Best Mobile Phone Deal for Business?

singlesnights

Hi everyone,

I am looking for the best mobile deal for a phone which has roaming as I spend a lot of time in the US on business. I therefore need a package which doesn't charge me an arm or a leg when I either make or receive a call when I am in the US.

Vodafone have a RED Business Super Package which is €75 a month.

For this, I would get:

Unlimited calls and texts to Ireland and the UK.
Unlimited UK roaming calls and texts
1000 international minutes and texts
500 EU, USA & Canada roaming minutes and texts
300 MB UK, EU & USA and Canada roaming data
10 GB data - 4G Ready
New phone every year
One Net Lite
24 month contract

I would also get a Samsung Galaxy for free as part of this package.

Is this the best package available or are they better, more competitive packages out there? Price-efficient roaming would be the most important factor for me.

Would really appreciate help with this - thanks

cormie

You might be better off with:

Vodafone Sim Only @ €35 a month:
http://shop.vodafone.ie/shop/phonesAndPlans/phonesAndPlansHome.jsp?reset=true&subPage=plans&planType=paySim

and then use Vodafone red Roaming:
http://www.vodafone.ie/roaming/red-roaming/

You pay per day of roaming, but it uses your at home minutes but then you get 200MB of data per day, rather than 300mb per month.

If you're using high data while you're there and only there a few months of the year, it could be a much cheaper option for you over the course of the 24 months.

StaticNoise

From my initial overview of your plan, it seems the best.
International Roaming isn't usually great, but I can't see any offers from other countries that would suit.

cb1959

singlesnights wrote: »

Hi everyone,

I am looking for the best mobile deal for a phone which has roaming as I spend a lot of time in the US on business. I therefore need a package which doesn't charge me an arm or a leg when I either make or receive a call when I am in the US.

You should take a serious look at the eMobile Business plans - For example - €20pm SIM-only, or €35pm with a free phone. (ex VAT)

- Unlimited Voice & Text including all ROI and UK destinations
- Free "like-home" voice/text roaming in UK, Europe & US
- 15GB 4G Data at home + 250MB data while roaming

Those Vodafone Red plans are seriously over-priced by comparison. With O2 now removed from the market, Three not being a credible player and Meteor being focused on Pre-pay, you really need to consider eMobile as being the main competitor for Business.

In my view it is a big mistake for most users to opt for the free phone deals with any network if the plan is more than about €40pm. While it is very tempting to be offered a free phone every year - do the sums and you will most likely find that you will get pay-back by buying your own phone and paying a lower monthly tariff.

cormie

Wouldn't Vodafone have the advantage of much better coverage though?

ct5amr2ig1nfhp

We're on the eMobile 35 plan and I cannot fault it. Travel a lot to Europe and US so the bundle is excellent value for our usage patterns.

Bills used to be 300/400 per user a month. Now about 50, so a substantial saving.

An increase in the 250mb data roaming would be nice though.

Edit: I find 4G speeds great in Ireland for when on the road.

cb1959

cormie wrote: »

Wouldn't Vodafone have the advantage of much better coverage though?

I have travelled widely around Ireland, and haven't noticed any significant difference. In fact, I was in Aranmore (Aran Islands) recently, and had solid 4G performance everywhere we went on the island. The others with us who were on Vodafone kept losing signal and had to borrow our phones just to make voice calls, let alone 4G data! Of course, any mobile network will have the odd blackspot - but if anything, I would expect that eircom has the advantage with the eFibre backbone now reaching into every nook and cranny for fixed broadband. Presumably they hang the mobile base-stations off the same fibre backbone. After all, eircom originally built the Eircell network that became Vodafone and eMobile & Meteor were first out of the traps with 4G a couple of years ago - before Vodafone caught up.

When you are roaming, it is the partner network that determines coverage, and you generally have a choice of partners, so it shouldn't matter which network you use at home.