crazy o2 prices

maxy jazz

Check out the crazy roaming charges o2 use and justify on their own forum:

http://forums.o2online.ie/forums/showthread.php?t=3779

Anyone with an Iphone be warned, these guys are terrible!

It will be great when EU roaming rules take place.

Solair

Well, Viviane Redding (European Commissioner) may not have made very many friends in the mobile phone industry, but she's definitely got huge public support on this one.

The mobile roaming rates within Europe are insane. There's absolutely no justification for them at all.

center15

In fairness O2 do have their charges clearly laid out and people shouldn't just presume thats its cheap to use when away, it's not all O2's fault. It's 1c KB when roaming in most of the EU very handy for checking gmail on your phone when away it really only costs few cent. Cheaper roaming will definitely be welcome though.

Solair

center15 wrote: »

In fairness O2 do have their charges clearly laid out and people shouldn't just presume thats its cheap to use when away, it's not all O2's fault. It's 1c KB when roaming in most of the EU very handy for checking gmail on your phone when away it really only costs few cent. Cheaper roaming will definitely be welcome though.

You forget that little old O2 are part of the enormous Telefonica Group which has networks in many EU countries. It should be possible for them to offer a better deal.

The same goes for Vodafone.

IgnatiusPop

center15 wrote: »

In fairness O2 do have their charges clearly laid out and people shouldn't just presume thats its cheap to use when away, it's not all O2's fault. It's 1c KB when roaming in most of the EU very handy for checking gmail on your phone when away it really only costs few cent. Cheaper roaming will definitely be welcome though.

Just to follow up to Solair's post, as well as being a member of Telefonica, which owns telco's on more than 20 countries, the fact that the individual companies are resesting the removal of roaming charges suggestes a bit of a monopoly on the part of the parent company. And to be fair, with the exception of the base stations (mobile phone masts) the rest of the hardware is practically identical to the hardware that allows you to transfer data across the internet, and is not as expensive as you might be lead to believe (especially considering Telefonicas revenue's). Since the additional cost of sending data from one country to another is so low as to be practically imesurable, it makes the telco's arguments for roaming charges look all the more spurious.

Personally If I could be guarenteed to be in a wifi zone in dublin all the time (ie. within a city-wide MAN, like they have in Cork, even though thir implementation was a bit pants), then I'd be using Skype the whole time, not meteor, who, even being competitive compaired to the other mobile operators in Ireland, are still costing me 50 quid a month.

:pac:

IgnatiusPop

Apologies for the muck spelling in that last post - have a case of fat-fingers today...

:pac:

ardmacha

The same goes for Vodafone.

The Vodafone Live 99c day rate does work when roaming. OK this is a proxied service, but it is fine for browsing and a bit of browser based email and the likes of Google maps works. O2 have nothing to offer, they even feel free to gouge you going to Newry.

rogue-entity

And yet, pan-european pricey roaming (especially for data.. no bundles) asside.. O2 are the cheapest for calls and texts.

O2 Clear Unlimited, for €25/mo... gets you unlimited O2-O2, Landline and Text messages. I use nearly 1000 minutes a month on average and my phone bill on the iPhone plan, the top plan.. was still averaging around €180+.
I switched to O2 Clear Unlimited and my bill dropped to €35.

That €35 gets me: Unlimited Landline Calls, Unlimited Calls to O2 numbers, 'local' rate calls to US numbers and 250MB of data.
I dont make that many texts, and I dont use the data on the phone much.

That makes O2 cheaper than an eircom landline with my usage.

I would like to see them apply the same data bundle to roaming though..