Vodafone Ireland Red Roaming

[drama queen]

Originally Posted by ronwi

The Vodafone Ireland Red Roaming now gives 200MB of data per day in Europe, US, and Canada for 2.99 Euro per day.

The charge for data is clear. The charge for calls is less clear.

It says that you can use "your home minutes & international add ons" I'm assuming that means that if I don't have a bundle of minutes, I pay per minute. Do I pay the normal rate for calls within Ireland, or do I pay the roaming rate? It appears the roaming rates within Europe at 23 cents per minute are cheaper than the 35 cents per minute + 9 cent connection fee within Ireland!

And, what, if anything, do I pay for incoming calls?

I'm usually pretty good at figuring this stuff out, but there is little guidance on the website: http://www.vodafone.ie/roaming/rates...pay-as-you-go/

There are quite a few restrictions on this plan.

• You have to have an existing Vodafone Base plan before adding Red Roaming. Charges in Ireland will be according to the Base plan that you pick.
• You have to have been with Vodafone for at least 3 months (this is intended for Irish residents - not visitors)
• Tethering is not permitted
• You have to deactivate Red Roaming if you want to use a non-Vodafone network and then pay at normal rates. This is probably the most serious restriction.
• Minimum top-up is €10

I used a previous version of this product and found the Vodafone-only roaming restriction to be the most awkward feature. It might work for some people, and 200MB for this price is probably ok, providing you can afford to keep the base-plan alive during the months that you aren't travelling.

I don't expect there would be any major problem topping up with International credit cards. Irish companies never have such restrictions as you get in UK, France, US etc. I haven't tried this. The text setup works from outside of Ireland.

If you are travelling to Ireland and looking to roam in Europe afterwards, you should also consider the Meteor Prepay roaming option. Although the roaming data is lower (50MB per day for 99c), it is much more flexible and works on all their roaming partners in Europe. Meteor also have a nice feature which is free incoming calls anywhere in Europe. They have a minimum top-up of €5. There is no requirement to be signed up with Meteor in advance, and you can let it drop without topping up for about a year before you lose the account. And they give free WiFi on the largest provider of hotspots in Ireland - this doesn't count from your data limit. And no restriction on tethering.