Fourth mobile phone firm
Friday 18th December 2009, 3:00PM GMT.
Justin Thorne, Jersey Post executive marketing manager, at the Broad Street launch this morning Picture: DAVID FERGUSON (00855844)
A FOURTH mobile phone company will open for business tomorrow when Jersey Post launches me:mo.
It will offer only pay-as-you-go services, but users can choose to have either free texts or free phone calls from one me:mo network number to another.
A me:mo store inside the main Post Office in Broad Street will open its doors at 8.30 am on Saturday. Handsets and accessories will be on sale there and me:mo products and services will be on sale in post offices around the Island.
The service is wholly owned by Jersey Post, but me:mo will use the Airtel Vodafone network and its customers will benefit from Vodafone’s global roaming agreements.
The venture has been set up by Jersey Post International Development Ltd, a division of Jersey Post established to identify new business opportunities. The division’s managing director, Gary Whipp, said that the business was delighted to be able to offer Islanders a newmobile telecoms service.
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lets hope the handset prices are not a outrageous as the other Jersey providers. I just bought a Samsung pay as you go handset for £3.95 in the UK which will work with a Jersey simcard. The Samsung contract phone that I took over 2 years for £77 from JT is available less money on a payg package also unlocked for any network.
I could have had a laptop and phone for less than I’m paying for a phone over here, when will we benefit from the same deals as the UK – never most likely
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@ Willie Eckerslike #1
“…when will we benefit from the same deals as the UK – never most likely”
When our market has a population around 60,000,000?
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J Lamborrari
“…when will we benefit from the same deals as the UK – never most likely”
When our market has a population around 60,000,000?
And that’s why we pay 10 times the price for the same product? no extortionate mark up there then.
If you wanted a top end phone like the I phone it would be cheaper to fly to the UK and buy it then put your simcard in it and still pocket several hundred pounds.
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@Willie Eckerslike #3
“…If you wanted a top end phone like the I phone it would be cheaper to fly to the UK and buy it then put your simcard in it and still pocket several hundred pounds…”
Only problem with your suggestion is that your JT/Airtel/Sure SIM will not work in a UK iPhone; different price, for a different product.
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“…If you wanted a top end phone like the I phone it would be cheaper to fly to the UK and buy it then put your simcard in it and still pocket several hundred pounds…”
Only problem with your suggestion is that your JT/Airtel/Sure SIM will not work in a UK iPhone; different price, for a different product.
If true then the local cartel have got us over a barrel as usual, bend over and say aah.
Just like when mobiles first became popular and JT wanted £200 for the same phone I got in the UK for £4.99, then they shut down the satellites to prevent people using UK phones and paying roaming which was still massively cheaper than paying the Jersey rate.
TBH not sure if it is possible to use the I Phone with a local sim card but it is definitely possible to use a £3.95 UK PAYG with a local simcard,or one of many unlocked UK phones.
I just resent having my trousers taken down by greedy local retailers – JT pay more get less.
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“…If true then the local cartel have got us over a barrel as usual, bend over and say aah…”
It is true, but it’s got nothing to do with any local cartel; it’s a decision made by Apple, the manufacturer of the iPhone.
“…Just like when mobiles first became popular and JT wanted £200 for the same phone I got in the UK for £4.99, then they shut down the satellites to prevent people using UK phones and paying roaming which was still massively cheaper than paying the Jersey rate…”
Nothing like what you describe I’m afraid. Buy an iPhone in the US and it won’t roam in many other countries, again because of the decisions made at the vendors end, not in Jersey etc.
“…TBH not sure if it is possible to use the I Phone with a local sim card but it is definitely possible to use a £3.95 UK PAYG with a local simcard,or one of many unlocked UK phones…”
Cheapest PAYG handset I could find just now was £2.95 for a basic phone… but you MUST buy £10 airtime & the Handset Unlocking fee, to be able to use another network’s SIM card is £15. Total cost therefore £27.95, while a better phone can be got from a local provider for £25. Always read the small print!
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“TBH not sure if it is possible to use the I Phone with a local sim card but it is definitely possible to use a £3.95 UK PAYG with a local simcard,or one of many unlocked UK phones…”
Cheapest PAYG handset I could find just now was £2.95 for a basic phone… but you MUST buy £10 airtime & the Handset Unlocking fee, to be able to use another network’s SIM card is £15. Total cost therefore £27.95, while a better phone can be got from a local provider for £25. Always read the small print
Mate you must have shares in JT, the phone did indeed have £10 top up credit which I used in the UK ( much cheaper than paying roaming on my contract phone )it was unlocked for any network at point of purchase for free and now works fine in Jersey with my local payg simcard, total cost £3.95 compared to nearly £30 in Jsy.
We are getting stiffed by our local suppliers and always have been, not just in telecommunications either but pretty much everything else, as everyone but you appears to know.
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What’s the problem? The big spenders can take it in their stride and as J Lamborrari states
“Total cost therefore £27.95, while a better phone can be got from a local provider for £25.”
- those with simpler expectations can get a good deal in Jersey.
I have bought several PAYG phones in Jersey, from JT and then Sure which have served me adequately. All came unlocked and thus worked out cheaper to buy than in the UK. They work with any SIM on GSM networks. Once I own the phones I can choose the neworks and tariffs that suit me.
IPhones and the like are pitched at a more affluent market than me, so I am happy to, unusually, benefit from having lower expectations.
#5 Willie Eckerslike “…then they shut down the satellites to prevent people using UK phones and paying roaming which was still massively cheaper than paying the Jersey rate.”
What on earth are you on about?
“…it is definitely possible to use a £3.95 UK PAYG with a local simcard”
Are you telling me that you can buy an unlocked phone in the UK for £3.95?
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Are you telling me that you can buy an unlocked phone in the UK for £3.95?
Yes I’m using it, unless you prefer to go to vodafone where the phone is free providing you buy a £10 top up which you can use in the UK first.
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Well I won’t argue with you, Willie, but I haven’t seen one supplied unlocked for £3.95 plus £10 top up yet.
I went to several phone outlets last week and all the tied shops like Vodaphone, T mobile etc. said they didn’t do unlocked PAYG phones.
Carphone Warehouse said that all their phones are now supplied unlocked, which came as a surprise to me as the last time I was in there only a few were and in which case were generally about £10-15 more.
I will keep looking and get some to sell in Jersey!
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The £3.95 phone was from Carphone Warehouse, they said it could be supplied connected to any UK newtwork and would be network free for Jersey. They also have a better Nokia for £7.95 but as I only wanted basic I opted for the cheaper one.
They also had the Samsung Tocco Lite I’d just signed up to a 2 year contract with JT for and it was less money on PAYG contract free any network that I had just paid at JT, the JT phone will cost an additional £240 over 2 years on the contract – bummer.
How can they supply the phone only for less than JT’s contract? maybe I’ll bring a handful of the £3.95 or £7.95 phones back with me when I return next week, I could sell at no profit with £10 UK credit for £13.95
Let’s just get this in context, I expect to pay more locally, just not 4 times more for the Samsung and even more for top end phones. I mean JT might just as well jump on a plane and buy a handful of phones, unless of course the profit they are making is even greater than I’ve discovered.
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@ Willie Eckerslike #11
“…How can they supply the phone only for less than JT’s contract?…”
Because they get paid by the operators to sell you those PAYG SIMs. It’s simple economies of scale; a fact of life for ‘our local suppliers and always [has] been, not just in telecommunications either but pretty much everything else, as everyone but you appears to know’
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#7 Willie Eckerslike “Mate You must have shares in JT ”
there is only one shareholder in Jersey Telecom and that is the States of Jersey , the same States of Jersey that wholly own Jersey Post which has just started a mobile phone service e.g. Memo which is now in direct competition with Jersey Telecom , if anyone can explain to me how that one works I,m all ears !!!!, and on a similar note I wonder if when that nice Senator Mclean started the ” Think twice buy local ” campaign he imagined that Jersey Post was going to start Ship to Me to make it easier not to buy local !
You could not make it up
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J Lamborrari economies of scale. Does this mean that people in Sark pay a hundred times what we pay as they have less than one hundredth of the population? Time to get real me thinks.
Jersey is way over priced for everything now and it isn’t just down to economies of scale I’m afraid. I would say it is down to those running businesses over here knowing they have a captive audience and therefore knowing they can charge more than they could otherwise.
Also as Jersey is seen to be very wealthy, this is another reason, in my honest opinion. Therefore I say it is a case of charging what the market will bare not what you could do.
At the end of the day all businesses want to maximise profits, can anyone tell me a better to do it than Jersey?
The joys of capitalism I’m afraid. Basically I see one person’s profit from a business as another’s loss. The bigger the profit the worse it is for all the consumers out there.
I myself would like to see French companies over here and then we would see some real competition.
A motorway link to France would bring prices down in one fell swoop over here as people would buy in France until the prices were equitable. This included the over inflated property bubble over here!!!
As per JT if they have their profit erroded to very little then we will all be making up the shortfall via extra taxes. Up to a £13M-14M loss to the taxman will add a few pounds to each person’s tax bill I’m sure. However you all have a choice now don’t you? I do hope you think it will be worth it in the long run…
As far as I am concerned the island is far too small for 4 telecos over here to run at a decent profit.
As far as I am concerned if the JCRA were really interested in helping Joe Public out they would sort out travel costs to and from Jersey, as well as import and export costs as these drive the prices of goods over here much more than a few mobiles.
Cut these then this would have a knock on effect on inflation and wages over here and make Jersey much more competitive globally on the labour front. Or we can keep things as they are and price ourselves out of the marketplace. Good economics or what?
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@ Adrian #14
“…Does this mean that people in Sark pay a hundred times what we pay as they have less than one hundredth of the population? Time to get real me thinks…”
Time to get real? Quite. You clearly don’t understand(or perhaps you pretend not to for effect?) the economies of scale argument; in practice it is not a straight forward sliding scale as you describe above.
“…I myself would like to see French companies over here and then we would see some real competition…”
Maybe you would, but why aren’t they? why isn’t TESCO here? because they’re not allowed? No. Because they don’t want to operate in Jersey’s market? Yes. But why, they’d clearly(from what you say) be able to clean up over here by massively undercutting everybody else? Maybe because they wouldn’t be able to make a profit at their mainland prices in Jersey’s market??
“…A motorway link to France would bring prices down in one fell swoop over here as people would buy in France until the prices were equitable. This included the over inflated property bubble over here!!!…”
How would you pay for this link? if it was so much cheaper to shop in France(which I doubt) do you think that local retailers would lower their prices to compete, or just go bust? once they’re bust, and everybody relying on retail is unemployed in Jersey and claiming benefits etc. and no longer paying any taxes, who pays for those benefits? police? healthcare? etc. etc.?
“…As far as I am concerned the island is far too small for 4 telecos over here to run at a decent profit…”
It’s odd to hear you say this, as from what I’ve read from you, it’s hard to believe you could see any profit as decent!
With regard to my answer to Willie Eckerslike’s post #11 in #12 which you question; if not economies of scale, then what? how much profit do you think Carphone Warehouse make selling that handset @ £3.95?
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