  We study the deconfinement phase transition and monopole properties in the
finite temperature 3D compact Abelian gauge model on the lattice. We predict
the critical coupling as function of the lattice size in a simplified model to
describe monopole binding. We demonstrate numerically that the monopoles are
sensitive to the transition. In the deconfinement phase the monopoles appear in
the form of a dilute gas of magnetic dipoles. In the confinement phase both
monopole density and string tension differ from semiclassical estimates if
monopole binding is neglected. However, the analysis of the monopole clusters
shows that the relation between the string tension and the density of monopoles
in charged clusters is in reasonable agreement with those predictions. We study
the cluster structure of the vacuum in both phases of the model.
