Meteor Mobile Communications

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This article refers to the Ireland based mobile service provider, Meteor Mobile Communications. For the New Zealand based mobile phone content advertiser, see Meteor Mobile.

Meteor Mobile Communications Ltd.

Type of Company	Private
Founded	1999
Headquarters	Dublin, Ireland
Industry	Mobile telecommunications
Products	Mobile phone services, mobile phone related goods
Revenue	€87 million (yr end 31 March 2006)
Parent	eircom Group plc
Website	meteor.ie

Meteor Mobile Communications Limited is a mobile telecommunications company in the Republic of Ireland. They operate a GSM cellular communications network under licence from the Commission for Communications Regulation, and were the third entrant in the market, after Vodafone Ireland and O2 Ireland. The company is currently a wholly owned subsidiary of Irish telecoms network, eircom Group plc., having been purchased for €420m in 2005 [1].

They issue their new numbers with the code 085, although the introduction of full number portability makes access codes a little less relevant on mobile phone systems.

As of November 2006, Meteor have around 750,000 customers; or 16% of the market share. [2]

1 History
2 Rapid Growth
3 Roaming agreement and 3G
4 Meteor Ireland Music Awards
5 Corporate Logo
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] History

[edit] Award of Licence

In 1998, the then Director of Telecommunications Regulation held a competition to award the third mobile telecommunications licence. Two companies bid for the licence, Orange Communications Limited, then controlled by Hutchinson Whampoa, and Meteor Mobile Communications (consisting at that point of Western Wireless, RF Communications Limited, and TWG Ireland LLC). On 19 June 1998 it was announced that Meteor had been ranked first in the competition. However Orange took legal action against the Director to prevent the licence being awarded. This legal action ultimately failed and on 29 June 2000 Meteor were finally issued with the third mobile telecommunications licence.

[edit] Launch

Launched on 22 February 2001, Meteor slowly picked up a low (under 10%) share of the Irish market. However, they are profitable, and have picked up much of the lucrative pre-paid market among teenagers, due to their low SMS rates and ongoing promotions such as free Meteor to Meteor SMSs. They also pick up more (41%) of all new pre-paid accounts than the other two networks.

In 2004, Western Wireless (the then parent company) bought out the remaining minority shareholders in the consortium, and it became a wholly owned subsidiary of that company.

[edit] Acquisition by eircom

Meteor's first logo

In early 2005, several Irish newspapers reported that Western Wireless had been approached with a view to selling Meteor. On 9 July 2005 it was reported by The Irish Times that there had been three bidders for Meteor: eircom, Smart Telecom, and a consortium led by Denis O'Brien. It was considered that the probability of eircom winning, was looking increasingly unlikely due to their heavy debt of approximately €1.9 billion. It seemed unlikely they could afford it, should the price have topped €400 million. However on 14 July 2005, RTÉ News reported on their business website that Denis O'Brien had withdrawn from bidding, and that it was understood that eircom was the top bidder at €410m. On 21 July it was announced that Smart Telecom had also withdrawn, leaving eircom as the sole bidder. On 25 July eircom announced that it had agreed to purchase the company for €420m. On 18 November 2005 the Competition Authority approved, subject to conditions (primarily, that separate accounts continue to be published for Meteor). The purchase was completed on 23 November 2005.

[edit] Rapid Growth

In the latest report from Eircom Meteor has gained a 16% share of the mobile market in Ireland, with a customer base of more than 700,000 [3] of which 36,000 are post paid subscribers under the Meteor BillPay brand. The company is now working closely with eircom in upgrading its billing systems and getting ready to deploy EDGE technology on its network by 2006/7. With the recent developments relating to the 3G licence being removed from Smart Telecom Meteor is assessing the potential market for 3G and its current options in the sector, as in theory Meteor should now receive the licence. Meteor have also recently signed a deal with T-Mobile UK which will see T-Mobile UK contract customers being offered a flat rate £0.25 for calls made while roaming on the Meteor network in Ireland. On September 21st 2006 Meteor have also announced the abolition of charges to receive calls while in the UK. This is unlike what O2 and Vodafone have done who still charge to receive a call while in these destinations. Meteor have attained this by signing a deal with T-Mobile UK (as expected, due to a previous low-charge deal, only the other way around). Meteor are the first Mobile operator in the Republic of Ireland to implement the removal a roaming tarrif.

[edit] Roaming agreement and 3G

Meteor have a national roaming agreement with mmO2 which means that when out of Meteor coverage, a Meteor customer can use O2's network at no extra charge. On some handsets, this creates the interesting effect of having coverage bars, but no operator logo or roaming indicator onscreen ^{[citation needed]}. This deal expires in Feburary 2007, and will switch over to a deal with Vodafone Ireland at that stage.

Unlike 3 Ireland, Vodafone Ireland and O2 Ireland, Meteor currently do not hold a UMTS licence. This means that they cannot offer 3G services such as video calling. They do offer GPRS (2.5G) services, however this was launched long after both Vodafone and O2 had already offered the service. However, they have submitted a bid for the final 3G licence. It seemed very possible they would obtain the last license, due to the fact that, unlike any other entity who may submit a bid, they already have a 2.5G network, and eircom (at the time Meteor's soon to be parent company) also submitted a bid. However, Smart Mobile Ltd. were offered the licence, although it has since been withdrawn, with either eircom or Meteor likely to be awarded it as the second preferred bidder, although which of the two is irrelevant, Meteor being a subsidiary of eircom. There have also been media reports ^{[citation needed]} that eircom are in talks with 3 Ireland to allow Meteor to use their 3G service.

[edit] Meteor Ireland Music Awards

Meteor sponsor Ireland's national music awards each year, and they have hence become known as The Meteors.

[edit] Corporate Logo

Meteor's corporate logo is strongly orange, with an undertone of white (originally grey). This is seen by some to be a slight taunt at the Orange mobile phone giant who had applied for the licence which Meteor got, but it also causes some confusion in that some people believe that Meteor is a subsidiary of Orange.

It is also interesting to note that since the acquisition by eircom, Meteor have "boxed" their logo within an orange box with a new purple swish along the bottom. Purple was the colour of eircom's former cellular communications unit, Eircell.