Blackberry Roaming Charges :mad:

threegee

threegee

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 17, 2007
Messages
628
Reaction score
31
Location
Sandton
I called today to find out about Blackberry Roaming in the UK and I am still having heart palpitations.

I am told I HAVE to roam on the Vodafone network in the UK to be able to use the BB service and am told this costs a "flat rate" of R17.50 per Mb. Now if there ever was an Oxymoryn this is it ..... how can they use the word flat rate and then jump into PER MB ??????

Talk about theft and daylight robbery, where on earth is Vodacom/Vodafone sucking these figures out from?

Blackberry is supposed to be a flat rate service, in SA we pay R59-R69 per month for the service regardless of how much bandwidth is used, why then must I be ripped off at R17.50 per mb :mad: when I travel ??? This totally defeats the object of Blackberry as far as I can tell.

I am so sick and tired of the thieving and coniving of this industry.

Does anyone know of a prepaid option in the UK that offers GPRS / Blackberry ???
 
As far as I know the R17.50 deal applies across the board to all from-Vodacom roaming customers. They say "flat rate" because as I found out, different networks will charge different amounts in the same country for data. Your phone switches networks based on signal strength. At one point I was paying R145/mb and came home after 11 days to a R10,000 bill. So R17.50 sounds good to me. True story.

Best would be to do just what you're doing & investigate localised packages.
 
Cholerappa said:
came home after 11 days to a R10,000 bill. So R17.50 sounds good to me. True story.

Best would be to do just what you're doing & investigate localised packages.
Click to expand...

Yikes, have you even recovered from the mild heart attack :D

I think I will indeed look for a UK based option, I have family over there and will get them to find out for me. Thanks for the reply.
 
You can get the cost for international roaming on the Vodacom website. R17,50 is cheap compared to what you will pay elsewhere , Vodacom does not profit from roaming , the charges are high due to the external vendors. For example Orange network data will cost you R170MB. Furthermore , divide R17,50 by the rand Euro rate and it wont be that high.


http://www.vodacom.co.za/rchp.do
 
By flat rate it means across the board for all countries if you use Vodafone and not refering to usage per MB cost's. Looking at the different countries you will notice different cost's by different vendors depending on your location and vendor , Vodafone however charges these cost's across all countries for Vodacom subscribers.
 
Thanks for the feedback Sparticus, while Vodacom may not be profiting out of this someone sure the hell is. Vodafone "pushed" Blackberry into our market as a worldwide service surely they and Vodacom could come up with a true flat rate for the BB network? I find it misleading the way BB was promoted and as a global network it's pretty useless if you have to pay such criminal rates when you go overseas.
 
threegee said:
Thanks for the feedback Sparticus, while Vodacom may not be profiting out of this someone sure the hell is. Vodafone "pushed" Blackberry into our market as a worldwide service surely they and Vodacom could come up with a true flat rate for the BB network? I find it misleading the way BB was promoted and as a global network it's pretty useless if you have to pay such criminal rates when you go overseas.
Click to expand...


Hi ,

Not sure that Vodafone "pushed" blackberry into our market as you say , Blackberry is bundled as far as I know per Vendor/Country differently. I stand to be corrected on this and will check for you later. In SA the local providers ie Vodacom and MTN offer them as a bundle with unlimited browsing/emails. Other countries and Vendors may differ so therefor it would be impossible for Vodacom to do this even with Vodafone as a partner.

We really have to look at what is offered elsewhere , I mean what does Vodafone charge for BB in the UK ? You can imagine if they do offer a flat rate for example how anyone residing in the UK can take advantage of this and pay SA prices with local Euro's.

My advice is to go local pay as you go.
 
Three days of regular usage in the UK cost me a whopping R38 back in Feb. Fortunately blackberry compresses the heck out of everything so a mb goes a fair distance.

I'm going back in Aug for a few weeks so if anyone does locate a PAYG option please make a note of it - otherwise I'll live with the >£1 per day that my BB costs me.
 
Threegee , Driving home I thought about this , I think you must look at it from a Vodafone side as well. Firstly RIM offers unlimited the services for a cost's therefore vendors can give you the same unlimited service on a bundle. When you in SA you go onto the Vodacom then RIM network onto the web , Vodacom makes the profit on the subscription and off course calls. Abroad When you data roam you go onto the Vodafone network then Vodacom then Rim service. You using Vodafones network for a subscriction you pay Vodacom for , Vodafone cannot recover any cost's for using their network without charging a fee , in this case a per MB fee. Hope this makes a little more sense.
 
bwana said:
Three days of regular usage in the UK cost me a whopping R38 back in Feb. Fortunately blackberry compresses the heck out of everything so a mb goes a fair distance.

I'm going back in Aug for a few weeks so if anyone does locate a PAYG option please make a note of it - otherwise I'll live with the >£1 per day that my BB costs me.
Click to expand...

Eina !! Imagine the cost's without compression. Roaming does not pay if you traveling from SA , the weak rand just kills us when we get charged in Euro's/Pounds/Dollars etc etc.

Like I've said get a local pay as you go.
 
sparticus said:
Eina !! Imagine the cost's without compression. Roaming does not pay if you traveling from SA , the weak rand just kills us when we get charged in Euro's/Pounds/Dollars etc etc.

Like I've said get a local pay as you go.
Click to expand...
From which UK vendor?
 
That my friend you gonna have to look up yourself. Sorry , I will try and source some info for you tomorrow.
 
I phoned MTN a while back and asked them if there is any extra roaming charges on Blackberry and the operator said no.
 
Thanks for all the feedback everyone, I will report back once I get more info on a local prepaid service in the UK, hopefully something that supports BB
 
While it seems most of the questions have been answered, it's important to remember that any package you have in a country (SA in this case) is built around the local structures and pricing.

If you then roam, the foreign network pass you straight back to your home network, so you can access your normal services. But they charge you an arm and a leg for this 'roaming' data. Typically more than R100/MB.

So, if you roam on a foreign network with your local SIM, this is what you'll pay.

In the case of Vodafone, all the partner networks agreed to a roaming charge of R17.50 per MB and while this is a substantial reduction, it's still more than a local SIM in the foreign network.

Thus the good advice this forum will always give you; Get a local SIM in the foreign country.

But I also suspect that you won't be able to access your local, SA BB service while on a foreign SIM.
 
Amida said:
I phoned MTN a while back and asked them if there is any extra roaming charges on Blackberry and the operator said no.
Click to expand...

Yeah well the operators (two) I called about roaming data charges both told me I'd pay the same as local rates... "Your call may be recorded for quality purposes" my ass. At least Vodacom makes an effort to inform roaming customers.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X