Meteor Mobile Communications Limited was a
GSM
The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a standard developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) to describe the protocols for second-generation ( 2G) digital cellular networks used by mobile devices such as ...
and
UMTS
The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a third generation mobile cellular system for networks based on the GSM standard. Developed and maintained by the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project), UMTS is a component of the Inte ...
mobile telecommunications company
A mobile phone operator, wireless provider, or carrier is a mobile telecommunications company that provides wireless Internet GSM services for mobile device users. The operator gives a SIM card to the customer who inserts it into the mobile dev ...
in the
Republic of Ireland
Ireland ( ga, Éire ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 counties of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, on the eastern side of the island. A ...
. They operated a
GSM
The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a standard developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) to describe the protocols for second-generation ( 2G) digital cellular networks used by mobile devices such as ...
/
GPRS
General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) is a packet oriented mobile data standard on the 2G and 3G cellular communication network's global system for mobile communications (GSM). GPRS was established by European Telecommunications Standards Insti ...
/
EDGE
Edge or EDGE may refer to:
Technology Computing
* Edge computing, a network load-balancing system
* Edge device, an entry point to a computer network
* Adobe Edge, a graphical development application
* Microsoft Edge, a web browser developed by ...
/
UMTS
The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a third generation mobile cellular system for networks based on the GSM standard. Developed and maintained by the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project), UMTS is a component of the Inte ...
(
HSPA+
Evolved High Speed Packet Access, HSPA+, HSPA (Plus) or HSPAP, is a technical standard for wireless broadband telecommunication. It is the second phase of HSPA which has been introduced in 3GPP release 7 and being further improved in later 3GPP ...
) and
LTE cellular communications network under licence from the
Commission for Communications Regulation
The Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) ( ga, An Coimisiún um Rialáil Cumarsáide) is the general communications regulator for Ireland, covering almost all possible types of communications.
Founded on 1 December 2002, ComReg too ...
(ComReg), and were the third entrant in the market, after
Vodafone Ireland
Vodafone Ireland Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Vodafone Group, is a mobile phone network and broadband provider in the Republic of Ireland. It was created when the Vodafone Group bought Eircell, the mobile arm of Telecom Éireann. A ...
and
Three Ireland
Three Ireland, officially Three Ireland (Hutchison) Limited (formerly Hutchison 3G Ireland Ltd), is a telecommunications and internet service provider operating in Ireland as a subsidiary of CK Hutchison, operating under the global Three bran ...
. The company was a wholly owned subsidiary of Irish telecoms network
Eir
In Norse mythology, Eir (Old Norse: , "protection, help, mercy"Orchard (1997:36).) is a goddess or valkyrie associated with medical skill. Eir is attested in the ''Poetic Edda'', compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources; th ...
, having been purchased for €420m in 2005. Meteor was the only Irish owned mobile operator in Ireland.
Meteor once issued new numbers with the prefix code 085. Since the introduction of full
mobile number portability
Mobile number portability (MNP) enables mobile telephone
A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that ...
in Ireland, access codes have become less relevant as mobile telephone users may now retain their mobile telephone numbers when moving between mobile network operators. As a result, Meteor customers could have numbers starting with the codes 083, 085, 086, 087, or 089.
As of September 2008, Meteor had over 1 million customers, or 20% of the market.
History
Award of licence
In 1998, the then
Director of Telecommunications Regulation held a competition to award the third mobile telecommunications licence. Two companies submitted bids for the licence,
Orange
Orange most often refers to:
*Orange (fruit), the fruit of the tree species '' Citrus'' × ''sinensis''
** Orange blossom, its fragrant flower
*Orange (colour), from the color of an orange, occurs between red and yellow in the visible spectrum
* ...
, then controlled by
Hutchinson Whampoa
Hutchison Whampoa Limited (HWL) was an investment holding company based in Hong Kong. It was a Fortune Global 500 company and one of the largest companies listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. HWL was an international corporation with a div ...
, 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.
Launch
Launched on 22 February 2001, Meteor slowly picked up a low (under 10%) share of the Irish market. However, they became profitable and have since picked up much of the lucrative
pre-paid market among teenagers, due to their low
SMS
Short Message/Messaging Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile devices exchange short text ...
rates and ongoing promotions such as free Meteor-to-Meteor text messages.
In 2004, Western Wireless International bought out the remaining minority shareholders in the consortium, and it became a wholly owned subsidiary of that company.
Acquisition by eircom
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
''The Irish Times'' is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper and online digital publication. It launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Ruadhán Mac Cormaic. It is published every day except Sundays. ''The Irish Times'' is considered a newspaper ...
that there had been three bidders for Meteor:
eircom
Eircom Limited, trading as Eir ( ; stylised eir), is a large fixed, mobile and broadband telecommunications company in Ireland. The now privatised company, which is currently incorporated in Jersey, traces its origins to the Ireland's former ...
,
Smart Telecom
Smart Telecom ( AIM:SMR) was an Irish telecom operator that started as a phone card seller. It was also the third largest provider of cost-sensitive telecom services sector in Ireland, behind the incumbent operators eircom and BT Ireland. It had ...
, and a consortium led by
Denis O'Brien
Denis O'Brien (born 19 April 1958) is an Irish billionaire businessman, and the founder and owner of Digicel. He was listed among the World's Top 200 Billionaires in 2015 and was Ireland's richest native-born citizen for a period of several ye ...
. 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
RTÉ News and Current Affairs ( ga, Nuacht agus Cúrsaà Reatha RTÉ), also known as RTÉ News (''Nuacht RTÉ''), is the national news service provided by Irish public broadcaster Raidió TeilifÃs Éireann. Its services include local, nationa ...
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.
Rapid growth
In a report by eircom, Meteor had gained an 18.9% share of the mobile market in Ireland, with a customer base of over 962,000 of which over 100,000 (12%) were post paid subscribers under the Meteor BillPay brand. The company's subscriber base had increased to over one million as of September 2008. Meteor accounted for 66% of the overall growth of the Irish mobile market in the year to September 2006.
The company worked closely with Eircom in upgrading its billing systems and deploying
EDGE
Edge or EDGE may refer to:
Technology Computing
* Edge computing, a network load-balancing system
* Edge device, an entry point to a computer network
* Adobe Edge, a graphical development application
* Microsoft Edge, a web browser developed by ...
and
3G technology on its network. With the developments in eircom's acceptance of the fourth
3G licence from
ComReg
The Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) ( ga, An Coimisiún um Rialáil Cumarsáide) is the general communications regulator for Ireland, covering almost all possible types of communications.
Founded on 1 December 2002, ComReg too ...
, Meteor was obliged to have 33% of the population covered with commercial roll out of 3G services in October 2007. Meteor also signed a deal with
T-Mobile
T-Mobile is the brand name used by some of the mobile communications subsidiaries of the German telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom AG in the Czech Republic (T-Mobile Czech Republic), Poland (T-Mobile Polska), the United States (T-Mobile ...
UK which saw T-Mobile UK contract customers being offered a flat rate
£0.25 for calls made while roaming on the Meteor network in Ireland. On 21 September 2006 Meteor announced the abolition of charges to receive calls while in the UK, by signing a deal with T-Mobile UK.
Appointment of examiner
On 29 March 2012, a number of companies within the
eir
In Norse mythology, Eir (Old Norse: , "protection, help, mercy"Orchard (1997:36).) is a goddess or valkyrie associated with medical skill. Eir is attested in the ''Poetic Edda'', compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources; th ...
group, including Meteor, petitioned the Irish High Court for the appointment of an
examiner
Examiner or The Examiner may refer to:
Occupations
* Bank examiner, a kind of auditor
* Examiner (Roman Catholicism), a type of office in the Roman Catholic Church
* Examinership, a concept in Irish law
* Medical examiner
* Patent examiner
* Tr ...
.
Products and services
Meteor initially started out as a value-driven mobile service offering customers basic mobile voice telephony and text-based SMS services to mostly Pay and Go customers.
The company offered mobile services, such as MMS, GPRS, EDGE and 3G through their Pay as You Go and Bill Pay brands.
In 2009 Meteor launched Bill Pay Lite. It offered short contracts and low monthly fees.
In February 2009 Meteor launched Broadband To Go, its mobile broadband offering. The service offered internet at
HSDPA
High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) is an amalgamation of two mobile protocols—High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) and High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA)—that extends and improves the performance of existing 3G mobile telecommunicat ...
speeds and was available to Bill Pay and Pay as You Go customers. There were 3 different products on bill pay, with download allowances of 5GB, 10GB and 15GB. The Pay as you go service offered 7.5GB.
''Meteor Mobile Internet'' was the company's mobile internet based services, offering access to the mobile internet, realtones, full track music downloads and other content available for download to existing customers.
''Meteor Business'' was the company's division focusing on business customers. They offered services such as Mobile Email using Visto technology, Microsoft Windows Mobile Email and other products.
4G - LTE
Meteor (along with its sister company, eMobile), provided 4G. Currently, 4G is only available in Dublin, Carlow, Cork, Clare, Limerick, Galway, Mullingar, Athlone and Dundalk. Meteor claimed to have 90% 4G population coverage across Ireland and planned to cover the country with 90% geographic coverage by April 2017.
eir Mobile (MNO) (former MVNO)
As part of their mobile strategy eir and Meteor also launched ''eir Mobile'' aimed at the older residential and business market. This was complementary to the now discontinued Meteor brand (mainly used by younger residential wireless customers). eir Mobile was a mobile virtual network operator
MVNO
A mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) is a wireless communications services provider that does not own the wireless network infrastructure over which it provides services to its customers. An MVNO enters into a business agreement with a mobile ...
which used the Meteor Network for its services to residential and business customers, to complement the residential and business mobile services offered by Meteor. It is now a
Mobile network operator
A mobile network operator (MNO), also known as a wireless service provider, wireless carrier, cellular company, or mobile network carrier, is a provider of wireless communications services that owns or controls all the elements necessary to sell ...
with 96% 4G coverage, as well as 99% 3G population coverage as of September 2017, when it became the successor to Meteor Mobile.
Network
Meteor previously had a national
roaming
Roaming is a wireless telecommunication term typically used with mobile devices, such as mobile phones. It refers to a mobile phone being used outside the range of its native network and connecting to another available cell network.
Technical ...
agreement with
O2 Ireland which meant that, only on the westernmost areas of Ireland (where Meteor did not have coverage), a Meteor customer could use O
2 Ireland's network at no extra charge. This deal expired in February 2007. The final arrangement allowed Meteor customers access to the
Vodafone Ireland
Vodafone Ireland Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Vodafone Group, is a mobile phone network and broadband provider in the Republic of Ireland. It was created when the Vodafone Group bought Eircell, the mobile arm of Telecom Éireann. A ...
network on the western-seabord of Ireland.
Like all other Irish operators, Meteor held a
UMTS
The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a third generation mobile cellular system for networks based on the GSM standard. Developed and maintained by the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project), UMTS is a component of the Inte ...
licence. They had offered nationwide
3G services from 2007, but the Meteor
3G network was available to 33% of the Irish population (this included the four cities of Dublin, Cork, limerick, Galway and other regional centres) with very limited geographic coverage, around 15% by 2013.
They also offered
GPRS
General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) is a packet oriented mobile data standard on the 2G and 3G cellular communication network's global system for mobile communications (GSM). GPRS was established by European Telecommunications Standards Insti ...
(2.5G) and
EDGE
Edge or EDGE may refer to:
Technology Computing
* Edge computing, a network load-balancing system
* Edge device, an entry point to a computer network
* Adobe Edge, a graphical development application
* Microsoft Edge, a web browser developed by ...
(2.75G) services. Their parent
eir
In Norse mythology, Eir (Old Norse: , "protection, help, mercy"Orchard (1997:36).) is a goddess or valkyrie associated with medical skill. Eir is attested in the ''Poetic Edda'', compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources; th ...
won a bid for the final 3G licence, when their parent, eircom accepted this, because,
Smart Mobile Ltd. was unable to pay for the license. Meteor continued to add
EDGE
Edge or EDGE may refer to:
Technology Computing
* Edge computing, a network load-balancing system
* Edge device, an entry point to a computer network
* Adobe Edge, a graphical development application
* Microsoft Edge, a web browser developed by ...
capabilities to their then existing 2G network. In order to comply with the terms of licence, Meteor launched stage one (10% 3G population coverage area) from their
UMTS
The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a third generation mobile cellular system for networks based on the GSM standard. Developed and maintained by the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project), UMTS is a component of the Inte ...
/
HSDPA
High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) is an amalgamation of two mobile protocols—High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) and High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA)—that extends and improves the performance of existing 3G mobile telecommunicat ...
Network on the end of October 2007, with the second phase having gone live to customers at the end of September 2008.
Meteor's network also offered
4G services, which covered 96% of the Irish population. Meteor had Ireland's second largest 4G footprint after Vodafone.
The legal transfer of licence for UMTS services from Meteor's parent, eircom, was officially authorised on 26 June 2008 taking effect the following day.
Meteor Ireland Music Awards
Meteor sponsored Ireland's national music awards annually, becoming known at one point as ''
The Meteors
The Meteors are an English psychobilly band formed in 1980. Originally from London, England, they are often credited with giving the psychobilly subgenre — which fuses punk rock with rockabilly — its distinctive sound and style.
About.co ...
'', until their cancellation in 2011.
Sponsorship
Meteor sponsored
RTÉ One
RTÉ One ( ga, RTÉ a hAon) is an Irish free-to-air flagship television channel owned and operated by Raidió TeilifÃs Éireann (RTÉ). It is the most-popular and most-watched television channel in the country and was launched as ''TelefÃs à ...
's travel show ''No Frontiers'' and the second season of
TV3 Channel 3 or TV 3 may refer to:
Television
*Canal 3 (Burkina Faso), a commercial television channel in Burkina Faso
*Canal 3 (Guatemala), a commercial television channel in Guatemala
*Channel 3 (Algeria), a public Algerian TV channel owned by EPTV ...
's ''
The Apprentice
''The Apprentice'' is a Reality competition, reality talent game show franchise originally aired in 2004 in the United States.
Created by U.S.-based British producer Mark Burnett, the show depicts contestants from around the country with variou ...
''. They have since removed their sponsorship of ''The Apprentice'', while RTÉ have since replaced ''No Frontiers'' with a new holiday show, ''Getaways''.
Censorship
On 30 January 2012, it came to light in the online newspaper broadsheet.ie that Meteor opted to censor their network despite this being in breach of Irish law and there being no legal requirement to do so.
See also
*
List of Irish companies
This is a list of notable companies based in Ireland, or subsidiaries according to their sector. It includes companies from the entire island. The state of the Republic of Ireland covers five-sixths of the island, with Northern Ireland, part of th ...
External links
*
Footnotes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Meteor (Mobile Network)
1998 establishments in Ireland
2017 disestablishments in Ireland
Telecommunications companies of the Republic of Ireland
Telecommunications companies established in 1998