[Ben]

http://www.trustedreviews.com/mobile-phones/news/2009/05/14/Vodafone-Scraps-Roaming-Charges-For-Summer/p1

Starting 1 June, the trial will be available to all customers who register for Vodafone's long running 'Passport' service. This will then see calls, texts and MMS messages simply extracted from their regular plan allowances - or in the case of pre-pay: at standard pricing. 35 countries will be covered in the plan.

On top of this from tomorrow Vodafone will cut the cost of pre-pay calls to mobiles and landlines from the US, Canada and China to as little as 5p per minute. Calls to 54 more countries will be charged at just 5ppm to landlines and 15ppm to mobiles.
Hurrah :D Finally a big operator gets some balls. The writing's on the wall for international roaming ripoffs anyway, perhaps Vodafone figured that it'd be better to be seen as out in front on this one. Given their footprint it's not going to cost them the Earth, but there'll certainly be a loss of revenue.

[solo12002]

Three comments;

Its confuseing to say youi need to sign up to vodafone passport. This allmost inplies that at the end of the trail you pay the passport rate. Why not just say for three months we will do away with roaming charge.

Its also confuseing to pay PATG pay standard rate, after say you need to sign up to passport

Now I just wonder if vodafone are geeting an I phone about then and this has something to do with it.

Im of to poland in August, might be worth geting a PAYG sim then?

[getti]

bloody typical, i go Spain thins this month and it starts next month, ends 31st August and 1st Sept im off to Germany for Nokia World :D

Still, very big well done to Vodafone for this outstanding offer

[3GScottishUser]

Great news for users of the 100% Vodafone owned network in Turkey which will have lots more UK visitors this year.

£1.69 to call home and £1.29 to receive calls per minute.

Thanks Vodafone!!

[solo12002]

" £1.69 to call home and £1.29 to receive calls per minute"

OK Im confused what do these prices refer to?

[Hands0n]

" £1.69 to call home and £1.29 to receive calls per minute"

OK Im confused what do these prices refer to?

Those charges are for when you are in Turkey and have roamed on to one of their local networks. I think it is Turkcell which is owned by Vodafone these days, it is pretty much the dominant network out there.

What 3GSU is saying is that when on a Turkish network it costs you the equivalent of £1.69 per minute to call the UK from Turkey on your mobile and ... £1.29 per minute to receive a call on to your mobile when on a Turkish network.

When roaming you often have to pay these huge "cross-border" charges. The operators have only very reluctantly, and then with EU legislative compulsion, brought their roaming fees down and then with the threat of more legislation from the EU. But, again without legislation they are not going to bother, they have kept the charges at the old high levels for non-EU countries.

One has to remember that these are former PTTs generally - or run by former PTT captains. They are also all in a global cartel called the GSMA which for some unknown reason is tolerated - they must have a photo of the worlds leaders hanging out of the back of a donkey or something! And the members under the GSMA put immense pressure on governments to allow charges to remain high - plus they perform a remarkably corrupt form of price fixing cross border! They claim to want to allow competition to drive down prices - but after more than 20 years of free reign nothing has happened - and so the EU has stepped in to much bleating and moaning from the GSMA and its cartel members.

[solo12002]

Handson. Thanks for clearing that up.

I think what Vodafone is doing is a good step, and its good that it also applies to PAYG. However I have a number of concerens these are.

1. the requirement to sign up to vodafone passport, why if these charges are stop for three months, this inplies to me that once the three months are up you will have to pay a standing charge to password to get reducded roaming or they go back to the only 75p type charge wich is to dear being in mind the new caps on roaming charges.

2. This should not be a summer thing or a trail, this should be for good. We know what its like with three who are stopping home like home.

I wonder if three will bring forward their plans for roaming charges now that we have been screwed with the removal of home like home, and what the other networks will do. Im not sure if Vodafone can take the hit on this one, but the idea is right no one should pay any more for raoming than they do for calls under their price plan, even more so on their own network., no matter were it is

OK AN UPDATE taken from: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/telecoms/article6289765.ece

So things not as they appear: Vodafone added, however, that after its three-month offer expired customers would remain on the Passport scheme and pay 75p to be connected when calling from abroad, before being charged at their normal call rate. So in short after the three months you pay the 75p and lose your mins, so whats changed?

Vodafone’s rival operator O2 said yesterday that it would cut the cost of sending a text message from a British phone in Europe from 25p to 11p in July. It will not try to match Vodafone’s summer offer, it said, but will offer customers free incoming calls while in Europe and calls within Europe at 25p a minute through its My Europe Extra package, which costs £10 a month. (Another rip of like passport you may a feee for this)

Orange said that it would also cut the price of texts in July, but did not say by how much ( Nothing about calls or data?)

Mobile phone companies will have to work hard to replace the lost revenue from higher roaming charges at a difficult time for the industry, with cost-conscious consumers cutting the amount they spend on their phones., so lets screw our users even more.

Earlier this week O2 said that its average revenue per user fell by nearly 4 per cent because people were cutting back on the number of text messages they sent. Vodafone is trying to cut about £1 billion from its £22 billion operating costs to fight the recession. Roaming charges accounted for €6.5 billion (£5.8 billion) in revenue for mobile operators last year, about 2 per cent of the €300 billion European telecommunications market, according to the Commission.

Ian Shepherd, the consumer director for Vodafone UK, said of its deal: “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.” But lets not forget two things in this case its only for three months afterwards its at a price, 75p a call for vodaone plus losing your mins and on other networks another charge of one type or other.

Dont the networks get this yet? We want to use our mobile for roaming at a fair price, more so on networks that are own by the network we are on, yet they still go out of their way to screw us by thes charges if nor for the cost of the calls, then by scewing up for a feee to allow up to get the so called cheaper calls!

[3GScottishUser]

Just to clarify, there are three GSM networks in Turkey.

The biggest is Turkcell, then there is Vodafone (Formally TelSim) and finally Avea.

Vodafone Telekomunikasyon A.S. is 100% owned by Vodafone Plc.

So they could if they wanted to add Turkey to the Passport list but they havn't!

[Hands0n]

So they could if they wanted to add Turkey to the Passport list but they havn't!

And that has been the case for at least the past 3 years ... no excuse at all for not doing it by now other than creaming in the cash.

Like I said, kicking and screaming all the way, they won't budge until legislated to play fair. Its not in their DNA.

[3GScottishUser]

I have sent an e-mail to Vodafone to ask why Turkey is excluded from their Passport countries when they own a network there.

I will update if/when I get a reply.

Not holding my breath!!

[Ben]

You should follow it up with a letter to head office if you don't get a reply. I think you speak on behalf of all of us when you question Vodafone's logic here.

[Hands0n]

Use that email address for the Chairmans Office :D

And yes, you speak for me also :)

[3GScottishUser]

No sign of a response yet... I may have to use the chairman's mail to get one I think.

[solo12002]

"Great news for users of the 100% Vodafone owned network in Turkey which will have lots more UK visitors this year"

Any word on roaming in turkey yet?

[3GScottishUser]

I got a response to my mail about the anomoly re Turkey where Vodafone have a 100% owned network.

Vodafone state that they constantly review Passport countries and look forward to extending their offer in the future.

Excuse me but I will not hold my breath!!