I was quite late on the bandwagon to switch from O2 to Meteor as my mobile phone network. By the time I joined, most of my friends were already on Meteor, so I got the immediate benefit of the deal to send unlimited free texts to other Meteor customers. Now this (emphasis mine):
O2 Ireland has launched a new price plan for pre-pay mobile users. O2 Experience enables subscribers to send unlimited free texts to any other Irish mobile network, at any time, for life. Customers that aren’t heavy text users can also opt for free calls for life to their top 10 friends on O2 instead. Subscribers must top up by EUR20 per month in order to avail of the price plan. Additionally, there’s an option to avail of free calls and texts to 10 nominated O2 numbers for customers who top up by EUR30 per month. The three options with the new price plan are available to new and existing customers who sign up by 30 April 2008.
As I highlighted, this is similar to Meteor’s deal except that it isn’t limited to texts on the same network. Hopefully Meteor will respond with their own deal. Failing that, it’s a very simple matter to switch networks here.