O2 Ireland’s decision to abolish roaming charges between Ireland and Northern Ireland for all customers and to scrap similar charges between Ireland and the UK for business customers has been welcomed by small business groups.
The move has also intensified the pressure on other mobile operators to follow suit and drop charging for roaming between Ireland, Northern Ireland and the UK.
Jackie Harrison, director of projects, IBEC-CBI Joint Business Council, said that by breaking ranks on roaming charges, O2 had made a marketing decision which was likely to be followed by other operators.
She said O2’s changes provided two positive benefits for businesses in the Republic. The ability to receive and make calls in Northern Ireland and the border areas without the risk of inadvertent roaming costs addressed one of the most visible cross-border issues. But it would also have an impact on trade between Ireland and the UK because of O2’s decision to scrap international roaming for its business customers.
A spokesman for ISME gave a muted reaction to the announcement, describing it as “welcome as a start, but as a first step only”. ISME was calling for other mobile operators to follow suit.
He called for the wider issue of “overcharging” of small businesses in Ireland compared to their competitors in other territories to be addressed.
“We’re paying well above international rates and it’s a particularly big cost for small companies where the owner/manager may be using the car as their office,” he argued. “We’re calling on the regulator to review mobile phone charges as they stand and to introduce a policy of increasing competition into that area of the market.”
Danuta Gray, O2 Ireland CEO, said customers had complained that it “makes no sense to pay roaming charges while making calls on the island of Ireland”. She claimed the elimination of roaming charges across the UK and Ireland would “help many business customers improve their competitiveness and to be more successful”.
The changes take effect from next month.
Rival Vodafone Ireland moved swiftly to try and limit the impact of O2’s announcement, claiming its Ireland-Wide tariff, introduced in January 2004, protected customers from incurring roaming charges “by offering postpaid customers all incoming calls free of charge and all other calls at their local tariff rate while roaming on the Vodafone network in Northern Ireland”.
Another scheme, Vodafone Passport, offered roaming across 19 countries worldwide, including Northern Ireland, the UK, Europe, Australia and New Zealand with a call-connection fee of 79c per call and domestic rates.
Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for Meteor said it was “looking at a couple of options and we hope to have something to announce in the coming weeks and months”.
Ltd
