Three, the UK operator, sells 3G contracts but doesn’t tell its customers that it blocks them from accessing the internet. Al Iguana shares the experience:

I got an amazing new phone, a Nokia 6680. Symbian 60, dual camera… you can read reviews of it all over the internet. Superb bit of kit.

My wonder-phone has a flaw. a serious flaw. because I’m on Three. I can’t access the internet. They’ve blocked it. No blog clients. No RSS readers. No Wap. All I can do is visit Three’s website. A Pay website. Want to read the news? Each item costs 50p. The weather? 50p. OUT-FUCKING-RAGEOUS!!!

So I have all this stuff on the phone, Opera, Lifeblog, Yahoo Messenger, and I can’t use it. Whats the point of that??

quote Three:

“Due to a business decision 3 have chosen to promote a great range of products and services available via the 3 browser instead of offering open internet access

Open internet access is something we are currently looking at, however, I can provide you with no definite information at this time.”

Time will tell how long they’ll be around with such “business decisions”. (Thanks to Olli for the link.)

Comments

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Hellonline
August 22nd, 2005 at 12:33 am (#)

Stone-Age Mobile Internet?

Three (A European mobile provider) is a “new type of company” that is “challenging the existing market and its practices.” Apparently they do that by limiting customer’s access and overcharging for branded Internet servic…

Al Iguana
August 22nd, 2005 at 3:18 am (#)

This only applies to Three in the UK though – apparently European Three customers get full internet access. Which begs the question – why block it for UK users? Are we more likely to buy wallpapers and ringtones than our European cousins? Or can’t the UK network cope with a million + Three customers all surfing the net at the same time?
This makes interesting reading:
http://www.3g.co.uk/3GForum/announcement.php?f=476&announcementid=9

Jyri
August 22nd, 2005 at 7:38 am (#)

This sentence from Three’s response is pretty flabbergasting:
“Our current range of services and content ensures that our customers have a consistent and reliable experience, which we believe means they only ever get the best experience.”