O2 Ireland staff may go in outsourcing deal

O₂ Ireland has entered into due diligence with IBM for the IT work, which is expected to commence in Q2 next year.

It has also opened a tender for outsourcing its network management; 220 posts are set to be transferred to Ericsson, assuming negotiations between the two companies successfully complete by mid November. Nokia is no longer being considered for the network management outsourcing.

O₂ Ireland’s outsourcing initiative will reduce staff numbers to around 1,200, and is blamed on increasing competition in the Irish marketplace, with new arrivals Meteor and 3 Ireland putting the incumbents under considerable pressure.

Tesco enters the Irish mobile arena

Tesco launched Ireland’s first MVNO last month.

The retailer claims its Irish mobile offering is simple and easy to understand, with a prepay pricing plan of €0.20 per minute to any network at any time. Text messages are €0.09. Tesco is expected to launch more tariffs later.

Network connectivity will be provided by O2 Ireland, but services and SIM cards will be branded Tesco Mobile. An ‘unlimited’ call bolt-on is being promoted, allowing 10 or 30 days’ unlimited free calls between Tesco Mobile numbers for €4.99 and €11.99 respectively.

Tom Britten, general manager of Tesco Mobile’s Irish service, said: “Complicated and expensive pricing plans have confused Irish consumers for long enough.

“Apart from great value we’ll introduce transparency and simplicity, with no hidden extras. We’re committed to offering the best value mobile phone service.”

3 and RTÉ launch mobile news feeds

RTÉ newsreader Anne Doyle last month launched RTÉ News, a live mobile news feed available on 3 Ireland.

The news will be updated three times a day at 1pm, 6pm and 9pm, simultaneously with the terrestrial broadcast.

3 Ireland head of entertainment David Riley said: “Anne Doyle, Bryan Dobson, Sharon Ní Bheoláin, Eileen Dunne and John Finnerty are Ireland’s golden news team and we’re delighted to have these standard bearers of news programming live on mobile for the first time.”

Meteor launches ‘warm’ ad campaign

Meteor has launched a new advertising campaign that departs from its trademark humour, focusing instead on warmth and sociability.

The theme is ‘wherever you are, so are we’, and will focus on Meteor’s national network coverage. The campaign will run until November 4 using TV and outdoor media, and will run again in the New Year.

The Faces song Ooh La La has been re-recorded by Irish group Bell X-1, and is a distinctive deviation from the normal Meteor jingle used in the company’s previous ads.

Meteor head of marketing Meadhbh Quinn said: “The aim with this new style of campaign is to illustrate our commitment to delivering the highest possible service for our customers while still retaining the aspect of sociability and warmth synonymous with Meteor.”

With 875,000 subscribers and more than 18 per cent market share, Meteor states it is committed to driving down Irish mobile prices and bringing real competition to the mobile communications market.

ComReg looks into Eircom break-up

Irish communications regulator ComReg is to seek formal advice from consultants on the possible break-up of Eircom, owned by Australian outfit Babcock & Brown.

Market speculation suggests if Babcock & Brown retains the business’ core infrastructure, it could pocket €1 billion for selling the retail division and €800 million for Meteor Mobile.

ComReg want four aspects of the possible break-up evaluated: strategic, regulatory, corporate finance, and economic and regulatory accounting issues. The view of the Irish government is still unknown, but it has been offered a minority stake in the public switched telephone network in exchange for a share in the state-owned national fibre network.

Voda customer jailed for porn

A man from Ballina, County Tipperary, pleaded guilty at Killaloe District Court last month to having 74 pornographic images of children on his mobile phone. Chris Fahey, 49, was sentenced to one month in prison.

Detective Garda Geraldine Goldrick told the court a Vodafone employee became “suspicious” of the websites visited by Fahey and reviewed the content he was accessing, before calling the police.

Vodafone had been criticised by users for blocking many innocent websites. But there appears to be no criticism of it not blocking access, or reporting customers to the police.

Mobile ex-con murdered

The prisoner who took part in an RTÈ radio phone-in via mobile from Portlaoise prison, embarrassing the authorities and pre-empting a crackdown on phones in prisons, was shot dead in a taxi in a gangland-style shooting last week.

Following his release in August, John Daly, 27, had been warned by detectives to leave the district.

It has been suggested the hit was ordered as a result of the crackdown on mobile phone use in jails, and the difficulty inmates had been experiencing in obtaining phones.