What's good Vodafone roaming for with these prices?

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freitasm

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#1917 22-Jul-2004 10:12

Wow! Got my Vodafone statement for the last month. I spent a week in the US back then - and got more than NZ$400 of roaming charges!

Now, how can Vodafone explain to me that a single minute and ten seconds to New Zealand costs NZ$9.91? Yes, that's right. USA to New Zealand: almost $10 per minute on Vodafone.

This is really pushing the envelope to wi-fi VoIP. Thanks, a lot. I have Skype and StanaPhone on my Pocket PC and I've used both over wi-fi with good results. I guess I'll start to use more and more VoIP from now on.

Time to explore alternatives on CDMA?

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#7352 23-Jul-2004 11:08

Do Vodafone charge per minute or part therof?

Maybe it's 2 minutes of charges at $5 or so each.

Eddie

mike

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#7357 23-Jul-2004 16:04

For goodness sake you should have known the prices before you left.

If you're going to spend an hour on the phone to New Zealand or going for any length of time buy a local SIM!

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#7362 23-Jul-2004 20:35

Roaming is still Vodafone's biggest joke and something they obviously understand very very little about. If you look at the rates in most countries Vodafone or Vodafone subsidary networks are among the worst roaming rates. What good is there in having a global network if their own customers go to another country and use the competitors network?

It also amazes me the difference in rates lookig at similair networks, Vodafone oz have far cheaper roaming rates to the USA, Vodafone NZ has cheap roaming in Aus (same price as NZ), yet a Vodafone Aus costomer roaming in NZ pays big $$$ for the same thing.

freitasm

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#7368 24-Jul-2004 09:51

Also, I understand this is not entirely Vodafone's fault. It's just that some of the interconnection fees charged by roaming companies overseas are tremendous! These days some traffic is carried over IP, and there are companies that sell the international traffic. Of course Vodafone makes a margin on this, but it's also something I'd like to see Vodafone and Telecom working to reduce. You can use services like ZTalk and pay NZ$5/15 minutes, and some times the long distance carrier is even the same.

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#7373 24-Jul-2004 11:28

I know a lot goes on behind the scenes johnr that I obviously don't know about but the simple fact is Vodafone want to be a global brand and achieve cost savings by having a truely global network. How is me going to the UK and roaming on Orange benefiting the Vodafone brand in any way?

Vodafone NZ are also one of only several Vodafone networks now that have individual pricing for each country, most of their networks now have tiered pricing, including Vodafone Oz and every European Vodafone network. It is something that is both good and bad - when they introduced this into oz some countries had significant price increases, some significant decreases but at the end of the day you know exactly how much you are paying. In all my experiences roaming overseas (Asia and Europe mainly) with Vodafone I've found significant differences in what Vodafone say the price is and what I've been charged, their reasoning being that prices change continually and are converted at the current exchange rate. At least with a fixed tiered system you know exactly what you will be paying.

GSM roaming is certainly an awesome thing to have but even the GSM Association themselves acknowledge there needs to be far better communication between networks so sort out issues such as pricing.

mikman

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#7384 26-Jul-2004 10:24

Who cares about the technical in's and out's about whether networks are lightly loaded or not. This should be all about providing a worthwhile service

At $10 /min someone is creaming a whole lot of profit out of this. Telecom charge $3.60 /min for calls back to NZ and I am sure that they still make good chunks of cash from this.

My advice - either change your phone to a Telecom one if you are going to roam to the US or take a calling card next time (at least that way it's easy for people to still call you - it's a pain changing to a local SIM for people to call you)

Also I would query your bill if i was you - published rates on the Vodafone website max'ed out at $6 NZD so looks like you have been incorrectly charged at best...

mike

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#7385 26-Jul-2004 10:34

It's another ridiculously high rate when people call you while you're roaming. At least if you have a local SIM they pay for the international call, not you. Plus you have a local number it the States which is most useful.

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mikman

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#7387 26-Jul-2004 13:10

that doesn't detract from the situation that roaming pricing is a rort and that if Vodafone were a bit more reasonable they would make a whole lot more money from the punters. All that the current experience teaches you is that

1. Roaming calls are really expensive
2. Even when they are expensive they are charged at different rates to what is published - so there is no certainty of what you will really pay
3. Local SIMs, calling cards and competitors provide you with a better deal and probably a better experience - bill shock on your first bill will drive most customers like poor old Mauricio that way - and money away from Vodafone
4. Vodafone are happy to promote their service as being better for roaming yet penalise their customers who choose them for this service - seems like a pretty short sighted view.

Maybe some GSM competition wouldn't be a bad thing....

Cooch

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#7388 26-Jul-2004 14:36

This is all very amusing.

A few months ago I roamed over to Aust for a holliday and did quite a lot of texting and calling, both local and international. I also received a number of calls from local and international callers. The end result was a $60 credit on my account. Go figure. But thanks T'com I'll definately be roaming again with you!!

freitasm

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#7391 26-Jul-2004 17:08

Just looking at Vodafone and it seems that AT&T is $6/min, while Cingular is $2.55... But AT&T was always stronger. Can't complain much more - used the service, now pay. But it's good lesson for the future.

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#7426 27-Jul-2004 17:40

Re Vodafones published rates - the problem is their roaming rates are very often not correct. To be honest their website is a joke, their coverage maps were last updated 3 years ago! How much work can really be involved in putting new coverage maps online? How many people choose Telecom over Vodafone based on their online coverage maps? They have been talking for 4 years about having a much more detailed coverage map online, maybe one day a miracle might happen..

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#7436 28-Jul-2004 09:39

On the topic of roaming, here's quite an interesting story from Cellular News from yesterday regarding overcharging by Vodafone and O2.

http://www.cellular-news.com/story/11541.shtml

The European Union's Commission has sent two separate "statements of objections" to two UK mobile network operators, O2 and Vodafone. The objections relate to the rates that both O2 and Vodafone charged other phone networks for international roaming at wholesale level. Other mobile network operators (MNOs) needed to roam on O2?s and Vodafone?s UK networks in order to enable their own subscribers to use their mobile phones while in the UK. This situation is known as international roaming. The Commission says that the high roaming fees were detrimental to consumers travelling to the UK.

"The number of mobile subscribers in the EU is enormous and 81% of EU citizens now have a mobile telephone. In a number of Member States the mobile subscription rate is close to 90%. Also, Europeans are travelling more and more each year and mobile subscribers are using their phones abroad as frequently as they do in their own home country. But the high level of the international roaming prices has made this very expensive. This high level also contrasts sharply with the much lower tariffs applied for domestic calls. I hope that our action today makes a contribution to rectifying this state of affairs", Competition Commissioner Mario Monti commented.

The Commission?s investigation has revealed that Vodafone, since 1997 through at least until the end of September 2003, exploited its dominant position in the UK market for the provision of international roaming services at wholesale level on its own network. The abuse consisted in charging unfair and excessive prices (otherwise known as IOTs or "Inter-operator tariffs") to European MNOs.

The Commission has come to the same conclusions as regards the IOTs charged by O2 but for the period beginning 1998 and at least up until the end of September 2003.

On the basis of the evidence gathered during inspections carried out in July 2001, the Commission concluded that each individual UK network constituted, at least with regard to the period from 1997/1998 until the end of September 2003, a separate market. Both Vodafone and O2 enjoyed a dominant position with respect to their networks in the relevant time period. As far as the level of IOTs is concerned, the investigation revealed that the roaming services in question yielded profits several times higher than other comparable services supplied by MNOs. In particular, the pricing of roaming calls exceeded by far the prices that Vodafone and O2 had applied during the above mentioned period for similar calls made on their respective networks by UK subscribers of "Independent Service Providers" (ISPs) to whom both O2 and Vodafone had supplied wholesale airtime access.

The provision of wholesale airtime access to UK subscribers of ISPs bears considerable similarities to the provision of wholesale international roaming services to foreign MNOs, whose subscribers use their mobile phone when roaming in the UK. The Commission therefore questions the enormous price differentials between two fundamentally comparable services.

The statement of objections sets out the Commission?s preliminary position on the infringements of the competition rules. Both Vodafone and O2 will now have the opportunity to respond to the Commission?s preliminary findings in writing and in an oral hearing. But these preliminary findings do not in any way prejudice the outcome of the probe.

Posted to the site on 27-Jul-04

mikman

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#7457 29-Jul-2004 11:08

We can see that it is in the T's and C's - isn't the issue here really one of providing some level of transparency and comfort to a consumer?

Effectively what the T's and C's say is that I really can have no idea of what I am being charged for a call until I get my bill. I would be surprised if this meets the Fair Trading Act for a start.

The second issue is that Vodafone does not *have* to pass on price variations - most of its products have a variable component that is priced in - let's take a standard voice call for example. Vodafone's costs vary for each of these types of calls

- call to Vodafone mobile
- call to Telecom mobile
- call to Telstra landline
- call to Telecom landline

The costs for these will vary on a *per call* basis based on

- where the called party is (ie how much of the network the call has the cover)
- the interconnect rates from the other providers

but there is a single price per minute per call that doesn't change. The variability is covered in the price which people can decide easily if it is 'fair' - because they know what it is and they have certainty

The same set of variables exist for roaming calls and these could also be priced into a single price for customers for each country (or even network if you wanted). Of course there would be swings and roundabouts - but that's business(of course it would drive Vodafone to get better interconnect deals which would be even better).Importantly it would make it easier to decide as a customer whether you thought it was worthwhile to make a call. And the overall risk to the business is probably small for the benefit that it provides to customers that would probably mean they would make more calls

I am not saying this should be cheap - I am saying that is should be predictable and transparent. The current situation means that customers have too much uncertainty which means they make less calls which is bad for them and Vodafone

Cooch

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#7464 30-Jul-2004 09:35

Well Mikman, your riposte is reminiscent of the old saying, 'if common sence really was common, surely more people would have it'. Alas we are forced to live by the rules imposed by others.

If the issue is to ameliorate we should be using our valuable time to write to said offenders instead of winging to each other on an inconsequential chat room.

Be gone and fair writing to all.

mikman

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#7465 30-Jul-2004 09:53

Good point - well raised!

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