Dempsey Lies About Roaming in NI

Sponge Bob

Today, after some pressure from Dempsey and others O2 finally agreed to abolish certain roaming charges for O2 customers in the south while using O2 in the North. If you are an O2 customer in the south and go to Vodafone in the north you will pay roaming charges.

Press Release from O2

http://web.o2.ie/site/about_o2/latest_news.jsp

From April 2006, roaming between Ireland and Northern Ireland will be abolished on O2’s network for it’s 1.6 million pre pay (speak easy), post pay (contract) customers. This means that these customers will not be charged for calls they receive while roaming in Northern Ireland.

They will pay a special roaming charge for calls they MAKE while on O2 in NI

In addition, pre pay customers will pay a new flat rate of 39 cent for calls and texts made in Northern Ireland and back to the Republic of Ireland. All Irish numbers and Northern Ireland landline numbers will be charged at this new flat rate. There is no set up fee or subscription charge for this service.

Postpaid users will NOT pay for roaming charges for calls they make while on O2 in NI

The price post pay customers pay for calls they make while in Northern Ireland will be the same as their domestic rate, depending on what price plan they are on. Again this is an opt-in service and there is no set up fee or subscription charge.

Finally O2 Business customers will not pay roaming charges for any part of the UK or for inbound or outbound calls. They wiull pay what it costs to call in Ireland .

O2 Ireland also announced today that in recognition of the economic importance of trade between Ireland and the UK, from Monday 13th February, the company is to abolish roaming charges between Ireland and the UK for O2 Ireland corporate and SME customers

All very fair and thanks to O2 for that, however this is what Dempsey had to say about this 'new' but smaller roaming charge .

I am delighted that O2 have stepped up to the challenge I issued to all the mobile phone operators last September and abolished inadvertent mobile phone roaming charges between the Republic and Northern Ireland,” said Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Noel Dempsey today.

Dempsey

a) did not mention that the abolition only applies as long as you select o2 as your carrier when you cross the border , this generally means MANUALLY or else your phone could hop all around the shop if you leave it on AUTOMATIC especially if it is a 3g phone .

b) That for prepays it is a sizeable reduction not an outright abolition .


Abolition means Abolition, not Reduction o Dial Up

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paulm17781

I thought the whole thing seemed odd. Good to see Dial-up is still spinning the truth. :rolleyes:

ai ing

Sponge Bob wrote:

a) did not mention that the abolition only applies as long as you select o2 as your carrier when you cross the border , this generally means MANUALLY or else your phone could hop all around the shop if you leave it on AUTOMATIC especially if it is a 3g phone .

Well myself along with almost everyone who lives within 20 miles of the border already has their phone on manual anyway.

Sponge Bob

I am referring to the more gullible form of free stater found in parts further south ....like the ones who might believe Dempsey !!!!!!!

ai ing

Especially those down around Meath :v:

eircomtribunal

pre pay customers will pay a new flat rate of 39 cent

What is it with calling that a flat rate?
That is not a flat rate. It is a per minute rate not a flat rate. It may be the same rate to all providers, so they could call it "same-rate", or "universal rate", but they should not come away with calling it a "flat rate".
O2 are since a while misusing the term "flat rate", a type of call charge which seems to emerge in some EU countries with mobile tariffs and seems to be seen as a great danger for O2 and the other mobile operators in Ireland to their de facto licence to print money.
P.

P.S.: Had O2 not since a while this opt in service, where calls to/from the North were charge at national call costs?

Blaster99

Are you sure it's per minute? The PR doesn't state that, it says a 39c flat rate. I would take that to mean a once-off charge, like Vodafone does if you're roaming on a Vodafone network. But the PR is very vague.

The free UK roaming for business customers sounds very good as well. But I think the reality is that they must be under pressure from Vodafone who've dropped their roaming charges on all their networks significantly and replaced them with a 75c call setup fee, or something of that nature.

I don't think you can blame them for insisting that it's on their own network. O2 had a plan a few years ago where you paid 20p for incoming and outgoing calls when roaming in the UK but I think they dropped it. I used to be on it when I was doing a fair bit of UK travel and it saved me a small fortune at the time. It think it was like a fiver a month.