Posted on November 17, 2006 - by John

Why the Irish Mobile Networks need a kick up the arse

The expense of making a call on your Irish mobile phone is so high, that most people, especially those on Pay as you Go services, tend to never make mobile phone calls but rather they simply text each others. The mobile market which now includes four networks, Vodafone, O2, Meteor (owned by eircom), and the newest member Three Mobile, is well aware that a majority of their customers are teenagers and young adults, who cannot afford to pay for these top up cards.

However, little has been done, by any of the networks to reduce the price of mobile phone calls for top up customers. The networks simply introduce new packages which hide costs, and only seem cheaper than the competitor. So why are these networks not actually reducing costs, surely the market is now competitive enough for one of them to introduce a cheap package for their customers, that will prompt the others to follow suit?

I know there are networks, such as O2 that has introduced 1c weekend packages, but these are restrictive packages, designed to promote the network, and encourage higher usage at peak times. And nearly all the networks give free credit to customers who are new to that network, are they being nice?, nope, again a clever edge, to encourage people to become accustomed to spending money on their network, and thus rise the cost of making calls with that company.

But there is some hope out there, the callcosts.ie website is a great service, I’m not sure but I think it’s a ‘comreg’ service, it’s been out for sometime now, and they recently updated it recently to include landlines, and broadband companies.

The good thing about it, for me, and particularly in relation to the mobile phone site of the site, is that it gives transparency. This is something which mobile phone networks always seem to hide behind. I tapped in my basic average daily usage for text and calls, into the site, and it told me based on the information I submitted that I should be on the Meteor Network. This network I find is the cheapest one there is, but they do tend to have a lot of coverage issues, and their wap (mobile internet) service is below par. If you have to money to spend (which most people do not) Vodafone is possibly the safest bet with regards to coverage, and I love their 3G wap service, its ace but for top up customers Vodafone does seem to be expensive enough.

Three mobile seems to offer very sweet looking mobile phones, but I have yet to see them gain a competitive edge with regards price of top up call and text costs. But I must say that their Music service does seem like a nice touch, but of course the music download is currently dominated by the mighty Apple iTunes.

Here are the results from my input to the callcosts.ie website

Meteor

Call type Peak

8:00 am - 6:00 pm Off Peak

6:00 pm - 8:00 am Weekend

Fri midnight - Sun midnight

Calls to fixed: €0.40 / min €0.13 / min €0.13 / min

Calls to Mobiles:

3 €0.40 / min €0.13 / min €0.13 / min

Meteor €0.40 / min €0.13 / min €0.13 / min

O2 €0.40 / min €0.13 / min €0.13 / min

Vodafone €0.40 / min €0.13 / min €0.13 / min

Voicemail: €0.00 / min

Text messages to Meteor mobiles: €0.09 / item

Text messages to other networks: €0.09 / item

Picture messages: €0.30 / item

O2

Call type Peak

10:00 am - 6:00 pm Off Peak

6:00 pm - 10:00 am Weekend

Fri midnight - Sun midnight

Calls to fixed: €0.55 / min €0.15 / min €0.12 / min

Calls to Mobiles:

3 €0.63 / min €0.19 / min €0.12 / min

Meteor €0.63 / min €0.19 / min €0.12 / min

O2 €0.55 / min €0.15 / min €0.12 / min

Vodafone €0.63 / min €0.19 / min €0.12 / min

Voicemail: €0.15 / min

Text messages to O2 mobiles: €0.11 / item

Text messages to other networks: €0.13 / item

Picture messages: €0.25 / item

Vodafone

Call type Peak

8:00 am - 6:00 pm Off Peak

6:00 pm - 8:00 am Weekend

Fri 6:00 pm - Mon 8:00 am

Calls to fixed: €0.50 / min €0.15 / min €0.15 / min

Calls to Mobiles:

3 €0.65 / min €0.30 / min €0.30 / min

Meteor €0.65 / min €0.30 / min €0.30 / min

O2 €0.65 / min €0.30 / min €0.30 / min

Vodafone €0.50 / min €0.15 / min €0.15 / min

Voicemail: €0.00 / min

Text messages to Vodafone mobiles: €0.13 / item

Text messages to other networks: €0.13 / item

Picture messages: €0.25 / item

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