Vodafone nicely slices international roaming prices – cool!

by Alex Zaharov-Reutt

Monday, 28 July 2008

Page 1 of 3 ! Vodafone is proactively slicing the price of international mobile roaming charges, which consumer or business travellers overseas on the Vodafone network will surely love, with a special deal for China during August and the Olympics. It looks very impressive and I can’t seem to find any hidden catches, despite trying!! If there’s one thing that’s a bona-fide rip off, it’s international roaming charges not only for voice, but for data too. Plenty of people have come back from overseas to bills of several hundred – or even several thousand dollars – just because they made and received a few calls while overseas and used their phones as they’d use them back home! Now if you work for a large company and they pay your phone bill, you’re probably covered, but if you’re a consumer and you come back to a massive phone bill, you likely wouldn’t be terribly happy. So, it’s always both surprising – and very welcome – when phone companies pro-actively come out with cheaper pricing and better deals that lower bills for consumers. Vodafone has done just that with its new “Vodafone Traveller” package, which it characterises as “Staying in touch while overseas is now cheaper than ever with Vodafone’s new international voice roaming tariff”. Amazingly, the Vodafone Traveller package has no monthly fee whatsoever, which is a surprise in itself, and has sensible and easy to understand charges to make and receive calls when you’re overseas, for four different zones. You can add the plan before you leave, or even while you’re already overseas, which is a nice bit of flexibility – whether you’re a consumer or you’re on a business plan or cap. The plan stays “on” for a minimum of one month, but there is no additional monthly cost to be on it (something we rang Vodafone to absolutely confirm because at first we didn’t believe it), and when you’re back in Australia you pay normal Australian rates on your plan. Of course the roaming charges are still much more expensive than what you pay at home, but that’s normal – the only other company that has really made an effort to lower prices is 3 Mobile with its “3 Like Home” plan that lets you make and receive calls at the same rate (but from memory with a higher flag fall) in countries where 3 Mobile has a network. But Vodafone’s great international coverage has given it leverage do to a much stronger global deal, or at least, so it would appear from my understanding of the new plans. Vodafone Australia say the Traveller plan has “some of the most competitive call rates while travelling overseas” – so what are the prices?! Please read on to page 2. << First page <   1 2 3 Next page > Last page - Post your comment >>

 

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