Vodafone starts charging customers for browsing Live!

MSE_Martin · 27 February 2007 at 1:01PM

What are Vodafone planning?

Vodafone Live! is the starting point for going on the internet on a Vodafone phone. Until now, it's been free to browse for information such as news stories and weather reports, only paying for premium content clearly pre-fixed by a '£' sign.

However, now Vodafone's decided to move the goalposts and charge its customers the same for browsing Live! as they would for browsing any other mobile website as of 1 June.

The Details

Current charges:

£2.35 per MB of browsing
Vodafone Live! is free to browse unless marked with £ sign

Charges as 1 June 07:

£1 for the first 0.5MB in any calendar day then free up to 15 MB that day
£2 per MB for anything over 15 MB
5 pages of browsing - 25p

The £1 charge per day won't include VoIP or peer to peer software; this will be charged separately.

Will anything still be free?

Vodafone live! homepage, the landing page of the four navigation tabs and all of My Account will remain free; not a great deal of use for browsing but if you find yourself accidentally connected to the web, it won’t cost you.

Who's it good for? Who's it bad for?

If, like most customers, you only ever browsed the odd page for weather updates and news reports this is going to rocket your bill. From the 1 June if you browse 5 pages per day this will cost you 25p; £7.50 over the course of the month.

Yet if you were often using non Vodafone Live! pages then these changes will significantly lighten the load on your pocket, as use less than 15 MB per day from June and it will cost you £1, whereas now that costs around £35.

Still overall my guess is this will be a profitable move for Vodafone.

Related Articles: Mobile Phone Cost Cutting

scaldyflash · 20 April 2007 at 10:50AM

I recently got a a text from Vodafone telling me that from 1st June they are going to start charging for anyone leaving the Vodafone home page whilst browsing on their mobile. They are dressing it up as though they are doing their customers a favour. I check the news maybe a couple of times a day which is now free but from 1st June it will cost me about £30 per month if I continue to do this. I'm furious, I took out a contract with them on the understanding that I would be able to access the internet free now they are saying that I have to pay for it.

I wrote to them and they basically said if you don't like it then pay the leaving fee and leave (About £280) and they said the same when I called them, had a really snotty kid tell me that if I didn't like it then tough !

They are pathetic, I'll never use them again. They have obviously just got too big for their boots.

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

scaldyflash · 20 April 2007 at 3:36PM

Sorry I forgot to ask, does anyone have the name and direct email address for the Vodafone Managing Director in the UK?

Ta

newlywed · 20 April 2007 at 3:39PM

I haven't had any information from them as yet and I use the internet from my mobile regularly.

scaldyflash · 20 April 2007 at 4:53PM

newlywed wrote: »

I haven't had any information from them as yet and I use the internet from my mobile regularly.

Take a look here.

Looks like they are sneaking it in with a minimum fuss in the hope that most people won't realise till it's too late and they have run up their bills. :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

toasterman · 20 April 2007 at 4:56PM

I haven't had any notice of that yet, but I hope they don't enforce this too quick if it's true. I use the mobile version of gmail a few times a day, plus the mobile edition of bbc news maybe once a day.

Sounds like it could cost me a bit extra.

It might explain why T-mobile have recently started loads of adverts saying that now you can surf "the whole internet", and that they don't limit you to just their pages.
At the time I didn't think much of it as I can do that now.

pompeyrich · 20 April 2007 at 5:36PM

They sent me the text back in March, probably hoping I would forget by the time they bring the charges in. They have been chipping away at the internet for a while, you used to be able to access train times, road problems etc. for free, then it was £1:50 a month for each, now this, soon be out of contract and looking for better deal, T-Mobile perhaps

scaldyflash · 20 April 2007 at 5:38PM

toasterman wrote: »

I haven't had any notice of that yet, but I hope they don't enforce this too quick if it's true. I use the mobile version of gmail a few times a day, plus the mobile edition of bbc news maybe once a day.

Sounds like it could cost me a bit extra.

It might explain why T-mobile have recently started loads of adverts saying that now you can surf "the whole internet", and that they don't limit you to just their pages.
At the time I didn't think much of it as I can do that now.

According to the new T&Cs one can look at up to 5 mobile internet pages for 25p. Even if I were to just go to the news pages like I do and nothing else I would still end up paying about £14 a month extra. If I looked at more which I mostly do then I would be in for at least £20 to £30 a month on top of my normal bill. Looks like it will be a huge money spinner for Vodafone. I intend to write to the MD and express my disgust and also try my best to get my contract cancelled without paying a ridiculous fee which I shouldn't have to pay because they are the ones changing the contract.

toasterman · 21 April 2007 at 9:17AM

That is disgusting.
They already have pretty much the highest per-mb data charges of any network, and now they're charging a 5p connection charge for GPRS (isn't it meant to be always connected..and you only pay for what you use? thats how they sold it to us back when it came in).

I never seem to get charged for GPRS each month. I possibly have a small allowance of 2-3mb. I'm assuming they're going to honour this after the new price-hike. I certainly don't pay for an extra pack.

Can you believe all that cr4p about now being able to access "much more of the whole Internet"? I could before.. have been able to for ages. They're just charging me more for what I already had.

I'm in a contract with them til 30th December, but I'm gonna be looking around at other networks, Vodafone :mad:

Edit: in fact.. I could get another phone. I've got one for work, one payg for my sat nav on another phone, plus my personal vodafone one.....I guess I could get a payg o2 or t-mobile for my data. It wouldn't cost me the £7.50 a month extra that their 25p-a-day example works out at.

MercilessKiller · 21 April 2007 at 9:39AM

quote: there will be a charge for browsing Vodafone live!

Hmmmmm thats disgusting from vodafone. I check vodafone news and sports daily too and in fact they used it as a selling point. So how can they change that while I'm mid contract? In theory they could just change anything they wanted such as my free mins or texts?!?!?!?!?!?!

Fkin disgraceful

scaldyflash · 21 April 2007 at 10:55AM

MercilessKiller wrote: »

quote: there will be a charge for browsing Vodafone live!

Hmmmmm thats disgusting from vodafone. I check vodafone news and sports daily too and in fact they used it as a selling point. So how can they change that while I'm mid contract? In theory they could just change anything they wanted such as my free mins or texts?!?!?!?!?!?!

Fkin disgraceful

Absolutely; I think it's imperative that we get this message to as many people as is possible. Like I said Vodafone sent out an inconspicuous text to customers vaguely mentioning changes to roaming but putting a positive spin on it so most people probably ignored it (I nearly did) I reckon they will make millions before people realise that they are being ripped off by Vodafone yet again :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

Vodafone starts charging customers for browsing Live!

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