3 Reduce Roaming Charges

Terrontress

Source is Business and Finance

EU ruling prompts 3 to cut roaming rates

Mobile phone operator 3 claims to have stole a march on its rivals
by cutting its roaming rates by up to 80pc

The company says the cuts mean that its rates are the lowest on
the market Ireland by 33pc

The move follows new EU legislation brought in earlier this year
to reduce the amount mobile phone users have to pay when they use
their phones abroad

3 said its customers will now pay 39c per minute when they make a
call abroad, while a charge of 19c will be applied when they
receive a call within the EU from anywhere in the world

The new EU ruling, which comes into effect at the end of August
this year, will cap the cost of making calls within the EU at 59c
per minute and 29c per minute to receive calls

Vodafone, O2 and Meteor have all cut their costs by the bare
minimum to 59c to make a call and to 29c to receive a call


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This external information has been sourced from Business World,
a service of Media World Ltd.

I received a phone call from the girlfriend last year when I was at the Oktoberfest. A 15 minute call. €15!!!

This will be alot better.

1huge1

Well I hope they advertise this because it would get them a lot more customers

Im in spain now for the next 2 weeks but this doesnt come till the end of august
lucky me... ah well at least this is in every EU country

Urban Weigl

That is a great offer. Under the EU legislation, they would only need to reduce their charges to 59 and 29 cents respectively.

Kudos to 3.

Urban Weigl

Terrontress wrote:

Source is Business and Finance



I received a phone call from the girlfriend last year when I was at the Oktoberfest. A 15 minute call. €15!!!

This will be alot better.

With Vodafone Passport, that call from your girlfriend would have set you back €0.79. With 3's new rates: €2.85.

Blaster99

And Vodafone Passport costs how much again?

Blaster99

And roaming on a 3 network costs how much again?

Urban Weigl

Blaster99 wrote:

And Vodafone Passport costs how much again?

It's free, but opt-in. You need to log in online and check the relevant box, or call Vodafone and ask them to activate it.

Solair

At least you can roam for free with them in the

• UK
• Australia
• Austria
• Denmark
• Hong Kong
• Italy
• Sweden

Quite handy if you're going down under

Urban Weigl

If only Germany and Spain made that list!

And I wasn't criticising 3's new roaming rates. I think they're very good, and in fact for short incoming calls (under 4 minutes), they're cheaper than Passport.

culabula

Urban Weigl wrote:

If only Germany and Spain made that list!

And I wasn't criticising 3's new roaming rates. I think they're very good, and in fact for short incoming calls (under 4 minutes), they're cheaper than Passport.

And France. Please.

1huge1

Ya with the amount of irish going to spain it would make a huge differnce,

Like urban weigi the two countries that would make a difference to me are deutschland and espana (how cultured i am...)

Terrontress

I have been on Vodafone before and would not bother with them again. I'm glad to see 3 have dropped their price but if they hadn't, I'd simply not use it abroad instead of changing to Vodafone. I was with Vodafone for six years and there was no one bad event. Just awful service and high prices.

Urban Weigl

O2 could really kick some ass if they wanted to. They could offer something like "3 like home" in Spain, Germany, Uk, etc, where they have networks.

Would be more appealing to most Irish people than Italy and Austria methinks. I know it would be more appealing to me.

gunnerfitzy

It should be noted that vodafone passport will only cover you in other vodafone countries. While 3s new prices cover all the eu. But for me the clincher is that vodafone totally rip you off with prices at home. I can't even remember what the scandalous rate for a 400 minute inclusive package is. For the most part most of us are lucky to get abroad for 4 weeks of the year. Now does passport make up for the other 48 weeks for being burned in ireland? P.s. I don't work for 3 or any other mobile company but i've been with all of them on contract at some stage or another!! Maybe i'm just happy cause i'm posting this from my new nokia e65 i got off 3 today :-)

Sam Vimes

gunnerfitzy wrote:

It should be noted that vodafone passport will only cover you in other vodafone countries. While 3s new prices cover all the eu.

just checked there. the only eu country not covered by passport is latvia and a lot of non-eu countries are also covered.

gunnerfitzy wrote:

I can't even remember what the scandalous rate for a 400 minute inclusive package is.

69 compared to 49 on 3. but vodafone's also includes unlimited vodafone to vodafone calls. 3's includes unlimited 3 to 3 but i think its obvious which is better

gunnerfitzy wrote:

For the most part most of us are lucky to get abroad for 4 weeks of the year. Now does passport make up for the other 48 weeks for being burned in ireland?

well that's why i have two numbers. my irish number (meteor, not 3 anymore thank god) and my holiday number (vodafone w/ passport). you can have the best of both worlds

Tarakiwa

Commander Vimes wrote:

well that's why i have two numbers. my irish number (meteor, not 3 anymore thank god) and my holiday number (vodafone w/ passport). you can have the best of both worlds

TBH this seems like really good advise. Thanks a million!

Terrontress

I used to have a Virgin mobile for the North or being in England and Vodafone for Ireland. With 3 like home, it is easiest to stick to 3. As my 3 inclusive includes UK mobiles, I just have my friends there let the phone ring once and I will call them back. People never knew before which number to call me on.

Yggr of Asgard

I just got an MMS from 3 on my mobile telling me with a short video about the new rates...

So I think this time they actualy will advertise some new good feature and not just hide it as in the past.

Blaster99

I like the way all the operators are changing their roaming charges at the end of August to make sure they nail everyone on their holidays this year.

Urban Weigl

Blaster99 wrote:

I like the way all the operators are changing their roaming charges at the end of August to make sure they nail everyone on their holidays this year.

Aye.

Though to be fair to 3, they've given a good explanation: they can't reduce their roaming charges before the end of August, because they have to wait for the likes of Vodafone to reduce their wholesale prices first, which won't happen until the end of August unfortunately.

3 have lobbied to abolish all roaming charges as far as I know.

AlmightyCushion

Urban Weigl wrote:

3 have lobbied to abolish all roaming charges as far as I know.

Fair play to them. The 3 like home is very handy for when I go up north but the abolition of all roaming charges would be great.

Solair

I think there's a big opportunity for the smaller mobile operators to really attack on this.

It wouldn't be impossible for a few bilateral agreements to give really good roaming rates to their customers when roaming on partner networks.

E.g. Bouyges in France

3G operator Yoigo in Spain, much like 3 here, it hops onto Vodafone ES when not in 3G coverage.

There are other little recently arrived operators who could leverage this kind of stuff.

AlmightyCushion

Solair wrote:

I think there's a big opportunity for the smaller mobile operators to really attack on this.

It wouldn't be impossible for a few bilateral agreements to give really good roaming rates to their customers when roaming on partner networks.

E.g. Bouyges in France

3G operator Yoigo in Spain, much like 3 here, it hops onto Vodafone ES when not in 3G coverage.

There are other little recently arrived operators who could leverage this kind of stuff.

That would be a very good idea. Quite a number of Spanish and French people come over here (not nearly as much as go the other way though) and if 3 and these operators made a deal it would benefit both operators.

HiredGun

Solair wrote:

I think there's a big opportunity for the smaller mobile operators to really attack on this.

It wouldn't be impossible for a few bilateral agreements to give really good roaming rates to their customers when roaming on partner networks.

E.g. Bouyges in France

3G operator Yoigo in Spain, much like 3 here, it hops onto Vodafone ES when not in 3G coverage.

There are other little recently arrived operators who could leverage this kind of stuff.

Good idea and to some extent this is what operators try to do. But in reality it is difficult to make it work. Bouygues' customers for example almost all have 2G phones so roaming on 3 in Ireland is not possible. And because 3 only has limited coverage Bouygues would need another roaming agreement with Voda or O2 as back up.

The other way around is also a problem. I can imagine that 3 doesn't want to rely on the very limited Yoigo network in Spain, at least not for the time being.