9 months ago when I last played with this feature on Vodafone’s network, you needed to “opt in” to get the groupCall service activated on your On Account plan.
It’s always been free, but of course the host has to pay for all the other callers in the conference.
Now it appears to be on by default for all on account customers (not sure about prepay?). I’ve tested it with three new OA connections and they all have this feature on by default
.
Of course it can be expensive if you have 4 other connections all in the one conference as you are paying your plans per minute rate for each caller, but it’s great when used in conjunction with Family or Bestmates/Free Weekends because it’s absolutely free.
To test groupCall for yourself, make a call, then put the call on hold. Then call another number and press the “link” or “Join” button. Once linked, keep doing this for every additional connection until you reach the max of 5 connections per call.
For more info, see this page
I’ll also just point out, on the webpage above VF state:
“There's no cost to activate groupCall on your mobile, you simply pay for the individual calls at your standard plan rate. Each person you add to your groupCall is treated as a separate call, and is charged at your standard plan rate per minute.
Your standard plan rate is the rate per minute which applies to your plan, and does not include any bundles, Add-Ons or Calling Groups.”
This is not true, you can use your BM/Family/Free weekends to make calls and you won’t be charged. This page obviously hasn’t been updated in years, it mentioned the same thing when I looked at it a little over 9 months ago… but that’s the VF website for you :)
[Mod (N8): Moved forum as per request]