Vodafone's rounding of roam forward calls

Forums › One New Zealand (including Vodafone, WxC, Farmside) › Vodafone's rounding of roam forward calls

sbiddle

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#22566 1-Jun-2008 09:01

As somebody who has travelled overseas a lot I've literally spent thousands of dollars with both BellSouth and Vodafone on roaming. I even had staff very interested in my experiences of travelling around Europe in 1998 using my Cassiopeia A20 with a Nokia 2110i and data card using iPass CSD roaming to access my emails and even had to give them a presentation!

Since BellSouth first introduced international roaming into the NZ marketplace roam forward calls (ie calls you answer while roaming) have always beeen charged for the 1st minute and then per second after this they have been charged per second. This was until Vodafone's roaming changes in November last year.

All roam forward calls are now rounded up to the next minute, so if you speak for 1:01 you now pay for 2 minutes. This is something that made me choke on my weetbix especially since the cost of roam forward calls increased in many countries at the same time (answering a call in Australia used to cost me 43c per minute - it now costs $1).

Maybe somebody can explain why this policy changed and why there was no mention of this at the time and why there is still no mention on the Vodafone website of this policy?

jackyleunght2002

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#134844 2-Jun-2008 05:52

well I think we need Paul explaination of that..

Honestly, I am really disappointed about the whole Roaming thing once they introducing that Vodafone travelller... now when I am at Australia, the cost of it is 3 times - 4 times before the travller has introduced

Think of it this way, a text message is almost the same price for calling back to New Zealand if you subscribe the Vodafone traveller

Or if you text message a local Australia person, it is much more expensive than making a quick 1 min call to them

Paul, I think Vodafone need to review its pricing structure on this Vodafone roaming policy, as the price of it is so expensive and you almost want to say at the end of the day, that you just either go and buy a prepay card and dial on the payphone or even buying a Vodafone Australia simcard....

Thank you Paul

Jacky

mckenndk

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#134855 2-Jun-2008 08:48

pitty the NZ and AU governments do not do what the EU did and set a standard cost over the whole EU for roaming.

Where it use to cost £1.30 a minute to make a call and around £1 a minute to receive them the mobile prividers were told they were charging too much and it is now £0.39 a minute to make a call and £0.19 to receive a call, text messages are still £0.40 and £0.20 for pxt messages.
For T-Mobile who I am with actually charge you for people leaving messages on your answer phone while you are abroard as well which I don't think vodafone NZ do?

Dion

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sbiddle

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#134857 2-Jun-2008 09:03

mckenndk: For T-Mobile who I am with actually charge you for people leaving messages on your answer phone while you are abroard as well which I don't think vodafone NZ do?

Vodafone NZ charge for this as well, and once again like roam forward this is now rounded up as well and charged at the $1 per minute that you pay for receiving a call.

zocster

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#134858 2-Jun-2008 09:13

that sucks, one would presume that being a world wide brand they would have better roaming agreements?

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mckenndk

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#134860 2-Jun-2008 09:37

zocster: that sucks, one would presume that being a world wide brand they would have better roaming agreements?

Well T-mobile cover most of europe and have sites in the US as well and even run the local phone networks in places like Macedonia but when I was roaming there I was still getting chrged the old rates that most of europe use to have.
You would of thought that companys like orange t-moible and vodafone who have networks over most of europe would be in compition with each other over it but the only things in the end that bought down roaming was a rulling by the EU goverment.

The only internation company that New Zealand and Austraila have is Vodafone as the others are just local providers.
A good feature I like of vodafones though is the no hassel roaming of prepaid mobiles to the UK.

It might of been telecom that said to me to divert you calls to your answer phone when I was roaming in Austraila a few years ago I remember that they had the best deal with texts over there on the Telstra CDMA network with each message still costing $0.20 with vodafones costing $0.30.

One question are the brands in most countries (eg orange vodafone etc) just franchies that use the name over being the actual company so they can use the excuse we are not the same company so we can't do deals like cheaper roaming if you use out network overseas?

Dion

mckenndk

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#134863 2-Jun-2008 09:54

Maybe somebody can explain why this policy changed and why there was no mention of this at the time and why there is still no mention on the Vodafone website of this policy?

Maybe easier for the computers to process it down to the minute than the second or software upgrade does not support it down to the seond anymore or just a ploy to make more money hopefully Paul might have some answers.

Dion