Pre Paid Mobile charge comparisons
Earlier this week mobile phone companies Meteor and O2 announced that they would be increasing "call connection" charges for some particular calls you make.
There were some reports of an 80% increase in costs for pre-paid mobile users.
In our Consumer Technology slot, Ciaran O'Byrne has been looking at just what it costs to make a call across the five mobile networks covering the country...
I was trying to keep this as simple and straightforward as possible, and only look at pre-paid mobiles, where you buy some credit, and are not locked in to a contract paying a monthly bill.
You'd think it would be fairly easy, but pre-paid mobiles are very popular now, and the companies offer a multitude of special packages and offers that can give you "free calls" and "free texts", so it still requires close attention to the small print and tariffs.
The increases this week apply to what are called "call connection charges" or "call set-up", which is a charge you pay on top of the per minute charge, for the first minute when you call is answered by someone.
Most of the focus was on Meteor and O2, where call connection charges are increasing from 5 cents to 9 cents for pre pay, so we'll start there...
29 cents per minute + the increased call connection charge / call set up charge which will now be an extra 9 cents for the first minute - so 38 cents for the first minute, then 29 cents per minute thereafter.
Meteor has increased its call set up fee from 5 cent to 9 cent for its pre-pay price plans, which will be activated from the 12
Now they say that the increased change in connection fee from 5c to 9c will affect only a minority of calls made by their pre–pay customers, as 67% of calls carried by Meteor are free they say.
But that's just a reminder that there are packages out there to give you free calls etc, so make sure you are on the best one.
What about O2?
The base line with O2 is that they have increased the cost of the initial "connection charge" when you make a phone call on pre pay, from 5 cents to 9 cents, from last Monday the 12th of July.
So this is added to the cost of the first minute, so the first minute costs 39 cents, and after that it costs 30 cents per minute.
Again they have price plans which offer unlimited free calls and texts to all O2 customers, and free social networking on Facebook, Twitter etc, or the same package but free texts to all mobiles.
And O2 say the majority of their pre pay customers are availing of price plans and bundles (as listed above) which give them free calls which are unaffected by this price change. But with these bundles, you have to top up by €20 per month, which is pretty standard.
They say that on a typical call lasting one minute, a prepay customer will see an 11% price increase as a result of the change to the call connection charge.
Vodafone
Vodafone's call set-up fee has not increased. It is still set at 5 cents, and there are lots of ways not to pay this, for instance if you are on one of their packages which give free Vodafone to Vodafone calls, and they say the vast majority of their customers are on that option.
But, if you are not, then you will have the 5 cent fee on top of the standard per minute rate for mobiles and landlines which is 29 cents. And Vodafone say this rate is charged per second so the customer only pays for the number of seconds they use.
What about 3 Mobile?
Don't charge a "set-up" or "connection" fee, and have a per second billing system, rather than a per-minute billing, but it works out at 35 cents per minute, for the sake of this comparison (or over half a cent per second).
They also offer packages with free texts, unlimited calls at the weekend across all networks etc.
They say there has been a broadening of the customer base for pre pay, partly due to the recession. It's not just kids and students on pre pay anymore. Lots of people have gotten rid of their bill-pay phones and are opting for pre pay.
Tesco Mobile
Tesco claim to be Ireland's Cheapest Pay-as-you-go Mobile Phone Network - and the price is attractive at 20 cents per minute, and they say they have no plans to increase prices.
Tesco billed as a minimum connection charge of 1 minute, followed by per second charging, and rounded to the nearest cent.
Interestingly, Tesco Mobile is in the process of changing SIMs to 3G SIMs at present - Tesco Mobile 3G SIMs will be on sale in Tesco stores from Monday July 26th , so if you have a 3G phone on another network, you could potentially change to Tesco Mobile, which up to now has not been on the 3G network (they have a deal in place with O2).
A note to remember is that while there are lots of packages on all networks that will give you free calls and texts, you may have to top up your credit by €20 per month in order to avail of them. Smaller amounts of credit won't get you the offers. And with some operators if you top up by €20 or €30 at a go, they will add extra credit for free, which is always very nice, but balance it up against the cost of calls and amount of free calls and texts you get.
Ultimately, if you are not availing of any free call offers, it breaks down like this:
Tesco - 20c per minute, Vodafone - 29c per minute, Meteor 29c per minute, O2 - 30c and 35c per minute (depending on plan) and 3Pay - 35c per minute.
The Consumers Association of Ireland has said the charges are totally unjustified as ireland already has amongst the highest mobile costs in the EU
Finally, where can you look to get some help in deciphering all of the costs and tariffs?
Two very useful sources for helping you save money on your call costs would be the ComReg interactive website "www.callcosts.ie" which helps consumers compare the cost of personal/non-business mobile, home phone and broadband price plans.
You enter your voice usage, and your text or photo messaging usage levels, per day or per month, and it quickly works out what it should cost you on a range of different packages and operators per month, including details of what free offers are inluded on that service. That's all on "Callcosts.ie"
Or you can grab a brochure from The Carphone Warehouse, as they have two full pages of the tariffs at the back covering everyone but Tesco.