Aidan Hobbs!

Picture, if you would, an island country of around 4 million people with 2 main mobile phone companies and 1 smaller company. Imagine that these people are fanatical about their mobiles and are among the highest users in the world. Sound familiar? It should. But it's not Ireland, it's Singapore!

The main difference is that Irish people get ripped off in the cosy duopoly of the big two. It makes me laugh everytime I hear an executive trying to justify the exorbitant prices they charge. All they say is that Irish users love their mobiles and use them more than people in other countries! In most (if not practically all!) business models, the more a customer uses/buys, the cheaper the product gets, so that "explanation" is fatuous. So they keep on creaming the profits, making hundreds of millions of Euros a year from you and me (I still have my Irish mobile!).

Out here, the two main players are truly competing, resulting in great deals. Further to one of my earliest posts (here), I just got my first phone bill the other day. Cheap rental with a lot of minutes/texts free. In addition, international texts are about 1/3 of the price they are in Ireland. As the Yanks say, go figure. The only difference between the countries is that Ireland covers a far larger geographical area and hence would need more masts. I'm sure the large housing density and underground system here counters that chestnut to a large degree.

That concludes my consumer rant for the day!