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

[MATHA531]

Originally Posted by inquisitor

No, I called her through poivy.com for € 0.07/min from which approximately GBP 0.05/min were passed to Vodafone. I don't know what operators charge each other for roaming subscribers, but I don't believe Vodafone earns anything from those GBP 0.05 when forwarding calls to foreign networks, at least to those not belonging to the corporation.

Btw, does anyone have an rough idea what operators charge each other for roaming?

But, maybe I'm just dense, what does this have to do with no roaming fees on Vodafone UK...this would only affect who was receiving the call, So if your girlfriend was on vodafone UK and taking advantage of the summer promotion, even under the terms of the original Vodafone Passport the total charge to the receiving party would only be 75p....or did you use a callback service to make the call but even then, the fee under the rules for vodafone passport would be 75p so I'm just wondering just how much did the summer promotion cost vodafone in this case.....

[inquisitor]

Originally Posted by MATHA531

But, maybe I'm just dense, what does this have to do with no roaming fees on Vodafone UK...this would only affect who was receiving the call, So if your girlfriend was on vodafone UK and taking advantage of the summer promotion, even under the terms of the original Vodafone Passport the total charge to the receiving party would only be 75p....or did you use a callback service to make the call but even then, the fee under the rules for vodafone passport would be 75p so I'm just wondering just how much did the summer promotion cost vodafone in this case.....

During the summer promotion Vodafone UK PAYG customers are not charged a single penny for receiving calls in whole Europe, Australia and New Zealand. So my girlfriend, who is roaming with my Vodafone UK PAYG SIM in Switzerland doesn't pay anything for receiving calls. Only the calling party pays, in that case me. So the total income of Vodafone when I call her now is ~ GBP 0.05/min and I hardly believe these 5 pence will cover the rates, which the foreign network operator charges to Vodafone. Just for comparsion: German operators usually charge € 0.69/min for incoming calls in Switzerland, sure that rate includes a giant margin, but I'm sure Swiss operators will receive more than € 0.06/min from those € 0.69/min.
And of course whenever my girlfriend or I need to place outgoing calls, we use callback through Betmax' Java midlet (http://gsm.voipbuster.com).

[Stu]

Inquisitor, what is the best rate you have to call a Swiss Mobile?

[petkow]

Originally Posted by Stu

... best rate you have to call a Swiss Mobile?

Have you checked betamax price comparison ?

[MATHA531]

Well it surely is no surprise but I received a text from Vodafone UK yesterday confirming the summer roaming promotion will end on 31 August and the overpriced regular passport rates (75p to receive a call is asinine) will resume. I had hoped that vodafone UK would do something enlightening or realize the number of new accounts that were opened but I guess they can't see the forest through the trees wither.

[MATHA531]

...but inquisitor, you missed my point. Even without the summer promotion, the most your girl friend would have paid under Vodafone Passport is 75p....hardly an earth shaking amount...now if you want to tell me all these 75p add up eventually, I'll buy that. But how many people spoke for an hour under this promotion?

My point is that the promotion didn't cost Vodafone all that much, in this case a grand total of 75p.....

[inquisitor]

When it comes to long calls you are right - 75p won't offset the absent incoming charges. However the average duration of mobile calls ranges between 40-90s, so those 75p with Passport would cover the roaming costs for an average call.
Within the EU those 75p will even increase the income from incoming calls, given the fact average calls don't exceed 2 minutes.

So my point is, that Passport's business model relies on a charge for incoming calls. Maybe Vodafone just has this summer promotion to decoy customers and when they are in the trap, they'll start charging those 75p again.

[Stu]

With the EU rates on incoming, you're right that the 75p model for incoming won't work. Most calls will be cheaper without passport. This model has increased their business, but they really don't want the folks who frequent this forum as customers. Moreover, the UK has more ex pats than any nationality other than India. The number of Brits moving elsewhere and staying on Vodafone will be high.

What I see them doing is either requiring a percentage of the calls to be made in the UK or some other proxy to insure that they get some domestic business for this promo. They couldn't do this this summer because many people took these free SIMs as they were about to jump on a plane some place. My best friend sent me two that someone Voda employee was just handing out at a street corner.

They have a hit on their hands and I think they will tweak it, not abolish it. I'm just afraid that the non-UK members of this forum will get tweaked out of business.

[Stu]

Or perhaps they will start adding conditions. For example on ATT's corporate iPhone International plan (5 gigs of iPhone data for most countries for $69), you have to spend at least one day a month in the U.S.

[Motel75]

It might be worth it to Voda to overtake O2 to become the #1 provider in the UK. They had 2 million fewer users than O2, but were weak in prepaid.