Vodafone UK Updates on Changes to Roaming and Basics Plans UPDATE
Mobile operator Vodafone UK has informed us of some changes they’ve made to their SIM-Only “Basics” plans from 6th and 9th February 2022, which relates to the introduction of new roaming options (costs), the removal of data capping (not quite what it sounds like) and the enabling of a spend manager.
The changes to roaming charges shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise because we’ve already reported on those (here), but some of the other changes might be of more interest.
As of the 6th February 2022 there will now be new roaming options for Basic’s deals, which are as follows.
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Vodafone Basics Plan
Zone A (Ireland and Isle of Man) – Included at no extra cost
Zone B (49 European destinations) – £2 per day (or £1 per day with an 8 or 15 day European Roaming Pass)
Zone C (32 worldwide destinations) – £6 per day
Zone D (73 worldwide destinations) – £6 per day
In addition, from today, they’ve removed data capping, which isn’t quite what it sounds like. Once a customer exhausts their data allowance, they will not be charged out of bundle. In other words, any further data use will simply be blocked until they buy ‘Data Extras‘, or their plan renews. This is in keeping with the rest of their Pay Monthly (SIM-only) tariffs.
Finally, Basics customers will gain access to a ‘Spend Manager‘ to help manage their usage, although for roaming you won’t be able to set this to ‘0’ because that might prevent customers from being able to pay their daily charge (£2 – £6) – customers will be informed about this once they arrive in a roaming destination.
UPDATE 12:38pm
Vodafone informs us that the ‘Basics’ changes, which were planned to take pace today, have been postponed until the 9th of March.
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Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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I’ve had a run-in with Vodafone back in 2013 when they charged me £1 per minute for an international call. When they told me they did not offer any options to cap the charges, I promised myself I’ll never be their customer again.
I’ll never return to the big boys
MVNO’s for me for evermore. Better deals, same signal if you’re using one piggybacking on your old network, no contract, no RPI increases and no shock bills if you’re using a PAYG service
We’ve gone from paying £82 a month, 3 years ago on two, 24 month contracts then discovered it was cheaper to buy direct from apple and use a PAYG sim and move around when we like for the best deals. My iPhone 13 is half paid off, my husbands iPhone 11 is paid off this way and we pay £14 for two sims, one with SMARTY and one with GiffGaff
And the best thing about Smarty which piggyback on the 3 network is that they do no credit checks. What baffles me is why network operators like O2 insist on doing a hard credit check for SIM only contracts which does not involve any credit of any kind – data is billed in advance.
Allowance isn’t billed in advance on SIMO. I believe it ought to be, SMRTY, giffgaff etc. do this and it is bundled allowance. On SIMO, you use the allowance and pay for it at the end so they are technically lending you the service.
Vodafone, what more needs to be said. If there is a chance of you being conned and lied to before you are over charged, then they are the MOB to rely on
Anyone know how to purchase these roaming passes? is it in advance or when you arrive?
Has these changes happened? Still see no roaming on basic plans