O2 quietly sneaks in price increases to 15xx numbers

Urban Weigl

O2 has quietly sneaked in price increases calling premium rate numbers.

For example, calls to 1520 and 1530 numbers used to cost 20 and 45 cents per minute respectively.

They now cost 24 and 55 cents.

When will the price increases stop? I thought prices were supposed to go down over time.

1huge1

ya most prices have gone down except for premium which have gone up and up over the years
do people actually join O2

playstation

peple still come to 02 cuz they think there the cheapest network but the cheapest network is actualy 3 :mad:

Sully

I think O2 are cheap, reliable, great customer support and for me - there always giving me free credit for something! I just find them to good a network, and have no issues with them so dont want to move.

Vodafone are pretty expensive, and never give anything away for free.

Meteor - very good network, and would move to them if moving from O2.

3 - Never tried em.

richieg

I have been with vodafone and left beacause (1) bloody expensive for what you get, (2) overpriced phones new or upgrade.
I have been with meteor for the last year because they were cheaper but I have had countless trouble with dropped calls or calls being diverted to my voice mail without the phone even ringing, it was just sitting on the table. Also if you try to use their wap service it costs an arm and a leg. The last straw came with roaming. It took 3 attempts to get roaming activated even though I was told each time that it was activated. I got shafted while travelling without coverage. My view on meteor are they are good at cheap calls particularily PAYG but don't look for anything beyond calls and text.
I am switching to O2 for the following reasons (1) Blackberry Pearl, (2) good reports here on them, (3) good tariff system particularily if you buy online, (4) Their wap service will be unlimited on blackberry package.

I have never tried 3 but a colleague is with them and finds them fantastic although he was travelling recently and he thought he had roaming active but I tried to call him and couldn't get him. Not sure if its 3 or him on that 1 though!

Sam Vimes

playstation wrote:

peple still come to 02 cuz they think there the cheapest network but the cheapest network is actualy 3 :mad:

in fact meteor are cheaper if you call a lot of meteor numbers. i can't wait til my contract ends and i don't have to carry around the extra phone for free texts anymore

www.callcosts.ie lists three as the cheapest because it doesn't take into account which network you're calling. for example, on meteor talk 300:

300 minutes to o2 and voda + 9699 minutes and 9999 texts to meteor numbers:€50

what callcosts.ie says: € 2,482.15

and thanks to AFT, three's €25 tariff for 100 mins and 100 texts would cost €22 on meteor payg anytime

xanthor

Sully04 wrote:

Vodafone are pretty expensive, and never give anything away for free.

.

....and their software is horrible.



Happy enough with O2. 'Walled garden' is what kept me away from 3.


Fears that coverage is still lacking kept me away from Meteor.

1huge1

^^ yes agreed the walled garden is a disgrace
but its not enough to put me off 3 they are still a great network

rogue-entity

I wouldnt touch Voda if you paid me, too much of a bloody rip off, and yet people still use their network :rolleyes:

I was with O2 from back in the day when it was called Digifone. They were the cheapest then, and at the time Meteor got good, O2 was the only one with a decent WAP service, free intl webtexts, a somewhat OK webmail system and fantastic customer support. I only hated the stil high call charges and the way they charge you for accessing O2 Active, up to 15 fracking cent too :mad:

3 work out the cheapest for me, all my texts are free because I dont text much and I have never had any service issues asside from the still not working right vodafone backup service (to which I blame Vodafone). The walled garden irked me a lot, but since I have broadband at home, I would rather use that then pay for data charges on the phone too. I still have my O2 SIM and I still use them for Intl texting which is free on the website.

Best of both worlds i guess.

Blaster99

You cannot compare Meteor with the other operators because Meteor has big coverage gaps in rural Ireland and I've heard of problems in Dublin too.

Wrt to O2's price increases, they were the cheapest for the 1520 etc numbers so I guess they're realigning themselves with the "competition".

Sam Vimes

Blaster99 wrote:

You cannot compare Meteor with the other operators because Meteor has big coverage gaps in rural Ireland and I've heard of problems in Dublin too.

who says? i've been all over the country and never head a problem with meteor. they do have blackspots but so do all networks. my gf in dublin 7 couldn't get any coverage on o2 so she switched to meteor and its perfect. and meteor uses o2's network in rural ireland.

Mimikyu

This post has been deleted.

Sizzler

Urban Weigl wrote:

O2 has quietly sneaked in price increases calling premium rate numbers.

For example, calls to 1520 and 1530 numbers used to cost 20 and 45 cents per minute respectively.

They now cost 24 and 55 cents.

When will the price increases stop? I thought prices were supposed to go down over time.

Not sure what the deal is here, ie is this pricing regulated in anyway It certainly is for fixed line calls but it would appear mobile networks have license to charge what they want :mad:

Best bet would be to check the above with regtel and see what they say, info@regtel.ie

Piss poor if theres no price regs for mobile operators.

1huge1

Yes i too was with vodafone way back when got me 1st mobile in 2002 and it was vodafone
years of been uninformed left me with little credit always
come on 13c texts

now im with 3 and my wallet is much happier

Blaster99

Commander Vimes wrote:

who says? i've been all over the country and never head a problem with meteor. they do have blackspots but so do all networks. my gf in dublin 7 couldn't get any coverage on o2 so she switched to meteor and its perfect. and meteor uses o2's network in rural ireland.

Says I. They only use O2 in limited parts of the west of Ireland. You can drive for miles in rural Ireland without Meteor coverage. No other network is as poor as that. It's possible in Dublin they're as good or bad as anyone else, but it's the only mobile operator I've ever heard coverage complaints about in Dublin.

I was in a pub the other day down the country with a group of people. No signal with Meteor what so ever. With my 3 phone I had very decent Vodafone coverage. I was the point of contact with the rest of the world that evening. If I were paying good money for a mobile phone service, it would piss me off quite a bit if I couldn't make or receive calls at fairly ordinary rural locations.

I should add for completeness that 3's coverage is not perfect as it's possible to get stuck on weak 3G coverage in some rural locations and I've noticed occasional problems going from 3G to 2G mid-call. But it's extremely rare to be without coverage. Thanks largely to Vodafone, of course.

Also, if you look at ComReg's mast map it's blatantly obvious Meteor has a lot less masts than the other guys. You can't really get coverage any other way.

Sam Vimes

Blaster99 wrote:

Says I. They only use O2 in limited parts of the west of Ireland. You can drive for miles in rural Ireland without Meteor coverage. No other network is as poor as that. It's possible in Dublin they're as good or bad as anyone else, but it's the only mobile operator I've ever heard coverage complaints about in Dublin.

i told you about an o2 complaint in dublin 7 on this thread so now you've heard about other networks.

i've driven through rural ireland and never experienced that. from working with phones i've heard of coverage problems with all networks.

and it's not always the network. my friend's phone seemed to be working fine except he kept losing coverage. we were both on meteor. down the pub one night i had full coverage and he had zero. he sent the phone off for repair and it was fine after

Blaster99 wrote:

I was in a pub the other day down the country with a group of people. No signal with Meteor what so ever. With my 3 phone I had very decent Vodafone coverage. I was the point of contact with the rest of the world that evening. If I were paying good money for a mobile phone service, it would piss me off quite a bit if I couldn't make or receive calls at fairly ordinary rural locations.

with vodafone and 3 you pay good money, with meteor you don't. i carry around two phones, one 3 and one meteor because the meteor one is that much cheaper. i'm just waiting for my early termination fee to reduce a bit before i tell 3 to fook off

Solitaryman666 wrote:

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if you can remember these complaints please add them to the thread in my sig