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€19.99 a month for unlimited calls, texts, and 3Gb of data a month,

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  • 16-05-2012 12:22am
    #1
    Sponge Bob
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 25,234 ✭✭✭✭


    Launched in January and took France by storm. I hope they are in on the spectrum auction in the summer here.

    http://www.telegeography.com/products/commsupdate/articles/2012/05/15/free-mobile-brings-stiff-competition-to-french-wireless-market/
    The operator currently charges EUR19.99 (USD26) a month for mobile phone service, which includes unlimited texts, calls, and 3GB of mobile data, with no minimum contract length. There is also a EUR2 tariff which provides 60 minutes of calls and 60 SMS per month. With reductions of EUR2 per month for Iliad fixed line subscribers, the latter tariff shows that Free is living up to its name. Iliad’s aggressive market entrance strategy appears to be working; according to the company’s first quarter financials,



    Free Mobile acquired 2.61 million subscribers between mid-January and the end of March.



    The firm says customers are split evenly between its two tariffs, while there is also an even split between customers assigned new numbers and customers porting their number from another network.


    Free Mobile has had to act quickly, as it has promised to expand its network coverage from 27% of the French population to at least 75% by January 2015, and on to 90% by January 2018.



    However, this rapid take-up has caused a few issues for the new operator, including network failures and peak-time congestion leaving customers without service. The terms of its wholesale roaming deal with Orange have also been scrutinized for possible collusion against SFR and Bouygues.


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    #2
    drunkmonkey
    Registered Users Posts: 28,215 ✭✭✭✭drunkmonkey


    Network failures, congestion, and being probed for collusion. Not a hope these guys will be stumping up for a 4G licence here. We'll be lucky if we still have 4 networks left at the end of the auction let alone a 5th entering the market.


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    #3
    kaizersoze
    Registered Users Posts: 7,042 ✭✭✭kaizersoze


    drunkmonkey wrote: »
    Network failures, congestion, and being probed for collusion.

    Thought that would make them ideal candidates.....:D


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    #4
    jimmycrackcorm
    Registered Users Posts: 14,339 ✭✭✭✭jimmycrackcorm


    drunkmonkey wrote: »
    Network failures, congestion, and being probed for collusion.

    How does that make them any different to any other operator here?
    As for collusion - if their 19.99 package is any example then collusion is to be welcomed...


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    #5
    drunkmonkey
    Registered Users Posts: 28,215 ✭✭✭✭drunkmonkey


    jimmycrackcorm wrote: »
    As for collusion - if their 19.99 package is any example then collusion is to be welcomed...

    It's like 48 doing something like that, devaluing the whole market and not spending money on infrastructure, completely unfair on the likes of 3, Eircom & Vodafone who spend million on hardware. It's not to be welcomed unless you want to turn Ireland's mobile networks into something from the 3rd word within a few years.


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    #6
    Sponge Bob
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 25,234 ✭✭✭✭Sponge Bob


    drunkmonkey wrote: »
    . It's not to be welcomed unless you want to turn Ireland's mobile networks into something from the 3rd word within a few years.

    Comreg have guaranteed that already with their utterly pathetic coverage targets in the 4g auction. :(


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    #7
    Do-more
    Registered Users Posts: 4,748 ✭✭✭Do-more


    drunkmonkey wrote: »
    turn Ireland's mobile networks into something from the 3rd word within a few years.

    The sad fact is that many 2nd. and 3rd. world countries already have far superior mobile networks compared to those available in Ireland. I was just looking at a TV program about the mobile network in Kenya during the week and they lead the world in terms of mobile payment solutions with something like 20% of the country's commerce being transacted that way.

    As for catching up on other 1st. world countries I live in a village of 1100 population in the south of Sweden and have had 80Mb 4G LTE available from a number of different providers since before Christmas. There are still plenty of holes in the 80Mb coverage as they are rolling out coverage to towns and villages first but I think 99% of the population has access to 32Mb mobile BB from one provider or another.

    invest4deepvalue.com



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    #8
    Sponge Bob
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 25,234 ✭✭✭✭Sponge Bob


    Do-more wrote: »
    I think 99% of the population has access to 32Mb mobile BB from one provider or another.

    In tiny old Ireland, 1/7th the size of Sweden, around 80% of the population can access up to 10mbits. Coverage is better in Sweden north of the artic circle than it is in rural Ireland.


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    #9
    coylemj
    Registered Users Posts: 25,458 ✭✭✭✭coylemj


    Sponge Bob wrote: »
    In tiny old Ireland, 1/7th the size of Sweden, around 80% of the population can access up to 10mbits. Coverage is better in Sweden north of the artic circle than it is in rural Ireland.

    Not a valid comparison.

    If we paid the level of taxes they pay in Sweden, we could probably have free broadband for the whole population, and free childcare, and....

    Rural Ireland expects the Govt. to bring high-speed fibre to their doorsteps but expect the taxpayer (i.e. the townies) to pay for it.


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    #10
    Sponge Bob
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 25,234 ✭✭✭✭Sponge Bob


    coylemj wrote: »
    Not a valid comparison.

    If we paid the level of taxes they pay in Sweden, we could probably have free broadband for t..
    .
    The operators were made do it. no tax money involved.


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    #11
    Bob24
    Registered Users Posts: 10,905 ✭✭✭✭Bob24


    I tried them ... for 2 week before reverting to Orange. Among other examples, 3 months after launch it they still haven't fixed issues with international connectivity for text messages. So no way to send/receive a text to Ireland (basically only large european countries are - partially - interconnected).

    The quality if service really is bad. This is a company famous for cutting prices (they changed the broadband market in France) but also infamous for underinvesting in infrastructure.

    Their service is mostly based on roaming with orange, the spectrum their have for 3G is limited, and they do not have a 4G license. So they will straggle to deploy their own network.

    Honestly, broadband in Ireland is a bit crap compared to what you can get in France (ie 35-45 euros for 100MBPS fiber to the home with digital TV and unlimited phone services incclued), but as far as mobile phone service is concerned Ireland is pretty good.

    I have mostly been a Meteor customer and I never experienced bad data network congestion, or quality of service issues. And the prepaid offers and rates for international calls are not bad in Ireland if you pick the right offer.
    Only advantage of France now is that to compete the other operators also had to launch unlimited offers for 20-25 euros per month. But they will kill you with international calls and roaming.

    Also, keeps in mind that all these unlimited offers obviously don't include any subsidy for buying a mobile (so you have to chip in 600 for your iPhone), but on the positive side they are 1 month contracts so you can change anytime.


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