Vodafone starts charging customers for browsing Live!

RT7

Any more news/info on this topic please?

scaldyflash

RT7 wrote: »

Any more news/info on this topic please?

I haven't heard back from VF as yet. Has anyone else who wrote to them had a reply yet ?

reaper_2-2

After much to-ing and fro-ing via letter and online submissions, I finally have an agreement that if the new charges push me 10% above my normal useage I am free to walk away:

"I confirm if your internet/data usage in June increases your bill to over 10% (based on your last three bills) I will credit all charges from this invoice and allow you to cancel your account without penalty"

This was only after sitting with my last 2 months bills, creating a spreadsheet, and proving to them that applying their new data charges to them that my bills would have been increased more than 10%. There was just no way that they would end the contract before the new charges came into play though. The fact that it is also over the last 3 months is bad news for thoses that hope to simply get stuck into the data usage in June, with the hope of being able to walk away scot-free from their existing contract.

I also managed to get out of one of the Customer Service Specialists that they are shortly going to be introducing a new "data pack" which will cost £7.50 inc VAT for 120mb of data usage. Seems interesting, but still potentialy £7.50 more onto your bill if you data is currently included in your existing package anyway.

Warrior82

Right ok here goes, im have connections with Vodafone

A clear up of a few things

234mb wouldnt be light use at all

If you use less than 500kb in a day you dont pay a £1, you pay for what you use.

For people confused in earlier posts who access Gmail BBC etc but not Vodafone live, you will have always got charged as this was off vodafone live browsing, for people like this will benefit as currently they pay £2.35 per mb so you can see the savings

Vodafone Live used to be chargable it became free as a promo which they didnt end. Vodafone Live is really being replace by there version of the mobile internet, so effectively what was free will no longer exist although it will be a part of the new service. Which will also include You Tube etc making it a much better service. 15mb of data for £1 is a great saving as currently that would cost £35.25, and would be a great amount of browsing

Data packs will be being released so high users will benefit by getting them, as a very clever person previously in this post has done they have detailed the other networks and it is clear that vodafone have joined the others but improved the service where as someone like O2 have always charged you for using their own internet.

Also you have got to consider what else you use your phone for eg. Roaming abroad in Europe were Vodafone have the Passport service which makes i much cheaper than the other networks



All things considered this is going to be a great

Any questions i will be happy to answer

reaper_2-2

Warrior82 wrote: »

For people confused in earlier posts who access Gmail BBC etc but not Vodafone live, you will have always got charged as this was off vodafone live browsing, for people like this will benefit as currently they pay £2.35 per mb so you can see the savings

See, I really struggle with this comment. In no way am I going to "see the savings".

As a Joe Bloggs average user, I currently pay a monthly bill of £25. For this I get inclusive minutes, and effectively a "data bundle" of sorts, that is used for texts or data downloads. (Used to also include picture messages, but Vodafone hacked off 99% of their customers by removing this ability a short time ago).

Having just sat and worked out what the new data charges would have cost me on top of my last bill, it came to nearly £8. Hence my above statement of not being able to "see the savings".

With cameras in phones improving all the time, and the associated file sizes therefore increasing accordingly, you only need to mail a single photo from your phone and it will most likely cost you the £1 daily fee for the privilege.

Savings, when this is all currently included in my existing tariff? I think not.

nlbrown

I am 9 months into an 18 month contract with Vodafone which includes a Text & Data package which they are going to downgrade to text only, ie taking away the data part, which is what I signed up to. After 4 phone calls to customer services people (most of whom just said "tough", we can do that if we give you notice) I eventually got through to James in the Customer accounts dept. I explained to him that I could walk away from my contract as the cost will increase by more than 10%, but would rather the issue was resolved properly.

He could see my point of view, and agreed to add a £7.50 per month data package to my contract from the 1st June FOC until the end of my contract.

So It is possible to get it resolved oif you are persistant enough and manage to talk to the right people!

reaper_2-2

The chap I work beside was offered this same deal yesterday, after doing a fair bit of moaning to Vodafone's Head Office.

Probably fair to say that they are now realising folk are not liking this, and are trying to stop folk leaving. This would no doubt cost them a fortune due to them having subsidised the handsets, and you are eligible to keep them since it is Vodafone that have effectively broken the terms of the agreement.

After your 12/18 months are up, you can bet that £7.50 data bundle will no longer be included free, but at least you will can tell them to shove it then.

Alfie_E

Vodafone finally have a webpage detailing of the data pack to go with the new charging. It’s here at the snappily titled Pay monthly costs: Browse all day for no more than £1 or sign up for a data pack for £7.50 a month page.

The accompanying FAQ informs that even the data pack will exclude anything that that Vodafone doesn’t like. The 5p minimum for excluded data could still be a big price increase for anyone making small message-sending sessions.

toasterman

I've noticed in the last couple of weeks, around the same time I realised these new charges are going to cost me more, that Vodafone gprs in my area is worse.
I'm getting a lot more of the kind of "connection failed" screens when trying to access BBC News and Gmail (pretty much all I use it for).

It's nice to see that I'm going to be charged more for a worse service.
I've very close to leaving Vodafone over it, because although they say it's cheaper - it isn't. Presumably because of a data pack, I haven't been charged for it up to now, so if they are now going to be charging me, then its an increase. There's no other way to look at it.

Like Reaper above, I'm going to be shelling out another £7-£8 a month on this phone for this new lower pricing, based on the data I've used in April.

I think it would be marginally cheaper on o2 for the data I use, and if I leave vodafone and take the phone - I can sign a one-month-at-a-time contract on o2 with the same costs associated to it for an almost identical minutes/texts package, with no long-tie-in if the service is terrible.
It's very tempting.

Alfie_E

The following announcement is on a page linked from the Vodafone live! homepage.

Mobile Internet
Coming Soon …
- Freedom of the Internet on your phone!
- Browse your own favourite internet sites, fitted for your mobile
- Get easy access to the big brands you know - eBay, BBC, YouTube, MySpace and many more
- Until the, it's Vodafone live! as usual!
- Value for money

So, it’s still not happened, and Vodafone still don’t know when it’s going to happen.