Actually I wanted to post the previous article which concerned the open conflict between GSM operators and our friend Viviane Reding. But the article is no longer available and, therefore, I attach a further article concerning GSM Association.

The article is in Italian, but the content is, if you stick to the basics, that GSMA claims they want to keep high roaming charges because they allow GSM operators to keep developping the new networks/technologies such as 3G. While, as you know if you have followed previous posts on this subject, Viviane Reding wants to reduce roaming charges.

The previous article mentioned the new initiatives adopted by Vodafone and Tim (having both operators recently introduced tariffs which consist of a 1 ? set up fee and then tariffs similar to national tariffs).

Still no mention in the "official" world of the offers such as united mobiles, hop etc.

teltarif.de does not yet have this as news.

However, they do report that certain CDU/CSU (conservative) representatives in their parliament are demanding lower international roaming rates. Calls back to Germany with cell phones can cost up to 2 Euro / minute from other EU countries. I don't really see anything new in the article.

No mention of UM, Hop, 09, etc as alternatives in the article. Their link in the article to roaming on their site also makes no mention of those alternatives.

There are some (a few) discussions (meinung) threads about such alternatives.

Seems the Europeans differ about high roaming costs. Consumers should be interested in saving money for themselves.

I think what will really lower EU's roaming rates is competition from UM, Hop etc. rather than goverment intervention.

Are you sure?

Of course, international SIMs which we like so much are often price-competitive, in some cases even better to compare with local SIMs.

But how about convenience of usage? If you have a "regular" SIM (i.e the which you use in your home country) and you roam with it, you are available worldwide on your home number and all your expenses abroad are charged together on the single invoice
(I don't say that this convenience should cost so much anyway :unsure: ...).

Notice how many posts on the forum is about diverting incoming calls from the "regular" number to Riiing/UM? It shows (at least to me) that some important feature of "standard" roaming is missing what makes international SIMs less competitive.

We can consider further issues (like handset compatibility for example) but IMHO all this reduces to something what I'd name "price-convenience trade-off".

Think e.g. about calling card business. Why the hell do something like calling cards exist at all? The "regular" operator of the landline phone on your desk, the mobile phone in your pocket or the payphone right the corner could (at least theoretically) lower its rates to the level at which nobody would like to "play" calling cards :) but things are diferrent - why?

Some good points Przemolog..

But, to me at least, call forwarding (which we call it in America) goes a step further...I call forward from my landline to my mobile phone while at home too..to me it's not just for international travel or even domestic travel...when I am out and about during the day, instead of people going into voice mail on my landline if they call me, they go right to my mobile phone whether I am in the car or at work (with the vibrator on of course) or whatever...when travelling I never give out my mobile number (nor the riiing number nor my UK number etc.)...I call forward from my landline to wherever.

That being said, it is no more difficult, at least for me, to call forward to United Mobile than it would be to call forward to Vodafone...it is totally transparent to the caller. What is difficult, of course, is getting the right price to call forward to united mobile on your carrier and the quality of the connection to FL...

It would be nice, I suppose, to be able to call forward to a better quality provider so to speak...to some degree Vodafone Passport does provide that at a price but in my case, right now today, it is far cheaper for me to call forward to umited mobile (11?/minute) than to a UK mobile (30?/minute) but at this point judging by what others are saying about FL rates, I suppose I am very lucky.

Call forwarding is part of the game, so to speak, with travel not the eternal search for the cheapest rate...

But here's what troubles me about the whole thing....T Mobile USA allows international roaming at the rate of 99?/minute to both make and receive calls in Western Europe (except for FL which is something like $1.49/minute)...and of course their preferred roaming partners are T mobile affiliated companies such as T Mobile UK, T Mobile DE etc. So when you question why so high, you are told basically this is what the other carrier charges us to a large degree with a small mark up...now the small mark up is fine....after all they are in it to make a profit. But to charge me to cover what T Mobile UK charges T Mobile USA to use their network is well almost criminal because all that is happening is theyh are taking money out of their left pocket and putting it in their right pocket.

Same thing is true with the excuse that Vodafone UK has high roaming rates because it has to cover what Vodafone DE charges them to use their network and all they are doing is passing along the costs along with their small mark up....give me a break.

And now both O2 IE and Vodafone IE have dropped roaming rates in the UK...what a revolutionary development.

No the high price of international roaming is for one thing and one thing only, to fatten their bottom lines on the backs of their consumers. It is not to cover costs.

More developments today: Irish (currently chairing EU) propose reducing roaming charges:

Things seem to be moving!

Your source?

They talked about it on Italian press today, I don't know if Sec just translated from Italian, anyway I can confirm it! :)

It was on the Italian news, as Effendi said.

Here is a complete article in English today, referring to yersterda's meeting:

http://www.computerworld.com/mobiletopics/...,109885,00.html

(PS: the text which I copied in my previous message was from an Irish website but a password was needed to access the article)

... but I do apologize for the mistake :blush: (not totatlly my fault: I just copied it from the article which was incorrect): it's Austria, not Ireland currently chairing the European Commission! The Irish, however, are very active in bringing forward the point concerning roaming.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/reuters/2..._L23314532.html

Thanks.

Obviously, the major telcom players would not be too happy to see this lucrative revenue source dry up. Time will tell what tarif relief, if any, will come about. We can speculate all day and still be off totally base.

Just my somewhat worthless thougths..... At this point in time it is hard to imagine FREE INBOUND CALLS across the entire EU as some of the international providers like UM & 09 offer. A more reasonable expectation would be lower OUTBOUND and INBOUND rates -- perhaps a rate cut of 50%. Even with that, inbound on German D1 will be 40 e-cents and I believe the lowest outbound with be 1 Euro per minute.

You would certainly think T-MO and Voda would be able to offer lower roaming rates on internal partner networks. You would even imagine they could program the SIM cards to RESTRICT roaming to these internal partner networks only. True, that would reduce their revenues.

Stan

The problem is that it is already drying up. The competition is on and travelers are finding ways around sky-high roaming costs. The question is, "Do the carriers want to keep a small profit and keep the roaming business or give the entire business to companies like UM & 09?"

DR, I am mot sure I agree ENTIRELY.

Certainly some people are obviously looking for and finding other alternatives. There is an international SIM card swap thread on telfon-treff.de. There was a recent post, now mysteriously GONE on the same site. Someone (probably German -- at least German-speaking) going to Congo and Gabon with UN or German Army (he used the term BLUE HAT which would be UN). He was looking for GSM service there and had obviously not heard of UM, 09 or any of the other international cards. The first advice given to him was to contact the German foreign office for advice. My first advice is always www.prepaidgsm.net and reference to international providers combined with calling cards.

Teltarif recently (last week) ran an article about CDU/CSU members of Parliament speaking out against high EU roaming rates. Even Teltarif did not mention this site or any of the standard international providers. I wrote a feedback email to them, but have not heard anything. If you look at the teltarif linked info on roaming, you will not find any mention of the international providers. You will see info on them in the discussions forum, however, although not much. I cannot figure out why the German/European mobile-users seem oblivious to these options. Perhaps UM and the others should advertise more?

Stan

Once again, UM/09/Callkey incarnations and whatever you want can't push "regular" roaming services out of business because of several reasons:
1) Expensive starter packs
2) Handset compatibility issues
3) Due to sophisticated callback techniques used, limited access to SIM/phone number lists
4) Being available on a foreign (to most potential callers) number (or at least "semi-foreign" in case of UK->IoM calls)
5) Necessity of unlocking the handset

The disadvantages below are valid for some SIMs only
6) Possible problems with topping up when out of credit - not each of them allows to charge a credit directly from the phone
7) No caller ID
8) No data transfer
9) No voicemail

I'm almost sure that I forgot something but I feel justified - it's late here :)

Half OT. I can tell you a few words about reactions on releasing Riiing on the Polish GSM
newsgroups (I recall that Poland is a poor CPP country where roaming rates offered from local operators, especially for incoming calls are considered much too high). Of course there were many enthusiasts who were happy for CPP in roaming. But some opinions were like those: "calling to Liechtenstein is so expensive so who will call me at all?" or "the SIM is too expensive - no real savings" :)

Another few examples....

Ebay buy-it-now items such as

1. GT-SIM (he has sold 4 of 20 in a recent auction with 16 remaining); he is a German seller and this is on ebay.de

2. RIIING SIM (unart-Studio, again on ebay.de -- has sold 6 of 20 items, 14 available); also a German seller on ebay.de.

Both items in stores and have been available for days if not weeks. They are not exactly flying of the shelf. With FREE INBOUND and certainly competitive outbound rates, I cannot understand why these items are not sold out quickly IF PEOPLE KNEW.

One ebay.de seller is even offering a cheap method to call Liechtenstein mobiles from Germany to take away some of the bite.

Compare to the ebay.usa seller of T-MO US $100 refills for $88 -- have bought 2 of those myself. He offers 3 - 5 at one time. Like a 12% discount -- stinking 12%! Those items are gone in < 24 hours.

Stan

As to Polish GSM portals, the first info about an international SIM (precisely UM) appeared only 2 weeks ago (and it looked like a text sponsored by its Polish dealer :)).

I can't believe that editors of those portals didn't know about international SIMs at all - they appeared in comments/discussions on forums many times (I posted some, with URL :)).

The only exception I remeber is that one of portals announced once Buytel :D

Stan, read my earlier post in this thread (reply to DRN) - it's not about knowing or not only!

You make valid points for resistance. I grant you calling out is not as convenient as with your local/national phone. How much are you [I write YOU but I mean someone from Poland or Austria or France or whatever European country] willing to pay for the convenience of using your local/national phone in a semi-un-united Europe, at least in terms of mobile cell phones? PERSONALLY, I am not willing to pay T-MO US $2.00 per minute to send and receive calls while in Europe on my handset with their SIM card.

But I guess it depends on your expectations. If you rely heavily on the cell phone for your daily routine, then those points you mentioned are indeed potent obstacles. Habits are hard to change. If you are expecting to pay local rates while roaming, then I guess you are going to be disappointed.

PERSONALLY, when I travel my primary concern is REACHING OTHERS back home and REACHING MY FAMILY with me. True, those may not be the concerns of the normal European user. Using CBW and Riiing, I can call the US from my cell for $0.14 per minute if needed -- not bad, I would say. Outbound rates to Germany directly or with CBW are reasonable, although not fantastic. My family can reach me by SMS or I can signal me to call them if I get caller ID -- let phone ring once and hang up -- should show up in missed call list. The CBW rate for Liechtenstein to a Polish mobile is $0.347 US -- landline is less ~ $0.23. The rate for Liechtenstein to a German mobile is $0.40 US. Considering that my daytime D1 XtraOne national rate to a non-D1 mobile is .79 e-cents (~$1.00 per minute), over time there should be savings to be reaped.

I also recommend a good calling card for or from the destination country to be used in preference to the cell phone. The cell phone phonebook can be still be used to keep those numbers.

Regarding the high initial cost of the packet, I would suggest buyers take a longer term view. IF the user travels out of the country every year on vacation and to different destinations, then surely the investment will pay off in a few years, no? Compare to buy starter packs in various destinations and sell, swap or dispose.

How much does an international SMS cost? Can't friends from home send and SMS if they need to reach you? Then YOU can call them back --- obviously at your expense, but at least they can reach you. Or, carry a second phone along with the national mobile. They can send the SMS to your national phone and you call them back however, landline with calling card or with your international mobile. Yes, pain in the rump to carry 2 phones. I have a family of 4 adults. We'll be taking 5 phones, one for each + a backup.

At least with the UM card, NONE of my phones has experienced compatibility issues -- Nokia 6610, various MOTOs (P-280, V66, V300, V330, V188) and even a Treo 270 and Treo 600. TRUE, your mileage may vary.

Stan

Yes, agree, not necessarily just about NOT KNOWING.

OTOH, on those discussions I mentioned, I have not seen ANY posts citing the points you mentioned. I am not doubting that your friends bring up those points -- and again, I admit they are valid.

A neighbor here who attends same church travels internationally. His company -- I believe he is the owner -- RENTS a Verizon phone for his international travels. I am lead to believe that is an expensive way to go. I have suggested to him recently various international SIMs. He said he would investigate. I'll let you know. At least he knows enough not to use his Cingular phone abroad. He has a Treo 600 or 650 and that phone should work on UM --- if he can get it unlocked.

Stan

Many organizations would rather pay $2/min to get an itemized call log than pay 15c/min with no call log. The bean counters rule the world but they don't actually care about reducing costs, they only demand to be able to count them.

I could accept 15-20 US cents/min for incoming calls (but I travel rather rarely abroad; if I traveled more often, it would be no more that 10 cents). Western (=richer) Europeans might accept a little more, I guess.

Mine is the same, but I don't want to speak for other Europeans :)

I think that this sim mess is just to avoid "playing" calling cards unless as backup :). Moreover, in countries where there are free callthru numbers, CBW/El would be enough....

You're absolutely correct. When receiving free incoming calls only, a UM SIM requires only one 0.49? SMS to extend it's validity by next 9 monts. With initial credit of 15?, it would be enough for over 20 years :thumbup:

In most Polish prepaid plans and all postpaid plans about 3 times more than off-net national one :(.

I'm not afraid about UM/09/Travelsim or Hop. My main concern is about Callkey SIMs...

It's the same what Stu said about what happened to his wife, right?
http://www.prepaidgsm.net/forum/index.php?...hl=bean+counter

I must admit that I'm shocked a little about what you say about bean counters' behaviours especially that, I guess, you say rather about "free-market" USA than "socialist" Europe :unsure: .

And corporate life is really strange sometimes....
Personally, once I met a guy working for a multinational corporation. He traveled all across Europe and his office and home were in Ireland, but his phone had a SIM from Germany!. The company paid roaming costs for the time when he was at his home country :P.

Exactly! They are far more concerned that you might make a personal call than that you saved them $500. I once purchased a prepaid SIM, myself. Then I requested a refund from my employer only for only those calls I made on business. Including a detailed explanation of how I saved them some huge amount of money. Their response was to begin an investigation to make sure I hadn't done something illegal. That's "bean counters" for you.

Actually, it isn't so difficult to envisage it any more. Vodafone Passport was first foreshadowed over a year ago, and introduced in about June.

It has incoming and outgoing calls at the normal tariff, plus a 75p or ?1 connect fee, when on a Vodafone affiliated network. This applies to contract and pre-paid.

Of course the connect fee seems high for very short calls, until one remembers that this was roughly the outgoing per minute rate before the scheme started. And people can plan a series of outgoing calls as one by using a 2c calling card. In several circumstances this can be as cheap as Riiing/CBW, eg 5p +2c per minute off-peak.

Now that Vodafone have been doing this for some time, I'm surprised that others haven't followed more quickly, and only the Irish networks have moved a bit. But I think there's hope that more is to come

So I don't want to accept a modest per minute fee for incoming calls, even at the 10c level. Right now, my incoming calls are free, and diverted to me free from a UK mobile; the latter part could end if it gets too popular I suppose, but maybe not before the EU manages to sort something out. And I can get my family and one or two others to call me back from landline for 5p/min or 2p at weekends.
_

As for remarks later on the thread about people not caring or knowing about roaming costs, it is nearly always the latter.

I don't know about you guys, but I notice that if you tell friends that they can save a lot of money on their phone calls very easily, not only via the methods on here but cheap local providers, their attention span is about 10 seconds, which is long enough to say that three minutes work can potentially save hundreds of pounds, but not explain how before their attention fades and they decide it's too complicated.

Sometime in the next 2 months I need to persuade 2 people to sign up for Vodafone Passport. How long would a simple call to CS take? But I envisage having to remind them at least 5 times.

Recently, prompted by the EU Commissioner's announcements, there have been some articles in national newspapers and on the TV about roaming. Ofcom, our regulator, published guidance recently; it is very basic indeed, comparing main network roaming tariffs and only just managing to suggest a local SIM. I contacted them and asked if it was considered a finished article, or would they welcome suggestions for improvement, like callback - a nice chat with someone I'd spoken to before, said she'd forward my email ....... nothing more.

IMHO it clearly follows from what you say that international SIMs are not as attractive to business users as they might be just because of some stupid regulations and/or people :P. So, if EU/national governments forced lowering "regular" roaming rates, it would be useful anyway for the business world (somehow like reducing some taxes....) and bean counters would have just less beans to count :D

BTW, how did bean counters count non-mobile telecommunications services?
Do they accept billings from hotel phones only? How about using payphones or calling cards?

UKE, the Polish regulator issued something probably the same - a 16 page pdf with a disclaimer whose content in brief is:
We don't present the best tariffs.
It's not a UKE recomendation for selecting a service provider.
All info in the doc is publicly available on the operator websites (valid as of Feb 06).

In my case, they take any itemized (call-by-call) receipt that I didn't generate myself. Hotel bills, etc. But prepaid calling cards are right out. They will issue me an AT&T or MCI postpaid calling card. The fact that it's 10X more expensive than a prepaid card is of no importance, to them. Bizarre, no?

http://www.rp-online.de/public/article/nac...s/tarife/323891

FWIW:

M?nchen (rpo). Gute Nachrichten f?r Reisefreudige: Die EU-Kommission will angesichts teurer Handygeb?hren f?r Gespr?che ins europ?ische Ausland durchgreifen: Die Zusatzgeb?hren, auch Roaming-Geb?hren genannt, sollen ganz gestrichen werden. Medienberichten zufolge will die EU-Kommission die Gesetzesinitiative bereits n?chste Woche auf den Weg bringen.

March 26. Munich. Good news for those who like to travel. The European Union Commission intends to crack down on expensive mobile tarifs for calls to foreign European destinations. The additional charges called roaming fees will be eliminated. According to press releases the EUC will introduce the legislation next week....

Further news.....

in the new issue of Focus..... Tuesday.... Voda and T-Mo claim they have already reduced their roaming rates.

More news (I apologise: only in Italian!)

Probably same as on teltarif.de today. I refrain from copying.

Bottom line is that it still seems fairly muddled as to what is REALLY going to happen.

Key passages....

For German mobile users not much will change (under the current proposals).

No "roaming" charges for INCOMING calls but they are expecting incoming rates to be about 69 e-cents per minute. (SGN - D1 prepaid inbound rates are 79 e-cents anywhere).

Possibly cheaper local calls (Ortsgespraeche -- possibly calls within the foreign country)....

Little will change on calls from EU country to another EU country -- callers can expect rates of 1 Euro for postpaid and 2 Euros per minute for prepaid. (SGN - if 2 Euros per minute is the top rate, that will be lower than only a few of the current D1 prepaid rates. Malta to DE is curretnly 2.99 and Malta to other EU countries is 3.49 -- the highest EU rate, I believe.)

================

Still looks like the international cards will be better than these rates.

Stan

Here is a link to the IHT's article on the subject:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/03/...iness/roam.php

<span style='color:#FF0000'><span style='font-size:11pt;line-height:100%'>EU: Mobile Operators Not Getting Message Over Roaming</span></span>

BRUSSELS -(Dow Jones)- European Union telecommunications commissioner Viviane Reding Tuesday accused mobile phone operators of not getting her "message" that roaming charges are too high.

At a press conference announcing long-awaited proposals to force wireless operators to cut the fees customers pay while traveling abroad, Reding said she had "repeatedly warned" operators to cut the charges. But operators hadn't moved to reduce their prices.

"Mobile operators seem to have some difficulty in understanding my message," she said.

The initiative represents one of the more aggressive pieces of legislation proposed by the Commission and comes as wireless operators battle slowing sales growth and intensifying competition in mature European markets.

Under the proposal, companies must eliminate all roaming charges for receiving a call when traveling abroad. If the idea becomes regulation, for example, a Finn traveling to Spain would be charged the same rate as a Spaniard making a call.

Before she spoke, operators contested these charges. The GSM Association, which represents European mobile equipment makers and operators, sees competition bringing roaming prices down by 8% a year.

At the press conference, Reding showed irritation with the phone operators. It is unreasonable, she said, that Europeans return home from travels within the European Union and find that they pay exorbitant prices to keep in touch with their family. The high prices were unjustified by any additional costs incurred by operators for connecting international calls, she said.

Reding said she didn't believe the regulation would force up the cost of local calls in order to compensate for lost revenues from roaming. Competition is so strong in local markets that operators won't be able to impose price hikes, she insisted.

The Commission is conducting separate investigations into Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone, among others, for breaking antitrust rules in their roaming charges. At her press conference, Reding said she was working closely with EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes.

"We have ongoing roaming investigations," she said. "Those will not be touched."

Reding said operators now will have a chance to submit their opinions on her proposal, starting on April 2 and ending on April 28. She planned to conduct a full "impact study" on the measure's impacts and submit the final proposal for approval from governments. She said she hoped the final regulation would be in place by the middle of 2007.

By the "summer of 2007," she said she "hoped Europeans could go on holidays without having fears" of a high mobile telephone bill.

-By William Echikson,Dow Jones Newswires;32-2-741-1480;

It's odd that the mobile companies seem to think themselves effectively exempt from the single European market that has supposedly existed for more than 10 years, in which time some companies have doubled or quadrupled roaming charges to increase competition, rather than the 8% pa drop mentioned.

You underestimate my country :P
Era Tak Tak and Heyah prepaids (Era network, CAMEL roaming) Malta to Poland 17.07 PLN, Malta to Malta to most EU countries 18.29 PLN, Malta to Lithuania and Malta 23,17 PLN.
1 PLN = 0.25 EUR.

For comparison, a call from Poland to Malta: Tak Tak 3.05 PLN/min, Heyah 1.70 PLN/min.

Should I look for postpaid examples? :)

Sorry.... no offence intended.

I MEANT the highest EU rate for T-MO DE, not in the entire EU. Since I had the DE T-MO roaming rate chart handy (no pun intended), I used that just as an example of roaming rates. I think the E+ roaming rates are even higher than for T-MO DE.

Stan

Hey, it wasn't any offence, rather bitter irony (I put a smiley in the end of the sentence).
And in fact it's not about the country, rather about the operator. All I can blame Polish authorities about those rates is 22% VAT instead of 15% (the lowest allowed in the EU). But even lower VAT wouldn't have to lower the final price - the operator could just increase the profit margin even more :whistle: .

But those rates can be cut down and Era showed this. In the summer 2005, they enabled cheap roaming in Europe. For 6 PLN actication fee and 2 PLN monthly fee, each prepaid (Tak Tak, but not Heyah) and postpaid customer while roaming in entire Europe (except Russia only) had a flat rate 2 PLN/min for both incoming calls and outgoing calls to ANY country in the world.

What makes me really angry is the following. Since a call from Era network to any European (not only EU) country can costs 1.70 PLN, so incoming calls in Europe should cost at most the same. Moreover, since in prepaid all calls must(?) be routed via the home country to provide the control of the remaining credit, then any call:
Eur. country 1 -> Poland (routing) -> Eur. country 2 should not cost more than 2 * 1,70 PLN = 3,40 PLN/min for both "legs" which is much below 1 EUR for all. Perhaps CAMEL roaming involves some extra costs which don't occur in callback roaming and that's why my reasoning is wrong, but what the question about rates for incoming calls remains valid - why to pay 7.31 instead of 1.70 :ranting2: ???

But the case that I described has some things in common.
1) Era is almost half owned by T-Mo and it may be fully owned soon (T-Mo has been "fighting" for years to take over shares from Polish shareholder and Vivendi, and won in the court again a few days ago).
2) Malta seems to be the most expensive roaming country in Europe :thumbdown: for many roamers.

Yes, I THOUGHT you were joking, but I certainly did not want to alienate you. Our grand US government has done enough lately to alienate the WORLD.....

Anyway, Malta rates....

Just does not make much sense other than it's a rip-off. Any German (Pole?) who can afford to go to Malta can afford high roaming rates on their native SIM.

For comparison sake....................

Vodafone POSTPAID rates to UK, France, Italy, Germany and Libya (landlines?)
are about .32 Lm (~1 Euro) / minute; prepaid rates are higher (.37 to .76 Lm) or 1 - 2 Euros.

GoMobile PREPAID rates are a bit lower..... .24 - .32 Lm to Germany (etc., landlines), .39 - .47 Lm to mobiles in Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK.

For both carriers I would say NOT CHEAP, but not OUT OF THIS WORLD either. Remember T-MO D1 from Germany to anywhere is 2 Euros / minute (also a rip-off, so let's use that as a "standard."

One would THINK there were mobile call thru options on Malta that would beat those rates.

Stan

Something of a paradox here about high roaming rates for Malta ...

People could take their home Vodafone SIM and use Passport on the Vodafone network there, for less than the indigenous network's tariff - a 75p or ?1 connect fee, then home rates eg Voda UK 25p peak, 5p off-peak for local and UK landlines, then a calling card at 2c.

I am not quite sure I follow all that...

So how popular/well-known/well-used is the Passport feature? It is fairly new, correct? For about a year now, true? Any reports on how many people EMPLOY it?

I thought VODA ML participated in the Passport option. Maltese when THEY travel could take advantage of that.

As for the calling card option from UK (Malta?), again, perhaps it is that people 1. DON'T KNOW or 2. IT'S TOO COMPLICATED or 3. THEY ARE RICH AND JUST CALL REGARDLESS OF THE RATES or 4. ?


Stan