MSE News: Are mobile giants' new roaming bundles any good?

TakeThis

gjchester wrote: »

Yep, Just like when Text messaging costs were forced down by the EU then inclusive texts could not be used overseas, or when call cost came down free access to voicemail vanished.

Each time the EU has forced a regulation in something will go up to compensate. At the end of the day Mobile companies exist to make a profit, and if one area is forced down they will push something up somewhere else to maintain the profit level.

I can still use mine on O2.

Voicemail access still available as part of my bundle.

zagfles

GentleGiant wrote: »

That is if you have mobile broadband - no good if you have data on your phone!

Actually the costs have increased dramatically, not decreased!

Take Vodafone for example.

Old system - £10 for a months data abroad giving 25mb a day - plus 75p for incoming and outgoing calls of up to an hour in Europe & Australia.

New System - £3 a day, with no extra data and instead using your data allowance form your contract. Calls now also come out of your allowance.

So let us assume you have 500mb - previously for the month you would have been given 750mb of data and charged £10, now you are given no extra data and charged £150.

Okay - I accept that the increase from £10 to £150 is based on a month, but any more than 3 days away means you will lose out financially.

Since when is this a good deal for the consumer? It is Vodafone (and others) ripping people off whilst getting good headlines that wrongly say that costs have been slashed.

Now if Vodafone introduced say a monthly charge of £10 or even £30 it would not be so bad - but if you are away for say 3 weeks the costs are massive, especially if you factor in different phones in the family.

So you're assuming the customer will use data every single day for a month, but never exceed 25MB in a single day, and have no incoming or outgoing calls???

Not very realistic is it. Wi-fi being everywhere for a start means you're likely to be able find wi-fi in a lot of places. The £3 per day will include calls, with Passport 4 calls (incoming and outgoing) will cost £3. If you factor in more typical usage on a holiday you'll probably find most people use their phone occasionally intensively, and not at all for quite a lot of the time (unless they're that sad they just have to update their status on facebook every day :rotfl:)

I suspect the new scheme will be cheaper for most people.

gjchester

TakeThis wrote: »

I can still use mine on O2.

Voicemail access still available as part of my bundle.

Yes it's now out of a bundle but used to be free to call.

Mila

zagfles wrote: »

An old one, but Vodafone Passport is still pretty good particularly for long-ish calls back to the UK. For data we've never found it necessary, most hotels, campsites etc offer wi-fi either free or for a low cost eg EUR2 per day. Some restaurants even offer free wi-fi which the kids use for their facebook updates etc while waiting for the meal!

I have just spoken with Vodafone, Vodafone Passport is not available anymore. I'm an existing member, with a contract, nevertheless, they are not offering this service anymore and now I've got to pay £3 per day for the same thing. The article here says the service is still available to existing customers but this is simply NOT true. I couldn't find a way to report this to anyone so they can change what the article says. It's a good job that I phoned Vodafone up before leaving for my holiday... I was so angry because I decided to stay with Vodafonefor another year last January just because they had Vodafone Passport and I was assured that I'd keep having it on my account. Now it is not available anymore, no one bothered to let me know and I'm stuck with them!!! :mad:

zagfles

Mila wrote: »

I have just spoken with Vodafone, Vodafone Passport is not available anymore. I'm an existing member, with a contract, nevertheless, they are not offering this service anymore and now I've got to pay £3 per day for the same thing. The article here says the service is still available to existing customers but this is simply NOT true. I couldn't find a way to report this to anyone so they can change what the article says. It's a good job that I phoned Vodafone up before leaving for my holiday... I was so angry because I decided to stay with Vodafonefor another year last January just because they had Vodafone Passport and I was assured that I'd keep having it on my account. Now it is not available anymore, no one bothered to let me know and I'm stuck with them!!! :mad:

I thought existing contract customer could keep if it they'd already signed up - but maybe not? Had you already signed up to Passport?

We use it on PAYG on a legacy SmartPlus plan which is probably the the cheapest way to call the UK from a mobile while abroad (for long'ish calls anyway)

digp

Who cares? Get a local sim

bankersmug

digp wrote: »

Who cares? Get a local sim

I work on Cruise ships for 2 months of the year. If you tot up the number of European countries with a bit of sea around them, that's quite a lot of sim cards to buy .

zagfles

bankersmug wrote: »

I work on Cruise ships for 2 months of the year. If you tot up the number of European countries with a bit of sea around them, that's quite a lot of sim cards to buy .

Yes, besides which phoning the UK can be cheaper with Passort or some other UK network roaming package than with a local SIM. Plus you'll need to give everyone your new number.

Local SIM is most useful if you're staying in one country for a long time and mainly making calls within the country

NFH

zagfles wrote: »

Plus you'll need to give everyone your new number.

You can simply put a voicemail greeting on your UK number giving callers your local SIM's phone number. For SMS, you can swap SIMs once per day to pick up any texts.

bbg

Following a call to Vodafone customer services, just to ask a general query on my account, I then got a text telling me I had successfully added EuroTraveller to my account. When I called customer services again, they confirmed I hadn't asked for this to be added. They checked with "the marketing department" and told me that Vodafone had added EuroTraveller for me, as they could see I sometimes use my phone abroad!

Given that I'm a low user when abroad, paying £3 per day minimum even if I only use my phone once each day is not going to be cost effective for me. But money-making for Vodafone - what a cheek!

Presumably this is a new marketing tactic now that Vodafone make less money on roaming charges following the new caps implemented this year.