Orange To Enter Irish Mobile Market Apparently

JTMan

I was speaking this morning to a senior guy in Euphony and he told me that Orange have advanced plans to enter the Irish mobile market in the next few months.

Apparently they are looking at a becoming a virtual operator on O2 or Vodafone when their networks are forced up.

It may be BS but he seemed certain ... Orange have previously tried to buy meteor, tried purchase a 2G license and tried purchase a 3G license (with the ESB) here and failed in all 3 attempts to enter the Irish market. 4th time lucky?

wiggum

hmmmmm ... interesting ...

They are not the only ones as well. Ryanair Telecom are looking to copy the Danish MVNO model here as well. see ....
http://www.mobiletoday.co.uk/artman/publish/article_457.shtml

When are the networks opening up anyway?

BigMoose

For many reasons I'd be surprised if it was any time soon. Also given ComReg's apparant ability to force any issue I'd say even longer!

Mad Hatter

Well I say bring on the compitition - The more the better for all of us !

cgarvey

Originally posted by BigMoose
apparant ability to force any issue

Your use of "apparant" is being overly kind to comreg!

.cg

seamus

They'd really want to be offering something special to become a significant player in the Irish market. Even Meteor, who've been here 3(?) years, have failed to generate a gigantic market share, despite great deals and cheap calls. If they'd entered 12, even 6 months earlier, they would have fared a lot better.

Orange would do well to piggyback on O2 or Vodafone's networks - IMO, coverage is the most important thing for the corporate and pay monthly customer, i.e. the valued customer. After that, they can really only offer better deals in terms of free calls/texts and cheaper handsets. There was a MVNO a couple of years back (forget their name) who had to shut up shop after they began undercutting eircell's prices, while piggybackign on eircell's network. Eircell sued, they other crew lost, and died. So Orange can't do the same.

Celticwarrior

The problem is that Irish people are too lazy too switch to meteor even if it means saving them money, meteor still is seen as the crap mobile phone it was 3 years ago, whereas now its actually IMO anyways way better than the other two networks.

silverside

I think the main problem with Meteor (the last time I tried them 12 months ago) is lack of coverage. Even close to Dublin city centre I couldnt get reliable coverage indoors, and I didnt want to be without coverage when I go down the country at weekends. They do have good customer service and OK prices but coverage is more important than saving a few pence here and there.

Laziness is a factor as well but coverage is important (and a reputation for poor coverage takes a long time to shake off, even if the network has beein imporoved since).

Celticwarrior

Originally posted by silverside
I think the main problem with Meteor (the last time I tried them 12 months ago) is lack of coverage. Even close to Dublin city centre I couldnt get reliable coverage indoors, and I didnt want to be without coverage when I go down the country at weekends. They do have good customer service and OK prices but coverage is more important than saving a few pence here and there.

Laziness is a factor as well but coverage is important (and a reputation for poor coverage takes a long time to shake off, even if the network has beein imporoved since).

Lack of coverage, dunno i wasnt a customer of meteors then, but your probably right, i joined in august and i've never had a problem with it since. But i've only left Galway a couple of times since and although once was to Dublin where the coverage was fine.
Customer Service is excellent, i think its by far and away better than the other two. And i've gone form spending €60pm when on o2/voda to €20pm on meteor.
Ya that image seems to be proving pretty hard to shake off, but i think if people just gave them a chance they'd realise that its the best network of the lot!

Agent Smith

was with meteor since the day the started ( i dont work for them)



shaking off this bad coverage stigma is the most important thing they can do at present,


they offer great deals on handsets and calls, imo