A bit of advice on the mobile front

Fandango

I used to work for a BIG mobile company. Trust me, dont go near O2. They are tryin to sell and are putting no money into their maintenance. Vodafone are the best at the moment, they put a few million into their maintenance and are the best quality, altho more expensive. Meteor are on the way up. Give them 2 years and they will be unbeatable. For the moment tho, its meteor or vodafone, O2 will just get worse!

1huge1

good to know

was there any point in saying I used to work for a BIG mobile company?

deckie27

Are eircom looking to buy meteor ?

20 Times 20 Times

hutchinson 3g WILL buy o2 .

wolfman

I've heard that T-Mobile have expressed a "huge" interest in moving into the Irish market and are supposed to be looking at both O2 & Meteor at the moment.

Also, Virgin Mobile are supposed to be looking at setting up here soon too!
But as I said, these are just rumours, so we'll just have to wait and see.

KillerShamrock

Why, O2 is the best provider (cheaper than vodafone and just better than meteor) at the moment, vodafone are to expensive and they ruin perfectly good fones with vodafone live . meteor are just crap all their offers have some sort of criteria to be met before you can take advantage of them or so that you can keep using them.

JohnC.

I've been using O2 since before they were O2 (since ESAT launched Speakeasy PAYG) and I must say I've never had any problems with them. Both my parents are on Vodafone and have had several problems.

Jorinn

Fandango wrote:

I used to work for a BIG mobile company. Trust me, dont go near O2. They are tryin to sell and are putting no money into their maintenance. Vodafone are the best at the moment, they put a few million into their maintenance and are the best quality, altho more expensive. Meteor are on the way up. Give them 2 years and they will be unbeatable. For the moment tho, its meteor or vodafone, O2 will just get worse!

So meteor are getting better but O2 are going down hill. Er, right. Since the only reason meteor have full coverage now is BECAUSE of O2, they have a roaming agreement etc.

All the Irish operators are overpriced. To put it in perspective, even if O2 are the cheapest in Ireland they're still expensisve european wise. e.g where I am at the moment for 40 euro or thereabouts I get 600 mins of calls free on top of the money I have to burn on paid for calls. How much with O2? 0 AFAIK but I'd only get 320 if I was paying for the cheapest calls all the time, but of course you don't get 40 euro when paying 40 euro a month. So you're far worse off. Hopefully 3 will stir things up along with the virtual operators.

seamus

Moved from IOFFL

The Corinthian

Fandango wrote:

I used to work for a BIG mobile company. Trust me, dont go near O2. They are tryin to sell and are putting no money into their maintenance. Vodafone are the best at the moment, they put a few million into their maintenance and are the best quality, altho more expensive. Meteor are on the way up. Give them 2 years and they will be unbeatable. For the moment tho, its meteor or vodafone, O2 will just get worse!

Rumours - you can’t beat them. Like the one that, two years ago, that 3 were about to buy Meteor. Also, on the subject of rumour mongering, I take it everyone has already forgotten that Eircom can re-enter the market again.

Personally, I’ve been using Digifone / O2 since their launch and have rarely had any problem. Also as Meteor’s coverage has improved, I’ve been tempted to move to them. As for Vodafone, they would (in my personal opinion) have the best coverage of all the networks, but they’re also significantly more expensive - significant enough to warrant my not moving to them.

Le Rack

I HATE O2!! was meteor but mam made me switch cuz of the lack of reception but Im going back, ya know how o2 messages are meant to be 11c well I get charged 13c????!!!!

philtaylor

Virgin are my top bet for entering the market as the EU will make the big two companies open up their network to virtual opertors .

Virgin Mobile Pay as you go now as the same rate for ringing a UK national line and a Republic of Ireland national line of 15p per minute any time . However after 5 mins the UK line charge goes down to 5p and the ROI doesnt.

Pythia

Le Rack wrote:

I HATE O2!! was meteor but mam made me switch cuz of the lack of reception but Im going back, ya know how o2 messages are meant to be 11c well I get charged 13c????!!!!

No they're 11c to o2 numbers and 13c to other networks. Just cos the person has an 086 number doesnt mean they're still on o2.
If they are charging you 13c for texts to actual o2 customers then just ring up and complain. They'll probably refund you, look into it, etc

mobilemetal

3 won't buy o2 cause they would have to buy the whole group - that would mean O2 Uk and Germany and 3 already operate in the UK.

20 Times 20 Times

Kahless wrote:

I've been using O2 since before they were O2 (since ESAT launched Speakeasy PAYG) and I must say I've never had any problems with them. Both my parents are on Vodafone and have had several problems.

expectations with older people are higher
are your parents RTG or postpaid ?

The Corinthian

mobilemetal wrote:

3 won't buy o2 cause they would have to buy the whole group - that would mean O2 Uk and Germany and 3 already operate in the UK.

No they wouldn't - multinationals divest themselves of regional subsidiaries all the time.

Mitch Connor

i am on meteor i i find it ok. The reception is rubbish but it is by far the cheapest. My girlfriend and best mate are on meteor too so i get free texts and picture messages to them and 9c per minute calls. I think the wap is very reasonably priced (in comparrison to the other irish networks) I have been on both vodafone and O2 and i really do prefer meteor.

1huge1

i really dont find vodafone as expensive as everyone says it is, ive been on 6c txtx for 4 months now even after they said it went up to 8c but im still getting charged at 6c
and heres you guys going on about o2 at 11c and 13c lol

Tiriel

I switched to meteor last Sept and there's no way i'd move back. sooo much cheaper, credit last me way longer. texts @9c all the time and free to 085.. calls are so much cheaper no matter what network you are ringing,
it used to cost a fortune on Vodafone to ring any other network, not with meteor. And they're reception is actually quite good, haven't experience poor reception now in quite a while and I travel between Cork, Kerry and Dublin a lot. Would definitely recommend it.

DonegalMan

Biggest problem I've found with O2 is coverage - or lack of coverage to be precise, especially in Donegal and Sligo.

They offer a better range of business packages than Vodafone but our business had to abandon them and move to Vodafone where we have found no problems with coverage.

Wez

I never liked Vodafone, they flash their phones to tacky looking and normally badly made versions. They're expensive. And I know it sounds stupid, but common, everyone's on Vodafone.. I'm on Meteor, now, I changed over when they first came here and their reception was shocking, absolutely none in the c.b.d. I changed back to o2 and was well chuffed with them, except their customer services is badly run and never seemed to be open. I changed back to Meteor a couple months back and I don't regret it. I've got a boat in Leitrim and the first time I was there after changing I had no signal half the time. Now it's a bit low, but there most of the time. I'm happy I changed over, just wish I caught one of the better deals when I did, I only got the 100 euro free credit, meaning I had to spend 20 a month, but once I changed over, I lost my job.. So I can't afford it but I was spending like 40 a month (prepay - I'm only a student) and now I'm down to like 10-15 buying it in fives, so no free credit I'm always recommending people to move to Meteor now because I think they're gonna take off soon enough.