3 Ireland

jrincewind

Hi,

does anyone know when 3 Ireland will be starting up?

Thanks,

John

JTMan

The Irish Times last Friday said "Autumn".

I'm certain they will have something for the christmas market anyway.

BigMoose

Earlier this week they showed up on a network search in Leopardstown, but not today... Looks like their network is still far from stablely turned on...

At least I assume "272 5" was them as I cant think whoelse would have a 3G network (that's not Voda or O2).

JBoyle4eva

I wonder will it be a nationwide launch or just doing it county by county?

BigMoose

I guess with national roaming on the Vodafone 2G network they will launch nation wide and if you happen to be in their 3G coverage then will use their network, if not the VF 2G.

Slice

None of the 3G coverage for any of the networks will be nationwide. All phones will be able to switch from 3G to 2G since 3G coverage requires more cells and are therefore higher maintenance. Vodafone have 3G in Dublin, Cork and Limerick I think.
Last I heard 3 have 3G only in Dundrum area.

BigMoose

VF have 3G coverage in many towns, I know from Dublin to Wexford there is coverage out to Bray/Greystones and then in Wicklow town, Arklow and Gorey. It is improving all the time.

JBoyle4eva

Will 3G be available in Ballinasloe/Rosscommon towns?

jesus_thats_gre

Its available in Dundalk as well...

Seemingly its hitting 50% population coverage at the moment. A list of towns was released this time last year in a press release announcing 33% coverage.

BigMoose

What I'm not sure about is how crap the coverage gets when people actually start to use it. Something about cell size coverage shrinking as they get more used with UMTS... It's nice at the moment though!

jesus_thats_gre

Yeah I read about this recently. Seeingly the cells will shrink and grow in size depending on capacity. So if a cell that covers a large area starts to reach its capacify limits, it will shrink in size so that less people are served by it. The neighbouring cell will grow in size to accomadate the people left out in the cold as such... I suppose this will only happen when the neightbouring cell has sufficient capacity to accomadate extra users..

The most dramatic change that you will see when the services are offered to the public may be a reduction in bandwidth available to you in highly populated areas. This is unavoidable as far as I know due to the basic limitations of radio based services. However, with W-CDMA being used over Time based access systems, the effect should not be as pronounced. This is based on my own understanding of what will happen though.

jrincewind

All,

thanks for the responses. I hope 3 have packages better than Voda and o2 and with a bit of luck on par with those they offer in the UK.

DB, I can't wait to get away from Voda.

Thanks,

John

JTMan

Originally posted by jrincewind

thanks for the responses. I hope 3 have packages better than Voda and o2 and with a bit of luck on par with those they offer in the UK.

I hope so too. I know people in the industry who say they will be "equally agressive".
In the UK you get 500 any network any time minutes for £25.00, free phone and half price line rental for the first 3 months (£12.50 for 500 minutes).
It would beet the socks off O2 Voda if 3 launched with 500 minutes for €33.00. I hope the give their phones away for free as well. Ireland is one of the few countires where you have to pay for you phone on bill pay.

BigMoose

Ireland is one of the few countires where you have to pay for you phone on bill pay.

Are you sure that's true? It's certainly not in the UK (3 asside) like it used to be. Phones on bill pay are far more expensive than 2 years go. You used to be able to get the best phones with big discounts on most tarifs and be able to change to the cheapest tarif within a month. 12 months ago (when I last bought one there) you could only get decent discounts on the top tarifs and you had to keep that tarif for 6 months. The days of big subsidies on all bill pay phones are long gone.

3 is a slightly different matter. They are a new entrant in a reasonably mature market (most people who will ever have a phone already have one in the UK) so they have to do something to attract customers to make their business work. Plus in the early days their network was shockingly crap so they had to do something to keep customers.

JTMan

Originally posted by BigMoose
Are you sure that's true? It's certainly not in the UK (3 asside) like it used to be. Phones on bill pay are far more expensive than 2 years go. .

Almost all phones are Free in the UK with a bill paid contract.
All phones on 3 are free.
T-mobile lots of phones incl the V300 for free bill,
02 have lots of phones for fee on bill incl the 6600,
Vodafone have the Sharp clamshell phones for free on bill.

Bill paid phones have declined in price to free are even a rebate in the UK in the last few years.