optus have a problem with the lingo and are just plain ignorant and Virgin I think have partied too much. Three seem worse due to there ongoing technical problems with some sets and the problems they have had with the network. The ongoing 808 usim errors Three are still in denial of it till this very day but will if pushed replace it for you with another dog out of their refurbishment pool. Also, Three may refuse to have dealings with you and they believe no reason need be given you. This I understand contravenes Dept. Of Fair Trading laws in some/all states just as they flaunt with many of their advertisements and their illegal tower installations. (2/10/2003)
To whom it may concern,
I read your review on the NEC e606 and didn't think much of it. Everything was compared to a Nokia and some comments were stupid. For example:
" Additionally, you can only record 12 seconds of video at a time
which is way too short that it becomes impractical. (The handset has 32 MB of memory and should support recording of up to a minute
at the least!)"
Why is this impractical? I would prefer them to limit the amount the phone can record than to
have a decrease in my phones performance. Not forgetting this is only a phone not the latest digital camcorder. The 32MB is not just
for video.
"Once I got the drivers sorted out, the Data transfer Application on the PC side is OK, I managed to
download the address book, video and audio clips but couldn't download ringtunes (and after several calls with "3" I was
told that they have disabled this so people can't share ringtunes!!)"
Ringtunes must be in midi format 0. I
found this out when I sent a simple email to three. You can not download the ringtunes that you download from 3 though as you say
for the obvious reason that they would then not make any money. However ringtunes that you upload to your phone can also be
downloaded off the phone and shared.
"The phone has 4 preset profiles (Normal, Meeting, Pocket and Car) and whilst you can customise those, you cannot add any new profiles."
What would you need another profile for?
Apart from these few things I agreed with some of your comments on the phone. However I found that most of your comments had little content to them. Thank you for reading my views. Thank you, Matthew (15/8/2003)
My response,
Thanks Matthew for
taking the time to respond to my comments,
I would like to start by saying that these comments are from my own experience
of the phone and reflect my opinion which seems to be different to your opinion but it doesn't make them stupid.
Having
owned 3 Nokia's before this one makes me naturally want to compare this to a Nokia and whilst the user interface is reasonable it
still is second to Nokia. If you have favourable comments, I would very much appreciate you input.
Specifically on your comments,
The limit of 12 seconds is video is very impractical and the reason I've raised this is because the phone can
handle much larger clips and while the 32 MB are not only for video I have over 50 video clips on it that vary between 30 seconds
and 2 minutes in length so I can't see where degradation in performance comes into this.
Don't know if you've tried taking
a video clip but 12 seconds is way too short and I don't see any of the content video that is downloadable from 3 to be less than 45
seconds.
I realise this is a phone not a camcorder but it is also a video phone and if one can have lengthy video
conversations I can't see why the device can't store clips with reasonable length.
I can understand the reason behind not being able to download ringtunes. My comment there was targeting their support who couldn't give me a straight answer until I got to some specific department who confirmed that tunes downloaded from 3 are protected.
Onto the profiles and I would
like to have multiple profiles say to set the volume high or low depending on the environment one is in. Inside an office you want
the volume to be low but in a shopping centre you want it to be high. Additionally, they didn't put some standard message tones as
you have to pick one of the ring tunes and none of them suit a message signal which is usually a short beep or something similar
(you need to download one if you need that)
Another feature that would have been a good to have is selecting the ringtune
volume at the contact level.
Of the other features of the phone, the Alarm doesn't have a snooze button which is pretty poor by today's standards. Then there is the currency converter, now this is a 3G phone, wouldn't you think they'd have it automatically update the conversion rates whenever one tries to use it ? Or is it just games that the phone goes out to check for a license ?
And what is the use of the Voice Recorder when you cannot listen to the recording unless you create a multimedia message and attach the audio then listen to it via a preview (but if the attachment is longer than 3 seconds you need to increase the slide time because the default is 3 seconds!)
Finally the voice note while making a phone call I tried to record a Voice note and it only recorded the other party !! How useful!
Sure most of the above features aren't call related but why include them if they are not to be used. In this day and age mobile phones are starting to integrate all the features of multiple devices like mp3 players, digital cams and PDA's all into one device and in order to win the people over they have to be easy to use and perform at reasonable levels.
Thanks again for your comments
Dan from the Northern Beaches writes:
"It must have been early days when you experienced the above. I've been on three with both 606 & 808 for a few weeks now and either have not gone thru the above, found a work around or the problems occurred only last nite for a few hrs when there was some network problem. Could be them getting the Frenchs Forest tower operational with the existing one at Clontarf? I don't know.
I find the phones too eager to switch to
2g which is a poor effort by Vodafone in Manly anyway, so I lock it on 3G. So I am on or off (rather than switching) now but am
actually on more often.
On a 606 was unable to get on 3G off 2G this morning (had been roaming there on flaky Vodafone district
for an hour) as a video was waiting in a msg attachment from 50mins earlier (sent from 200 metres away!). I was in 3G area for
10mins. Only solution was to turnoff/on. Not good. I do know that regardless of Three, Vodafone is a problem as when I was on
Vodafone contract could take up to 2 weeks to send sms to Telstra. I believe & know a lot of Three's probs are really
Vodafone.
NB it has been made clear this area is a blackspot for 3G so no complaint there! Its the switching back and the
Vodafone.
The only other long term problem is the 808 in the reading USIM error. They replaced mine with a 606 after brought up the Consumer Affairs act, but I decided I wanted an 808 on another contract later on anyway. Possibly overcome the error by using the contacts in the phone rather than USIM. Haven't had long enuff to try. But they replaced it in a flash when I mentioned the 2 logs with service.
The bottomline is its a good deal. I'm not a heavy user and I like technology and there's something for being there in the early days of technology. The internet stuff doesn't interest me though I've found email immediate." (26/7/2003)