Vodafone to publish their network statistics?

Lucutus

If you was watching Prime Time last night, you would have seen Paul Donovan, Chief Executive of Vodafone, and Dermott Jewell, Chief Executive of the Consumers' Association of Ireland, talk about the differences in mobile phone costs in this country, as compared to the rest of the EU zone, (€46 per month as compared to €30 per month everywhere else). link (needs stupid real player).

Paul Donovan claimed it's because "Irish people like to talk more", and stated that next week he will publish vodafone's network statistics.

I was wondering if SMS statistics will be included in this as txt msging seems to be huge in this country and the amount of traffic is obviously part of the costs.

Anyone any ideas on this? Is it a regular thing for such large mobile phone networks to publish their stats?

:f33r:

Elmo

Paul Donovan claimed it's because "Irish people like to talk more", and stated that next week he will publish vodafone's network statistics.

Even if we do talk more, would that mean that the phone companies would reduce their prices since were such good customers. ??????


Also his whole thing about fix landlines costing so much even though you don't us them.

i.e. Rental plus phone charges

Emmmmm Mobile Phones Ready To Go, Speak Easy And Pay As You go off peak it cost 40c to 63c per minute.

Just because you add you rental to the price per min doesn't mean its not there.

Tazz T

Yeah, I seen this too. His comment about landline rental was idiotic. He was covering his ass at every angle.

The fact remains that there isn't enough players in the field to force prices down and Vodafone obviously doesn't care about the Irish customer. What I took from the interview was that Vodafone sees Ireland as nice little earner while they have to compete in other countries.

What a corporate plonker!

jesus_thats_gre

I am quite interested in this too. Are O2 doing it too?

antoinolachtnai

here is an interesting direct comparison between mobile phone costs in Ireland and the UK:


Point 1:

To call an 02 UK mobile in the UK from an O2 Ireland mobile in ireland costs 69c. (No discount scheme available.)

(http://www1.o2.ie/products_services/tariffs/tariffs_monthly/other_call_charges)

To call an o2 Ireland mobile in Ireland from an O2 UK mobile in the UK costs 23c (including VAT, excluding discount). (http://www.o2.co.uk/business/productsservices/mobileservices/travelling/worldwide/worldwidecallchargesbusiness/0,,402,00.html)

Note that exactly the same resources are required to connect a call in either direction. So the cost is the same, but the price is different. If there was a free market, you would expect price to be related to cost, but this does not appear to be the case here.

Point 2: Vodafone's pricing

The cost for calling from Vodafone Ireland to a UK number are exactly the same as on O2 Ireland.

Point 1 + Point 2:

Taken together, this suggests that the pricing between Vodafone Ireland and O2 Ireland are not entirely independent of one another, as you might expect them to be.

jesus_thats_gre

Originally posted by Tazz T
Yeah, I seen this too. His comment about landline rental was idiotic. He was covering his ass at every angle.

The fact remains that there isn't enough players in the field to force prices down and Vodafone obviously doesn't care about the Irish customer. What I took from the interview was that Vodafone sees Ireland as nice little earner while they have to compete in other countries.

What a corporate plonker!

Pretty simplistic point of view there. Every company in this island seem to be screwing us over, hence the whole "we should investigate this and not stand for it" crap.

Elmo

Point 1 + Point 2:

Taken together, this suggests that the pricing between Vodafone Ireland and O2 Ireland are not entirely independent of one another, as you might expect them to be.

Did this occur before Meteor entered the market???

Or were Meteor the first to state that ring the UK will cost the same as a national call? Meteor is that big muiltination company that have other outlets all around the world


Just look at the price between O2 and Vodafone on their Tables for RTG and SE both cost around the same at the end of the day just with different price in different places.

Victor

Originally posted by antoinolachtnai
Note that exactly the same resources are required to connect a call in either direction. So the cost is the same, but the price is different. If there was a free market, you would expect price to be related to cost, but this does not appear to be the case here.

In practice yes, in theory you should be paying more in Ireland because there is more infrastructure per phone user, but not the price difference shouldn't be 200%.