Meteor Mobile Communications

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, then controlled by Hutchinson Whampoa, 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

Under Peter Quinn, Western Wireless International's VP of European Operations and Meteor's first CEO, Meteor launched on 22 February 2001, eight months after the High Court found in favor of their license over Orange. Uniquely, at the time, Billpay and prepaid customers could join without contracts and at the same cost of entry. Meteor slowly picked up a low (under 10%) share of the Irish market. However, they became profitable in their first year of operation and picked up much of the lucrative pre-paid market among teenagers, due to low SMS rates and 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 that there had been three bidders for Meteor: eircom, Smart Telecom, and a consortium led by Denis O'Brien. 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 However, on 14 July 2005, RTÉ News reported on their business website that Denis O'Brien had withdrawn from bidding, and that it was understood that eircom was the top bidder at €410m. On 21 July it was announced that Smart Telecom had also withdrawn, leaving eircom as the sole bidder.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.

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 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.