Free Roaming In Whole Ireland

[Effendi]

<span style='font-size:13pt;line-height:100%'>O2 Abolishes Roaming Charges Between The Irelands</span>

O2 Ireland has became the first operator in Ireland to abolish roaming charges between the Southern Republic of Ireland and British Northern Ireland for all of it's 1.6 million customers. In addition the company has abolished roaming charges across Great Britain and Ireland for its business customers. From April 2006, roaming between Ireland and Northern Ireland will be abolished on O2's network for it's 1.6 million pre pay (speak easy), post pay (contract) customers. This means that these customers will not be charged for calls they receive while roaming in Northern Ireland.

Speaking at the launch, Danuta Gray, CEO O2 Ireland said; "At O2 our primary focus is listening to what our customer's need and adjusting our services to meet those needs. Our customers have told us that it makes no sense to pay roaming charges while making calls on the island of Ireland. This is particularly important to our customers who live and work near the border, many of whom have had to endure inadvertent roaming charges. Having listened carefully to this feedback, we are delighted to abolish roaming charges on the island of Ireland for our 1.6 million customers."

More importantly, the new all-Island pricing initiatives from O2 Ireland will end inadvertent roaming for O2 Ireland customers in the border counties. This has been made possible though a collaboration between O2 Ireland and O2 UK. To ensure that O2 Ireland customers benefit from the elimination of roaming charges and the new flat rate, customers should select the O2 UK network while roaming in Northern Ireland.

O2 Ireland also announced today that in recognition of the economic importance of trade between Ireland and the UK, from Monday 13th February, the company is to abolish roaming charges between Ireland and the UK for O2 Ireland corporate and SME customers. The all-island pricing will be applied to corporate and SME business customers from this date and they will no longer pay to receive a call when roaming in the UK. Calls in the UK and calls back to the Republic of Ireland will be charged at the domestic rate business customers pay according to their individual price plans.

[andy]

Well if it's that easy, let's see a few more companies doing it. How about KPN Base e-plus. Or that cross-border Orangeclick offer could improve. And Vodafone could reduce the connect fee on their Passport scheme. Do T-mobile want to join in?

All that nice PR speak about listening to their customers..... Maybe the competition authorities have shown their teeth at last.

When I first got a mobile, on Orange in '99, calls in UK and several foreign countries were about the same price per minute. Maybe it could happen again after all this time.

[Effendi]

What will happen in Ireland is aready normal in the 3 Baltic Republics with Tele2 (which has its network in each of the 3 countries), but it doesn't work with the other Tele2 networks in other countries. Also Omnitel, LMT, EMT have some kind of "free roamingg" AFAIK. So it's something more geographical related. I think Vodafone and 3 could do the same in EIR/UK, no idea about Meteor, are they related in some way with Orange or T-Mobile? Otherwise it will be harder for them...

Anyway, it's a small but good event, let's hope better for the future..

[andy]

come to think of it, I think I remember something similar about 3 in Sweden and Denmark

[MATHA531]

...and in a reciprocal move, shouldn't O2-UK customers get free roaming throughout the Republic of Ireland?

[Triband81]

Originally Posted by andy

Well if it's that easy, let's see a few more companies doing it. How about KPN Base e-plus. Or that cross-border Orangeclick offer could improve. And Vodafone could reduce the connect fee on their Passport scheme. Do T-mobile want to join in?

That's a valid point, undoubtedly we could think of a few more locations where this is an annoying problem. I'm 50 km away from the Dutch and Belgian borders so crossborder roaming isn't a problem for me but I see it every time I go to Eastern Italy, the Trieste region has a chronic problem in store for people who leave their network selection set to automatic. There you have at least 7 or 8 networks that my E-Plus SIM loves to switch between.

[Effendi]

Yeah, that's right, in Trieste it's terrible, and our "honest" operators put Slovenia and Croatia in Zone 2 for roaming (Wind and 3 only Croatia, TIM and Vodafone both), so if you leave the automatic network search it can happen to pay 1 euro/min to receive a call... in Italy!

[0700700]

Originally Posted by Effendi

Yeah, that's right, in Trieste it's terrible, and our "honest" operators put Slovenia and Croatia in Zone 2 for roaming (Wind and 3 only Croatia, TIM and Vodafone both), so if you leave the automatic network search it can happen to pay 1 euro/min to receive a call... in Italy!

:wacko: that would be very annoying !
so considering you are in range of three national borders, how many gsm networks appear on your mobile when you perform a network search :bye2:

[faquick]

if you have a phone (i.e. a sonyericsson) that shows 3G and 2G networks as 2 separate ones, you can get 11-12 networks :P

[AndreA]

Originally Posted by faquick

if you have a phone (i.e. a sonyericsson) that shows 3G and 2G networks as 2 separate ones, you can get 11-12 networks :P

well... you can't imagine Basel with swiss, french and german networks

- 3G Swisscom
- Swisscom
- 3G Orange CH
- Orange
- 3G sunrise
- sunrise
- Tele2 CH (testing)
- In&Phone (testing)

- 3G Orange FR
- Orange FR
- 3G SFR
- SFR
- Bouygtel

- 3G T-Mobile
- T-Mobile
- 3G Vodafone DE
- Vodafone DE
- Eplus
- O2.de