I have left iD Mobile as I will be moving soon to a location where coverage will be essential to contact family and currently Three's network will just not cut it (I know it's not iD's fault as they're just piggybacking onto their backbone). I have left a couple of pro's and con's for anybody else considering this network:
Pros
- Finally! Fingerprint login for the app, that took a lot of time to simplify finding out how much you've gone through! Thumbs up ☺️
- CS reps that I have all spoke to over the phone and online, they're very helpful and know what they're doing for all my technical and plan queries
- When the network isn't congested the 4G speeds are pretty good!
- Reliability-wise, it's been behaving normally with fairly little downtime.
- A couple of places I have been to had 4G+ (LTE-A) speeds from Three (around London) 😀
- Capping the bill - probably the only network at the moment which has this, thumbs up!
- Value - this is a big one! Who wouldn't love saving a bit for a equivalent level of service from another carrier.
- Easy port from Vodafone and a easy outward port to my new carrier
- Understandably, from the lack of 2G networks, this network isn't suited for someone with an old GSM flip phone (which probably isn't your target audience anyway) or somebody who lives in rural England, there is going to be weak signal reception in certain areas with black-spots. I'd highly recommend checking the network coverage map here.
- Especially in crowed places, network congestion is a big hit, Three is capping all MVNO's including iD, to inaccessible speeds; bearing in mind this has just had happened a few times - it is irritating. (bear in mind, this is Three's network and problems they should be dealing with and capping other networks should not be a option, they should invest heavily for more data capacity within their back-haul networks)
- When I went on holiday to Turkey, I was informed of the charges through a text message telling me to go to the iD site to check the rates. It would be better to give a direct rate through the text message stating that these rates are as of xx/xx/2018 etc. , the iD site did not work on holiday through hotel Wi-Fi with a blank page showing up, so it would be useful to give the rates via text.
- When using a PAC to transfer out of iD Mobile when out of contract, I understand that using it terminates your connection on transfer date, so this means no termination fees can be charged (if out of contract), but for some reason you are charging for another month line rental (in your sms for leaving, which is your early notice period), when I have ported from Orange, Vodafone, TalkMobile, EE, O2 this has never been the case as you're unable to receive the services after the transfer date and you're effectively out of contract after porting. I can understand how it is rolling, and I don't mind paying another month but it's for a service that isn't being provided... It's a bit of an issue to have two contracts causing a 'overlapping contracts' effect and I hope this can be removed from newer contracts, and this is something Ofcom will be banning in effect from 2019 for switching numbers. Also your backhual network, Three does not seem to does this when switching.
iD Mobile is a great recent carrier start-up and I like choice and truly support the alternative options that are being put into the market to allow for competition and user choice. I have moved just because of a few network black-spots and I would still come back to iD! This was a value deal and I came to iD on a rolling contract deal from uswitch.
Steps to move forward (for iD)
- Fingerprint login - oh wait, it's finally here! When I left of course... 😕
- Provide users with the rate when roaming out of EU through SMS - not everybody has the luxury of using the internet! (especially when your website was blank as well overseas) I assume this might be some sort of content delivery issue but if it's through text, this would have made it a bit easier to know.
- Network capping due to congestion is inevitable on all network providers, even on fibre optic broadband! However, I'd suggest having a threshold minimum speed (e.g. the USO guaranteed internet speed of 10Mbps, but this mainly applies to broadband) to ensure accessibility to all - I believe internet is being considered a right nowadays as well.
- Possibly make Ofcom and us customers happy when leaving to have a good experience of not getting a double bill from both networks when switching via PAC. I have only experienced this from your network (so far) and this leaves a bad impression of your network which you'll be more likely to remember than the good bits (to me at-least), especially when you're leaving.
It's a 4.5/5 for me, I'd hope to see this network again in the future and I can recommend it in my local area 😄
