Three Mobile Broadband Ready to Go 3GB Preloaded Data Standard SIM for 3G Tablets

Ever since the beginning of Pay-as-you-go I have been irritated by the notion that, according to providers, it is perfectly ok to take back paid-for product that remains unused after a period. I think it is close to dishonest. What if you were to fill the tank on your car and then, a month later, had to give back any unused fuel that remained before filling it full again. Yeah, right, you'd do that, wouldn't you - not. The beauty of these 3gb 90-day 'starters' is that if you do take longer than the usual 30 days to use up your 3gb you do not lose the remainder (until you reach 3 months). Personally, I've been using broadband sims for quite a while and find that my average consumption rate is about 5 weeks to use up 3gb so instead of buying a top-up voucher I discard the sim and use a new one of these. For anybody who takes longer than 30 days to use 3gb this is the most cost-effective solution currently available. Hopefully, providers of mobile broadband will eventually catch on to the fact that consumers are not stupid and abandon time limitation entirely (as Virgin, Tesco, and probably a few others have done with PAYG phones) but sadly, I fear that it will be more likely that 3-network will withdraw this 90-day 'starter' instead - so get them while you can, folks. By the way, there's also 1gb versions that run for 30 days. Be careful about the way these are sold though. I recently bought a couple of these as they were advertised at £0.10 plus p&p and I figured that if I bought more than one, the p&p would cover both because there's only one delivery - wrong, I still got charged p&p on each so if you go down this route you need to add the advertised price and the p&p together to get at the real cost. It's still very good value though, especially if you only need a short burst of use.

Initial Comments EARLY JUNE 2013 I bought my 3G sim and the package arrived OK. I had intended to have it ready in my possession and keep till my holidays in a months time. Today I opened the package,which clearly states it is a 3GB lasting up to 3 months. However when I got it up and running it says on the 3 website, when I checked it's status, that it is a 1MB expiring on the 12/9/13? I may have misunderstood but is this correct? ................. You've still got the following allowance left to use: Internet allowances (MB) (1) Internet allowances (MB) Valid until Remaining Starter Top-up* Expires 12/09/13 3072 Total mobile broadband (mb) 3072 UPDATE 4JULY 2013 Having tried this out on holiday I can honestly say I am very pleased with the product and it's performance! Rather dubious at first because I was uncertain how long it would last? (I should also mention here that I bought an o2 mini wifi pebble, which I originally used with an o2 sim, but decided it would be more versatile if I got it unlocked to all carriers - I can recommend doing this to accommodate a 3 sim. It is worth the £10-£15!) I spent a week in Cornwall, where my o2 mobile signal was abysmal where I stayed. However, not only was the 3 signal coverage good, I was able to check emails and surf the web with complete freedom. At one point I ended up using TuGo app as a phone device from a wifi ipad mini, via a 3 sim, which worked; rather than a useless no signal o2 mobile phone! I have upgraded my 1 star to 5 for this product. I must get some more!

( after update have changed rating from 1 to 4 star ) Have used these SIMS in a Three branded Huawei E586 router for about 2 years - no problem and great product. Apart from the price hike I've now had 2 SIMs stop working well within the 90 days period with loads of data left. The first SIM ran from late November but stopped working early Jan even though only used about 300mb of data. The second I put in about 10 days ago and it was working this morning, then stopped saying no data allowance left. I've checked the online account and it just says no allowance - but I only used 40mb out of a 3gb 90day SIM !! I'd read the Three tightened up last year for contract customers on what they can use it's SIMs in, and wonder if this is a similar move to prevent PAYG customers using the SIMs in routers. Has anyone else had a problem recently with 3 PAYG data SIMs in routers Update 31/1/14 Having now contacted the three call centre, they checked and initially gave reasons why I might use lots of data , none of which apply when I was only using it for a few hours over the 8 days it worked. But they were most helpful and put back a full 3gb in 3x1gb add-ons to my account, then stayed on line while router rebooted, and I confirmed I could connect and also checked my data allowance online. Having read some negative comments about 3's call centre I was pleasantly surprised at well this was sorted out. I don't now why the SIM stopped working but they sorted it out. Have revised to 4 star. Though the SIM is more expensive than it was , it still is reasonable value, and speed is good.

Good

I think these data sims offer excellent value, 3 gigabytes of data or 3 months use, whichever runs out first. For me that's always the 3 months so I get a whole year's worth of data for the price of 4 of these. Don't bother topping them up when they run out, just toss them away and insert the next one as they don't start to expire until you first use them, so you can have your next one already bought and ready to go. These are also cheaper than the 3 of the 1 GB ones you can get. I use them in my Google Nexus 7, and there's no logging in or anything, you just stick it in and go. They are full size sims though, so you'll either need to invest in a sim cutter or print a template and get brave with some scissors if your device needs a smaller than full size sim.