Vodafone UK Abolishes Roaming Charges for Summer and cuts long distance cost for good
 

According to "The Register": Vodafone UK is to give up roaming charges to the following 45 countries:

Albania, Andorra, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Canary Islands, Channel Islands, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Faroes, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Isle of Man, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Madeira, Malta, Monaco, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Ireland, Romania, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Vatican City.

Check out the story: Vodafone UK is to give up on roaming charges to 45 countries

Vodafone UK Abolishes Roaming Charges for Summer and cuts long distance cost for good
 

For those that have a vodafone UK card. Not a bad deal.

Vodafone UK Abolishes Roaming Charges for Summer and Permanently Cuts the Price Of Calling Abroad from the UK - Vodafone

Pity my Vodafone UK card has expired... Pity that promotion is for a limited period only.

Postpaid Vodafone Hungary customers choosing the "Europa" plan can call and divert their calls to Vodafone UK numbers for less than 0.09 EUR/min gross at today's HUF/EUR rate. That was why I had a Vodafone UK and Vodafone HU card when I was working in the UK. Now that would cover several other countries as well.

Free pay as you go vodaphone UK sims
 

If you have a UK address, up to four free pay as you go vodaphone sims can be ordered online here:

https://www.v-store.co.uk/index.cfm?...eeSims.details

There's no minimum term contract, no strings attached – and delivery is free.

Calling abroad from UK looks interesting
 

Calling abroad FROM UK ONLY - costs 5p/min with the PAYG sim to landlines in the following countries:

Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovakia,
Thailand, Turkey, China, Hong Kong, Russia, Nigeria, India and Pakistan.

Source: International Mobile Calls from the UK - Pay As You Go - Vodafone

Does anyone know if free DIDs are available for any the countries listed above?

Terms and conditions of the free sim offer
 

I have just read the terms and conditions of the free sim offer. In this text vodafone refers to the Anynet and Anytime tariffs - not the Simply tariff, which is the PAYG tariff for receiving free incoming european calls this summer. What a pity!

Perhaps it´s worth ordering a free vodafone sim anyway.

Terms and conditions for those interested in the offer: http://online.vodafone.co.uk/dispatc...ageID=PTC_0007

New PAYG sims are perhaps on the Simply tariff
 

I have just found a page on the vodafone website that says that the older Anynet and Anytime tariffs are no longer available. My guess is that vodafone is shipping new PAYG sims that are on the Simply tariff.

Older Price Plan Charges ? Pay As You Go Price Plans - Vodafone

Free DIDs available for Romania?
 

According to this list, free DIDs are available for Romania, and perhaps Pakistan.

Cheapest ATAs and Service - voip-info.org

Does anyone here speak romanian? Perhaps they can guide us with the registration process.

Well, they still want, according to the above, 99p to call the USA and Canada...hardly a bargain eh.

If used within the UK to call US/Canada, it's a bargain at 5p/min.

Vodafone UK Abolishes Roaming Charges for Summer and Permanently Cuts the Price Of Calling Abroad from the UK - Vodafone

I think the headline should be changed to "Vodafone SUSPENDS..." instead of abolishes...

I'm confused...I can't find info about the free Vodafone Passport form 01 June on the web site but here's what it says about Vodafone passport with the 75p fee:

*Vodafone Passport is available on all current Pay Monthly price plans, and Smartplus, Smartstep, Anytime and Anynet Pay as you talk price plans.

But according to the above, the vodafone payg is the simply plan not listed here.

I'm really confused now. Can anybody help?

Now I see it...as far as the 5p to the USA...gotcha

But is this available on all their PAYG plans?

...and that being the dase, does it mean I get the 5p/minute to call the USA say from Germany as I'm supposed to pay the same thing I pay in the UK?

...and with all this being true, can Orange and O2 be far behind? (Didn't list T Mobile UK...according to some things I have read, they're getting out of the UK business)

Ok..I see now it does seem to apply to all their PAYG tariffs....the question still that I would like answered...do I get the 5p/minute to the USA from all the European countries (and Australia and NZ too)?

Please forgive me if I ask too many questions as I am a little slow to pick up on things but they eventually come to me.....

So let's see...I get a free Vodafone UK sim card and sign up for passport after an initial top up....I now can call landlines in Europe for 5p/minute and mobiles for 15p while I can call all numbers in the USA and Canada and China for 5p. Got that. I am on the simple plan so all calls within the UK are 20p/minute got that too (including to voice mail).....now I travel to France...ah ha the promotion says all calls I make will be charged as if I'm in the UK...so if I call a UK number, it's 20p including voice mail...right. But if I call a local French landline, then it's 5p (far better than I would get using a French prepaid sim)..if I call the USA it's 5p whether I'm in the UK or Australia, right?

And the one thing I seem to have missed, is the billing per minute or per second or per second with a minimum...it's probably in there but I can't seem to find it.

Frankly, if I have it right, at least for this summer, it might be the best deal there is and culd really inflict severe damage on some of the international cards. Also one advantage of vodafone is you can top up in any country which has a vodafone subsidiarly with local vouchers in that country. Thus if I'm in France I cause an SFR voucher to top up the vodafone UK account while I'm in France, right?

Finally, won't this force O2 and Orange to have to match? That's what happened in the USA a decade ago. In the original development of cell phones, originally you had a very small calling area which came out of your minutes for each month (and they were very limited, let me tell you). Calls outside your local area were billed as long distance.

Then along came Sprint, yes they were the first, to revolutionize this and make the whole USA roaming free and long distance free. Muchagainst their will, the other carriers were forced to match and we were on the way to what we have today...national calling areas, lots of minutes and no long distance charges (but some of them make it up with asininely high international roaming charges, are you listenng AT&T and T Mobile USA)....I know this is a temporary promotion but isn't this what Ms. Redding has been after and isn't vodafone just trying to show that regulation by the eu is unnecessary.....

Finally, what about the other vodafone subsidiaries...will vodafone DE be forced to match this for its customers? After all, if I have a German Vodafone card, I pay astronomically high rates both to call within Germany and pay the eu rates to roam throughout the eu...now I can have a vodafone UK card, top it up with a vodafone DE voucher so that's no problem and call within Germany for 5p which is what 0,07€. What will vodafone have to do to keep their other subsidiaries happy.

Hey Mr. Ed, does this worry you?

Germans not to receive british vodafone package
 

The german media are reporting that a spokesperson has said that vodafone Germany has no plans to offer the british package to its german customers.

We´ll see what happens when the official statement is reported in the german newspapers tomorrow.

German denial from vodafone: Aktion: Vodafone UK verzichtet auf Roaming-Entgelte - teltarif.de News

"Vodafone International" to be launched tomorrow
 

The new british tariff is to have a snappy name: "Vodafone International".

Vodafone must surely realise that its customers in other countries will want this tariff as well!

Well obviously, if I were in Germany even if I didn't go to the UK, I could easily pick up a vodafone UK sim card for next to nothing on ebay, top it up with a vodafone de voucher, and be able to make calls for 5p/minute within Germany and almost the entire eu as well as Australia, New Zealand, USA, Canada and China (in the last 3 also to mobile numbers) and 20p/minute to UK numbers both landline and mobile.

How can they not match?

As for Hungary, +36 21 xxx xxxx DID numbers are available for free. These are not landline but "nomadic" numbers (in fact VoIP). Several networks charge as if these were landline. Vodafone Hungary (how funny) have set a HIGH fee for calling these numbers. I would wonder what Vodafone UK charges.

Vodafone´s summer holiday prices
 

So here are some of Vodafone´s european roaming charges this summer:

Vodafone UK: 0c connection charge within Europe with "Vodafone Passport". (Free european roaming)
Vodafone Germany: 75c connection charge within Europe with "Vodafone ReiseVersprechen".
Vodafone Ireland: 79c connection charge within Europe with "Vodafone Passport".
Vodafone Spain: 115c connection charge within Europe with "Vodafone Passport".

I don´t understand why vodafone´s customers outside the UK are not complaining. The media in Germany, Ireland and Spain don´t seem to understand how their citizens are going to be "treated" by vodafone.


Perhaps Inquistor, dg7feq, 9ero9 and Henning can spread the news in Germany. Perhaps PatPhelan can complain in Ireland, if he still has a vodafone sim.:)

Pat, Good luck with the launch of your 4th generation maxRoam sim in June!

And what should Vodafone Hungary customers say about the Vodafone Passport offer here: cca. 1.03 EUR / connection fee, which is to be paid every 10 minutes started!...

The solution is simple....get a vodafone UK sim card for the summer!

(Incidentally, I am still not sure of one thing.....their advertising talk of lying on the beach (presumably in some sunny place like Spain) and leaving your phone on and using it just as if you are home. I get that. Reception of calls will be free. But what about calling out? As I thought about it they can't mean (or do they) that you get the same international rates say to the USA (5p/minute) jif you call from outside the UK. Or does it? It's not clear to me but I profess that I'm dumb. Anybody know the answer.

Vodafone´s new plans
 

Vodafone´s press release yesterday refers to two tariff changes.

1. The new (permanent) international plan for calls from the UK only, which started today. Vodafone Pay as You Go call costs on the "Simply Tariff for Vodafone International" are given at the bottom of this link: Vodafone UK Abolishes Roaming Charges for Summer and Permanently Cuts the Price Of Calling Abroad from the UK - Vodafone

USA, Canada, China: 5 ppm (Cost to call landline), 5 ppm (Cost to call mobile)
Plus new prices to some other countries.

2. The new Vodafone UK Passport plan, which begins on 1st June.
Vodafone Passport ? mobile phone calls when roaming abroad

Calling the USA from Spain will not be 5 ppm. Calling UK landline from Spain will be 5 ppm. Calling spanish landline from Spain will be 5 ppm.

Correction
 

Sorry, my last comments are incorrect.

Calling UK landline from Spain will be 5 ppm: wrong.
Calling spanish landline from Spain will be 5 ppm: wrong.

Calling all other countries besides UK and the country you are in is 38p.

Vodafone Passport ? mobile phone calls when roaming abroad

Different Vodafone Passport Tariffs Across Europe
 

Vodafone Passport Tariffs Across Europe

For years, Vivane Redding has been pressurising the mobile telecoms companies to reduce their european roaming charges. Yet there has been no significant public discussion across Europe about the new vodafone UK roaming tariff, which was announced on May 14 2009.

If you want cheaper roaming charges across Europe, please help to publicise vodafone´s different passport tariffs. Knowledge about the price differences might motivate people to protest, and other mobile telecom companies may be forced to reduce their roaming charges.

Business journalists, bloggers and technical writers will write about vodafone in the next few days. And many will need a list of vodafone´s different european passport tariffs. Can you help to compile such a list?


For each of vodafone´s different european passport tariffs, journalists need know:

1. The cost per minute for receiving an incoming roaming call in another european country.
2. The cost per minute for making an out-going call from a roaming country, back to the home country.

Here is a list of vodafone´s different european web sites. If you can find, or check, the passport tariff details, please list the information in this thread.


Czech Republic
Vodafone - Osobní: Mobilní telefony, Tarify, Slu?by a nastavení, Vodafone live!, eShop, Samoobsluha

Germany
Vodafone Auslandstarife - bequem und kostengünstig ins Ausland telefonieren - Vodafone D2 - Privat / Tarife / Auslandstarife

Greece
Vodafone.gr - ????????? / Roaming

Hungary
Vodafone - Roaming - Külföldi Mobilhasználat

Ireland
Let's go Roaming with Vodafone Passport

Italy
Tariffe e promozioni Vodafone per l'estero

Malta
Vodafone Malta - Mobile Phones, Wireless Internet & Broadband

Netherlands
Bellen in het buitenland

Portugal
Roaming Vodafone

Romania
Personal - Vodafone.ro

Spain
Vodafone: Vodafone Passport Llamadas al mismo Precio en la Unión Europea



An incomplete list of Vodafone´s different "Passport" tariffs within Europe:

Vodafone UK: 0c connection charge (in & out). Vodafone´s single offer of free european roaming.
Vodafone Germany: 75c connection charge (in & out). "Vodafone ReiseVersprechen"
Vodafone Ireland: 79c connection charge (in & out).
Vodafone Italy: 75c connection charge (in) + 75c every 30 minutes. 75c connection charge (out).
Vodafone Hungary: c. 1.03 EUR charge (in & out) every 10 minutes.
Vodafone Spain: 1.15 EUR connection charge (in & out).
Vodafone Malta: 1.16 EUR charge (in) every 10 minutes. 1.00 EUR connection charge (out).


Please copy and publicise Vodafone´s different european "Passport" tariffs in other forums and across the internet.

babble...

It should only take one...that's what happened as I pointed out elsewhere in the USA...today it is unheard of on most of the USA cell carriers to have a litimed calling area...the USA is one big roaming area...you pay the same to receive a call if you have a T Mobile USA account in NY when you're in California as you do in NY. And it costs the same to make the call. I think that's the model Ms. Redding has hoped Europe to emulate.

As I said, I just can't see how the other vodafone companies can fail to match vodafone UK and I can[t see how the other British cell providers can afford not to match either. The only question is what will happen at the end of the summer.

Pressure to abolish european roaming tariffs
 

Yes, I agree with you entirely. The greater the public discussion, the greater the pressure on the mobile telecoms companies to completely abolish european roaming tariffs.

And my apologies to Ms Reding for previously misspelling her surname. :)

I am abroad at the moment and unable to check details, but I will say this. The Vodafone cheap international calls from UK to certain countries have been there for some time; this is not something new at all. The variation of Vodafone Passport is a temporary promotion. Other Vodafone offers in UK are not necessarily valid abroad, for example stop the clock. So I very much doubt that there will be 5p calls possible while roaming, and suggest checking the terms before continuing speculation at this hysterical level.

Vodafone is obviously trialing those free incoming calls in the UK. Usage statistics from that trial will later form the basis of decision regarding the introduction of such or similar tariffs to other countries. Free incoming calls can become a losing game if the portion of calls over third-party (i.e. non-Vodafone) networks is too high. Vodafone may also have considered travel habits and geographical situation of each nation. Hungary e.g. is surrounded by countries, where Vodafone doesn't operate any network, so Hungarians are way more likely to roam on a non-Vodafone network than British, who mostly travel to Western European countries, in which Vodafone have their own networks. So I'm not that indignant about that preference of the British.

Verbatim: USA 5 ppm cost to call landline or mobile
 

Hi Andy,

No one is speculating. At the bottom of the press release from Vodafone UK, it states:

"Vodafone Pay as You Go call costs on the Simply Tariff for Vodafone International are:

USA, Canada, China: 5 ppm cost to call landline, 5 ppm cost to call mobile."

Signed, sealed. Now just need Vodafone UK to deliver
 

The following text is also in the press release:

"From June 1, pay as you go and pay monthly consumer customers can talk, text and send picture messages from over 35 countries across Europe this summer for the same price as at home".

PS: If you don´t mind me asking, Andy, are you the famous Andy Abramson?

Will vodafone UK make a greater profit?
 

Will vodafone UK make a greater profit with, or without roaming charges?

T-Mobile, Telefonica, etc, are likely to be adversely affected if they don´t announce similar, or even better, promotions. Vodafone´s immediate customer gain may be the other networks´ long-term loss.

The voip companies and the international phone card companies are likely to be losers. The (mobile) voip bloggers (Jeff Pulver, Andy Abramson, Dan York, etc) have not (yet) commented on the new vodafone UK promotion. But let´s be realistic -- who will search for voip wifi access, if they don´t have to pay anything extra (i.e. no roaming charges) to make or receive calls on their normal european cell phones? The vodafone UK promotion, if continued indefinitely, might be so successful that it kills the "mobile voip" mass market in Europe, before it even takes off! Well, at least until cheaper roaming data tariffs become available.

Not unless they bring roaming in the US on board which they should be able to do with their partial interest in Verizon. Now, if only we could get it to work the other way and have European wide data plans.

While I do agree with Andy about probably what it means, the operative word is probably. After all, the gist of the press release is that for the three month period all calls throughout the countries mentioned will be billed as if they were on the home network so if it costs 5p to call the USA and Canada and China while in Britain then if the press release is interpreted literally it would mean the same would be true anywhere the promotion is in effect.

But I think the information about the new international rates does seem to indicate the rates are only effective in Britain.....

I suppose we will get clarification in the near future!

Stu...

Do remember that verizon is not a gsm carrier......vodafone did make a bid to buy AT&T's gsm network when it went up for sale which cingular purchased and changed the name back to AT&T....

If travel statistics coincide with roaming statistics, Hungarians are not indeed that likely to go roaming in non-Vodafone countries in huge numbers... Where most of Hungarians go are Austria, Germany, Croatia... Even for neigbouring countries, maybe Slovakia is the one exception as Romania is Vodafone... It looks to me that Vodafone might have special roaming agreements with some providers, so not all Passport networks are Vodafone. Also, most countries where Hungarians travel are EU countries anyway, with the price cap effective. But why should they care? Vodafone passport is only a roaming tariff valid in countries where Vodafone wants it to be valid. If they are afraid of Hungarians travelling to YYY too much, they simply do not apply the tariff there. So easy :)

Here's the quote I was referring to:

"With our promotion you can sit on the beach with your phone switched on knowing you can take and make a call just as you would if you were in your back garden,"

Now I think I understand English very well. Doesn't this mean that if it costs 5p/minute to call the USA from Britain on vodafone with passport enabled, it would cost 5p/minute to call the USA from Germany? Or am I missing something?