Mobile firm promises full transparency over bills

Ireland’s newest entrant to the mobile phone market is promising cheaper bills, flexible plans and more transparency over your payments than any of its rivals.

The country’s latest operator called iD, which is powered by Dixons Carphone, today launchs the first “build-your-own-plan” which it says gives customers control over the number of minutes, texts and data they want to include.

Furthermore, customers will be able to change the make-up of their plan every month at no extra cost and without recontracting.

“Customers can choose plans that adapt and change with their needs.

Most importantly, our plans are completely transparent — we give customers everything they want, and nothing that they don’t want,” the company’s general manager, Hamish White said.

Plans can include between 100 and 5,000 minutes; 100 and 5,000 texts; and from 125MB to 20GB of data.

When choosing a new phone, customers will have the flexibility to to decide how much they want to pay for the phone up front, with some handsets available with no up-front payment, and then set out a payment plan over 12, 18 or 24 months.

A sim-only plan is also available.

A report estimating iD’s impact on the market by independent comparison service, KillBiller, found the average price paid by iD customers if they choose the cheapest available plan on the new network would be €20.81 per month.

This represents annual savings of €166.50 when compared to the average bill pay cost across the market of €34.69 per month.

The network looks set to lead the way in the battle for 4G customers with the KillBiller data showing it will be cheapest option for three quarters of subscribers.

By comparison, its closest competitor in this regard, Three, has the cheapest 4G plan for 14.3% of people.

Across both 3G and 4G, Tesco Mobile remains the cheapest option for most customers, followed by iD.

With the recent acquisition of O2 by Three consolidating the market somewhat, the increased competition iD will bring is welcome news for consumers.