VF Offer: 1,000 w/end minutes for €8

BrianD · 11-08-2004 10:21am #1

VF have a new offer of 1,000 weekend minutes for €8 (per month). This is available for pay monthly customers only.

On the face of it it looks like a good offer. Its equivalent of 16 hours to other VF and land line numbers. Then I was thinking, unless I go through my bill and calculate the number of w/end minutes I currently use I will never know if it is! Furthermore, my largest bill has never been much above 16 hours (I use mine for work as well). So unless I start doing a lot of weekend talking I am just giving VF another €8 per month and increasing the fixed cost of my bill from €50 to €58 per month giving them another €96 per annum.

Also I was in Belfast and picked up a VF brochure. The differences in tarriffs is scandalous - latest phones, many free and very attractive airtime packages.

Sleipnir · 11-08-2004 10:32am

Hmmm, 16.6 hours of talktime between midnight Friday to midnight Sunday.
You'd want to be fairly chatty to use more than a tenth of it.

Stephen · 11-08-2004 10:33am

the fixed call for your bill is €50 a month? Christ.

BrianD · 11-08-2004 10:55am

I'm on the talk and text Plus option. €50 includes 100 minutes, 150 text messages and 100 call a friend (as long as he/she is on VF and you can wait till after 8pm) minutes for free.

So really i would only get a fraction of the value of the extra €8 I'm paying to VF. My mother used to say that Mr. Coleman (the mustard man) made his money by what was left on the plate!! Looks like mr. VF likes his mustard too!

jesus_thats_gre · 11-08-2004 1:14pm

I think its a good offer.. Its obviously not aimed towards business customers. For an average joe who rarely uses their phone for personal use it will mean very little but there is a lot of people out there who will take advantage off it.. There are people who's only choice sometimes is to keep in contact with loved ones over the phone. If you are one of these people, you will save a fortune..

jesus_thats_gre · 11-08-2004 1:41pm

BrianD wrote:

was in Belfast and picked up a VF brochure. The differences in tarriffs is scandalous - latest phones, many free and very attractive airtime packages.

This one has been discussed to death.. Up until recently anyway, the cost of using your phone in UK was not much cheaper than in Ireland and I dont think much has changed. Granted, the initial outlay for the handset is far cheaper but this is more to do with nearly 60 million people and a good number of operators competing.

I assume you are comparing a tariff that most people would use as oppose to some obscrue one that suits 1 in a million..

Normal RTG tariff

Call type

Vodafone Ireland

Vodafone UK

To Vodafone mobiles
and landlines

50cent/15cent

30p/5p

To other mobile
numbers

65cent/30cent

35p/35p

Text messages

13cent

12p

Picture message

25cent

36p

All in all, there is little to seperate them overall. You can choose alternative RTG options here that are not available in the UK that may suit your usage better too..

Comparing the Postpaid options though it s different story.. I will try the base ones from both..

Base tariff

Light - 20 euro - 10 peak mins, 50 off peak mins, 50 call a friend for free
Anytime 100 - 22 sterling - 100 mins anytime

Call type

Vodafone Ireland

Vodafone UK

To Vodafone mobiles

30cent/15cent

15p/15p

To other mobile
numbers

50cent/30cent

40p/40p

Landlines

50cent/15cent

15p/15p

Text messages

13cent

12p

Once again, its not much different.

flywheel · 11-08-2004 2:10pm

hmm midnight Friday? ... sure doesn't the weekend really start earlier on Friday evening

it looked interesting at first glance, wondered if it could be used for the on-network Mobile ISP, but reading the small print put the end to that...

Talk Weekends 1000 minutes/rate may not be used to make calls to other mobile telecommunications networks, roaming calls, calls to or from mobile gateways (as described in ComReg Information Notice 15/03), calls to ISPs or calls to mobile ISPs.

BrianG

Villain · 11-08-2004 2:46pm

The very least they could have done was made it from 6PM Friday until 8am Monday. You'd want to be a hell of a lot of talking to get any real use.

Perhaps 300 texts and 500 minutes would have been a better idea

JTMan · 11-08-2004 5:03pm

jesus_thats_gre wrote:

This one has been discussed to death.. Up until recently anyway, the cost of using your phone in UK was not much cheaper than in Ireland and I dont think much has changed. Granted, the initial outlay for the handset is far cheaper but this is more to do with nearly 60 million people and a good number of operators competing.
.

There are HUGE differences between the tarrifs in the UK and Ireland.

For starters,
In the UK you get your mobile for free on contract. There can be up to a €200 difference in handset prices between the UK and Ireland.

In terms of tarrifs you can get 1,000 minutes any network any time for £35.50(now half price thanks to competition from 3) now on Vodafone UK with your free handset and free weekend calls to vodafone numbers. This compares with the same for over €360 here for the same 1,000 minutes. Their best offers are seldom listed on the vodafone UK website but can be got in their UK stores.

If we were to start comparing Vodafone Ireland contract tarrifs with 3 UK or Vodafone Ireland PAYG tarrifs with Fresh UK PAYG then the differences become even clearer.

sceptre · 11-08-2004 5:48pm

Mmm, seems like a good offer (relatively speaking of course). Wouldn't make much difference to me but I saw the advert on the box at the weekend and meant to post about it here.

MiCr0 · 11-08-2004 6:16pm

Sleipnir wrote:

Hmmm, 16.6 hours of talktime between midnight Friday to midnight Sunday.
You'd want to be fairly chatty to use more than a tenth of it.

this is across a month right - so 16.6/4.3 =~ 4hrs per weeked - which wouldn't be too hard to do

4.3 = average number of weekends a month

jesus_thats_gre · 11-08-2004 6:26pm

Fungus wrote:

There are HUGE differences between the tarrifs in the UK and Ireland.

For starters,
In the UK you get your mobile for free on contract. There can be up to a €200 difference in handset prices between the UK and Ireland.

In terms of tarrifs you can get 1,000 minutes any network any time for £35.50(now half price thanks to competition from 3) now on Vodafone UK with your free handset and free weekend calls to vodafone numbers. This compares with the same for over €360 here for the same 1,000 minutes. Their best offers are seldom listed on the vodafone UK website but can be got in their UK stores.

If we were to start comparing Vodafone Ireland contract tarrifs with 3 UK or Vodafone Ireland PAYG tarrifs with Fresh UK PAYG then the differences become even clearer.

Yes you are correct. I was doing my best to compare like for like.. As I said, there are so many permutations that you will always find one tariff that blow another one out of the water but some of these tend to be aimed specifically at certain usage patterns... The Vodafone/O2 vs Meteor debate has been ongoing for ages now, at least they are competing in the same market.. Comparing something in the UK to whats available here is slightly different and pretty much applies to everything.

As it goes, in the mobile market I think we are not doing too bad... From memory the current tariffs are in place now for just over 2 years, August 2002 I think.. The current ones in the UK have recently only been introduced and if I remember correctly the old ones were released a while before the current ones in Ireland. So maybe there will be a bit of an overhaul here soon...

JTMan · 11-08-2004 8:12pm

jesus_thats_gre wrote:

The current ones in the UK have recently only been introduced and if I remember correctly the old ones were released a while before the current ones in Ireland. So maybe there will be a bit of an overhaul here soon...

Yeah, I think a big overhaul is in store here. Meteor with national coverage, 3 who have to reach the market before christmas boom time, forced MVNO access and signs that Vodafone and O2 are starting to lose customers should all combine to stir up some real competition.

Lets hope customers move with their feet ...

BrianD · 11-08-2004 11:59pm

this is across a month right - so 16.6/4.3 =~ 4hrs per weeked - which wouldn't be too hard to do

Wow if you think it's easy to clock up those hours, I would hate to see what your bills are like now!! My VF July bill - just over 16 hours airtime and including SMS came to €295.

MiCr0 · 12-08-2004 10:20am

BrianD wrote:

Wow if you think it's easy to clock up those hours, I would hate to see what your bills are like now!! My VF July bill - just over 16 hours airtime and including SMS came to €295.

Instead of sending 3million texts organising saturday nights out you could use the 2hrs of "free" talk time

RicardoSmith · 12-08-2004 10:30am

jesus_thats_gre wrote:

.....Granted, the initial outlay for the handset is far cheaper but this is more to do with nearly 60 million people and a good number of operators competing......

Theres only one reason a handset which is identical across the world, (other than software differences) would be substantially more expensive in Ireland than anywhere else, is that we are being screwed. Economy of scale (worldwide) would mean that it costs next to nothing to make these phones.

VF Offer: 1,000 w/end minutes for €8

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