O2 Ireland? Think Meteor has just raised the bar!

nordiestar

Ok, so I've been with O2 now since 2005.
I'm on their O2 release plan, which costs me €99 a month PLUS vat, (approx 120 all in then) now, I am entitled to call Landlines in the North of Ireland for free (have to use prefix 048 instead of 0044) and have unlimited texts and mins to ANY network in ROI.
However you do have to be registered for business to avail of this plan.

http://www.o2online.ie/wps/wcm/connect/O2/Home/Business/Price+Plans/O2+Release+Edge/

Firstly, may I say I have no REAL problems with O2, I mean their reception and customer service is pretty good.

HOWEVER

Meteor have a similar plan to O2's, actually EXACTLY the same as O2's but its only €85 a month INCLUDING VAT, ALSO you dont have to be registered for business!!!!!

http://www.meteor.ie/plans/bill_pay/

Its a crying shame I'm tied into O2 until Nov, especially when you compare our rates to rates in the UK/North!!!

Its high time O2 caught on to the fact, that the day of overcharging us for simple services are OVER!

I just cant afford to buy myself out of a contract at the min, mores the pity!

baronflyguy

I'm with O2 also since the dawn of time and when my N95 broke in November I changed over to Meteor because phones were cheaper and their price plan was better.
Unfortunately I had to cancel and return my meteor phone after 1 week before the 14 days due to bad signal and coverage issues. I am in waterford city and to be honest I wasn't expecting signal issues in the city.

I'm back with O2 now and I dont have bad signal/coverage issues and I dont have to say 'can you hear me now' anymore.

Just my 2 cents.

rccaulfield

you pay how much? Meteor do 200 mins and 200 txtx a month for 20 euro?

kmick

When I was with Meteor I found there coverage was so bad in Dublin city that I could rarely make or receive a call unhindered. Apparently they are better now but I would not risk getting tied into a contract with them.

3_BOoYA_X

rccaulfield wrote: »

you pay how much? Meteor do 200 mins and 200 txtx a month for 20 euro?

on meteor prepay you can get free calls and texts to meteor, or free texts to all networks (both limited to about 10000 texts or minutes)
when you top up Š20 a month.. Plus you still have your Š20 to spend at the end of the day

brightkane

I too was with meteor, self employed, phone is my life line.

was in lucan, no problems, moved to dublin 15 and constant signal problems.

Meteor let me out of the contract early as they said they had no plans to upgrade the transmitter/signal anytime soon, and i moved to o2 and have had no problems with signal since thank god.

I too am on the release plan

Alkers

3_BOoYA_X wrote: »

on meteor prepay you can get free calls and texts to meteor, or free texts to all networks (both limited to about 10000 texts or minutes)
when you top up Š20 a month.. Plus you still have your Š20 to spend at the end of the day

Where did you get that limit of 10,000 from, never heard it mentioned anywhere?

egan007

I switched from o2 to Meteor in September.
I've had nothing but poor coverage, no coverage and no customer service.
I got them to cancel my contract and i'm hopping back to o2.

What ever Meteor costs is too much.

glanman

its just a standard term "fair usage". I think o2 say 5000 texts over the month to under 200 different people is ok...

3_BOoYA_X

Simona1986 wrote: »

Where did you get that limit of 10,000 from, never heard it mentioned anywhere?

Its on the terms and conditions of the offers on meteor website.

sean_84

egan007 wrote: »

I switched from o2 to Meteor in September.
I've had nothing but poor coverage, no coverage and no customer service.
I got them to cancel my contract and i'm hopping back to o2.

What ever Meteor costs is too much.

I've had a meteor phone for a few years, living in Waterford, Limerick and Cork and never had coverage issues. I've only talked with customer service once or twice but had no dificulties. If someone is thinking of switching between any networks I suppose they should ask around about coverage issues in their area, but I find it hard to believe that coverage could be as bad as is described in this thread.

iknorr

doesnt meteor have this thing with o2 about loosing coverage. When it drops meteors own network it picks up o2s and is charged as if on the meteor network. All done internal without the user noticing. I have seen the signal bar on my phone drop to nothing then suddenly get full coverage. noticed it outside galway and always when im in the bog?

Customer service is generally good.

baronflyguy

iknorr wrote: »

doesnt meteor have this thing with o2 about loosing coverage. When it drops meteors own network it picks up o2s and is charged as if on the meteor network. All done internal without the user noticing. I have seen the signal bar on my phone drop to nothing then suddenly get full coverage. noticed it outside galway and always when im in the bog?

Customer service is generally good.

myth or something if you ask me, I've heard that from others also but no one knows where they heard it from.

Meteor Customer service was nice and polite and it was them who told me if I wasn't happy to return and cancel the contract before the 14 days are up.

The litmus test for me was did it work in my house.
O2 it did and Meteor it didn't.
Unfortunately I was constantly saying 'Can you hear me now?...hello, hello" with Meteor and it got very annoying.
I have NEVER said that when I was on O2.

mawk

baronflyguy wrote: »

myth or something if you ask me, I've heard that from others also but no one knows where they heard it from.

Meteor Customer service was nice and polite and it was them who told me if I wasn't happy to return and cancel the contract before the 14 days are up.
.

Its perfectly true. But it only happens where meteor has no node open at all. If the signal is just bad it doesnt happen. Happens to me down in west cork.
And i personally find no fault with meteors signal coverage. Always seems to work perfectly whereever i go
Even offshore on the fishing boats i get full reception

egan007

sean_84 wrote: »

I've had a meteor phone for a few years, living in Waterford, Limerick and Cork and never had coverage issues. I've only talked with customer service once or twice but had no dificulties. If someone is thinking of switching between any networks I suppose they should ask around about coverage issues in their area, but I find it hard to believe that coverage could be as bad as is described in this thread.

I live and work in two of the most populated areas in Dublin so there should be no coverage gaps however as stated I had to get my contract cancelled due to severe thinning of patience with dropped calls and no coverage.

sean_84

iknorr wrote: »

doesnt meteor have this thing with o2 about loosing coverage. When it drops meteors own network it picks up o2s and is charged as if on the meteor network.

According to this:
http://www.rte.ie/business/2006/1114/meteor.html
Meteor have this agreement with Vodafone but only on the west coast.

nordiestar

Perhaps, and ONLY perhaps....

We, as a nation of O2 users, should barrage them with the old "meteor are far cheaper now and I'm thinkin of switching" to them.

Perhaps they might bring down their prices to match them?

At the moment, their prices are WAY out of tune with O2 Uk, and I know they have a bigger population over there, but I recall reading somehere that our Irish networks got their masts and communication infrastructure for peanuts compared to the lads across the water!

My bills are NEVER below 200 euro at present (a month)

(I'm a self employed sales man for a company based in the north)

nordiestar

rccaulfield wrote: »

you pay how much? Meteor do 200 mins and 200 txtx a month for 20 euro?

@ rccaulfield 200 mins would barely last me a week!

1: Customer phones me, places an order, double checks prices etc.
2: I call office place customers orders price enquiries (has price gone up, can we do any better on bulk order etc etc)
3: I call customer,inform him of any discounts price increases if applicable, he (hopefully) gives me order!
4: callback office and confirm cust order, prices delivery method etc etc.

So, one order from the inital query to placement could take up to about 20mins

God we need CHEAPER calls in Ireland!

Fighting Irish

Do you use your phone for business?

nordiestar

Fighting Irish wrote: »

Do you use your phone for business?

Yeah.

Trouble is, I work for a company in the North, they cant supply me with a business phone in the South, as their not registered for business doen here.
I send up my bill at each months end, and they reimburse me.
Obviously though, the less has to come out of my account, before waiting on the reimbursement the better!

(PS I'm not registered for VAT, got a salesperson who didnt ask for a vat no the day I called and asked to switch plans)
Previously I was refused about 4 times to get on the business release plan as I had no VAT no

alantc

Meteor have bad coverage in Clontarf, inexcusable. Customer service is sub-par. I was generally spending about €70 and expected better. Moved to O2 this week.

Oafley Jones

alantc wrote: »

Meteor have bad coverage in Clontarf, inexcusable. Customer service is sub-par. I was generally spending about €70 and expected better. Moved to O2 this week.

Never had any problems with reception with Meteor, but I will say that their customer service is incredibly poor. Meteor's own forum is an absolute joke and a pretty good example of the bigger malaise: questions are rarely answered, most ignored for weeks, promises to get back to people with answers aren't kept and posts often deleted. Service in their shops is pretty hit and miss. Patrick's St. store in Cork seems to have decent employees, but the lads in Wilton aren't interested at all.

prettyboy81

I have to give Meteor a big thumbs up for there coverage, customer service & most importantly value for money with them....

prettyboy81

I have to give Meteor a big thumbs up for there coverage, customer service & most importantly value for money with them....

sdanseo

Meteor coverage is utter **** in Dublin let alone outside, I've lost count of the number of times I've given my Vodafone bill phone to someone who can't get a signal (or is lying and just hasn't got credit).

Would NEVER chance it especially as I live in a blackspot as it is and their data is ueless to crap anywhere and isn'teven advertised outside Dublin and Cork. They are an ameteur network tbh.

68 lost souls

In parts of dublin I frequent there is no o2 coverage but there is Meteor coverage I would avoid o2 like the plague most of the time due to their bad signal and over pricing. I pay 20 euro a month and get unlimited texts to meteor and free calls of which I use about 2 hours a day.

I have now been with eircell, vodafone, o2 and meteor and I must say meteor have done the best for me over the years. Only one problem I had was a few years ago when I got a new phone stolen on me before I was entitled to an upgrade and I had to get a new number instead of switching the number on the new phone to my old number but that was years ago and things have changed since. The roaming on meteor is not great either but I generally buy a local sim card in whatever country I visit and it works out cheaper. Meteor claim 99% coverage last I saw which is impressive I would say. THe only places I have problems with my coverage is in old thick walled buildings and basements like certain parts of colleges or hospitals where no one I know gets reception on any network.

Dman001

Meteor claim they hae 97% coverage while O2 claim something like 95%.

nordiestar

I appreciate each and everyone of your replies.
However......

This thread was started to highlight the differences in the unlimited plans between O2 and Meteor.

Not network coverage!

I appreciate Meteors coverage may not be as good as O2's, but it doesnt take away the fact their robbing us blind, and us Irish are too silly a bunch of eejits to stand up tothem and tell them enough is enough!

Ah, is it any wonder I drink.....

Glug glug glug

Dman001

I agree that O2 are robbing us blind, but what is the point of giving Meteor your money when you can barely make a call using there service due to bad coverage. O2 may be robbing us but at the end of the day they offer a better service.

kc66

Im a meteor customer for around 8 years. In the beginning there was the odd problem. In the last few years the only built up area I had a problem getting signal in was Blackrock outside Dundalk. I saw it change over to Vodafone I think a few years ago when I was in Leitrim.
Recommend them for value and coverage, but generally had bad experiences with customer services.