Whats happening to meteor?

tw0nk

Ok so Im with meteor years now, and last year changed to bill pay to get a decent phone for cheaper along with good call prices etc.

So now my year is up and Im due an upgrade, look at the phones available and they are all pretty rubbish (have k750 currently). Also I find out today that they changed their offer of free calls to all meteor numbers to a lame free weekend calls to all networks.

Originally I thought meteor were being really clever and stealing a nice markey share for themselves, but now I think eircells influence is starting to show and they are dropping the ball.

Im seriously thinking of changing network now and I think more people will do the same, they are way behind on mobile technology, phone choice, and now their biggest winner, free calls in-network is gone.

Anyone else think they are sleeping at the wheel a bit?

Urban Weigl

I left Meteor after being with them for over a year due to poor customer service, expensive roaming and insane GPRS charges.

I am glad I did as my bills have dropped considerably since leaving Meteor.

miju

i know what you mean i bought a new phone a few weeks ago and was planning on possibly switching to meteor but when i went in to the shop the technology on the phones was pretty out of date (if there at all) so went with vodaphone again and got a great phone / MP3 player / picture & video camera with bluetooth and voice recognition

chrislad

I think the fault lies with the manufactuers also. How many times can Sony churn out the same specs in a different case (K750i, W800i, W810i, K550i, W850i etc). Sames goes for Nokia with their 6300, 6233, 7373. Very similar specs, different cases. Meteor have a decent enough selection of phones, just not high spec 3G ones because what's the point without a 3G network? Wait until next year and you'll see a lot more high end phones, I'll bet.

As for the offer, each to his own. It suits me a lot better as by far, a lot more of my calls are made at weekends and my dad and two mates are on O2 so I get free calls, plus I can call my Granny on her landline. Still have 300 minutes to use during the week which is plenty.

summer_07

Hey I dont agree at all with this...
They are keeping the free talk and text for customers who are already signed up to it - so its not like they are taking it off people who are already signed up to the offer.

The weekend offer is cool- it means you can call any network and landline all weekend- thats amazing when you consider Vodafone only offer free weekend calls to their own network. now thats a swizz...

I have just joined from Vodafone and I can tell you Meteor treat their customers much better than Voda - I can tell already.

miju

*cough* shill *cough*

ciaran76

Urban Weigl wrote:

I left Meteor after being with them for over a year due to poor customer service, expensive roaming and insane GPRS charges.

I am glad I did as my bills have dropped considerably since leaving Meteor.

Same here except I think the customer service was very good.

I like to check the internet on the go so Meteor didn't suit me.

Sam Vimes

summer_07 wrote:

Hey I dont agree at all with this...
They are keeping the free talk and text for customers who are already signed up to it - so its not like they are taking it off people who are already signed up to the offer.

i think they are. i seem to recall something about the "free calls and texts for life" offer ending in february and changing to "free calls and texts til august"

tw0nk

It just strikes me as a meteor user that the offers they used to get people to switch over to them in the first place, once changed or replaced with other offer, may cause people to leave network.

I mean lets face it, meteors offers are all there simply because their network is inferior to all the other networks in Ireland and they need some sort of carrot to get people to change.

Now as a meteor customer I am more than happy that the services they offer do work very well but missing out on the free calls to meteor at any time might and not great selection of phones may cause me to change network.

Solair

Their network isn't that bad thesedays, they've decent coverage. It's basic GSM, but for the most part the 3G services are still a pile of rubbish on most of the other networks. You'll play with them for a few mins and then never use them again.

I don't understand why they're not rolling out better handsets though. Even if they've only got a 2.5G network, they can still make use of good handsets. Things like cameras, MP3 players etc don't require 3G!!
:rolleyes:

senordingdong

I've been using meteor for nearly five years now and I haven't a bad thing to say about them. Their coverage is fine and their prices are fantastic. Plus there's the free texts to other meteor customers and the weekend calls.
As for roaming charges, I don't use it. If I go abroad I just use email to contact home...it just makes more sense to me.
I just use my phone for texting an calls and thus far meteor have proved themselves the cheapest and most reliable.

tw0nk

I agree they do what they do well and cheap, ie simple calls and texts. But as solair said, theres no reason for them not to offer decent handsets rather than the cheapest handsets.

Take for example the N95, loaded with features, the only one you would miss would be 3g by using it with meteor, other than that it has wifi, gps (has 3G option but can use 3rd party software) , 5MP camera etc etc

I wonder do carphone warehouse have any better upgrade options? they sometimes offer more phones than service providers offer.

chrislad

The newest Meteor catalog has the E65 coming soon. It's a decent little phone. Symbian 60, Wi-fi, 3G, 2MP camera and it's a lot smaller than the N95 with a better battery. I'm getting about 3 days out of mine.

GekkePrutser

Commander Vimes wrote:

i think they are. i seem to recall something about the "free calls and texts for life" offer ending in february and changing to "free calls and texts til august"

I'm surprised they can (legally) do that, the 'for life' thing kind of implies that they won't take it away in the future. They should have called it 'Free calls and texts for life (or until we change our minds)'

Sam Vimes

GekkePrutser wrote:

I'm surprised they can (legally) do that, the 'for life' thing kind of implies that they won't take it away in the future. They should have called it 'Free calls and texts for life (or until we change our minds)'

no, the people who signed up for life will have it for life but anyone who signed up after february only has the offer til august. or so i heard

chrislad

Commander Vimes wrote:

no, the people who signed up for life will have it for life but anyone who signed up after february only has the offer til august. or so i heard

Exactly. Anyone who had signed up before the cut off, got it for life. Anyone who signed up after, got it until 2008. It's all for Life now so it's a moot point. That applies to everyone regardless, if they are on Anytime Plus or Xtra or Leisuretime Plus.

storka

chrislad wrote:

The newest Meteor catalog has the E65 coming soon. It's a decent little phone. Symbian 60, Wi-fi, 3G, 2MP camera and it's a lot smaller than the N95 with a better battery. I'm getting about 3 days out of mine.

Wow anyone know when Meteor will have it, i've been dying to get this phone!!

senordingdong

tw0nk wrote:

I agree they do what they do well and cheap, ie simple calls and texts. But as solair said, theres no reason for them not to offer decent handsets rather than the cheapest handsets.
.

I disagree, I got my 6300 there and it is slammin! Chok a block with loads of features I'll never use, whatsmore, it cost me two hundred quid.

tw0nk

Whens the E65 coming out chris? Im due an upgrade and if that was available soon ide go for it!

The Corinthian

summer_07 banned for being a shill.

I've noticed a number of Meteor associated posters posting recently promoting their network, sometimes shamelessly, without disclosing where they're from and this will now cease. By all means defend your company, but don't do so pretending that you're a neutral member of the public. As for promoting it, I suggest you ask your marketing dept. for an advertising budget and pay Boards for the publicity.

The same goes for all the other networks.

Any more shilling I catch from any of the networks will result in a ban without further warning and a public outing.

Addendum: To clarify; if you work for a mobile operator that does not mean that you must announce that you do which every time you post in this forum. Many people here work in the mobile industry (I've worked for a number of operators in the past, both in Ireland and abroad) and can often be the best people to respond to queries that are posed here.

So if you are and you do post on a topic where your views may be viewed as biased you may wish to qualify it by disclosing that you work for an operator (without unnecessarily identifying which one). Shills, however, will not be tolerated and will be banned and outed.

The same goes for other areas of the industry, such as premium rate SMS service providers, phone manufacturers or retailers and the like.

tw0nk

Good catch corinthian

chrislad

tw0nk wrote:

Whens the E65 coming out chris? Im due an upgrade and if that was available soon ide go for it!

No idea, I'm afraid. The new catalogs only came out this week. More than likely in the next 4 weeks, but I'd ring your local Meteor store for clarification on that. I'd guess on a price point of around 150 though.

tw0nk

Heya Chris, sorry to be asking more questions.... but what exactly is the "new catalog" ? is that the in-house meteor brochure on what phones are to be released? Thanks again.

dionsiseire

i used to like meteor, i got my girlfriend at the time to sign up too she went pre paid i went bill, we have since broke up but still text each other loads so we save some money there

i have a N95 coming in the post and i wont be able to use 3G and the GPRS costs are looking hefty so i am considering a move to another network, but i like being bill

but take a look at vodafone's free texts to other friends offer, its for prepay only, what kind of business move is that?????????

I wont touch o2 with a yard stick and three seem good for the internet 3g side of things but the texts and calls cost seem to outweight the benefits there

So im kind of stuff here on meteor ( by virtue of contract till november ) but if and when i want to move, i cant really see a be all end all operator out there

chrislad

tw0nk wrote:

Heya Chris, sorry to be asking more questions.... but what exactly is the "new catalog" ? is that the in-house meteor brochure on what phones are to be released? Thanks again.

Yup, the 'in house' catalog. The one with the new offer for bill pay.

dion, Meteor have data packages that might suit. True, it's not 3G speeds, but they suffice for basic web browsing and email. The 25meg package is 15euro a month. There's an unlimited (10gig) package as well for 30euro.

Failing that, Three seem to have the best packages for speed, since the N95 supports HSDPA.

tw0nk

Thanks Chris, il postpone my upgrade and wait for those new phones, thanks again for heads-up.