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FINE GAEL TD Noel Rock has said that he is concerned that Irish mobile phone providers will be able exploit a loophole to continue charging customers higher roaming charges, when EU legislation banning roaming charges comes into effect in June.
One part of the rules was the concept of ‘roam like at home’. According to the EU Commission, travelers are meant to be able to “call, text and surf on their mobile devices when abroad in the EU for no extra charge on top of the price they pay at home”.
Mobile giant Three, however, had announced that Irish customers on its all-you-can-eat data plan will not be able to avail of the same all-you-can-eat data offer when roaming in the EU.
Rock wants the Irish Commission for Communications Regulation, ComReg, to investigate the matter, something which the regulator has said it will pursue, reported the Irish Independent.
The Dublin North West TD said: “The loophole will allow operators to impose high roaming charges by modifying consumers’ contracts by ensuring that offers such as unlimited data are described as a service benefit rather than a central part of a contract.
This is completely anti-consumer.
Rock added that he hoped Comreg investigated the situation as a “matter of urgency”.
He added that Irish customers had waited for the end of roaming charges for a long time, and that it was vital to ensure they “reap the benefits and don’t have the wool pulled over their eyes by mobile operators”.
A spokesperson for Comreg told TheJournal.ie: “We are aware that a mobile operator has recently informed its customers of new contractual arrangements that purport to draw a distinction between a contractual data allowance and an unlimited all-you-can-eat-data “service benefit”.
We have sought information from the operator concerned so that we can assess whether the operator is in compliance with its existing obligations, as well as with the new roaming rules that will come into force on 15 June.
“We will not say anything more about this matter until we can do so without prejudicing our compliance function.”
EU rules
The move comes ahead of new EU regulations that are set to come into force in the middle of June.
Telecoms operators are obliged to include this ‘roam-like-at-home’ provision in customer contracts. However, customers can still be charged for data usage. As part of the EU’s plan, roaming customers will be charged the wholesale rate for data, 85 cent per megabyte (MB).
In cases where an operator is providing an all you can eat service, the company can limit data volumes to twice what the customer would be able to buy with the value of their contract.
For example, for someone with a €40 per month contract, each 85 cent buys them 1MB of data. €40 buys about 4.8GB of data, so the customer would be entitled to a 9.6GB allowance.
The Irish Independent reported that there is a loophole where a company’s data offering is classed as a ‘service benefit’, rather than a ‘core’, part of a customer contract.
It said a company could do this to provide a lower data allowance to customers travelling in the EU.
However, the EU Commission said in a statement: “There is no loophole by which part of the domestic data allowance could be regarded as gift or side benefit and would therefore not count when traveling abroad.
Doing so would appear like a clear case of circumvention, for which there is no basis in the roaming regulation.
With reporting from Paul O’Donoghue
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That roughly a third of renters would support this government is certainly surprising.
@P. J.: I wonder if some voting boxes went astray in transport? Really surprised at some of the outcomes so far… anyway, that’s my conspiracy bit for the week.
@Lydia Mcloughlin:
Haha hahaha hahahaha haha hahaha hahahaha haha hahaha
@Lydia Mcloughlin: doubtfull as every box that leaves and goes to counting centres has a garda escort
@Lydia Mcloughlin: lol
It seems, Sinn Fein are afraid that voters might bring up their unsavoury past at the doorstep. Such as support for Garda killers, robberies of banks and post offices, to fund their murders. Their protection racketeering, and drug dealing . I can see why they agents didn’t meet with the voters .
@Patrick MC Dermott: they didn’t have a bother at the last general election. They lost support because of their flip flopping. Soft approach to immigration anc suing journalists,
@brian madden: then why did ZERO seats go to immigration parties if immigration was an issue?
@9QRixo8H: Because you could see immigration as being an issue without supporting “solutions” offered by far right candidates
@9QRixo8H: Zero? They got two seats
@Paul Ferguson: Two out of ~950.
@Brendan O’Brien: They didn’t win many seats however they did secure a large portion of the vote. In previous elections they would have been the first eliminated but hung on in some areas until near the end. Their problem is that they have only one policy and aren’t well known in the local areas. There was one elected in my county but they are well known in the community doing a lot of volunteer work etc and that’s what gets you seats in local elections.
Sinn Fein lost the plot by allowing our culture to be eroded not taking a stronger stance on our neutrality & supporting the government in the recent referendum
It was the govts referendum and they won overall lol. The yes parties romped home while the no parties are licking wounds
@Criostoir Mac Raghnaill: How has ‘our’ culture been eroded, and what could SF have done to stop this?
Immigration is the issue that SF lost on . Speculating will not change it .
Australia has very stringent immigration laws and nobody refers to them as right wing and racists
@BL Music: Most racist place I ever lived in.
@BL Music: Anti-immigrant parties got a combined result of 0.9%.
@BL Music: The country was built on racism. Racism is still systemic and built into their politics and society. The reason we don’t hear of it here is more to do with our media, who owns them and the fact the most Australians are white.
@Uí Braonáin: what? Do you really believe our media would not take any opportunity to call white people racist.
The SF meltdown is beautiful
2019 election, SF 81 Seats, FG 255, FF 279. This time around SF will probably gain more seats than FF or FG. The GE in 2020 saw SF massively increase their share of the vote. Why, because people don’t bother voting in local elections because they don’t see the point. Did I vote, yes, did I vote SF, no. I don’t get why the FF and FG are so happy that over HALF the electorate are so demotivated by what they see that they don’t vote.
@Eddie Garvey: Probably because we’ve had covid, cost of living crisis, housing supply issues, energy crisis, war in ukraine, refugees, etc, since the last election. I think many understand that the country had to take repeated bites out of the biggest shit burger in living memory. No government, of any political formulation, would have done anything differently or had any effect on such huge external factors. It’s incredibly easy to crow from the opposition benches criticising, demanding, and pretending none of the above would affect everything here.
People see cynical opportunism, weather vane politics, and bluster for what it is. The centre ground is mostly holding. I’m grateful for that, at least.
Was chatting to a friend last week who was telling me how bad the government was. Asked him yesterday what he thought of the length of the European ballot paper to which he said he didn’t vote.
Absoulte joke how many of the government haters actually stayed at home and let others decide for them.
As for SF they don’t look to be much of an alternative to the current regime they blow with the wind last years racists are people with genuine concerns this year. I think a lot of their voter base is turning of them.
Why are people surprised with the vote for FG and FF? Not everybody is in the same position as those who can’t believe how votes have been cast. The majority of people in the country have made a decent life for themselves and are doing alright. Their votes reflect this. Some have not fared so well and their votes are reflected otherwise. We are not all in the same boat. Some have learned to paddle a bit better than others.
@Sun Rise:
Let’s see how hard children and grandchildren in future have to paddle because they give more of their wages to stuff the pockets of those who happen to have been born when life in Ireland was fair for those who worked.
The pretence of having assets inflated by speculative markets may give some a sense of comfort and achievement, but it comes at a price and is untenable for future generations.
So “mass migration” FFG romped home. While the anti-immigrant parties gained zero seats so far.
@9QRixo8H: if SF worked as hard as you are deflecting they wouldn’t be in this mess lol
@9QRixo8H: F mad!
SF for years courted the social welfare vote. Social welfare recipients are the main drivers behind the anti- immigration voice. This is where they lost support. I am not SF supporter, but I admire the fact that they didn’t go chasing that vote. Well done SF for not jumping on the bandwagon.
@ian: a very nice way of saying social welfare recipients are racists
GOOD BY MARY LU
I was wondering why The Wolfe Tones wasn’t blaring from Shinner radios lol
In my opinion the sf leadership adopting the blind pig headed entitled hubris of ffg alienated alot of people who would normally vote for them
There is a great danger in Ireland that politicians may misread the results as a sanction to continue with convictions that many in Europe have found awful. The misadventure of experimental theorists, where millions died while they were pursuing experiments to make a virus more infectious in humans, is a sign that society may be ready to alter its views on how politicians behave and how they are used.
The idea that May temperatures were the highest recorded in Ireland may be a low point for the politicians and media because the direction of travel is still towards a belief that controlling human behaviour is also controlling the weather/temperatures arising from academic politics.
I hope some commenters here are more considerate of what is being said.
Ask matt the thrasher why sf lost voters he knows everything
@Gerald Kelleher: In the future Ireland will have those who succeed in making a comfortable life for themselves and those who fail to do so. This is not a new phenomenon. It is the same all over the world and not unique to Ireland.
Well done there ian nice little attack on Irish people..Love the way Irish turn on Irish people. Imagine the looney right got in there.lol
Two girls with very little to no respect for their country whatsoever there.. look at the yolk on the right he lost three general elections
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