Cork Lord Mayor calls for flat rate voice calls

dahamsta

Strictly speaking this isn't on-topic, but I just had to post it.

The Lord Mayor of Cork City has said that phone charges are one of the expenses that make running a business more expensive in Cork than in Dublin, reports OnBusiness.ie. Councillor Colm Burke said that businesses in Cork have access to only 10 percent of the population at local call rates, while Dublin businesses can contact 31 percent of the population at local rates. He added that the effect of having to make an STD call, instead of a local call, results in a cost increase of 61 percent for Eircom customers.

Eh? Who?

adam /whips out the phone book

PS. Like the way I turned that around in the title there? Well, that's what he said, isn't it?

Cork

I think the lord major was right. Local call areas ins a crazy concept. Does it really cost more to make a phonecall to you next store neighbour than your auntie up in Dublin?

People in Charleville (Cork 063) cannot call their nearby city (less than 30 miles up the road) for the cost of a local call.

A representative from Eircom was unchallanged on Morning Ireland yesterday morning when he went on about the relative cheapness of Irish Telephone calls.

DMC

He has a point about the cost to the consumer and how much a local call can cover the population, but flat-rate? Its not the answer to that. With the internet, you can safely guess how long you spend online, and you are ringing the one number, so flat rate is fine. But flat rate for normally dialled numbers? You are not ringing Auntie Nancy everyday for 4 hours or more a day, the amount of calls can fluctuate depending on personal circumstances and needs. So that sounds dumb.

Should a call to Dublin from the sticks be charged at a different rate, i.e. maybe not a local call but certainly not a long distance call?

sceptre

Headline on onBusiness seems to have changed to "Cork's Mayor says call charges bad for business"

Makes more sense - I doubt strongly that the guy actually meant flat-rate voice calls.

I've happily had national calls charged at a local rate for the past three years with Esat.


(& like Adam, I've no idea who Colm Burke is, apart from him being De Mayr)

dahamsta

Flat-rate for voice doesn't have to mean the same as we've come to understand it for Internet access DMC. In this case, I mean a flat-rate, or /equal/ rate, for trunk and local calls, such as they've had in the US for years, and in fact used to have in Ireland. Perhaps there's another term for it that I can't remember right now -- feel free to remind me and I'll edit my post.

adam /cues yoda

Urban Weigl

Local calls have always been free in the US. Many of the big phone companies including Verizon are now also beginning to offer flat rate long distance calls, i.e. you pay an increased line rental of $30 a month, and all calls to the US and Canada are free, no matter how much you use it.

The reason they're doing that? They don't want to lose market share to VoIP (voice over IP).

dahamsta

Originally posted by Urban Weigl
Local calls have always been free in the US.

Bugger, that's right, I was getting mixed up. Sorry.

adam

DMT

Didn't used to have flat rate phones calls. 20p per phone call, years ago before Mary Harney got her grubby hands on Telecom Eireann?

b20uvkft6m5xwg

on a US related issue did anyone see what MCI were up to for the last ten years.
Heres a teaser...
http://www.crn.com/sections/BreakingNews/dailyarchives.asp?ArticleID=43571

I suppose thats why every ex-pat I knew used MCI for long--distance.

Urban Weigl

Not sure if this is relevant or not, but I just remembered that in the UK if your BT phone line is registered to a business, the cost of all local and national calls (except premium rate numbers for obvious reasons) is capped at 10p.

This means that after you have spent 10p on a call, the cost won't go up -- even if you're on the phone for another hour.

For example, let's say John is on the phone to a client. The cost of the call is 5p a minute. After 2 minutes, he has therefore clocked up 10p. However he stays on the phone to the client for another hour. The company John works for still only pays 10p!

skrobe

I thought all Ireland,incl Northern, is the price of a local call with esatbt. Does he think eircom are the only phone company . As Mary says 'shop around'!.
j

Cork

I think that Eircom holding a pretty dominant share of the market - It is a legitimate comment.

Even those that have switched - many do switch back to Eircom.

I think Eircom has at least 90% of the market. Dublin people can make local calls to over 30% of the population. Cork people can only make local calls to a small fraction of this.

Urban Weigl

We may not have a lot of choices in Ireland (poor availability of expensive broadband, no proper flat rate, europe's highest line rental and so on).

However, one choice that we do have is to have all of Ireland as a local call for 3c a minute. That's actually less than a regular Eircom local daytime call, which is something along the lines of 5.4c a minute.

If all he was going on about is the introduction of such a service... Which already exists...

jesus_thats_gre

I agree, it is a joke that there is not a single rate for calling anywhere in this country.

What I find even funnier is this, its more expensive to call mobile in this country than it is to call Australia. Even funnier, it used to be more expensive to call an Irish mobile than it was to call a UK mobile.

jesus_thats_gre

Dublin people can make local calls to over 30% of the population. Cork people can only make local calls to a small fraction of this.

Through my work, I eventually noticed that people in Dublin think that there is no where else in Ireland outside of Dublin. If you ask anyone their phone number they will say "231 4561", you will then go "whats your area code" and they will say with surprise "01". Cork people do the same bloody thing....

It may come as a big surprise, but it also happens to people in Wexford, Mayo, Louth.. eh Meath, Sligo, Donegal... let me see... Tipp, Leitrim, Wicklow, ehh... Galway.............. The way the Lord Mayor is yapping on, you would swear they are the only two places of any importance on this planet.....

Ahhhhhhh - apologies for the rant

Urban Weigl

Originally posted by jesus_thats_gre
What I find even funnier is this, its more expensive to call mobile in this country than it is to call Australia.

Here is another example: I am switching to VarTec Telecom (13636), and it costs me 6c a minute to call a mobile in the US. Yet it costs along the lines of 25c (or more?) to call a mobile in Ireland.

Cork

Calls to Irish mobiles are crazy. Even rates charged using prepaid mobile phone calls during the day. You can ring OZ, New Zealand & the US for say about 8 to 10c.



I

De Rebel

Originally posted by Cork
Calls to Irish mobiles are crazy.

Well FF have been in Government for most of the time since mobile phones were introduced to this country so i suppose we should congratulate them for creating and sustaining an environment where we are ripped off to the extent we are by the highest mobile prices anywhere in the free world.

And before anybody takes the face off me for taking this thread off topic, it never really was on topic in the first place so i have no qualms about dragging it further into disrepute

dahamsta

Was that a preemptive strike De Rebel?

adam

billy the squid

It is cheaper to call an irish landline with an english prepaid mobile phone than it is to call an irish landline with an irish pre paid mobile during the day

ie virgin mobile call to ireland landline from uk 15p stg per minute
vodafone ireland call to ireland landline 40c in ireland

try figure that one out

we re being screwed i tell ya

elexes

personaly think boards.ie should make its own political party and get into goverment .... ( oo the thoughts ) then we can not blame others for running the country in a bad way ...