Switching from Vodafone to Meteor

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What are the pros/cons of leaving vodafone pay as you go and switching to meteor pay as you go?

blaz

Pros:
- much cheaper calls and texts on Meteorh
- free calls to voice mail on Meteor, not free on some Vodefone PAYG plans
- cheaper GPRS data for traffic exceeding the 50MB daily allowance which costs 99c on both (1c per kB on Meteor, 2c on Vodafone)

Cons:
- Vodafone has better 2G coverage
- very spotty (but improving) 3G on Meteor
- Vodafone has more roaming agreements than Meteor
- have to pay 60 EUR deposit on Meteor to roam in many countries

I'm sure there are some more pros and cons that I forgot right now.

chrislad

Those Pros/Cons aren't really valid, I think. Meteor aren't necessarily cheaper, Meteor are 2c per kb over the 50megs, the vast majority of tourist destinations are covered by Meteors CAMEL roaming (main exceptions being Asia and Australia, as well as Canada and South America). Coverage is also subjective. He's in Dublin so unless he's going to the arsehole of nowhere, he'll pretty much have coverage everywhere with everyone. 3G has been launched for all of a week with Meteor so hardly fair to judge that. The 60e deposit isn't a deposit. It's putting 60e credit onto your phone.

The only reason you should be switching is if most of the people you know are on Meteor. You're not giving us much to work with either. How do you use your phone? Do you text more? Call more? Internet much? Roam much? Do you spend a fiver a month or 500?

Ah-Watch

Everly Teeny Wheelbarrow wrote: »

What are the pros/cons of leaving vodafone pay as you go and switching to meteor pay as you go?

Vodafone do have better coverage without a doubt-not slating meteors tho,
Vodafone has much better roaming agreements and is alot cheaper than roaming with Meteor if you go abroad
Voicemail on both Meteor and Vodafone is no longer free if you take the option of free texts or free calls but if you do take the free calls option on either network all I do is dial 0875XXXXXXXXX as I have the free calls(making voicemail free!),
Meteors calls are 29c anythime on the new plans where as vodafone are 29c to vodafone and landlines and 39c to Meteor and 02.
Mobile internet(services) are alot better on vodafones than that of Meteors.
There are free texts to any network on both Vodafone and Meteor but if you're a talker take into consideration what networks the people you call are on.
Wider selection of handsets on Vodafone

Out of curiosity why are you considering jumping ship and why Meteor and not lets say 02 or 3?

John_Mc

I'm with Meteor for years and I can honestly say that I could count the amount of times I had no coverage on one hand. That said, I lived in limerick city & now in Dublin so the other networks would no doubt be the same.

When I was with PAYG I paid the deposit once and never had to do it again.

The main pro is that nearly every single one of my friends are on Meteor so free calls and free texts is enough to keep me happy.

Sam Vimes

i don't think roaming is that big an issue tbh. I keep a vodafone sim in a drawer for the few weeks a year that i'm away and get the benefit of cheaper everything while i'm here.

of course it helps to have a sim for every network so you can decide beforehand which is best for the place you're going. I have a 3 one for countries with 3 networks where there are no roaming charges and a rarely used o2 one too

blaz

chrislad wrote: »

Those Pros/Cons aren't really valid, I think. Meteor aren't necessarily cheaper, Meteor are 2c per kb over the 50megs, the vast majority of tourist destinations are covered by Meteors CAMEL roaming (main exceptions being Asia and Australia, as well as Canada and South America). Coverage is also subjective. He's in Dublin so unless he's going to the arsehole of nowhere, he'll pretty much have coverage everywhere with everyone. 3G has been launched for all of a week with Meteor so hardly fair to judge that. The 60e deposit isn't a deposit. It's putting 60e credit onto your phone.

Oops sorry about the 1c, rechecked and it is 2c on both, sorry for that.

I know for sure that Meteors CAMEL roaming does not work correctly in Austria, while it is supposed to work without doing anything special (like topping up to 60 EUR). When I arrived at the airport, it worked for two hours and then it suddenly stopped working with the phone showing "Emergency calls only". I was on T-mobile Austria, which is the operator that is supposed to be used, but selecting any other operator didn't help either. After three long (and expensive) calls to support from another phone the issue was not resolved until I left the country and entered Germany. Annoying as hell.

The 60 EUR credit that you have to put on your phone to roam in some countries is annoying, because you also have to call customer service before roaming and tell them where you're going and beg them to enable roaming. Of course you can only hope they'll do it correctly, otherwise you're in trouble.

Meteors 3G coverage is mostly non-coverage. Sure it sometimes works if you are in Dublin city center, but even there it often fails inside of buildings. I'm in Knocklyon near the M50 and the 3G coverage here is more a nuisance than anything else - I'm contemplating disabling UMTS on my Nokia E65. Even the 2G coverage in my apartement is sh***, with the signal strength indicator jumping from 0 bars to 5 bars every couple of minutes. Probably the phone is constantly switching between two base stations or it might be caused by a lot of Meteor customers driving down the M50, I don't know really, but it is still annoying as hell.

I've traveled to other parts of Ireland and the 2G coverage was also spotty on Meteor while 3G coverage was mostly non-existent (I know that is improving, but we are talking about the current situation).

Perhaps I'm a bit spoiled, because the country I come from and the operator I used had 95% 3G coverage and in most cities you would have a full (6 bar) 3G signal even inside of buildings.

I'm a Meteor PAYG customer and will be probably be staying with them for the forseeable future, but still, the above is my experience with them.

Ah-Watch

I had issues roaming in USA with Meteor- It wouldn't roam on T Mobile which is the Meteor carrier so I used vodafone (Roamed on AT&T)instead and also when I was in france I had problems roaming-strangely enough would've though that would have been fine

chrislad

In all fairness, with the roaming, it's more than likely the other networks fault (as in the network of the country you're in). I've been to France, Portugal, Wales and New York in the past 2 years and I've had no issues with using my phone at all. My mother regularly goes to France, Spain, Lanzarote and the UK and she's never had an issue at all.

blaz

chrislad wrote: »

In all fairness, with the roaming, it's more than likely the other networks fault (as in the network of the country you're in). I've been to France, Portugal, Wales and New York in the past 2 years and I've had no issues with using my phone at all. My mother regularly goes to France, Spain, Lanzarote and the UK and she's never had an issue at all.

Of course it is very much possible that it is a problem with the network you're roaming on. But that's why most sensible operators have multiple roaming agreements so if you have problems with one carrier, you can switch to another one. Although I do agree, that that's the case mostly for billpay and not payg.

chrislad

I suppose there's things that they have to look at that we don't see, such as the cost of such agreements. I mean, they could probably have 5 operators in the Congo, but how many Meteor customers would go there? The UK has a good few operators (O2, Vodafone, Orange and their agreement with T-Mobile), the USA only has two (AT&T and T-Mobile, which are the two biggest that I saw over there), France has at least 3 from when I was there.

Like I said, we'll probably never know the reason why. Vodafone are an international company. Meteor are not. That's pretty much what it would come down to, I suspect. Meteor could never do something like 3 Like Home.

theteal

Ah-Watch wrote: »

Voicemail on both Meteor and Vodafone is no longer free if you take the option of free texts or free calls

i know its not a huge selling point but meteor VM is still free on the new plans, 15c per min on voda

Ah-Watch

theteal wrote: »

i know its not a huge selling point but meteor VM is still free on the new plans, 15c per min on voda

ooops sorry, I thought I was being charged when I was on meteor a month ago! Vodafone will obviously have more money to spend on roaming agreements because they're such a big company but Meteor are doing a dam good job here and I'm delighted that its an irish company even if I am on vodafone:D

drunkmonkey

Sam Vimes wrote: »

I have a 3 one

omfg:eek: today is just full of surprises..:D

Ah-Watch

drunkmonkey wrote: »

omfg:eek: today is just full of surprises..:D

LOL Jes we're all in flying form today! 3 isn't that bad for mobile tho-I wouldn't touch their broadband

Keith186

blaz wrote: »

Pros:
- much cheaper calls and texts on Meteorh
- free calls to voice mail on Meteor, not free on some Vodefone PAYG plans
- cheaper GPRS data for traffic exceeding the 50MB daily allowance which costs 99c on both (1c per kB on Meteor, 2c on Vodafone)

Cons:
- Vodafone has better 2G coverage
- very spotty (but improving) 3G on Meteor
- Vodafone has more roaming agreements than Meteor
- have to pay 60 EUR deposit on Meteor to roam in many countries

I'm sure there are some more pros and cons that I forgot right now.

Another con is the peak hours. Meteor peak hours are from 8am to 8pm and it's 8am to 6pm on Vodafone/O2. This makes a huge difference if you use your phone regularly at this time and my mate got a bit caught out by it.

drunkmonkey

Ah-Watch wrote: »

LOL Jes we're all in flying form today! 3 isn't that bad for mobile tho-I wouldn't touch their broadband

Silly season is just upon us, I nearly had to get the mop and bucket out today, never seen so many girls get wet over a pink tocco......

let the madness begin:D

Ah-Watch

ROFL!!!!

They love the pink Tocco-OP Tocco is a lovely phone if you need a decent one-available on both networks!

chrislad

Keith186 wrote: »

Another con is the peak hours. Meteor peak hours are from 8am to 8pm and it's 8am to 6pm on Vodafone/O2. This makes a huge difference if you use your phone regularly at this time and my mate got a bit caught out by it.

Meteor don't have peak hours. It's 29c a minute flat rate.

Even when they had a variable plan, it was 8am to 6pm, same as everyone else.

http://www.meteor.ie/plans/pay_as_you_go/price_plans/older_plans/leisuretime_plus/

Little bit of research goes a long way.

The 8am to 8pm thing is for bill pay. From 8pm to 7.59am, Mon to Thurs, all evening/weekend calls to all Irish landlines/mobiles are free on Talk 300 (05) and above.

Rsaeire

chrislad wrote: »

Meteor don't have peak hours. It's 29c a minute flat rate.

Even when they had a variable plan, it was 8am to 6pm, same as everyone else.

http://www.meteor.ie/plans/pay_as_you_go/price_plans/older_plans/leisuretime_plus/

Little bit of research goes a long way.

The 8am to 8pm thing is for bill pay. From 8pm to 7.59am, Mon to Thurs, all evening/weekend calls to all Irish landlines/mobiles are free on Talk 300 (05) and above.

Talk 300 (05)? How does this differ to the normal Talk 300 tariff?

In addition, I wish people would stop comparing Meteor's 3G network to the other operators as it is a given that it is of no comparison; especially since it was only launched last week with limited coverage.

blaz

Ah-Watch wrote: »

ooops sorry, I thought I was being charged when I was on meteor a month ago! Vodafone will obviously have more money to spend on roaming agreements because they're such a big company but Meteor are doing a dam good job here and I'm delighted that its an irish company even if I am on vodafone:D

Actually you are being charged if you dial VM the wrong way.

I once dialed 0855xxxxxxx instead of just dialing 171. I still got my voice mail, but I had to pay for the call. Stupid mistake, but even more stupid setup from Meteor.

chrislad

Meteor didn't create that set up, it's a standard across Ireland (if not GSM itself).

If you were silly enough to dial that, you're silly enough to get charged. 171 has been the standard voice mail number for most networks for years!

Talk 300 (05) shows up on your bill. It's the Evenings and Weekends package. Talk 300 (04) is the Meteor Talk and Text package.

blaz

chrislad wrote: »

Meteor didn't create that set up, it's a standard across Ireland (if not GSM itself).

If you were silly enough to dial that, you're silly enough to get charged. 171 has been the standard voice mail number for most networks for years!

The setup is silly. On both Nokias and Sony Ericsons (and I'm sure other phones) you can configure the voice mail number in the settings. After you do that, you can:

- use the menus to divert calls to voice mails without having to enter the number again
- press the "1" key and the phone will dial the configured voice mail number

Of course you can't configure that number as 171, because calls can not be diverted to 171, they have to be diverted to 08x5. If you configure the number as 08x5, then you will be able to use the menus to divert the call without reentering the number (as intended), but pressing the "1" key will dial the 08x5 number and you will be charged for the call.

Thus I would say this setup is just plain stupid and unintuitive and there is absolutely no practical reason why a call to 08x5 couldn't be charged the same as a call to 171, because you are in both cases dialing the same thing.

chrislad

08x5xxxxxxx is used for international voice mail. Short codes, such as 1905, 1741 don't work abroad (unless there is an agreement with operators, I think Meteor have 1905 working in EU countries). That's a pretty solid reason there.

blaz

chrislad wrote: »

08x5xxxxxxx is used for international voice mail. Short codes, such as 1905, 1741 don't work abroad (unless there is an agreement with operators, I think Meteor have 1905 working in EU countries). That's a pretty solid reason there.

A pretty solid reason for what? To charge for calls to 08x5? It is not.

If an operator can distinguish between a call to an Irish mobile phone made from Ireland and a call to the same Irish mobile phone made while roaming and charge different rates for those two calls, it should be able to do the same for calls to 08x5 and charge nothing (or the voice mail rate) when the number is called from within Ireland and charge the standard rate for calls to Ireland while roaming.

chrislad

A solid reason for its existance. They probably shouldn't charge, but as I said, if you're silly enough to make the error. *shrugs*

Ah-Watch

blaz wrote: »

Actually you are being charged if you dial VM the wrong way.

I once dialed 0855xxxxxxx instead of just dialing 171. I still got my voice mail, but I had to pay for the call. Stupid mistake, but even more stupid setup from Meteor.

oh in normal cases yes but what I was saying-which i obviously didn't make clear was that if you take free calls on the network you can access your voicemail for free by dialing 0875XXXXXX, Sorry for the misunderstanding!

blaz

Ah-Watch wrote: »

oh in normal cases yes but what I was saying-which i obviously didn't make clear was that if you take free calls on the network you can access your voicemail for free by dialing 0875XXXXXX, Sorry for the misunderstanding!

Yeah I get it, but even if the call to 08x5 is accounted for as part of your free minutes, you are in fact still paying for it, as you are paying for your free minutes by paying your monthly subscription. Hope I'm making myself clear.

blaz

chrislad wrote: »

A solid reason for its existance. They probably shouldn't charge, but as I said, if you're silly enough to make the error. *shrugs*

Well its not really that hard to do that mistake if you configure your phone as the phone manufacturer has inteded. And it is not like the operators make it particularly clear that you will be charged for a call to 08x5. For example, the Meteor web site has this in the price plan overview:

Voicemail FREE Voicemail with all Meteor Pay As You Go Price Plans

Nowhere does it specify that there is a difference between dialing 171 and 08x5, it just says that voicemail is free and dialing 08x5 gets you voice mail, so that web page is clearly lying. Let's see what Vodafone has to say on this (on pay as you go, under "other price plans" where the voice mail is free):

Voice Mail Free

Again, they don't say that a call to 08x5 is charged. Is it? Can anyone on Vodafone confirm this by dialing their voicemail as 0875xxxxxxx and checking what was charged (Can't try myself, being a Meteor customer).

Enough of this, I think we have drifted way off the original question and I'm sure the OP is not too happy about this :-)

drunkmonkey

I may kick things off today....

Hey yojiB why won't you move to 3? best network in Ireland they are.....:rolleyes:

Sam Vimes

drunkmonkey wrote: »

I may kick things off today....

Hey yojiB why won't you move to 3? best network in Ireland they are.....:rolleyes:

they're in the top 5 anyway