Skype Announces Three's X-Series in Ireland before Three
11th of September 2007 by conor
Many of us have been waiting excitedly for the arrival of Three's X-Series in Ireland. The success of their mobile broadband modem here delayed things. I just spotted on the Skype blog that the launch has occurred. Unfortunately no-one seems to have told Three Ireland! The Irish site is devoid of any mention of it on the front page.
Of course I couldn't stop myself taking the the UK URL for X-Series and changing .co.uk to .ie. There in all its glory is everything you need to know.
X-Series Silver is €14.99 per month and X-Series Gold is €19.99 per month. Gold gives you:
- Unlimited Skype to Skype calls
- Unlimited data for internet access
- Unlimited access to Slingbox &/or Orb
For me, the Skype bit is the clincher. But you can also use other VOIP services like Truphone. I think it may be time to wave farewell to Vodafone after all this time.
Comment posted by Bluefrog
at 9/13/2007 10:57:29 AM
An Open Letter to Robert Finnegan – Managing Director of Three
Hi,
I read with interest and not a little anger a piece on techcentral.ie about X-Series in Ireland at http://www.techcentral.ie/small_busie_mobiles/view.
As an X-Series Gold customer I can tell you that I and a number of other customers I have been corresponding with on boards.ie are extremely disappointed with the service.
Having attempted to deal with your customer services representatives in India for the past month without success I am now trying one last time to communicate with Three about these issues before I seek the intervention of third parties. Incidentally, the complaints form on your site gives the impression when submitted that something has gone wrong as one is presented with a 'Page Not Found' message after submission and this situation has persisted since early August despite I and others having brought it to the attention of Three Ireland on numerous occaissions.
In what sense can you make the claim that X-Series or indeed Three Ireland's 'Unlimited' broadband addon provide unlimited access? As I intend to post this correspondence on boards.ie and also send a copy to COMREG I am sure there will be great interest in your response.
Why exactly have third party applications which don't use port 80 been blocked recently and with no notice to existing customers. Is it a cynical move by Three to improve the experience for the very vocal USB modem customers by freeing up extra bandwidth at the expense of mobile broadband addon phone customers? This may be a harsh assessment but what else are customers supposed to think when Three are still actively advertising the USB broadband service on TV knowing that this service still faces huge issues in the area of SMTP, FTP, VPN etc.
The Irish X-Series Orb registration process requires a UK phone number and is therefore unusable by Irish customers as it stands. Even if I could actually register with Orb I would not be optimistic about my chances of being able to use it as every RTSP stream I have connected to seems to drop after a period of 2 to 3 minutes rendering it essentially unusable.
The Skype client which is in fact a rather crippled relation of it's PC cousin doesn't support text messaging and only seems to work in 3G areas. However, a third party application called Fring which integrates a Skype client supports text messaging and can work for voice even over GPRS. I have been in touch with Skype to express my disappointment with the quality of the service they are associating themselves with in their partnership with Three Ireland.
The MSN client also seems to be crippled in terms of the functionality if offers in comparison to the official Microsoft Symbian client with a very reduced feature set. It too only appears to work in 3G areas while once again, Fring would allow access even over GPRS. Since Three have recently blocked Fring that is obviously not an option.
What seems to have emerged from my own investigations is that those on higher data tariffs with Three Ireland have actually less access. How do you explain this?
Is it Three Ireland intention to cripple the services so much that they know customers could never even vaguely approach the limits set in your 'fair usage' policy – a policy I for one have never actually seen.
In addition your customer support staff in India seem ill equipped to provide any more than platitudes when called about service issues.
I would refer you to the following threads on boards.ie which I hope you will find an enlightening read.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showtp?t=2055147970
Comment posted by Bluefrog
at 9/12/2007 4:43:26 PM
Well the promise was exciting unfortunately the reality is rather less so. Port blocking, requiring a UK phone number to register for Orb, Real streams that break after less than 5 minutes and no SMTP have pretty much crippled this service.
For more see
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055147970
and
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055142078
Comment posted by Ken McGuire
at 9/12/2007 7:32:34 AM
This is great news, great timing too as I'm swaying more towards ditching O2 for three after close-on ten years with the same operator. So many more opportunities to tie in web based activities with Three (or so I feel). 20 bucks a month for unlimited skype calls and data access is a good deal.
Comment posted by Conor O’Neill
at 9/12/2007 4:11:49 AM
Three really needs to get its act together here. I'm hearing lots of complaints about their broadband modem compared to the O2 one. I'm stunned that Clon had 3G but we don't. Tourism related?
I think both Bandon and Dungarvan were pretty dire places in the 1970s. As was Kilkenny which a lot of people would find hard to believe. All are top spots now IMHO. But let's not get started on Athlone, Athy and Mullingar 
Comment posted by Paul M. Watson
at 9/12/2007 3:59:31 AM
10 Towns Ireland Could Do Without and Bandon was one. Heard on the Ray Darcy show this morning. He mentioned Dungarvan too, which is bollocks (lovely restaurants there.)
Comment posted by Anthony
at 9/12/2007 3:56:19 AM
Looking at 3's coverage map, it would appear that both Bandon and Timoleague don't get 3G coverage! Clonakilty, yes; Kinsale, yes; but not us! the joys of rural living linger on..
Comment posted by Conor O’Neill
at 9/11/2007 3:41:16 PM
I think I read about people doing that in the UK a few months back. They didn't like the phones available or already had a 3G one. Would make total sense.
Comment posted by Paul M. Watson
at 9/11/2007 3:32:26 PM
Thanks for the link mate, been looking forward to this.
Any idea though if I can just get an X Series SIM? Love to pop it in an iPhone.
Comment posted by Anthony
at 9/11/2007 11:19:39 AM
Thanks for that, Conor. I saw the Skype blog, but like you, got nowhere! But now that you've cracked the code, it seems all good news.