Warning! Vodacom GPRS Roaming Costs R150 per mb!!!

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MrGray

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Aug 2, 2004
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I recently spent some time in Malaysia and Thailand. During this period I occasionally checked my email headers on my cellphone because there is excellent 3G and GPRS coverage in these countries.

On returning, I discovered that Vodacom charges R150 per mb when you use GPRS/3G from a Vodacom SIM card overseas!!!

This despite the fact that the networks I was connecting to in Asia charge next to nothing for data - AIS in Thailand has a deal where you get 3 months of UNLIMITED GPRS/3G data for R160, yet as a roaming Vodacom client on the same network you get billed R150 per mb by Vodacom.

This is utterly outrageous.

I have learnt the hard way - If you ever travel overseas, buy a cheap local pay-as-you go data enabled SIM card. It's a lot cheaper for your voice calls as well. When you travel, do not ever use the services of disreputable local South African companies like Vodacom who will charge a 7400% surcharge on the local out of bundle rate.
 
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Phaff

Well-Known Member
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Oct 12, 2005
Messages
166
mmm yes, I remember coming home from the UK and Red Sea with a R 2000.00 phone bill. I only have myself to blame but sjoe, talk about bleeding an oke dry! Eish!!!
 
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Syndyre

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Jan 26, 2006
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At least they list the charges on their website. If you're roaming on a Vodafone network its only R10/mb, not cheap but often cheaper than you'd pay locally in Europe.
 
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Insider

Senior Member
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Apr 13, 2005
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In all fairness, this is not by choice. Vodacom only on-charges you for the account that they receive from the roaming operator.

Roaming subscribers are soft targets and even though the operator may have a very cheap local rate, they do not apply those rates to visitors.
 
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MrGray

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Actually the only reference I could find to the R150 per mb charge on Vodacom's site was where they specifically refer to roaming Blackberry users who use a non-partner network. I kind of assumed the approx R15 rate would apply. My mistake! Apparently Blackberry = email.

AIS GSM Thailand is a Vodafone partner which is why I thought they would charge the only mildly outrageous rate of R15 per mb. I since discovered that it seems AIS is only a Vodafone partner for voice and not for data. Pity us poor consumers who are supposed to decipher all this nonsense for ourselves.

In Any case, I don't really care what the situation behind the scenes is with the networks interbilling - why should I have to know what the inter-provider billing situation is? I cannot honestly believe that AIS would be charging Vodacom that much per mb. The bottom line is that, as far as I am concerned, charging R150 per mb is being screwed.

BTW, The only reason that the GPRS data worked on AIS' network is that they use the same default APN setup ("IP","Internet"). If Vodacom was truly in a position where they were charged so much money by an overseas network then they should switch from using the default APN name locally and make sure that you have to change it when you go overseas with information provided about the implications.
 
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vodacom3g

Vodacom Representative
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Jan 14, 2005
Messages
12,065
You don't connect to the roaming apn but rather the local one. If there is a roaming agreement in place, you automatically get routed to your home network and attach to the home apn.

As already discussed the bill you receive from Vodacom is the on-bill from the roaming network.

If you do intent to do a lot of data work while travelling, you'd typically get a pre-paid bundle on the foreign country.
 
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diabolus

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Feb 4, 2005
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6,312
If you ever travel overseas, buy a cheap local pay-as-you go data enabled SIM card. It's a lot cheaper for your voice calls as well. When you travel, do not ever use the services of disreputable local South African companies like Vodacom who will charge a 7400% surcharge on the local out of bundle rate
Click to expand...

I've always done that, and have had very good experiences simply getting a local prepaid sim on the airport. [quite some friendly customer service in Netherlands with Orange too ;) ] I just sms everyone my temp number and off i am. In europe there's just a little catch if you travel across multiple countries [i.e. only being able to recharge your sim in certain countries] .

I probably would've done the roaming thing, but [fortunately] Vodacom didn't want to allow me roaming on my contract because it was less than 6 months old...now i don't ever see myself using roaming [unless it's on the african continent] .
 
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Skeptik

Banned
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Nov 5, 2005
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People who need to be in touch with their own, long-held number will have no choice. Vodacom make a hefty packet out of this because the details & prices etc are not easy to get hold of. I once tried to ring the operators to find out but after waiting 39 minutes the silly cow cut me off.
 
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Edinetz

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 9, 2005
Messages
362
garp said:
Actually the only reference I could find to the R150 per mb charge on Vodacom's site was where they specifically refer to roaming Blackberry users who use a non-partner network. I kind of assumed the approx R15 rate would apply. My mistake! Apparently Blackberry = email.
Click to expand...

On the Vodacom website it indicates R109.27 per meg when roaming on AIS Thailand. AIS Thailand is not listed as a participating country for the flat data rate tariff so the R150 blackberry also does not apply. Considering international roaming charges are marked to SDR (Special Drawing Rights) the momentary weakness of the Rand could also have counted against you.
 
M

MrGray

Executive Member
Joined
Aug 2, 2004
Messages
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Well the bottom line is this: any network that charges me R150 per mb for data for whatever reason will never again see my business. I already pulled the plug on Vodacom on our local business GPRS application due to unreliablility, and now goodbye to Vodacom for our roaming. It's very shortsighted for whatever network to charge like this - they get the money ONCE, and then never ever again, never, for all time, and I will tell thousands of business and personal aquaintances over the next years about how greedy they (Vodacom/AIS whoever) are.

I have friends in the media industry that recently also got stung like this - they are busy preparing major press releases and articles in the media about how checking your email overseas can cost R5000. Hope it stimulates some debate about this.
 
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ajax

Executive Member
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Oct 29, 2003
Messages
5,605
I only use a roaming phone if absolutely necessary. It is more convenient to have one number when traveling through a few countries in a short time.
SMS are also expensive, but usable, I paid R4 per sms in the East last time I was there.
 
caspa

caspa

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Jan 26, 2005
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just got back from 8days in italy......only had sms roaming active... creaming myself for the bill
 
AirWolf

AirWolf

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How does roaming billing work if you are on a top up contract?
 
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Edinetz

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Jan 9, 2005
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Same as prepaid - don't think data works at the moment and the number of countries is very limited and more expensive than contract usually.
 
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