More consumer ripoffs

IrelandOffline (a lobby group I’m involved with) released a press release late last night in regards to stats released by ComReg yesterday.

Basically, Ireland sucks when it comes to telecoms prices.

  • Ireland 2nd worst for Broadband in the EU.
  • Ireland most expensive for mobile costs.
  • Ireland has most expensive line rental in the EU.
  • Ireland above the EU average for average landline bills.

Funny that when any of this is highlighted the Minister says it is a liberalised market and he can do nothing. Er, right. Another Minister has always told us to “shop around” but one can’t really shop around with such a stagnant market. Wholesale costs are destroying any chance of competition. Another typical excuse is that telecoms is a luxury item. Conversations are not luxuries, they are necessities. I think it is quite galling that we are paying massive premiums for simple communications.

EDIT: Here is the mobile ARPU Graph:

MobileARPUQ42005.jpg

We are 2nd most expensive when Switzerland is factored in. They’re not in the EU though and they are only 1 Euro more expensive. Bit cheeky of ComReg to use a non-EU country when in other graphs they were talking us up for being better than EU averages.

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