3 Like Home is back again, with a different name
Good news! If you are Ben Smith, then you will be loving the all new “Feel at Home” facility from UK operator, 3.
Ben Smith, good friend of Mobile Industry Review, Editor of Wireless Worker and co-presenter of our joint podcast, 361 Degrees, has family in Ireland.
This means he routinely goes there for the weekend. In fact he’s that organised that I think he’s booked his Ryanair flights for the next 6 months already. He’s also a 3 customer. And now he won’t have to bother with roaming charges — because with “Feel at Home”, he can call, text and get online at no additional cost. His existing domestic 3 service plan applies in Ireland and 6 other countries (Austria, Australia, Denmark, Hong Kong, Italy and Sweden).
It turns out that Smith is also off to Italy on holiday shortly so he is rather happy.
He’ll be able to avoid the somewhat expensive roaming costs that still apply in Europe — and the prohibitively stupid roaming costs that normally apply in Australia.
A good few years ago, 3 used to do this. They called it “3 Like Home”. I thought it was brilliant. I used it in Italy a few times.
Then they canned it. David Murphy over at Mobile Marketing Magazine picked up the closure story a whopping four years ago.
Back then, ‘free’ roaming on 3’s sister networks was extraordinary. It was a real shame they switched it off. The network’s PR team did their best at spinning it, but I felt it was an error. Roaming has been such a hot topic over the past few years — enough to compel the EU to legislate — that 3 would have been held as a cut above the other networks thanks to their sister-peering arrangement. Indeed I’m sure it would have been particularly difficult for other networks to justify why they didn’t offer sister-network peering when little old 3 did.
By coming into line with the other networks, 3 was relegated to also-ran at the back of the class and they were especially late to offer roaming packages.
Anyway, it’s back. All 3 customers are automatically enrolled so you don’t need to opt in.
And if you live, work or have family in any of the 3 sister network countries, it would probably be worth you swapping to 3 to take advantage of Feel at Home. More details from 3 here.
