Switching to Meteor?

positron

Thinking of switching to Meteor BillPay, thought I would ask the knowledgeable folks of boards first.

I have an O2 Pay As You Go number, and my gf is on Vodafone billpay (perfect fit, €19 rental, monthly bills around 120 euros, daylight-robbery). If both of us switch to Meteor60, there are free texts between us, and call charges are only 5c between Meteor. Friends and family are evenly scattered between all four networks, so we are not thinking about that.

Carphonewarehouse has red SE K750i on Meteor60 for €29. 3G is selling SE W810i on Meteor60 for €99. These are the two phones I would be interested in at the moment (of course, a W950i would be nice but I am saving for a Canon 400D)

Any suggestions, comments, thoughts welcome!

richieg

Depends what you think you are going to need. I switched from vodafone last december because I was frustrated by bill costs and patchy 3G coverage. When I switched I had a lot of trouble where calls were not getting through to the phone but diverted straight to vm even though i had coverage. I did not get much help from meteor but went back to CPW where I bought the phone (w800i) and sent the phone away for repair and replaced the sim card. This is still happening to a certain extent.
A few months ago i rang up customer care to get roaming unlocked, can't understand why this does not happen automatically! They said it was done there and then but I was in Belfast on business last week and had no coverage. When I got back i went into the meteor store and asked them to confirm if I had roaming and surprisr surprise it had not been unlocked.
Its simple things like this that are driving me nuts and making me think of switching to O2 or something.
1 thing I like about meteor is the text message you get if you miss a call. The other is the cheap bills.

All in all i think meteor are good for basic needs especially payasyougo but I think they are still a bit amateurish but that is just my experiences. I suppose you need to look at what you need/want and make a decision from that

Pythia

If your girlfriend is spending 120e on a plan that costs 19e a month, she's on the wrong priceplan. Low line-rental doesn't mean low bill. She needs to analyse where she is spending all that money, then try and work out how much she's spend if she moved to Meteor, on a few different priceplans.
A little bit harder with yourself, but again, work out where you spend your credit and see what's best for you.
Callcosts.ie is good for a general overview of things too.

Pythia

richieg wrote:

A few months ago i rang up customer care to get roaming unlocked, can't understand why this does not happen automatically! They said it was done there and then but I was in Belfast on business last week and had no coverage. When I got back i went into the meteor store and asked them to confirm if I had roaming and surprisr surprise it had not been unlocked.
Its simple things like this that are driving me nuts and making me think of switching to O2 or something.

Unlocking and roaming are different things. The reason roaming isn't there automatically is because of credit risk.
You can spend a huge amount of money very quickly while roaming. You have to pay a e60 deposit to get it automatically, which I did when I moved to Meteor.
O2 and Vodafone operate similar systems. O2 give it to some people automatically from the credit score. Vodafone don't unless you pay e100.
This isn't anything particular to Meteor.

Tarakiwa

If you are spending 120 + 19 (€140) per month then I suggest you go for a higher Meteor talk plan. That way you will get free text AND free vloice between the 2 of you (& all other Meteor users)

If "price" is the main driver for your decision then check out www.callcosts.ie

It will compare all the networks for you.

OR

Check our www.meteor.ie They have a savins calculator so you can calculate what you would save if you move

I think that www.callcosts.ie is good because it is indipendent

Urban Weigl

Also consider O2 Business Unlimited. Despite its name, I have it on good authority anybody can get it. They don't actually check if you have a business.

For €20 a month, you get UNLIMITED O2 to O2 calling and texting, and all other networks for 20c around the clock (add VAT). It's da business (pun fully intended).

Meteor customer service is horrible in my experience. Their mantra is: the customer is always wrong.

joerules

Also consider O2 Business Unlimited. Despite its name, I have it on good authority anybody can get it. They don't actually check if you have a business.

That's true. My dad, who was just a personal user, rang them up to change to this tarrif. No questions asked and done instantly.

kensutz

Is roaming allowed once you sign up to billpay on meteor? I'm getting rid of Vodafone because I'm sick of getting stung too. Twice I went in and got told I'm on the wrong price plan with them so I'm taking the plunge and switching operators. Meteor seem to be my first choice then possibly 3 but only if I get roaming activated once I sign up as I go to England every weekend.

positron

Thanks for the suggestions folks, great help!

I had a good look at the gf's phone bill; at least 25 euros were gone to some shower of scammers sending text messages weekly that she didn't subscribe for!! Vodafone said they couldn’t do much but just send a 'STOP' to them and that would fix it, well done that and lets see how it goes!

My work needs me to travel a bit and roaming is important to me. That’s one of the reasons to switch to billpay to be honest as I am tired of prepay cutting me out as it runs out of credit real fast.

Thanks for all the comments and at the moment I am still, though not as much as I was earlier, inclined to Meteor. I don’t remember how it was last year, would there be better deals and newer handsets closer to Christmas? Should I wait another few weeks?

Thanks again!

chrislad

kensutz wrote:

Is roaming allowed once you sign up to billpay on meteor? I'm getting rid of Vodafone because I'm sick of getting stung too. Twice I went in and got told I'm on the wrong price plan with them so I'm taking the plunge and switching operators. Meteor seem to be my first choice then possibly 3 but only if I get roaming activated once I sign up as I go to England every weekend.

You will need to pay a 60euro deposit to set up roaming initially. That will come off your first bill.

Roaming in England is also cheaper now as long as you choose the T-Mobile network.

Urban Weigl

Meteor is horrid for roaming, trust me. I just had a client who was in Sweden, and is on Meteor bill pay. No coverage at all, as they don't have any partners there. They are also a lot more expensive for roaming compared to O2 and Vodafone.

Only 3 is worse for roaming.

If you need to roam, steer clear of Meteor.

chrislad

Umm, they have 3 partners in Sweden.

http://www.meteor.ie/billpay_roaming_rates.html

Urban Weigl

Weird, they told him they had none, and even though he had roaming active and a new Meteor phone, he was never able to get a signal. That was a few months back, though. Customer service, as I said, confirmed to him they currently did not have any active roaming partners in Sweden.

However, considering how bad Meteor's customer service is, they may have just messed things up really badly, and than lied about having no roaming partners.

Blazer

Meteor suck..the amount of dropped calls i get even with full signal strength is annoying the crap out of me. Another issue is where people can't get through to you and instead get through to voicemail.
For me I'm sorry that I ever switched from O2. I was on the €40 a month and never once got a bill over this unlike my vodafone experience where no matter what tariff i was on I was still paying over €80 a month..
My advice?? Have a look through O2 tariffs and try and pick one that suits you the most..also cut back on text messages..it's cheaper to ring someone and you could always you the free webtext.

BuffyBot

I never had any problems roaming with Meteor, it must be said.

kensutz

chrislad wrote:

You will need to pay a 60euro deposit to set up roaming initially. That will come off your first bill.

Roaming in England is also cheaper now as long as you choose the T-Mobile network.

Thanks for the advice.

copacetic

been on meteor a year now from vodafone and little or no issues. roamed fine in US, UK and germany too so don't know where the issues above have come in.. haven't had any dropped calls either. couple of times have got network busy things but usually around midnight on new years and that kind of thing..

Urban Weigl

You do realise that Meteor charges several times what O2 and Voda charge for roaming? For example, when I went to Germany this year, I was able to make calls with O2 for 59c a minute. The same calls would have cost me €1.20 a minute with Meteor (twice as much!)

While a friend of mine was in Spain, with Vodafone, and was receiving a lot of long calls. He saved €200 compared to if he had been with Meteor.

richieg

Pythia wrote:

Unlocking and roaming are different things. The reason roaming isn't there automatically is because of credit risk.
You can spend a huge amount of money very quickly while roaming. You have to pay a e60 deposit to get it automatically, which I did when I moved to Meteor.
O2 and Vodafone operate similar systems. O2 give it to some people automatically from the credit score. Vodafone don't unless you pay e100.
This isn't anything particular to Meteor.

My point here is that I was told by customer service that roaming was activated on my account when I rang them but when I needed to roam i found out that it had not been activated.

The dropped call is definitely a pain in the ass. A colleague at work with me has the same problem constantly with a different handset so its not a phone thing which meteor tried to tell me it was until I got tired contacting them about it

positron

Thanks for the comments everyone, much appreciated.

The callcosts.ie is an interesting site. However, I am not sure if the suggestions it comes up with entirely correct. For instance, with my gf's last phone bill, she has spend nearly half of it ringing/texting me. If I am with meteor, but callcosts.ie didn't really consider it and said O2 has the best package (€40 subscription). I need to look into this again!

Anyone know if there's comparison chart for roaming rates and coverage from various network?

thanks!

PS: Also any comments on possiblity of better deals near Xmas?

Urban Weigl

positron, have ye looked into O2 Business Unlimited yet? €20 a month + VAT for unlimited O2-to-O2 calling and texting, and as stated in this thread, O2 don't check if you really are a business.

If you both got that, you would probably save a bunch.

positron

Thanks, I had a look, I am not sure if they would bundle any phones with the business package! Didn't find anything about that at o2online.ie. Phones->PayMonthly->NewCustomer shows a blank page, probably a Firefox compatibility thing! Not sure at the moment really.

thanks!

Tarakiwa

Positron - if your main expense (& your gd's main expense) is calling / texting each other then I suggest that you both look to move to the same network.

If you choose a network that offers either:

1) Free on net texts
2) Free on net calls

or ideally

3) Free on net texts and calls

then you will greatly reduce your expense.

My better half & I moved providers for this very reason ...........

positron

Thanks everyone for all the input and comments. We both switched to Meteor yesterday, lovely red k750i, paid €60 to get roaming on straight away (I am traveling to Europe tomorrow). Lets see how this goes.

kensutz

I got told I needed to pay €120 up front for roaming. I'll take a trip into the Meteor shop tomorrow and ask them what the story is. CPW asked me for the €120.

Pythia

kensutz wrote:

I got told I needed to pay €120 up front for roaming. I'll take a trip into the Meteor shop tomorrow and ask them what the story is. CPW asked me for the €120.

e60 for roaming, e60 for international calls. So both is e120.

positron

CPW originally told me 120 and half way thru the paperwork the girl said its only €60! Oh, she also said the k750i is free with the Talk60 and then by the end of the stuff, she said no, its €29!!

I am traveling tomorrow, and if I can't make calls, I think I would need to see her again! :rolleyes:

flodis79

Urban Weigl wrote:

Weird, they told him they had none, and even though he had roaming active and a new Meteor phone, he was never able to get a signal. That was a few months back, though. Customer service, as I said, confirmed to him they currently did not have any active roaming partners in Sweden.

However, considering how bad Meteor's customer service is, they may have just messed things up really badly, and than lied about having no roaming partners.

I can confirm that Meteor works in Sweden, roaming on the Telia network.

flodis79

Pythia wrote:

e60 for roaming, e60 for international calls. So both is e120.

This is a very strange thing for them to say... You DON'T have to topup anything for roaming in UK and some other ten EU countries, like Germany, Italy, Spain etc...

positron

Okay, I can confirm meteor roaming works in Switzerland (both Zurich and Geneva) - 'sunrise' and at least one other local network. I can receive and send texts, receive and make calls, including international calls. I paid 60 refundable euros to enable roaming.

Urban Weigl

Even when Meteor roaming does work, they're the most expensive pretty much across the board. Certainly a lot more expensive than O2 or even Vodafone in almost all cases.