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mobiliser blog: Let me tell you the International Data Roaming Pricing Joke that I found today on Vodafone Germany’s website. It might even be funny if you are not a victim.

Many Digital Lifestyle Consumers out there want to have affordable access to the Mobile Internet. If they are mobile they might cross borders with their laptops and devices from time to time. This obviously has an effect on the monthly data bill they get.

Let’s find out if Vodafone, the MNO with the biggest international footprint, offers affordable data plans and let’s check how the data plan changes when you leave Germany and dataroam into other countries.

At CeBIT 2006 Vodafone announced the new data plan for heavy mobile data users called “Vodafone WebConnect Fair Flat National”. This data plan goes like this: €49,30 per 5 GB (yeah, this flat rate is capped, too). If you exceed the 5GB during 2 consecutive months you will be charged €0,58 per MB for any data volume above 5 GB per month. This translates into €580/GB for your 6th/7th/… GB per month. If you ever think about downloading a movie over “UMTS Broadband” (UMTS HSDPA with 1,8 Mbps peak downlink speed) you better forget about it and do it at home over your DSL connection. Moreover, in the footnote Vodafone states that starting from 08.07.07 Vodafone will block the usage of VoIP if you are a Fair Flat National customer. So you better don’t get too much into VoIP over UMTS until then.

Basically this pricing translates into €10 per GB for the first 5 GB. I really wonder why they don’t keep this pricing if their customers overshoot the 5 GB cap per month. As I don’t want to speculate here about Vodafone’s motivation for this over-5GB-pricing I will wait until a Vodafone executive explains it to me.

If you book the Vodafone Fair Flat National you have to commit for 24 months and €1182,30 (24 x €49,30). That’s a lot of money. I wonder if this pricing will be reduced automatically for existing Fair Flat National customers by the time data prices go down over the course of the next 2 years. Most probably not.

Now it get’s funny: What happens if you have the Vodafone Fair Flat National and you dataroam into other countries? Well, then you pay extra - not a little but a lot. On top of the Fair Flat National you can book a volume data tariff called “Vodafone International XXL” that is only valid in the Vodafone footprint countries. Vodafone International XXL offers you 100 MB for €87,00 or 1GB for €870,00. This is funny: If you are a Vodafone Germany customer you get 1GB for roughly €10 inside Germany and you pay €870,00 for 1GB if you roam into other Vodafone countries.

If you don’t book Vodafone International XXL to get a price advantage in foreign Vodafone networks you are offered the standard conditions for consuming data in foreign countries and they go like this: In foreign West-European Vodafone networks you pay €2,90/MB, in foreign networks of group 2 (e.g. Sonera in Finland) you pay €6,90/MB and in foreign networks of group 3 (e.g. Orange Israel) you pay €12,90/MB. This pricing is even more funny: It sums up to €2.900/GB, €6.900/GB or even €12.900/GB. If you don’t believe me please go to Vodafone’s website and research the data plans in foreign countries on your own.

Dataroaming as a Vodafone customer makes you a poor man immediately. If your company pays your bill then you are lucky but your company isn’t.

I hereby recommend Vodafone and all the MNOs they do data roaming agreements with to thoroughly reconsider what they are actually offering to Digital Lifestyle Consumers that are crossing borders from time to time. It’s the biggest data pricing joke I have ever heard. But, it’s not a joke. It’s Vodafone’s International Data Roaming Pricing Reality as of 31 March 2006.

Go and find an Internet Cafe, dude!

Original article on the mobiliser blog.