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Comment by maccard | Hacker News Reader

Three [1] exists in both the UK and Ireland, and has an "all you can eat" bundle [2] in Ireland, for €20/month, but their closest deal in the UK is £17.00/month on a 12 month contract. They also provide a "Like Home" service, where your bundles apply outside your home country, so I can use my UK mobile data/text/call allowance in Ireland and Vice versa. Despite not having roaming rates, It's still cheaper for me to use my UK sim here and have a separate one for home, as calling the UK from Ireland or vice versa on a phone incurs costs that aren't part of the standard bundles.

[1] http://www.three.co.uk/ http://www.three.ie/ [2] http://www.three.ie/eshop/sim-only-plans/prepay-sim-only/

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They don't advertise it very well, but for £15 you can buy the "All in one 15" addon which includes:

- 'All-you-can-eat' data (with limits enforced over 100GB [0])

- 300 minutes

- 3000 texts

It includes 4G where available in the UK.

In my experience the 'Feel at home' deal works great when roaming on a Three network abroad (i.e. Ireland, Austria, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Hong Kong), but on their partner networks it is horribly slow (i.e. USA).

[0] - http://support.three.co.uk/SRVS/CGI-BIN/WEBISAPI.DLL?Command...

The Ireland one gives you the "AYCE" data, with free texts and calls (to 3 weekdays, to all moviles weekends), and lets you use the 20 euro credit on top of that.

The free roaming service from Three is called "Feel at home".

The good news is that it can be even cheaper than what you mention, as it is available on pay-as-you-go tariffs as well.

The bad news is that there are some limitations on tethering abroad, and you do need to use your SIM in your home country at least once every 3 months. So it's not quite yet a situation where you can pick any cheap European provider and use them anywhere else in Europe without restrictions.

About tethering restrictions: I would have hoped network neutrality would forbid those as well. Probably not though.

All you can eat isnt all you can eat. It is throttled after 15Gb.

There is no mobile options in Ireland with decent caps. Living here and in a place that has ADSL1 and 4G available I tried finding a plan that would me actually consume media using 3/4G - there is no plan that doesnt throttle after at best 20Gb that I could find.

"Should your data usage exceed 15GB in a 30 day period and your usage affect other network users, we reserve the right to limit your Service."

The contract you mention is also available on a 30 day contract at £20/month. I picked one up this week for my upcoming trip to the states.

Good luck when you decide to cancel it though, Three is a pain in the ass to leave with their hour-long questionnaire and legalese. I really liked their service but it was so annoying to leave I don't think I'll ever use them again. I'm a giffgaff-ian, by the way.

Ive been with giffgaff for a few years now and recruited family and friends to it as well. £10 pm with practically free calls it has been great. But with giffgaff's odd venture into payday loans as well it does not seem like a community driven company any more, hence why I might move to Three's PAYG (as I hate commiting to subscriptions) https://www.giffgaff.com/money/loans

I'm not sure how much community drive there ever was. GiffGaff is a subsidiary of O₂, with some clever marketing.

O₂ would far rather 'lose' customers to Giffgaff than any other budget MVNO.

Interesting, I didn't know giffgaff was actually directly related to O2 besided using their network. Out of curiosity, I tried to find some information on Three and got a little surprise: "In January 2015, Li Ka-shing entered into talks with Telefónica to buy its British mobile division O2 for around $15.4 billion. In March 2015, Li Ka-shing confirmed it will be purchasing Telefónica's UK mobile division for £10.25bn subject to regulatory approval by competition regulator, Ofcom." So it seems Three is going to own both O2 and giffgaff by buying Telefónica?

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutchison_Whampoa#History

The PAYG sim deal is cheaper (15GBP per month for the 'All in One 15' add-on) and works abroad immediately. When looking at their blog it seemed you had to wait for a month to pass for the Feel at Home to actually work.

I found the speeds were horrendous in NY also. But still better than roaming with my actual network provider.

"Feel at home" also works on pay as you go, and you can get a one-off, no commitment allowance that will provide it for as little as £10 (500MB + 300 minutes + 3000 texts, I think).

I've never felt the need to go for a contract in the UK, as PAYG is so cheap on Three.

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