Vodafone Australia Roaming

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sbiddle

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#6918 4-Mar-2006 13:08

Vodafone's latest attempt to extract yet more money from customers is now a 44c SMS surchange while roaming on Vodafone Australia as of the 20th April. This surcharge is being introduced because "Vodafone have been absorbing this cost since 2000".

If Vodafone have been losing money since 2000 offering same rate calls/sms's since they lauched it in 2000 you really have to wonder about the intelligence of their billing people in keeping this deal in place!!

johnr

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#29815 4-Mar-2006 18:15

If you don't like the 44 cent surcharge use telstra or optus

freitasm

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#29816 4-Mar-2006 18:25

Ok, while Telecom is an option now (or as jonhr says Telstra and Optus with their GSM networks), in the future this may not be true, because of Telstra retiring their CDMA network.

I wonder if this "surcharge" will go even higher when New Zealanders find out their only option to send/receive SMS while in Australia is Vodafone?

johnr

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#29817 4-Mar-2006 18:29

Telstra and Optus there surcharge is 65 cents

freitasm

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#29818 4-Mar-2006 18:32

That's now. I hope there's no change when there's no competition from TNZ in the mix. You know, monopolies tend to make things go inside the heads of the executive teams...

sbiddle

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#29870 5-Mar-2006 10:04

johnr: If you don't like the 44 cent surcharge use telstra or optus

I have no issue with the price - SMS surcharges are common place everywhere else. I just have an issue with the statement that they are putting the price up because they have been losing money for 6 years on the service. Vodafone NZ where the first in the world to try the concept of paying the same price in another country and when they did introduce it roaming on Telstra and Optus was cheaper than roaming on Vodafone when you went to oz and Vodafone Australia was seriously struggling. From speaking to a mate at Vodafone UK billing last year the whole initial concept of One Vodafone and the introduction of Passport roaming was to minimize costs and there were people at Vodafone who thought the idea used in NZ/Oz was awesome. They wanted a billing system where no matter where you are on the Vodafone network anywhere in the world you could pay the same rates for calls with simply a small fixed rate surcharge for international voice calls. Vodafone passport became of this idea however in a slightly modified form.

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#29871 5-Mar-2006 10:08

Remember that Tim Miles, once Vodafone NZ GM, moved to Vodafone UK as their General Manager.

Since then things changed in the local subsidiary. Each GM imprints his/her own view of the business. Changes occur when this process happens.

Consumers decide what is good or bad by supporting the business - or not.