Mobile phone rip off ;)

jesus_thats_gre

http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=192884200&p=y9z885y5x&n=192885187

Irish O2 customers talked for an average of 209 minutes a month on the network to the end of March, up from 197 minutes a month the previous year.

The number of text messages sent during 2004/2005 increased by 13% to 1.4 billion.

In comparison, O2 UK customers spend 137 minutes per month on their mobiles while O2 Germany customers spend 118 minutes.

O2 Ireland chief Danuta Gray said the profits of its Irish operation were boosted by customers talking and texting more.

“02 Ireland delivered a strong performance for the year, driven by a combination of exceptional customer growth and increased levels of usage across both voice and data services.

“We are very pleased with our performance and intend to build on this success going forward,” she added.

Turnover for the year amounted to €859m, up 13% from €762m last year.

pleba

How does that relate to a rip-off? Or am i completely missing the point

jesus_thats_gre

pleba wrote:

How does that relate to a rip-off? Or am i completely missing the point

Sorry sorry... I meant to reply earlier..

Irish operators have been accussed of ripping Irish customers off. The basis of this accusation is that their ARPU is larger than other operating companies in the UK and mainland Europe purely because their call charges are higher..

This proves otherwise..

Gillo

What you are forgeting is that O2 Uk and O2 Germany have a much larger customer base, I can't remember the stastics but will check the mmO2 site to see. Simple ecomonies of scale would suggest that the more customer's the cheaper the costs can go while still maintaining profitability.

If you compare the prices to Manx Telecom, you'll find that manx is alot more expensive than O2 Ireland.

Stix

We live in a common market and therefore O2 and other companies that have international customer bases, should be able to spread the cost of calls across the whole of Europe. Why cant we all pay the same price Europe wide ? We are being ripped off.

astec123

Im with stix, if iTunes can be taken to court over charging the UK and Ireland more for songs then why not O2 and co. WE deserve to pay the same price as everyone else, the eu is there for the idea that trade is made easier.

NoMoreMrNiceGuy

The same price can't be negotiated across all networks because it just wouldn't work. You people should read up on something called roaming before you comment any further....

Gillo

Stix wrote:

We live in a common market and therefore O2 and other companies that have international customer bases, should be able to spread the cost of calls across the whole of Europe. Why cant we all pay the same price Europe wide ? We are being ripped off.

In a perfret world yes, but if the shoe was on the other foot, would you honestly be prepared to subsidise some fat German's phone calls?

jesus_thats_gre

astec123 wrote:

Im with stix, if iTunes can be taken to court over charging the UK and Ireland more for songs then why not O2 and co. WE deserve to pay the same price as everyone else, the eu is there for the idea that trade is made easier.

The argument regarding iTunes is not really applicable because iTunes is run by the 1 single company across all markets and where someone in the UK could possibly be downloading music of the exact same server as a person in Germany..

The situation with mobile networks is quite different. While alot now fall under a single parent company, they are still very much seperate entities when the day to day running of the company is concerned. O2 Ireland likely uses different equipment than that pf O2 Germany. Not only this, but when O2 Ireland and O2 Germany's network were being rolled out, they were totally seperate entities, operating under different market conditions, purchasing on a far far different scale and so on so on...

I had this argument with Muck before in the Mobile forum where we compared prices for Vodafone Ireland to those in the UK and there was little difference across the board.