It must be emphasised that the market for mobile telephony in the UK, including Northern Ireland, is starkly different to that in the Republic. The UK market has been fully liberalised for several years and a number of competitive offerings are available. One feature of the competitive UK market is the sale of handsets at subsidised prices to customers who enter a contractual commitment to a single service provider for a number of years. The cost of the subsidy is then recovered through relatively high rentals and call charges. It is noteworthy that this type of terminal price subsidy in the UK applies to new connections only. If a customer loses his-her mobile phone or if it is stolen, he-she must pay the full price of a replacement phone and that price will be largely similar to the price paid in Ireland. Hence, when like is compared with like, prices of comparable mobile phones in over-the-counter transactions are roughly equivalent here and in the North.
Since the Irish market is primarily business based at present, the tables below compare the mobile charges for the business customers of Telecom Éireann's Eircell here in the south with those offered by British Telecom's mobile subsidiary, Cellnet, which operates in the North. All figures listed are VAT exclusive.
Charges for Analogue Service