[getti]

Free weekends will start on Saturday and not 7.30pm on Friday night.

Also you get free unlimited texts and calls to landlines and vodafone mobile phones for that period

HOWEVER!

You can only call another network for a total of 1 hr through the whole weekend. So say you phone 2 people for 30 mins each on O2, after that all your x-net calls are charged

[fireballxl5]

Oh, thought it was to good to be true or a "lifetime" offer, tho I thought that

"Also you get free unlimited texts and calls to landlines and vodafone mobile phones for that period"

was already part of the deal !!!

[Hands0n]

Free weekends will start on Saturday and not 7.30pm on Friday night.

Also you get free unlimited texts and calls to landlines and vodafone mobile phones for that period

HOWEVER!

You can only call another network for a total of 1 hr through the whole weekend. So say you phone 2 people for 30 mins each on O2, after that all your x-net calls are charged


Can you attribute a source for this information?

[getti]

I got a text today from Vodafone saying the are changes planned and to hear them please call 19089 free from your vodafone handset.

Its an automated message that talks about the changes

[solo12002]

" lifetime" offer"

Some offer, me thinks they were losing money hands over feet. Why dont the networks just fing learn, reduce the basic price of calls, data etc and more ppl will use them, thus incresing their income, ie it costs networks 1p for per text, but most networks charge 10 - 12p.

Why has the price of calling other networks gone up over last x years at one time it was normal price of your place , now some charge 35p/45p x network a B rip off.

And once again we wait to see what the networks do in respect of data charges, Im shock theirs no word in your text about that!

[Ben]

I love it when the networks move the goalposts. Reminds me of Cellnet's 'unlimited calls to one number' offer.

[fireballxl5]

I listened to the "upbeat" automated message they make it sound like a real "plus"

I was,nt aware of this change no one in are house have got any notifcation from voda.

so guess we wait to see what, if anythink happens with the data charges

[Hands0n]

I wonder how long it will be before they clobber Stop The Clock? Although, this does only affect PAYT it is not a good sign.

[3GScottishUser]

Not a good sign, but still excellent value for PAYG users. Some might just be pretty happy with the unlimited texts.

One has to remember that to get unlimited landline and on-net calls and free texts from midnight Saturday until midnight Sunday a PAYG user has only to spend £5 during the week! They still get 1 hour of X/Net included too!!

Compare the above with some of the best deals around like T-Mobile's Everyone at 12p/min flat rate and the free offer still looks a great deal.

Vodafone customers with Anynet and STC get incredible PAYG value on weekdays. Imagine making 10 mins X/Net calls on Vodafone every day (weekdays) - that would cost (3 X 30p + 7 X 10p) = £1.60 X 5 = £8 a week!! That gets you all your free allowance at weekends and we hav'nt even touched on STC etc!! Compare this with 3's WePay for example and you pay 30p X 10 = £3.00 X 5 = £15 and you get no free allowance save the 5p a min up to the value of your next top up for incoming calls. There are other deals like Tesco's Extra PAYG flat rate at 10p/min but you have to go some to beat AnyNet, STC and Free Weekends for value.

[fireballxl5]

Agreed it is good value, just not as good as it was, and any reduction is going to be seen as a "backward" step

I certainly thought that this and STC was a "lifetime" deal of course they could have just have changed it for newly added "free weekend"

its never good when a deal is amended, no matter how good the deal remains after the "amended" bits.

[Hands0n]

Certainly, Vodafone's combination of the offers and features is brilliant. It is always sad to see any erosion in them though - perhaps it has been too successful for its own good! Sign enough that Vodafone were on the right track - but perhaps they are beginning to come off the rails in this respect? PAYT accounts for a lot of their business, and it could account for much more (stack 'em high, sell 'em cheap) if the pricing formula were a crowd-puller. Doing things like this is likely to engender an element of mistrust - if they can pull this, what is next?

What?, indeed!

[whatleydude]

Woah!
Super update time...

Just spoke to the lovely guys at Vodafone (via 191).
I had a hint that they're gonna be changing their data stuff tomorrow so I thought and try and get a heads up..

Turns out:

£7.50pcm will get you 100mb of data.

Or if you don't want to do that - as soon as you use 2mb of data they'll charge you £2 and then give you an extra 24mb to use over the next 24hrs.

FACT.


However - they won't launch tomorrow - still having teething problems.

Oh yeah - and Vodafone Live is being scrapped too.
Replacing that with Google in one swoop.

[Ben]

Please tell me you're joking...

...please?

[whatleydude]

Why would I lie?!

[whatleydude]

Saying that a few people here are questioning this..

The CS dude's exact words were:

"Y'know Vodafone Live? Well we're scrapping that and it'll be full Google Search as soon as you boot up your WAP engine"

"Really?"

"Yup, we're replacing VF Live with Google"

[Ben]

I reckon that guy had been licking too many envelopes.

[whatleydude]

I called back to confirm -

The Data stuff still holds water but the replacing of VF Live with Google has now changed to a re-launch/re-brand of the whole thing that will be more web based than wap based and powered by Google..

It's hard getting the facts y'know!

[fireballxl5]

now that makes some sense think I read that voda where going to have another messenger like the old pc / phone based one that was scraped a year or so ago.

not sure about the value of the data package !!! does that include all download costs.

[whatleydude]

Data Charges = Download Costs

[fireballxl5]

Is that for Contract or PAYG or both !!!! cos thats a good deal for Payg compared with the current rate.

[whatleydude]

Contract as far as I know.
The £7.50 one anyway.

The other may be PAYG & Contract.

I really don't know - sorry.

[Hands0n]

..... £7.50pcm will get you 100mb of data. .......




They won't win my business that way ..... I used pretty much that much in one sitting last night! I was on my T-Mobile Web N Walk Pro which for £12.50 gets me 3GB of data. I have not got the time right now to work out what 3GB will cost at the Vodafone rates, but it wont' be pretty, thats for sure :(

[solo12002]

Compare the above with some of the best deals around like T-Mobile's Everyone at 12p/min flat rate and the free offer still looks a great deal.

dont foregt top up £10 pm with t-mobile and you get free texts off peak and all weekend.

" Free texts available from 7pm to 7am weekdays and 7pm Friday to 7am Monday. Free texts are valid for one month dating from when we notify you by text they have been applied. Subject to topping up by a minimum of £10 (in a single transaction) at or following the end of your previous free texts period." www.t-mobile.co.uk

[Hands0n]

Well, taking out the trusty old Excel calculator I had a quick tally up of the difference between T-Mobile actual and Vodafone's prospective Data Bundle offerings. The differences are quite stark! There really is no competition between the two, at the moment. I wonder if this is intentional, and if it is then why?


Network Operator.........Charge pm........Data Qty (MB)....Cost per MB
T-Mobile Web N Walk.........£12.50...............3,000........£0. 0042
Vodafone.....................£7.50................ 100.........£0.0750


Apologies for the weird formatting - its never easy representing tables on these forums (unless someone shows me how!).

The above shows a cost difference of 18 times between the two data bundles! This is rather extreme to say the least.

I still think that the Data Tariffs are completely uninspiring and do little-to-nothing to encourage data use by the average customer.

100MB may sound a lot, but it really and truly is not, especially if you are using your phone as a data modem to your laptop or PDA. I am finding it hard to use my 3GB allowance with T-Mobile, but the usage is growing each month so I'll hold final call on that for the time being.

NB: That T-Mobile tariff is for Web N Walk Plus.

[Hands0n]

If I read this right - the Vodafone Free Weekends takes precedence over Stop The Clock and the first three minutes of any STC call will come out of the Free Weekends allowance. Sooooooo, again if I read this right, other network calls could still be free inasmuch as the first three STC minutes will come out of the Free Weekends allowance .......

The following extracted from the Vodafone PAYT T&Cs (http://online.vodafone.co.uk/dispatch/Portal/appmanager/vodafone/wrp?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=template12&pageID=PTC_0007)


Vodafone Free Weekends can be used in conjunction with Vodafone Stop The Clock and will take precedence so that the first three minutes of a call that would qualify under both offers would be free. Vodafone Free Weekends is not available with other offers or promotions, unless we say otherwise.


Intriguing .......

[whatleydude]

Man alive I've got a headache now..

[solo12002]

" 7.50pcm will get you 100mb of data.

Or if you don't want to do that - as soon as you use 2mb of data they'll charge you £2 and then give you an extra 24mb to use over the next 24hrs.

FACT.


However - they won't launch tomorrow - still having teething problems"

So after t-mobile came in about 9 months ago with web and walk. they still cant launc their data plans, I note the price lst for march in respect of VF is nt yet out nor are there winderful data plan!

What a laught!!