Hutchison 3 Launches X-Series in Australia
Posted on 27 March 2007, at 1:01 pm, by Mitchell Oke
While it has been available in the UK and a few other places for a short while now, X-Series has just been released here in Australia. For those of you who don’t know, X-Series is an add-on to a standard phone plan that adds a bundle of services. These are the plans available.
How awesome is that!! The going rate for Mobile Broadband here is more than 3 times those prices! Add to that the Skype minutes, unlimited email/eBay/IM and the ability to access Orb (although Orb does eat into your data). I have signed up for the Gold plan and will see how I go. While I haven’t even gotten close to using my 200MB data which until now I have been paying $29/mth for, I think I will step it up a notch and start using my Treo as a modem for my MacBook Pro 
Anyone else here in Australia or anywhere else that offers X-Series signed up for it?
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22 Comments For This Post
March 27th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Hi Mitchell.
Interesting, hadn’t heard about that before. Quick question, can you just include the x-series add-on with an existing contract (i.e. voda)?
March 27th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
No you have to be with Three to get it. It gets added to your existing Three phone plan, and can be activated and deactivated whenever you like.
March 27th, 2007 at 9:55 pm
Hi Mitchell.
I went to a Three store in Melbourne to get a SIM card wit the X-Series service for my existing JasJam (which I am currently using with a Vodafone SIM instead of the Telstra service). The people at the store told me I could not get this service unless I purchased one of the 4 phones which offer the service (and which are also displayed on the X-Series website). Considering the Treo is offered in Australia only by Telstra, did you have any problems to sign up for the X-Series service with your existing phone?
And if so, do you get HDSPA speeds with your Treo?
March 28th, 2007 at 2:33 am
Well I already have a Nokia N73 registered on my account from Three, so they added it no problem. Then I altered the User Agent string in the registry on my Treo to read “DopodD810″ instead of “Palm750″ so that it works properly. Considering the Dopod D810 is just another Windows Mobile 5 device, everything works just fine on my Treo.
March 28th, 2007 at 2:37 am
And I get HSDPA speeds when using the HSDPA hack, but I think it may be causing some call instability so I have stopped using it.
March 28th, 2007 at 4:00 am
Sounds great! Considering you are not using it with HSDPA, what is the fastest speed you can achieve with your Treo?
And second question, do you know on which Band is Three operating their network? I am hoping that if I get this device I can use my JasJam with true HSDPA speeds on it.
March 28th, 2007 at 4:03 am
I noticed on the image at the bottom of the post it shows the Skype minutes included on your plan. Can they be used with the Skype version for Pocket PC on your Treo, or they must be used based on the Skype version for Symbian, like the Nokia N73 and E65?
March 28th, 2007 at 4:29 am
You will be able to use your JASJAM without any trouble on the Three network. The JASJAM is identical to the Dopod 838 Pro that Three sells. Three uses the 2100Mhz band, and the JASJAM supports 850/900/2100Mhz UMTS/HSDPA bands.
Without HSDPA, I get around 330kbit using DSLReports Mobile Speed Test. Considering the max speed of UMTS is 384k thats not too bad. I do notice the difference though between UMTS and HSPDA though. I get over 800kbit with the HSDPA hack! My dads Dopod 838 Pro gets similar speeds over HSDPA.
Yes the Skype minutes show, but they haven’t released Skype support on Windows Mobile yet. Using the standard Skype for PPC would use up your data not the Skype minutes. When they support the Dopod D810 for Skype then I will be able to use it on my Treo.
March 28th, 2007 at 4:41 am
Thanks for the quick response Mitchell.
I think I will have to purchase their cheapest mobile (the Nokia E65) and bundle it with a Data Plan and the X-Series ($29 Voice Cap, $10 phone repayment, $30 Gold Plan), which would be way cheaper than going for their original Mobile Plans ($49 Data Plan 1GB, plus $29 Voice Cap, no phone included).
Is there any special software on the Dopod 838 Pro that is related to the Three network (like Planet 3) that could be worth for me to look for a ROM change from my current Telstra ROM?
March 28th, 2007 at 4:46 am
Absolutely none. My dads Dopod looks totally unbranded.
And thats amazing isn’t it!! I can’t believe how cheap it is!! Just flog the phone on eBay if you don’t want it. I think Three are getting more lenient about unlocking phones (I see the N73 can be unlocked now) so you might be able to sell it unlocked.
March 28th, 2007 at 4:59 am
I have found online a lot of people complaining that when they use their Dopod 838 Pro on the Three Network and have it online, voice calls go directly to Voice Mail (specially during data transfer). Have you encountered this situation with your dadīs phone?
I am using Vodafone on the UMTS 2100 network, and have never had this problem (the most it happens is that it kills the transfer but the phone always rings.
March 28th, 2007 at 5:02 am
Just saw your update!
Yes it is a really dirt cheap deal. I will definitely buy the deal and get rid of the Nokia (although, the skype minutes could come in handy
oh no more phones to carry!).
March 28th, 2007 at 5:10 am
Nope I haven’t had that happen.
March 28th, 2007 at 8:35 pm
Well, I went ahead and got the X-Series for my phone.
Fortunately I found a 3 Store with personnel who truly wanted to offer Customer Service.
Considering I have already my JasJam (Dopod 838 Pro), I convinced them on allowing me to purchase a normal SIM card on a Cap Plan ($29AUD a month, minimum spent $20) and upgrade my account in that precise moment to X-Series without having to purchase one of the mobile phones. I am on a no-contract term, which is great as I don’t need to be tied to the 2 year contract the initially require to get a discounted phone.
After less than 30 min the SIM was active and I could test the SIM on my JasJam. I tested the speed and the JasJam reports an average speed of 829 kbit/sec (based on http://text.dslreports.com/mspeed).
I am quite pleased with how good the service was. Depending on the network coverage I might stay with Three altogether (Vodafone and Telstra better get their act together, this is a very aggresive plan by Three).
March 28th, 2007 at 8:40 pm
Yeah I bought my 3 SIM without any contracts. I just got the SIM on the $29 cap which I have had since October last year. At the time I had a Vodafone Sony Ericsson M600i, but they didn’t care, they were getting a sale
I really didn’t want to be locked into a contract. I just switch phones WAY too often (not that it really affects being on a service contract), and being locked in for 24mths just seems scary to me. That way I can change it around as much as I like
Currently posting this from my MacBook Pro sitting on a train connected via HSDPA through my Treo
March 29th, 2007 at 6:44 pm
I am the same, contracts are something I have never liked from a phone company, specially with locked phones.
I just wanted to point out that I did not require to modify the Registry to get the X-Series service, it was activated by the people at the Three Store directly into their system.
One question Mitchell, what is the complete URL you entered on your Treo to see your download usage, as shown on your picture at the end of the Post? I have tried to enter three.net.au but does not show anything so far (currently using the 3netaccess APN for Internet connectivity).
March 29th, 2007 at 7:21 pm
The usage is listed in your bonuses and extra units page, which is at http://three.net.au/hss/getmybonuses.do
For all my websurfing I use the 3services APN.
The reason to alter the registry is so that all the services appear properly on your phone. If you don’t the Three server will recognise your phone as incompatible and block some of the services. Not sure if that goes for internet access as well, but it does for the rest of the stuff in the pack.
Convinced my dad to get the $20 500MB “Silver” addon last night. Working great on his Dopod 838 Pro. I applied the same registry hack to that as well.
March 30th, 2007 at 4:04 am
Thanks for the advice Mitchell, I will give all this a try and share more info once I have it all setup and have given it a go for a while.
April 1st, 2007 at 6:43 pm
Hi again Mitchell.
Thanks for all the advice provided so far.
Can you please tell me a bit more about how to change that “User Agent” string?
The Registry entry on the JasJam HKLM/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/Windows/Internet Settings/User Agent includes a subset called “Post Platform”, in which there is a key labeled as i-mate JASJAM PPC; 240×320 and which is not modifiable on its name, but the string is empty.
Is it the same on your Treo device?
April 1st, 2007 at 6:55 pm
The key you need to change is at HKLM/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/Internet Settings/5.0/User Agent. Change the Default value to DopodD810.
April 1st, 2007 at 7:22 pm
Thanks a lot, as expected it worked perfectly well.
My plan includes 4000 minutes for Skype, if only it was allowed to be used with the Windows Mobile version!
April 1st, 2007 at 7:34 pm
Took me a bit of searching to find it the first time.
I’m looking forward to Skype too. I take it your on the 2GB plan. Such a sweet deal