Vodafone Offers Up to 4GB Inclusive Roaming In Europe To New Customers

Vodafone is to offer inclusive roaming allowances to new and upgrading customers in 40 European countries and territories, ahead of the abolition of roaming within the EU next year.

Customers will receive between 500MB and 4GB depending on their contract, while calls and texts are unlimited in most bundles. Existing users are not covered, while 30 day SIM only and mobile broadband contracts are also excluded.

The operator says speeds will not be throttled, so business users will be able to take advantage of enterprise software such as cloud-based applications and videoconferencing services. In some countries, 4G roaming will be possible too.

Vodafone roaming

“Our customers made it clear to us that they wanted the freedom to use their phones worry free whilst abroad and we have listened,” said Glafkos Persianis, Commercial Director at Vodafone UK.

The countries covered are Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Channel Islands (Jersey & Guernsey), Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, French Territories, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Isle of Man, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Ireland, Romania, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey.

Most of the territories covered are members of the European Union, or dependencies of those nations, while others are enclaves or members of the European Economic Area (EEA). Switzerland has bilateral agreements with the EU, while Vodafone has a network in Turkey.

EE offers inclusive roaming in a number of countries as part of its 4GEE Extra plans, but this only covers calls and texts, not data. Three allows its customers to use their call, text and data allowances in a number of countries where it has agreements with local operators – mainly those also owned by its parent CK Hutchison.

Caps on how much mobile operators can charge for roaming within the EU were slashed again last week and additional costs will be eliminated entirely by 2017.

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