September 19, 2006 at 10:56 pm · Authored by Ewan · Filed under Mobile

Link: Free Roaming.

Vodafone announced today that 10 million of its customers have signed up for Vodafone Passport, Vodafone’s roaming service which enables customers to take their domestic price plan abroad for a small connection fee per call.

Well this sounds good. I’m a big fan of Passport. However, I wonder about this.

I was in the Vodafone store 4 weeks ago helping my dad upgrade to a Blackberry. I noticed that the lady on the desk automatically added the Vodafone Passport service to his account. I wasn’t about to demand she took it off, of course. It’s a good deal. Better than paying the stupid-pounds-a-minute rates. However, he didn’t sign up for it. He was given it. That’s a lot different.

How many of the 10 million actually phoned up and asked for the service to be applied to their account?

Who cares, ultimately, it’s no doubt from a press release aimed to target the European Commission folk looking into the exhorbitant roaming costs at the moment.