On 29 November, ComReg published the 11th wave of Irish and EU aggregated data; the data comprises a comprehensive set of data requested by all NRAs from national operators. Key points from the period 1 July 2012 – 31 March 2013 are summarised on pages 4 and 5 of the publication and include:
- Voice calls
- Ireland's average retail roaming prices for calls made/received continue to comply with the regulatory price ceilings.
- Ireland's average "Eurotariff" price per calls made/received are lower than the EU/EEA average.
- However, Ireland's surcharge for billed prices for retail "Eurotariff" calls made has increased and is significantly above the EU/EEA average (11.3% in Q1 2013). Bizarrely, this arises from the fact that – in an attempt to save costs - there has been an increase in calls made with a duration of less than 30 seconds.
- SMS
- Ireland's average retail price for sending a SMS is now 1 cent below the regulated cap of 9 cents.
- Data
- Ireland's pre-paid and post-paid retail non-group data prices are both below EU/EEA average.
- Volumes of retail data traffic have grown significantly, with figures for Q1 2013 over 3.4 times higher than the same period in 2009. This is hardly surprising given current usage habits and the continuing explosion of data hungry devices in our every-day lives.
- Ireland's average aggregate wholesale price per MB of data among non-group companies continues to be below the 25 cent mark, but is still higher than the EU/EEA average.
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