So we’ve designed  Web Cube, and it’s something that we’re really excited about.

The Web Cube’s Wi-Fi signal is powered by our 3G network, so it comes ready-to-go with a mobile broadband SIM card. It’s really easy to set up – just plug it in, turn it on and connect using the name and password supplied in the box. You don’t need a phone line to get going, as long as it’s plugged into the mains and your SIM is inserted, our network will do the rest.

The Web Cube is HSPA+ enabled to the 21.1Mbps technical standard, to deliver typical download speeds of 2-5Mbps, comparable to those of entry-level fixed-line broadband solutions, with the potential to reach a maximum download speed in excess of 10Mbps. Up to five Wi-Fi enabled devices can be connected at any one time, including smartphones, laptops and tablets, and it has a range of up to 30 metres.

Because the Web Cube is brand new to the UK, before we take it nationwide we’ve chosen to launch in a few key cities first. We want to test the market, so we’ve gone to Leeds, Glasgow and Edinburgh, some of our most successful areas for Mobile Broadband, to kick things off.

We hope to be able to roll-out Web Cube nationwide very soon, so if you’re not in Glasgow, Edinburgh or Leeds but you’re still interested, you can register your details online and we’ll be in touch when we have more information.

In the meantime, if you manage to get your hands on one, or if you know someone who has one, we’d love to hear your feedback.

Introducing Broadband in a Box.

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So if you’ve said Hello to Three, whether it was today, last week or over a year ago, or if you plan to in the very near future, join us in bidding a fond farewell to limited internet by tweeting with the hashtag #GoodbyeDataLimits.

We’ll even be giving away a smartphone on Three, or an accessory, every day to one lucky winner who takes part.

Getting involved couldn’t be easier. All you need to do is follow us - @ThreeUK – and say Hello to Three by tweeting #GoodbyeDataLimits before the end of February.

We’ll be picking one random winner every day, and we’ve lined up a whole host of prizes ready waiting to be won. We know that you guys love smartphones, so you could win a HTC Sensation XE or XL, a Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S, Galaxy Nexus or an LG Optimus 3D, all teamed up with a Pay As You Go SIM from Three preloaded with a months worth of all-you-can-eat data paired with loads of texts and minutes. We’ve even got our hands on some of our most popular accessories, including Jabra headphones.

We’ll be keeping track of the number of people that have said #GoodbyeDataLimits with a ticker at the top right hand corner of our blog.

Good luck! And don’t forget to have a peek at our Terms and Conditions too.

Have you said #GoodbyeDataLimits yet?

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First things first, the exterior. One of my favourite things about the Samsung Galaxy S Advance is its gorgeously tactile curved glass design which I think you’re going to love, it looks stunning.

Looks aren’t everything though, right? The hint is in the name but the Galaxy S Advance is a really powerful smartphone too. It comes with a fast 1.0GHz dual core processor which makes the user experience super-quick and smooth.

The Samsung Galaxy S Advance also features a 5 megapixel camera with HD video and playback, which can be enjoyed in vivid colour on the large 4-inch super AMOLED screen.

We can’t say much more at the moment but we’ll keep you posted on its arrival. For now take a look at our latest ‘Sneak Peek’ video and let us know what you think.

Next stop: Mobile World Congress, keep your eyes peeled for our announcements .

Samsung Galaxy S Advance is coming to Three.

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It’s a startling prediction, especially when the meagre text has become so integral to the way that we use our mobiles, but I’m not sure it’s one that we’re ready to accept here at Three.

There’s no doubt about it, data is the future – you only need to look at how much of it our customers’ managed to use over the New Year period. But the rise of BBM, iMessage, Whatsapp and the like haven’t quite spelled the end for traditional SMSing for us yet. Texting is part of a rich choice of communication and not a substitution for something else.

In fact, our research shows that when it comes to choosing a price plan, a decent bundle of texts is still important to customers. And in contrast to the figures included in the New York Times article, we actually saw a 28% rise in the number of SMSs sent on New Year’s Eve – 46 million on 31st December 2011 compared to 36 million the year before.

We’re also seeing a rise in communication from businesses to their customers via text – “your car is ready for collection” and “don’t forget your appointment”.

So as far as we’re concerned, we’re not quite ready to wave goodbye to our 160 character friend just yet. Of course, we recognise the importance and rise in popularity of those new services, and we’ve lead the way by including all-you-can-eat data on our smartphone plans so you never have to worry about the cost, but a text allowance will remain a feature of our plans for as long as our customers tell us they want one.

We’re not saying c u l8er just yet .

Is the world saying c u l8er to texts?

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If you’re a technology news hound, sleep is sure to be off limits for the next four days. At CES, companies from all over the world come together to announce new products and developments – and due to the time difference, if you’re in the UK like me, you’ll need to be up way past your bed-time to be the first to hear the latest news.

As such, even though it’s 2am here (6pm in Sin City) Sony has just announced its very first smartphone since it took full control of Sony Ericsson in 2011 – the Xperia™ S.

With the Xperia™ S it’s all about the HD experience. Its 4.3” Reality Display with Mobile BRAVIA® Engine makes for a brilliant viewing experience, the colours are vivid and displayed in super-fine detail.

My favourite feature is the 12 megapixel camera with Exmor™ R sensor technology, ensuring perfect pictures, even in low light.

In true sneak peek style, we can’t tell you too much yet as we’ve only just got our hands on it ourselves! Take a look at our video in the meantime. We’ll let you know more details when we can.

Sony Xperia™ S is coming to Three.

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Maybe it’s me, but I seemed to notice it even more this year – the friends and family that I spent New Year’s with couldn’t leave their phones alone. From Twitpics of fireworks, to Facebook wall posts wishing people all the best, my nearest and dearest certainly took advantage of being linked in to the wider world through their 3G connections.

And it appears we were on trend. Across the whole of the UK we saw an incredible 600% increase in the smartphone data travelling across our network compared to New Year’s Eve 2010.

On the 31^st December ’10 we recorded a huge 14TBs (terabytes) of data being used on Three. In 2011, that leapt to a staggering 80TBs of data. In real terms, that’s the equivalent of almost 21 million MP3 tracks or roughly 118,000 movies being downloaded onto smartphones in the UK in just 24-hours.

And it didn’t stop there! You continued using data through to New Year’s Day, with 74TBs used compared to 14TBs the year before.

Facebook was one of the most popular services as people rung in the New Year, with a 20% jump in traffic between midnight and 1am.

There’s a lot to look forward to in 2012. I can’t wait to hear your thoughts on the new smartphones that’ll be hitting the market to help you make the most of the apps and internet services that have emerged in 2011 – and all safe in the knowledge that with all-you-can-eat data you can use them as much as you like.

Happy New Year!

Data surges as New Year’s eve celebrations commence.

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The answer to the speed question isn’t a simple one though, and it’s not the same for everyone, so let’s start with a bit of background…

We’re still the only dedicated 3G network in the UK. That means that the technology behind our network is designed for data and internet on the move.

It carries calls and texts too, obviously, but the fact that our network is more capable of carrying larger quantities of data than the older 2G technology, means we’re technically equipped to support more people on our network, doing lots of different things, more of the time.

So what does that mean when it comes to speed? Well, you’ll know from using your own phone that the stronger your signal, the faster and more reliable your mobile connection will be. That bit’s easy.

But it’s not always the quality of the network in your area that dictates the speeds you might see, there are a number of other factors to consider.

Speed is also dependent on how many people are using the network near you – it’s like a motorway. The speed limit might be 70mph, but you mightn’t be able to reach that top speed if the traffic is heavy.

The type of phone that you have is very important too. If you’ve got an old or basic phone you might only be able to expect speeds of up to 2Mbps (which will download a 4Mb music track in less than 20 seconds) even though the network in your area might be capable of much more.

In most locations across the country 21Mbps technology is available with a maximum achievable speed per customer of 16Mbps. That means that overall, due to real life conditions such as obstacles that get in the way like buildings and trees, and with other people using the network in the same area, you can typically expect speeds between 1-4Mbps on Three.

The main thing to note is that the speed of our network will always depend on the conditions in your specific area, so there is no one-size-fits-all answer. But as we constantly invest in improvements, and ready ourselves for the planned spectrum auction later this year, we’re confident that our customers will get a faster internet experience more often and in more places.

If you have a query about the network in your area or would like to know how to get faster download speeds, you can use our tips to improve your phone signal, or check the coverage in your area using our coverage checker.

Also, don’t forget that our @ThreeUKSupport Twitter team is always here to help with any of your queries.

Speed and coverage with Three.

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But before we head off for a well deserved break, we wanted to say a huge thanks to all of you for your support this year.

It’s been a busy and exciting 12-months here at Three. We’ve launched scores of smartphones – from Apple’s fastest-ever selling iPhone, to Nokia’s first ever Windows Phone, and everything in between.

We’ve brought all-you-can-eat data to tens of thousands more contract customers via our new add-on – and opened it up to PAYG customers too. Once again we’ve challenged, changed and led the industry with our innovative offers.

Network-wise, we’ve started the roll-out of HSPA+ to bring faster mobile internet access to the UK and we’re committed to continuing to develop and install new technology whenever we can. As such we’ll be cracking on with our deployment of the HSPA+ 42.2Mbps technical standard next year too.

Next year, though, the big challenge for Three and indeed the whole industry, is to ensure that the long-awaited Spectrum auction goes ahead. This additional Spectrum will be crucial in bringing next generation technology, such as LTE, to British consumers while at the same time improving network coverage across the whole of the UK.

When it comes to social media, our team have done their very best to answer your questions and take on board your feedback wherever we can. We value all your contributions (good and bad), and we really do appreciate the effort many of you go to to tell us what you think, answer our polls and enter our competitions. We hope this comes across in our day-to-day dealings with you.

As it’s Christmas, the team will be taking a short break from the blog, Facebook and @ThreeUK on Twitter, so it may be a little quieter on here than usual.

If you need help, @ThreeUKSupport will be up and running as normal apart from Monday 26^th December and Monday 2^nd January. And of course, our call centre is fully staffed and open for business as usual.

We’ll be back in our usual routine on Tuesday 3^rd January. So until then, have a very merry Christmas and we look forward to hearing from you again in the New Year.

Merry Christmas from everyone at Three.

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As many of you may know, HSPA+ is the next evolution of 3G technology; it’s designed to carry large amounts of information at higher speeds, so in a nutshell, it means faster access to the mobile internet for our customers. By the end of the year we aim to have rolled HSPA+ out on the majority of our 3G network, we aim to fully complete the roll out early next year. Those of you that are using one of our latest Mobile Broadband products or a Samsung Galaxy SII may have already experienced HSPA+, these devices come fitted with a chipset that allows them to use HSPA+ technologies.

Once you’re online, HSPA+ makes browsing, uploading and downloading smoother and faster too. You’ll find huge improvements in viewing photos, downloading attachments and watching online videos.

When it’s fully rolled out on our network we’ll be able to let you know more details. We’re  the UK’s fastest growing mobile network and we were designed for the internet, so we’re really excited to be embarking on this journey. Next stop: LTE trials! I’ll give you an update on that one as soon as I can.

The future of our network.

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That’s exactly how we felt about our old website. We had thousands of pages  – some of which we hadn’t touched for years. Most of you used a tiny handful of our main pages – just like pulling on the same comfy pair of jeans every day. And we had some really amazing products, deals and videos – but it was like we were trying to make it hard for people to find them.

It was time for a clearout. We started back in January, gathering opinions about what we needed to change. You told us our site was cluttered, confusing and hard to get around. There were too many options and you didn’t know where to click. And we agreed.

So we researched some more. It turned out that there were three main things you wanted to do on our site: research, buy and get help. And that’s how we landed on the best way of organising our site, using three simple areas: Discover, Store and Support.

Based on what you’d told us, we knew we desperately had to fix our online support section, so we started work on that first. We sorted out all our help content and got rid of anything that was out of date – you’ll find more on that here.

Then came the store. Our old store was great if you knew what you wanted. But nine times out of ten, you don’t. Our new store design has filters, so you can select all the features that matter to you – and just see the phones and devices that match.

And that’s not all. You can compare plans or phones. Use our plan picker to recommend the best plan for you. Browse our best deals for phones and Mobile Broadband. Our new checkout has a built-in coverage checker. And the layout’s much simpler, so it should feel less confusing.

But we wanted Three.co.uk to be more than just an online shop. We want it to help everyone get the most out of the mobile internet. From featured apps and info on the latest phones to stories, competitions and news from around the web, Discover is the place to go to explore all the great things you can do with your smartphone, dongle or tablet.

We tried some new site designs on for size, and asked you what you thought of them. We made search better. We created more detailed product pages. We tidied our sock drawer.

So that brings us to today. We hope you’ll agree that now we’re more ‘walk-in wardrobe’ than ‘bulging closet’ – and we’ve got you to thank. As always, the changes don’t stop there. Tell us what you think – we’re ready for round two!

Three.co.uk has changed.

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Over the course of 2 hours, we’ll be giving you the chance to win one of 12 flagship smartphones from 2011, fully kitted out with a Three Pay As You Go SIM loaded with £15 credit and all-you-can-eat data. Santa’s got nothing on us!

Taking part is easy. First things first, you need to make sure you’ve got Wednesday 7^th December firmly marked in your diary. We can’t tell you what time the competition will be kicking off, so our advice is to keep an eye on @ThreeUK between the hours of 10am and 4pm. We’ll tweet competition updates and let you know when it’s officially begun.

Our game takes its inspiration from the Pairs game that you might remember from your childhood. We’ll have 52 cards, each with a number on the back and a picture on the front. All you’ll need to do is tweet a combination of two numbers (corresponding to two cards) using the hashtag #ThreePairs, and if the fronts of your cards match, you’ll win a prize! Unless you match a joker of course… you’ll need to watch out for those .

So, here’s an example. If I was playing, my tweet would read something like this: ‘Turn over card 10 and card 51 #ThreePairs.’ If I match my cards with, say, two pictures of Nokia’s Lumia 800, then I win that phone. Simple!

There are a whole host of prizes up for grabs, and we know how much you love your smartphones, so we’ve focused on those. As well as lots of SIM cards, we’ve got Galaxy Nexus smartphones, HTC Sensation XLs with Beats Audio, Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc Ss, Nokia Lumia 800s and last but not least, Samsung Galaxy SIIs and Samsung Galaxy Aces.

We’ll be streaming the whole thing live via Twitcam, and I’ll be on hand to turn over your card combinations as they come flooding in.

If a winning pair is tweeted, it’ll be the first person that tweeted that correct combination according to our Twitter feed that wins. Combinations that are tweeted before the competition has started won’t be counted.

There are 2,652 different possible combinations so you have plenty of chanced to play. And you can enter as many times as you like.

Good luck!

#ThreePairs Twitter competition.

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Just in case you missed it, I can officially confirm that we’ll be ranging the HTC Sensation XE with Beats Audio.

Initially the Sensation XE with Beats Audio didn’t feature in our smartphone portfolio for this year. We believed that the Sensation XE and Sensation XL was an either/or decision, but based on your overwhelming feedback we’ve changed our minds. We’ve decided to sell the XE and the XL.

I know you’ll agree that this is a great addition to our smartphone range. It follows on from the popular HTC Sensation. It has the same great features but with a few new ones too, like the impressive 1.5Ghz dual-core processor which means it’s super quick and easy to navigate your way through.

It’ll be available on Three in December, and we’ll announce more details when we can. In fact, this announcement is so hot off the press that we haven’t even built a Coming Soon page yet. Don’t worry though, it’s definitely coming to Three – we’ll get the page live very soon .

Thanks to everyone who participated in #AskThree, it was great to speak to you all!

HTC Sensation XE is coming to Three.

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Why? Well, put simply, radio spectrum is the lifeblood of a mobile network. It’s the radiowaves that carry your mobile calls, send your texts and connect you to the internet, and as a result, the spectrum up for sale at next year’s auction will be hugely important  in shaping the quality and type of services mobile networks will offer in the future.

Here’s a quick potted history of how spectrum has been distributed in the UK to date.

At the moment, Three only has a licence to use radiowaves in the 2.1Ghz frequency range. This bandwidth was auctioned by the Government in 2000 for mobile network operators to run 3G technology. Together Three, Orange, T-Mobile, O2 and Vodafone paid in excess of £22bn for the right to use it.

Other spectrum exists, of course, and a fair amount was allocated to Vodafone, O2, Orange and T- Mobile in the 1980s and ‘90s when they introduced the UK’s first 2G mobile services.

Vodafone and O2 each have spectrum in the wavelengths around 900Mhz.  Vodafone and O2 also have a small quantity of 1,800Mhz spectrum, while T-Mobile and Orange (now under the combined name Everything Everywhere) have the rights to the rest of the 1,800MHz frequency band.  These mobile operators pay a comparably smaller sum to the Government each year for the rights to use it.

Up until January this year, both the 900Mhz and 1,800Mhz bandwidth could only be used for 2G mobile phone services – i.e. the basic calls and texts.  However in January this year Ofcom, which regulates the telecoms industry on behalf of the Government, decided to permit 3G services on all bandwidths.

They did this without charging the operators with the old legacy 2G spectrum holdings any more money for the advantage, and without redistributing the spectrum as other countries have done to ensure all the mobile networks have access to similar frequencies.

This change is significant, and in our view has created an imbalance in the UK mobile market. Suddenly, at no extra cost to them, four of the five operators have access to masses more spectrum for 3G data use, without the total amount of spectrum being balanced out amongst everyone.

So next year’s auction is important because it presents Ofcom with a unique opportunity to even things up by making two further bands of spectrum available.  These are the 800Mhz bandwidth, currently being used by the analogue TV signal, and spectrum at 2.6Ghz – currently being used for some radar applications.

Naturally, we’re interested in both these frequencies, because they both offer considerable benefits to our customers and the services we can offer.

The lower the frequency the further the mobile signal will travel.  So running 800Mhz on Three’s network of almost 13,000 base stations would enhance our current network coverage across the UK.

Meanwhile the higher 2.6Ghz frequency spectrum is great at carrying larger quantities of data – so again, add some of that to our network and the speed and capacity we can offer customers will soar – great news for smartphone users and those relying on our Mobile Broadband service to access the web.

Ultimately, of course, we also want the spectrum to ensure we can continue to lead the mobile internet revolution and bring to the market the kind of next generation technologies customers in other countries are already beginning to see – such as LTE or 4G.

Three’s focus has always been on opening up the advantages of smartphones and Mobile Broadband to as many people as possible – whether through pricing, coverage or convenience.  For us, getting access to more spectrum, and pushing for next year’s auction not to be delayed unnecessarily, is about levelling the playing field and continuing with our ambition to help people discover those simple, new and exciting everyday things that make mobile so valuable to everyone.

Spectrum update.

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You can catch us on Friday afternoon over on our @ThreeUK Twitter account.

It’s been a really pivotal year for the industry as far as hardware is concerned. We’ve seen a huge shift from the plastic 2G feature phones of the ‘90s, to the high-spec, high-speed smartphones we know today.

We’ve seen some impressive launches, from the Galaxy Nexus to the iPhone 4S, and right the way through to Nokia’s first Windows phone, the Lumia 800. The battle for supremacy between Android, Windows and Apple is getting ever fiercer.

With access to faster network technology inching closer all the time, and new and innovative services like Near Field Communication (NFC) heading our way, owning a smartphone has never been so full of possibilities.

If you’ve read any of Phil Sheppard’s most recent post you’ll know how important data is to Three, and we’re supporting this by making sure our phone range is packed full of the latest and greatest devices from the world’s best known manufacturers. In fact, 90% of the phones in our handset portfolio are now smartphones.

So, on Friday 25^th November between 12.30 and 2.30 my team and I – that’s me, Sylvia, plus Brendan, Tom and Andy – will be taking over the @ThreeUK account. Whether you want to know what 2012 has in store, or if you’re angling for the latest news about a software update – we’ll be ready and waiting with the answers.

To ask us a question, simply pop it into a tweet along with the hashtag #AskThree. You can follow the conversation through Twebevent here, or by setting up a search column for #AskThree on Tweetdeck or Hootsuite.

Looking forward to talking to you on the 25^th – I can’t wait !

#AskThree about smartphones.

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So, to indulge the numbers geek within all of us, I thought I’d share some of the other truly staggering facts and figures that we’ve come across lately.

With data accounting for an amazing 97% of the traffic carried on our network, we’ve had a dig around to work out what is it that you’re doing online on your mobiles to rack up such an impressive figure.

And I’m sure that it’ll come as no surprise to you that Facebook comes pretty high up the list. Every month, you guys view 1.24 billion Facebook pages!

About 137 terabytes of data pass across our network every day. That’s a giant figure that accounts for 40% of all of the UK’s mobile data traffic combined – roughly the equivalent of 35.8 million iTunes tracks being downloaded on a daily basis.

Bringing things down to a more local level, the amount of data used on our network within the M25 alone during the month of October could be used to download 360 million iTunes tracks. That’s 36 million albums worth of music.

Sounds like a lot, right? It is. If those albums were on CD and were laid down flat side by side, they’d stretch from the West Coast of China to the East Coast – that’s 3,000 miles!

At Three, we’re the biggest advocates of how using a smartphone can enhance your everyday lives, and I’m thrilled to say that we’re clearly not the only ones that think it. 60% of Three customers are now smartphone users, and we expect this number to rise to at least 90% over the coming year when many of our customers upgrade to the latest smartphones. This is brilliant, especially when you consider that last year only 30% of our customers used a smartphone to keep in touch and stay connected.

Couple this with all-you-can-eat data, now available on loads of our smartphone plans, and access to mobile data has never been easier. It’s our aim to make sure our customers have access to all the internet they’ll ever need, and as more and more of you choose a smartphone as your primary gadget, those already staggering numbers can only go one way – up .

Data, data, everywhere.

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This is an issue we’ve been concerned about for some time and with all the recent media interest, we’ve been on the BBC telling our story about all-you-can-eat data.

In July of last year we called time on any offer that we had called ‘unlimited’ that wasn’t genuinely unlimited.

We had started applying the term to limited deals because the rest of the industry had adopted it and we were being drawn into competing with their ‘unlimited’ offers. Following the rest of the industry was the easy thing to do, but it was the wrong decision.

Six-months later we introduced a truly unlimited data plan with all-you-can-eat data for internet use on smartphones which, as our adverts say, is ‘all the internet you’ll ever need’. It’s called The One Plan. It’s our biggest selling contract. Since then we’ve extended all-you-can-eat data to Pay As You Go and our other smartphone contracts.

It’s based on some simple customer insight: people like using the internet on their phones, find it difficult to measure how much data they use and don’t want to worry about an unexpected bill.

It’s the simplest route we’ve found to offering customers peace of mind on their smartphones.

The problem with the word ‘unlimited’ is that it has been devalued by telecoms companies. Amazingly some have even offered three different sized ‘unlimited’ plans. Confused? We’re not surprised.

That’s why we’ve argued that networks should not be allowed a free pass to use the word unless they mean it. Unfortunately, other operators lobbied the advertising watchdog to prevent this happening so current advertising regulation still permits the use of ‘unlimited’ if the bundle it applies to covers the use of ‘typical’ users.

Meanwhile, the Ombudsman makes a timely point: ‘As our technology develops the ‘typical user’ is downloading and streaming more and more information. This is an emerging problem which we think could cause real consumer detriment.’

We agree. A typical smartphone user signs a contract for two years. Over that time they will use more and more data as they make the most of their smartphones. Small bundles and limits soon equal out-of-bundle charges.

That’s why for people that want both peace of mind and to make the most of their smartphones, we think the only way is truly unlimited data, what we call all-you-can eat.

Communications Ombudsman says check the smallprint on ‘Unlimited’.

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With the ZTE MF10 you’ll be able to use your current dongle as a Wi-Fi hotspot, this way you’ll be able to share your 3G connection via Wi-Fi at home, (just like our MiFi but for people who already have a USB dongle) you’ll be able to connect up to five devices at one time. It also comes with an Ethernet socket which allows the adapter to be used as a router for wired connections.

The Mobile Broadband Wi-Fi hub is compatible with almost all USB dongles, even our recently launched Premium Dongle which is HSPA+ compatible, offering up to 40% faster browsing. HSPA+ is still being rolled out – we can’t confirm where it’s available at the moment as the work’s not complete but we’re aiming to have 80% of our network upgraded to HSPA+ by the end of this year. It’s great to see that some of you are already experiencing faster speeds as we’ve had lots of people posting impressive speeds on Twitter and on here with our HSPA+ range of dongles and new MiFi.

The great thing about this device is that it allows you to be more flexible with your existing dongle. With Christmas just around the corner, this is definitely a gadget for the Santa list!

Mobile Broadband Wi-Fi hub is coming to Three.

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Guardian iPad app
Even if the Guardian isn’t your paper of choice, its new iPad app may well persuade you to make it your primary news source. It looks stunning, and is so easy to find your way around. It’s easy to let hours slip by as you browse between all the content. You can’t yet alter the text size, and it’s noticeably jerky at times, though. There’s an initial free trial, after which it costs £9.99 a month.
Price: Free trial
Platform: iPad

zeebox
Anthony Rose, the tech brains behind BBC iPlayer’s huge success, is back and this is the result of his past year’s work – and it’s very good. Building on the “even rubbish TV is good TV if people are tweeting about it” premise, Zeebox is a social TV app that feels like it should have been invented already. Like a cross between an electronic programme guide, instant messenger and Foursquare, it lets you check in to programmes and interact in real time with what you’re watching and who’s watching it.
Price: Free
Platform: iPad

Find My Friends
It’s a case of catch-up for Apple, having aped Android’s Google Latitude and slapped on a lick of paint. Send requests to friends to track them constantly (creepy) or – unlike Latitude – only for a set time. Just keep an eye on data allowance and battery levels when you’re out and about.
Price: Free
Platform: iPhone

Catch Notes
For your phone to truly become a second PC, it has to be able to do things that you would have otherwise have to turn a laptop on for. This is one of the bonuses about Catch Notes – it is an app that allows you to take notes on the go, without turning a PC on. It is the perfect use for your smartphone, as it allows you to add snippets of information to the app in a number of ways.
Price: Free
Platform: Android

Fat Booth
One of the most popular apps for the iPhone when it was released, which kind of says something about what we actually do with our mobile devices Fat Booth basically shows you what you (or your friends and family) would look like if you only dined on MacDonalds.
Price: Free
Platform: Android

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So, Father Christmas has come to Three a little early this year and we’re excited to announce that we’ve got three Galaxy Nexus smartphones to give away!

I doubt we need to remind you, but the Galaxy Nexus comes with some amazing new features courtesy of the latest version of the Android platform, Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0). And if you win, we’ll of course make sure that your phone is fully kitted out with a Three Pay As You Go SIM loaded with £15 credit and all-you-can-eat data.

For your chance to win, just leave us a comment underneath this post with your answer to the following question:

How will the Galaxy Nexus make your life smarter?

You’ve got until 17^th November to enter, and we’ll be judging you on your creativity and originality so don’t hold back, we’ll be publishing all answers so make sure yours is one to be proud of! If you’re one of our lucky winners we’ll drop you an email, so keep an eye on your inbox on the 18^th November.

Good luck.

Competition: Win a Galaxy Nexus.

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This is such a large day for Nokia – it’s outstanding to be hither and be part of this unexampled chapter. The Lumia 800 genuinely takes their smartphone portfolio to the next level, and it’s an exciting nod to the kind of devices we’ll glimpse coming from them in the future. People are packed into this venue and there are smiles all circular. It’s dependable to tell that no one hither seems disappointed.

The Lumia 800 comes on Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango), the late version of Windows Phone. It’s super speedy with crystal clear graphics due to its 3.7 inch  OLED  curved glass screen – a really beautiful touch and something I’ve never seen on a smartphone before.

We’re happy to announce that we’re now taking pre-orders for the Lumia 800, you can do this by calling 0800 358 3208 or by heading into your local 3Store.

We’ve managed to get our hand on the phone to bring you a quick sneak peek video too.

Nokia Lumia 800 is coming to Three.

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