# Three go binge



## Mr and Mrs Tupcox (Jan 15, 2020)

Well We Tried our 3 go Binge last night in France to watch Netflix .
And it used no data.


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## Sharpie (Jan 15, 2020)

That is interesting. 

I understood that outwith the UK it still counts towards the fair usage cap of 20Gbyte/month in the EU. Except that you can't actually find out how much bingeing you have done via. any method that I know of. It doesn't show up on the app, nor by checking on 333 or logging in. So you will have used no data as far as you can tell. But Three do know.

It might be that your session did not use 20 Gbytes so you still have some fair use data left. Or, hopefully, Three have relaxed this policy and all is good.

The current price guide is at http://www.three.co.uk/termspdf/AdvancedPriceGuide_W50_2019.pdf

It is not explicit about this, other than to say

_"Go Binge is available for use within the UK and our Go Roam destinations (a fair use policy may apply – see Three.co.uk/go-roam) "_

Also this: There is a "small surcharge" of 0.3p/megabyte once you exceed 20 Gbytes fair usage which amounts to £3/gigabyte. Three will protect you by cutting you off if this amounts to more than about £48 in a monthly billing period, so that's about an extra 16 Gbytes that you could have before making other arrangements with them, paying for a data boost etc..

I have always understood (and have experienced myself) that Go Binge was essentially only an unlimited service in the UK. But when roaming data caps still apply, it comes out of your data allowance, so it is of no benefit. It would be nice if this has changed.

Please keep on bingeing and let us know what happens.


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## Fisherman (Jan 15, 2020)

Mr and Mrs Tupcox said:


> Well We Tried our 3 go Binge last night in France to watch Netflix .
> And it used no data.



Be very careful, I have been with 3 for years now, and I have unlimited data. But it clearly states only 19gb outside the UK. I would contact 3 and check that you can use it abroad unlimited. You don’t want to come back to a bill, and HD tv uses 2gb an hour.


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## Sharpie (Jan 15, 2020)

I've been with Three since 2009. Unlimited everything.

It was then called "the one plan" and has served me well enough, getting better and better as they have grown their network..

However you do not get unlimited data abroad AFAIK on any of their Advanced plans, I still don't think that Go Binge works abroad, I still think that it comes out of your data allowance there, but would like to hear otherwise if they have changed their policy.

The unlimited calls and texts, 12 Gb data.is a reasonable offer  for many and should be £10/month on a long contract. 24 months commitment last time I looked. That does get you Go Binge so is a good deal for bingers (I'm not one).

Whereas you could have all that but 30 Gbyte/month for £10 on a rolling one month contract from Smarty. Who are owned by Three and use the same network. Sort of a skunkworks to try out different ideas without diluting the main brand. If your wife is still within the cooling off period it might be worth a look. That would at least give you 20 Gbytes when abroad, as opposed to 12, and no long term contract commitment, a lot might change  by then.

No, it doesn't include Go Roam and Go Binge, which are gimmicks as far as I am concerned. I have unlimited data anyway, so Go Binge is irrelevant to me. EU roaming is the same on all networks, for the time being, it should work just as when in the UK, but with a fair usage cap on data.

If travelling outside the EU the Three international roaming is useful, but also limited, study the fine print and you'll find you get about 50 hours of voice, plenty of SMS and 12 Gbyte of data. A relative who has business in Indonesia depends on it. For him £10/month is an absolute bargain.



.


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## Mr and Mrs Tupcox (Jan 15, 2020)

We are going to keep an eye on usage... But my understanding when we took out contract was as long as there is some of normal data left we can use go binge unlimited for Netflix and I specifically asked about using abroad and they said it's included ... I have a  cap on so cannot incur any extra charges... We will see if they enforce the fair usage policy which is 19gb for three... But remember it is not for anything else... go binge is for Netflix and a couple of other services which we don't use... it's not for ordinary tv etc....


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## 2cv (Jan 15, 2020)

Go Roam is excellent for the USA, good connections and an ip address that makes you appear to be in London watch uk tv such as i player (up to 12gb).


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## Sharpie (Jan 15, 2020)

Indeed Go Roam International is excellent. At the moment it doesn't matter within the EU, because that is included automatically on all networks, it's the law. I no longer travel extensively outside the EU, but it would be there if I needed it.

I am interested if Go Binge is really unlimited within the EU. It certainly wasn't last time I was there, nor is it for my relative currently working in France, who uses Netflix. He pretty soon lost his Three data after a few days of bingeing. Only last month. Back on again now that his billing date has rolled over.

Yes it is very useful that Three data terminates at a UK ip, but perhaps that's better not discussed openly.

I have it anyway but have never understood the point, for me. But if it now really does work unlimited in the EU then I might just subscribe again to Netflix and binge away, preserving my 20 gigs for other things. Very interested to hear if anything has changed.


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## Fisherman (Jan 15, 2020)

***** said:


> Incidentally, when Kath signed up to 3 the other day, I found better lower  prices than their main web site.
> I clicked into Switching to Three and followed a few links and sometimes a pop up appeared with only three different sim only deals and all were lower prices than the main site.
> eg Kath only went for a 12 gb deal and it was £10 per month for 12 months
> On the main website  they offer the very same deal 12 GB for 24 month at £13 and over 12 month at £16
> ...



***** for £10 a month for 6 months, then £20 a month for another 6 months (£15 a month) you could have got unlimited data.
Also do it through Quidco and you get money back.
Phill did an excellent video on here, its with looking at *****.





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## Sharpie (Jan 15, 2020)

VOXI (owned by Vodafone, not an MVNO) are doing much the same as Smarty (Three, not an MVNO either), and trying out things. Every few weeks something a little different, with a twist. It is hard to keep up.

I daresay they are run as separate businesses because to do otherwise might be iffy.

Fundamentally it seems that voice and texts are free, as is data if the network has the capacity. You pay your money for the service. Once you go roaming it depends on their arrangements with the other networks. If they also own them, as Three (well CK Hutchison Holdings) does in many territories then they can do what they please. You may however find that you are limited to using the roaming partners with whom they have a relationship. Certainly with Three there have been occasions when there were other networks available but not allowed, which isn't supposed to happen, at least not in the EU.


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## Moped (Jan 15, 2020)

You do not get go binge when roaming. Its use does not show up on your data but it does come out of your 19GB allowance. I got caught out once on first use abroad when I started getting charged for data even though only about 6GB of use was showing. This was when 3 offered 15GB of data before the increase to 19GB. Remember you only get go binge when using standard definition streaming when in the UK. Make sure you have changed your Netflix settings to this else you will burn through the data allowance in no time!


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## Sharpie (Jan 16, 2020)

Moped said:


> You do not get go binge when roaming. Its use does not show up on your data but it does come out of your 19GB allowance. I got caught out once on first use abroad when I started getting charged for data even though only about 6GB of use was showing. This was when 3 offered 15GB of data before the increase to 19GB. Remember you only get go binge when using standard definition streaming when in the UK. Make sure you have changed your Netflix settings to this else you will burn through the data allowance in no time!



That corresponds with my understanding, my experience, and that of my brother.

Go Binge is a UK only service, despite what might be implied otherwise. Three will disable it for you if you ask them, so that when roaming you can monitor your data usage properly. Otherwise your Netflix etc. use is invisible to you. Until you get a surprise when you quickly run out of data.

As I have unlimited data anyway it is irrelevant to me.

It is an attractive offer for e.g those with a £10 12 Gbyte contract, using it in the UK.

It does not work abroad.

Thanks for mentioning the limitation to SD only.

Three "fair usage" is currently 20 Gbytes in Europe, 12 Gbytes in international Go Roam places.

Some other stuff to be aware of, all in the current price plan that I gave a link to earlier.

This one: http://www.three.co.uk/termspdf/AdvancedPriceGuide_W50_2019.pdf

NB: semantics. Three use the word "may" which sounds comforting, maybe it is discretionary, maybe they might, maybe not ? Actually they mean "will". May as in are allowed to, and will do so. Substitute "will" for "may" to be clear.

Read their statement _"Go Binge is available for use within the UK and our Go Roam destinations (a fair use policy may apply"_ bearing that in mind.

_"To ensure all customers can benefit from Go Roam in Europe with roaming at no extra cost, we reserve the right to apply a surcharge in case of abusive use. In order to help us detect possible abuse of Go Roam in Europe, we may monitor your usage and presence. We’ll look at the balance of your roaming and domestic (UK) activity over four months: if you spend the majority of your time abroad and consume more abroad than at home over the four months, we have the right to add a small surcharge to your usage. This surcharge will be capped at a maximum of 3p/min, 1p/SMS and 0.3p/MB. We will cease to apply this surcharge as soon as our data usage and presence monitoring no longer indicates a risk of abuse or anomalous use of Go Roam in Europe roaming. Before this surcharge is applied, we’ll send you an alert message two weeks in advance, giving you an opportunity to modify your roaming behaviour. In the absence of a change we may apply a surcharge for any further roaming use. Any surcharge will cease to be applied when our Go Roam in Europe monitoring indicates that the majority of your time or usage is spent in the UK"_

And:

_" If you’re roaming in one of our Go Roam Around the World destinations you can use a portion of these allowances each month. For example, with unlimited data, you can use up to 12GB each month to get online; with unlimited texts you can send up to 5,000 texts back to the UK each month from a Go Roam destination; and if you have 3,000 or more minutes included in your allowance, you can talk for up to 3,000 minutes on calls back to the UK each month. If you exceed your 12GB monthly data allowance, your data usage may be blocked in our Go Roam destinations until your next billing period. If you exceed any of these allowances for any two months within a rolling 12-month period we have the right to suspend International Roaming on your account, meaning you will no longer be able to use your device or allowance abroad. Of course, we will let you know in advance if this is likely to happen."_

Basically you can roam in Europe for two months, provided you have been back in the UK for the other two months of the four month (rolling ?) monitoring period. Using up to 20 Gbytes within each monthly billing period, depending on your allowance. And used it more at home than when abroad. Otherwise you may/will be surcharged for everything on top.

Just as you can roam internationally for two months out of twelve. Or maybe more if you are careful not to use up any of your allowances in any month.

That is my understanding anyway, I stand to be corrected if I have got anything wrong.


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## Sharpie (Jan 16, 2020)

It is simple enough to understand. When in the UK you get to use only one of the four networks. You make your choice when you choose who to sign up with.

That network has full control over it's costs and owns all the infrastructure.

Once you go roaming your home network does have to pay the foreign network for your usage. In the EU this has been regulated so that this should be invisible to you, within limitations. Fair usage, spend more time at home than abroad, surcharges if excessive use etc. They have to do this, it would be financial suicide otherwise.

Outwith the EU this is not regulated, it is down to your home network to do whatever deal they can, in Three's case they appear to have made arrangements in various countries that allow them to offer limited transparent roaming with certain networks.

However all of this costs them. I suspect that overall roaming use is a rather small proportion of their customer base, and heavy roamers are being subsidised by the rest. But there are limits to their tolerance and "abusers" as Three call them will be cracked down on.

When roaming we have a great advantage over locals, locked to their own home network. In theory we can use any available network. However in practice I have found this not to always be true, Three for example appear to have favoured roaming partners, trying to use a different one doesn't always work. Manual network selection may show good options but prove impossible to actually connect to.

I live on the south coast in a region where sometimes I can actually use a French signal where no Three coverage exists. Long ago that could be very expensive, only finding out later that I had been roaming. In the EU this used to be a nightmare for locals living near borders who could find themselves inadvertantly roaming onto a neighbouring country's network and paying the very high roaming charges. Hence the EU legislation which was bitterly resisted by the industry, roaming was then very profitable for them.

Thankfully those days are gone, for the time being. Whether UK people will continue to have the same roaming privileges in the EU looking forward I do not know.

Anyway, back on topic, I do not believe that "Go Binge" works anywhere except in the UK, Elsewhere it will come out of your roaming data. Except that you can't see it happening, unless you ask for it to be disabled. 

Again, I stand to be corrected and pleasantly surprised.


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## Wooie1958 (Jan 17, 2020)

***** said:


> Incidentally, when Kath signed up to 3 the other day, I found better lower  prices than their main web site.
> I clicked into Switching to Three and followed a few links and sometimes a pop up appeared with only three different sim only deals and all were lower prices than the main site.
> eg Kath only went for a 12 gb deal and it was £10 per month for 12 months
> On the main website  they offer the very same deal 12 GB for 24 month at £13 and over 12 month at £16
> ...




It`s here but is time sensitive       https://store.three.co.uk/view/content/mbasket?ID=1666&ty=aff&link_id=lc&link_ref=news&aff_id=337


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## Wooie1958 (Jan 17, 2020)

Just tried going back to the link and it`s gone     ☹


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## Sharpie (Jan 17, 2020)

***** said:


> That was exactly what I found. I know it is or was time sensitive and I know sometimes the link is there and sometimes not
> Anyway, I did get the deal for Kath and she is happy with it


It is a good deal and I'm sure she will be pleased, just don't expect Go Binge to keep on working when roaming. Which is where we started. Is it still working ?

Otherwise there is e.g. Smarty. Owned by Three, using the Three network, no lock in to a 12 or 24 month contract, and for say £10/month you get 30 gigs of data, not 12.

As of now a 30 gig contract on Three would cost £18 with a 24 month commitment. That's £192 more expensive.

The Three 12 gig plan is now back up to £13 for a 24 month contract.

The only differentiation is that you don't get the international Go Roam nor the Go Binge when in the UK. EU roaming is just the same, as with any network, it's regulated. Fair usage in the EU is the same, 20 gigs.

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## Mr and Mrs Tupcox (Jan 18, 2020)

Sharpie said:


> It is a good deal and I'm sure she will be pleased, just don't expect Go Binge to keep on working when roaming. Which is where we started. Is it still working ?
> 
> Otherwise there is e.g. Smarty. Owned by Three, using the Three network, no lock in to a 12 or 24 month contract, and for say £10/month you get 30 gigs of data, not 12.
> 
> ...



Yep all good .


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## Sharpie (Jan 18, 2020)

Mr and Mrs Tupcox said:


> Yep all good .



That's what I expected, since you have only been using it for four days so far..

FWIW if you have left your mobile device on automatic setting, Netflix say that you will use  about 1 gigabyte per four hours, so your 12 should last about 48 hours in total before you might get cut off. Or begin paying extra for the data at 1p/megabyte, I.e £10/gigabyte. That would get you four more gigabytes, another 16 hours, before you hit the £41 price cap (another bit of sensible EU legislation to protect the user). I.e. £2.50 per hour. Hopefully you would get a text warning you of this about to happen, but maybe not. That's the problem with Go Binge abroad, you have no way of seeing how much of your limited allowance has been used up.

Unless you have been bingeing for 12 hours a day you won't be anywhere near the cutoff point yet.

With 20 gigs fair usage you could anticipate about 80 hours. I.e. 2.5 hours per day, over a month, which would be more than sufficient for me, except for all the other data that I use as well.

BBC iplayer, ITV player etc. uses roughly the same amount of data, or less if you wind down the settings to lowest quality, and might just work abroad, using Three without mucking about with VPNs. Try it. No Netflix subscription required. Data comes out of the normal system so you can keep an eye on it.

I rarely stream video, much more an online radio person, mostly BBC Sounds, which uses a fraction of the data compared with video, my 20 gigs fair usage is ample for a month.





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