Dempsey hails healthy competition in mobile phone market

More competition in the Irish mobile phone market is good news for Irish consumers, Communications Minister Noel Dempsey said today.

New operator, 3 Ireland today launched ’3Pay’ – a new pre-paid service which offers three cent text messages to any network along with three cent voice and video calls.

Speaking of the new service, Mr Dempsey said: “This will mean that Irish customers of the network will have more choice and more competition,” he added.

“The new simple, straightforward tariff offered by 3 pre-pay will be easy to understand and is a model which could be followed by all other mobile phone operators,” he continued.

Three in four of all Irish mobile phone users currently have pre-paid handsets.

3, which launched into the Irish market in July 2005, has more than 11 million customers worldwide.

Robert Finnegan, managing director of 3 Ireland said: “Since we launched our bill pay service in Ireland in July 2005, 3 Ireland has really challenged the market by offering simple, great value tariffs, exciting video content and top-end 3G handsets.

“We firmly believe our ‘3Pay’ proposition will see us take a significant share of Ireland’s Pre Pay market, and our 3G credentials and offering will take Ireland’s mass market mobile users into the future.”

3 Ireland is wholly owned by Hutchison Whampoa Group which also holds 3G licenses in Australia, Austria, Denmark, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy, Norway, Sweden and the UK.

Earlier this year, the firm announced it was eliminating all roaming charges for Irish customers travelling to the North or into Britain,

In addition, customers can make domestic and UK calls while roaming in Northern Ireland and Britain for the same price as local pre-paid calls.

Customers can also call Britain from Ireland without paying international roaming charges.

“The abolition of roaming charges is extremely important both for customers generally and especially for those citizens and businesses based in the border counties,” Mr Dempsey said.