At this morning’s media briefing in Sydney, Vodafone CEO Iñaki Berroeta and chief marking officer Lee Fun Chee took the wraps off the carrier’s new plan offerings, which finally bring unlimited national calls and text to all new plans, and some new features to prevent bill shock.
Changes to plan offerings
From today, all Vodafone’s new business and consumer prepaid and postpaid voice plans will include unlimited standard national calls and texts, which is a refreshing change away from ‘included minutes’ or ‘included value’ which has long been a staple of Australian mobile plans. Vodafone had previously made the transition for many of its plans to unlimited national inclusions, but this now extends to just about every plan they offer.
In addition, customers can take advantage of two new initiatives to prevent overspend on their mobile accounts. The first, data control, allows users to switch data off from the carrier side, to prevent unwanted or unintentional data use. The setting — accessible via MyVodafone — is as simple as an on/off switch, and its also able to be used on shared accounts, allowing the account holder to switch data on and off for services connected to the account; for example, parents could use this tool to monitor their children’s data use and restrict data access as desired.
The second initiative relates to international call use; while many plans will include a certain amount of international minutes, the costs when going over the inclusions could have been a bit much. From today, customers can access a $6 for 60 minutes ‘overage’ charge, which can be used any time within the current billing period.
Data inclusions across plans (before any bonus offers) have also been stepped up, with the $100 Red plan now including a standard 10GB of data, amongst other inclusions, which is up from 6GB included yesterday.
New Plan Details
We’ve included the most popular plan breakdowns below, including Postpaid / Red plans on 24 month contracts, BYO month-by-month Red plans, and Prepaid combos. There are other offerings, which are set out in full in Vodafone’s rate card, which we will provide as an attachment, below.
| Postpaid | ||||
| Red 24 month plans | $40 | $60 | $80 | $100 |
| Data | 500MB | 3GB | 6GB | 10GB |
| Calls/Text | Infinite | |||
| International | $5 per day Red Roaming | |||
| Included IDD Minutes | nil | 120 | 120 | 120 |
| Inifinte IDD to select countries | nil | nil | Included | Included |
| BYO Postpaid (SIM only) | |||||
| Month by Month | $30 | $40 | $50 | $60 | $80 |
| Data | 500MB | 3GB | 4GB | 6GB | 10GB |
| Calls/Text | Infinite | ||||
| International | $5 per day Red Roaming | ||||
| Included IDD Minutes | nil | 90 | 120 | 120 | 120 |
| Infinite IDD to select countries | nil | nil | Included | Included | Included |
Both variety of postpaid service offer Vodafone’s signature $5 per day roaming in over 50 countries, as well as the option of infinite calls to 10 selected international destinations. Plan sharing is available with no setup fee, and controls are available for shared accounts to limit data usage. Unlimited national calls and text are also across the board, marking a real point of difference with other carrier options.
| Prepaid | |||||
| Combo | $10 | $30 | $40 | $50 | $60 |
| Data | 250 MB | 1.5 GB | 3 GB | 4 GB | 6 GB |
| Free Data with online recharge | 100 MB | 0.5 GB | 0.5 GB | 0.5 GB | 1 GB |
| Calls/Text | Infinite | ||||
| International IDD minutes | From credit | From credit | 90 | 90 | 120 |
| Infinite IDD to select countries | Nil | Nil | Nil | Included | Included |
| Expiry | 7 days | 28 days | 28 days | 28 days | 28 days |
These prepaid plans are where the real value can be found against the competition; included international minutes are not found on other carrier plans, and infinite talk and text is certainly not universal. Affordable add-ons for data and international calls are also available.
We’ve got the full rate card available here (PDF, 462kb): VF Aug 2015 – Rate Plan
Tell us what you think of Vodafone’s new plans — are you swayed by the new inclusions?
It’s been a good 5 years now since I’ve done any research into carriers. Back then (2010) I considered going with Vodafone, but at the time they were haemorrhaging customers because their network just couldn’t cut it with the increase in smartphone usage. Since then my Telstra service has been good, but they’re not as competitive as the prices listed above. Can anyone enlighten me on Vodafone’s performance these days?
It’s excellent in metro areas. Been using for the past 2 years. Don’t really go out into country areas often enough to be able to judge. Their 4G is the fastest I’ve experienced.
Very good around metro but not as good as Telstra if you stray far from the cities. I get 100Mbps up / 40Mbps down on 4G though, which is very nice 🙂 Unlimited calls and $5 roaming is also very useful to me.
They have turned around since the Vodafail campaign. I’m with them for about 7 years now and am pretty happy. I stick around central Sydney 99% of the time but I also had very good coverage all the way driving down to Perisher three weeks ago.
That $40 BYO Postpaid option looks like pretty good value to me.
The red 24 month plans are still pretty crap.
I notice they’ve switched the $10 prepaid expiry period from 28 days back to seven. That’s bound to annoy customers who don’t spend much, as it means that they pretty much need to jump to the $30 prepaid option. Very sneaky.
it was previously 7 days expiry too
Seven days is just for the combo plan. The PAYG option remains at 28 days, so I was wrong.