Data Roaming

[inquisitor]

You assume Vodafone are always paying those € 0.50/MB set by the EU to foreign operators, but this is just a price cap not a fixed price, so operators can still agree lower wholesale prices. Even if they didn't have such agreements Vodafone could limit their customers' roaming ability to their own (or partners') networks like they've recently done for German postpaid customers who subsribe to the "ReiseFlat Data" option, which extends validity for any national data option to 22 countries at the disadvantage of being admitted to only one partner network per country.
Actually I expect such tariffs where roaming is limited to certain partner networks to become standard in the mid-term, at least if you head for the lowest roaming rates. Multinational carriers like Vodafone, T-Mobile and Telefonica will start this race as they can let customers roam in their own networks at almost zero costs and alliances of smaller carriers (like the one between KPN, 3 and Play) will join this race sooner or later, too.

[drama queen]

Originally Posted by inquisitor

You assume Vodafone are always paying those € 0.50/MB set by the EU to foreign operators, but this is just a price cap not a fixed price, so operators can still agree lower wholesale prices. Even if they didn't have such agreements Vodafone could limit their customers' roaming ability to their own (or partners') networks like they've recently done for German postpaid customers who subsribe to the "ReiseFlat Data" option, which extends validity for any national data option to 22 countries at the disadvantage of being admitted to only one partner network per country.
Actually I expect such tariffs where roaming is limited to certain partner networks to become standard in the mid-term, at least if you head for the lowest roaming rates. Multinational carriers like Vodafone, T-Mobile and Telefonica will start this race as they can let customers roam in their own networks at almost zero costs and alliances of smaller carriers (like the one between KPN, 3 and Play) will join this race sooner or later, too.

Some reasonable points there - I don't know how much exactly Vodafone pays other operators. However, they appeared to go to great lengths to resist the EU roaming price cuts, and I think it is reasonable to assume they won't pay 1c less than they need to and vice versa with other operators who interconnect with them. Clearly some of the smaller operators will need to do deals to compete with the power of the big guys - so it is understandable that those alliances will spring up.

The differential between the Wholesale cost of 50MB and the 99c daily rate is such that it is hard to see this deal being economical for Vodafone in the medium term. I would say that they will revert to offering special deals if you stay on Vodafone partner networks only.

The Vodafone Ireland deal is particularly interesting because there are no restrictions on which European operators you can roam on. You can switch to any operator who has a roaming agreement with Vodafone Ireland.

I think that the deal is just a panic reaction to the Meteor Voice roaming offer, and that they have overlooked the risk that Millions of Europeans might exploit it to get free Data roaming across Europe.