Watchdog to advise on best phone service

HOUSEHOLDERS are to get a helping hand to guide them through the maze of different companies offering home phone services and broadband.

Consumers already have the power to choose from an array of different firms for calls from their phone line at home - with each company offering different rates, discounts and deals.

But householders have to contact home phone companies one by one and wade through a mass of different call rates before finding the best deal for them.

Now telecommunications regulator ComReg is putting all the prices of the different companies onto a single website - www.callcosts.ie - where consumers can find the best deal at the click of a button.

Consumer champion Eddie Hobbs welcomed the move and told the Irish Examiner: “When I do the Show Me The Money programme we find that a large proportion of people’s income goes on the phone. We are a nation of talkers and people are spending between €1,000 and €1,500 a year on phone bills. These are big bills.”

He said the website would empower consumers to find the best deal for them and get better value for money.

ComReg set up the www.callcosts.ie website in November so consumers could compare mobile phone deals from O2, Vodafone, 3 and Meteor. In its first week alone it attracted 25,000 users.

Now the expanded site, which will be up and running by June, will allow consumers to find out the best deals for calls from traditional home phone lines too.

ComReg spokesman Tom Butler added: “We have a brief to protect and assist consumers and this is essentially providing information to allow them to make an informed choice about the best kind of communications package for them.”

The mobile phones section of the www.callcosts.ie works by asking consumers questions like how often they use their mobiles, what time of day they make most of their calls and how often they send text messages.

The website then uses the information to give customers a league table of the best deals for them from the four mobile phone companies.

Consumers will also be able to see if they can get a better deal elsewhere on their home phone lines.

Consumers Association of Ireland chief executive Dermott Jewell welcomed the new service, saying consumers would be better informed when shopping around for the best deal from the phone companies.

“We would argue that too many of the offers [from phone companies] are designed to confuse the customer and they simply give up and stay where they are.

“In future, customers will see that a firm is working to encourage their custom rather than leaving them out there with a false understanding of what they are getting for their money.”