Three.ie: underhand practices...

Time to blow off some steam regarding the network provider, Three.  These guys supply both my broadband and my mobile needs.  Last month, I renewed my Broadband contract with them for another 18 months, the carrot being the upgrade of my modem/router to the Huawei B525 for only €49.  During this process, an additional €1.56 was mysteriously added to my forthcoming monthly bill, for "Data" used that was outside of my monthly allowance, so I queried them about it via their online 'Chat' service.

The person I spoke to couldn't explain where it came from, as I hadn't exceeded my monthly allowance, and told me not to worry about it, it would be taken care of.  Fast forward a few weeks to when my bill was issued - the additional €1.56 was still there!  As my direct-debit payment had yet to come into effect, on point of principle, I get onto Three again via Chat, to get this corrected, wasting almost 20 minutes this time, for a lousy €1.56.  Again, I was assured that this would be corrected.  Having just checked, the direct-debit went through and included the €1.56.

But whinging over €1.56 is not the purpose of this post.  As I mentioned, they are also my mobile provider.  About 2 months ago, I broke the LCD of my trusty but ancient Samsung D-500 mobile phone.  As buying a new phone was cheaper than the cost of replacing the LCD, I went for, on Amazon, the cheapest phone I could find, a Awow 1802C.  Mistake.  This is an awful phone - almost no internal memory (making a memory-card essential), terrible Bluetooth audio, terrible radio reception, terrible camera and buggy firmware, where if an Alarm-alert is issued, it is often without sound, seemingly arbitrarily.  But getting to know all this took time, more than the two weeks grace-period you get from Amazon before they will no longer accept returns.  So I was stuck with it, but as I don't use a mobile much anyway, I figured I could live with it - alarm problem excepted; I've been late to work more than once because of this!

Until today anyway.  I have 'topped-up'  my credit twice since buying this.  First time around, I was mystified as to how my credit had gotten used up so quickly, but as I needed to make a call, topped up online again.  Today, I get a text from Three alerting me to the fact that my credit had all been used up - despite my having made just one single call of just 30 seconds since my last top-up.

So I contact Three today, again via Chat, and learned that this shitty Awow phone has been sending "data" without my knowledge, and Three has been only too happy to charge me for the service!  My old phone, with the same sim-card, never pulled a stunt like this in the decade that I had it.  But I think I was more pissed off to learn that the data packets that were being sent/recieved were only 0.2kB in size, about 10 in total, and for each, Three charged me €2!!!  That's just criminal.  I also learned that the €2 actually covers up to 200MB of data, all of which must be used on the same day - but not much use with a phone that has no memory, no web-browser, and when you don't even know that you're being charged 'data-rates' to begin with!  And as a "Valued Customer" - the term the Three Rep. I contacted, used several times today! - Three sure as hell wasn't going to tip me off about it either.  Ironically, in my effort to save money, Three has ended up ripping me off for more than the new phone has cost me.  Heavy sigh.

But that's nothing compared to the scam they appear to have going with "Third-party Services" - or at the very least, 'aiding & abetting' these con-men.  About two years ago, I had €95 worth of credit stolen from the same card-account, and all with Three's blessing!!!  The organisation in question was called Prizevault, who somehow got hold of my mobile number and were charging me to be entered into weekly 'prize-draws' - all without ever having sent me a single email or text message apprising me of the fact.  And they continued to do so until all of my credit had been used up!  When I realised what had happened I immediately contacted Three, only to be told in no uncertain terms that as it was a "Third-party", the Three network was not liable! The Three Rep. I spoke to seemed genuinely sympathetic, even admitting that she (therefore, Three) was well aware that it was going on, and advised me to contact the Network Regulator here.  This I did, and within about two weeks, received a cheque for €95 from Prizevault, but without explanation or admission of any wrong-doing on their part.

The fact though that Three allows these kind of scams to proliferate on their own networks speaks volumes about where their interests lie.  It's also the reason I felt queasy today being labelled a "valued customer", when their above actions would suggest the exact opposite.

Huawei B525 4G Router/modem - mini-review...

I've  been using the Huawei B525 for almost a month now, so I thought I'd post a 'first-impressions' review of it here.

First off, I consider this one ugly design.  I thought so before I got it, and one month down the road,  that opinion hasn't changed - I mean, what was Huawei thinking!  Having only two control buttons, these extend across the entire top of the case, even though in use, you must press near the centre to get them to 'click' - another horrible design decision imo.

But that's about its only negative.  Performance-wise, it is impressive, particularly when compared to the Huawei E5220.  Although I mentioned in a previous post that due to the poor reception in my neck of the woods, I would be buying an external antenna, so far this seems unnecessary.  The two (ugly) chunky rabbits-ears antennas that it comes with appear more than adequate for now.  Usually, the five-bar signal strength LED's on the unit show between 2 - 3 bars, when the router is placed right next to the window.  The E5220 on the other hand would get 1 - 2 bars, as seen from the browser - the unit itself had only a red-orange-green LED to indicate signal strength.  So, at least for now, spending €20-€25 on an antenna seems an unnecessary extravagance.

Although I've been using dual-band wireless cards for years, this is the first dual-band router that I've owned, so wasn't sure of the setup.  For instance, I wasn't expecting that two WiFi network signals would be available - I figured I'd still have a single network, through which the router would multiplex the 2.4 & 5Ghz bands.  Apparently not!  In fact, both networks cannot be selected simultaneously, either with Windows or Linux, which I find decidedly odd!  Used in conjunction with Intel 7260-AC wireless cards, this is precisely how I thought it would operate - both bands used simultaneously, to achieve bit-rates in the order of 700-800Mb/s.  So yeah, right now, I'm confused. 

[3 years down the road, I've just noticed that the dual-networks displayed, has mysteriously disappeared, now with just a single network present.  Also, now under the 'WiFi Basic Settings' for the B525, sub-option '5Ghz preferred', there is the explanation, "The 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz signals are combined and displayed as one. The faster 5 GHz network is preferred when their signal strength is equal. Turn off this switch to use them separately."  Apparently the B525 has auto-updated its firmware in the not too distant past.  This single-network makes a lot more sense.  Under Linux's  Network Manager->Connection Information, I've seen the 'Speed:' indication showing figures in the 500-625Mbps range (with a Intel 7260-AC wireless card) - which is another first!].

But impressed!  Even using single-bands, my local network transfer-rates have gone from 1.4MB/s to 8-9MB/s.  Surprisingly, even with the limited testing that I've done, transfer rates on the 5Ghz band are only marginally faster than rates on the 2.4Ghz band - I was expecting wonderous things from the 5Ghz band!  Moreover, while faster, the 5Ghz band seems hardly usable when using it to stream video, even at bitrates as low as 200KB/s - the video stuttering every couple of minutes.  Switching to the 2.4Ghz band, the stuttering stops.  Although the 8-9MB/s is typical, often it can be as low as 5MB/s, rising momentarily to between 12-14MB/s - impressive!

Internet-wise, things are equally impressive.  My download speed has gone from a once-in-a-blue-moon high of 1MB/s (average-high normally being 700kB/s) to a usual download rate of 1.5MB/s.  Testing online often sees speeds of 14-16Mb/s, which blows away my ISP's average of 7Mb/s, and just tops the national average here.  Upload speeds are equally impressive, being at least 2 - 4 times my old average.  I downloaded an ISO via torrent just after getting it, and the download speed never dropped below 2MB/s. Unheard-of performance for me, and kinda scary - those speeds could eat through my 60GB monthly allowance in no time, and the out-of-allowance transfer charges here are just crazy.  So yeah, I'm fairly happy with the performance. :)

The Huawei's firmware is also a lot better than that of the E5220, allowing much greater configurability.  You can for example, assign your computer a particular IP address by locking its network card's MAC to that address, something not possible with the E5220. Yikes!  Having just tried this, I find I was mistaken.  Shame, I found this option really useful with my old TP-Link router, its updated firmware being sourced from the OpenWrt project.  So, firmware-wise, maybe not much better than the E5220, pity.

One wrinkle that's become apparent is that the Linux wireless is performing under-par.  This involves the 7260-AC wireless cards, not the Huawei B525.  Within a day or so, the network in operation will fail, either disconnecting completely or becoming unresponsive.  I then have to switch to the other network (2.4Ghz or 5Ghz).  I've left Win7 running for days on my other PC and have never witnessed a dropped network, so the problem seems to be down to the Linux drivers that I'm using.  But I think I'll save that for another post.

Overall, cosmetics excepted, I'm very happy with the Huawei B525's performance.

Edit:

I've been playing with my old TP-Link modem's upgraded OpenWrt firmware, and I gotta say that in retrospect, the Huawei B525 firmware really is garbage in comparison, feature-wise at least.  I've only just realised that you cannot even set the TX power levels with this junk - that really is the pits!

I was warned recently about the dangers of emitted RF from these devices, by someone that is adversely effected by it.  My immediate response was "Why don't you just turn down the TX power that's being emitted!"  My first router had the option, the TP-Link had the option, the OpenWrt firmware has the option (on the devices it supports) - and all the time I presumed that all of the three Huawei modem/routers that I've owned had the option - they don't!  That's perverse.

The B525's user-interface (again, in retrospect) seems particularly condescending in what features it allows the user access to.  And this 'dumbed-down' approach appears a recurring theme as far as Huawei is concerned.  I've just spent the last 30+ minutes searching the Web for information on this and all I'm being presented with is Huawei articles with the word "Basic" as part of their titles - does Huawei think that all of its customers are capable of understanding only the most rudimentary of information on the devices they've purchased?

As someone who hasn't had any health problems because of Wifi, it doesn't effect me, but having spoken to someone that is adversely effected by it, you would think that Huawei would be covering their arses from a class-action lawsuit by at least providing effected users of their equipment with a means of mitigating the problem?  I would have thought that the 'ambulance-chaser' side of the legal profession would have been all over this by now.

Time I started thinking of getting a new non-Huawei modem, and maybe even a new ISP.  Three have within the last six months upgraded their 4G network here, so that I now have gone from having a 1-bar signal strength, to a constant 4-bars - on the face of it, great!  What sucks is the service they're providing.  From 2-6am in the morning, I can get a blistering-fast (for here) 15-18mbps download speed, but during normal waking hours the speed rarely goes above 1.5mbps - the 'contention-ratio' Three are employing must be huge!  Those 'normal' speeds are pathetic.