If you’ve ever travelled over seas and happened to use your mobile phone whilst in another country a smalllarge surprise was usually there to meet you on your return home to Australia, in the form of a massive international roaming bill. Vodafone has today announced plans to change all that by offering an option to use their current plan in other countries for a small daily fee.
The plan sees travellers to the UK, USA & New Zealand being able to use their existing call, text and data inclusions from their monthly plans for a daily cost of $5 on top of your monthly fee. Needless to say, this will most likely work out a lot cheaper compared to the price of international roaming charges. The new
Vodafone Chief Executive Bill Morrow, compares the savings that can be had on the new plans to international roaming charges saying :
Customers who do not buy a data pack to use while overseas are charged ridiculously high default rates of up to $20,000 for 1GB of data. Global roaming costs are a worldwide issue because of the prices various networks charge each other but the impact on our customers is too great. I am determined to end global roaming bill shock just as soon as I can and make sure Vodafone customers can simply enjoy their holidays.
Vodafone is a global telecommunications company with a broad reach and networks within many countries and Mr Morrow has advised that Vodafone intends to expand this concept to cover as many countries across the globe as they possibly can.
Not time to get too excited just yet though, Vodafone plan to reveal the new plans that the $5 a day Roam Like Home’ offer is available on in August. But if you’re thinking of taking an international holiday to New York, London or Auckland then this would be something to look at.
“Needless to say, this will most likely work out a lot cheaper compared to the price of international roaming charges.”
Still not cheaper than just picking up a pre-paid sim card from the country you’re visiting though.
Say you go on a holiday for 30 days in the USA. That’s 30 days x $5 per day = $150 on top of your plan.
You can pick up a $70 30 day sim from T-Mobile which will give you unlimited calls, unlimited text and unlimited 4G data (not Voda’s crappy 1gb or whatever) and you’re paying a whole lot less.
@0070ed7e49528247a0e26cae388fde32:disqus not unlimited calls or unlimited texts to international numbers though, right? The way I read this, if you were on a Vodafone infinite plan; from the US you could call anyone back home in Australia, talk for as long as you like (as part of unlimited calls/text) and you’re not charged any more than $5/day for being overseas. Local prepaid SIM cards will probably be cheaper if all you want is data, or are primarily calling/texting people in the country you’re visiting – but international roaming is going to be much easier if you’re calling/texting home or need to… Read more »
Voda should go all the way. Make their plans International. Your SIM is locally usable and charged at the local rate in any country that has Vodafone.
That would be so powerful.