I wrote earlier about the prices of Vodafone Roaming Data Bundles and how expensive they were. But by God, i hadn't done my full research. As woeful as those roaming data bundles were, they don't even compare with the cost of roaming without it.
But again, you have to love the spin. How much does data cost when roaming on Vodafone? According to their site, very cheap - just 1c per kb. Before you start celebrating there are 1000kbs in a MB. So for every MB, you are up for $10. Yes, ten dollars for every Megabyte.
How much data is a megabyte? Its about one quarter of a youtube song video or a couple of emails with small attachments.
Lets say a friend sends you an email with a couple of high res photos. These days its not uncommon for photos to be 4 or 5 mb each. So for the pleasure of downloading those pics in an email while overseas, you could be hit with a $100 data fee. Believe it.
Too bad if you get through a whole gigabyte or a thousand megabytes. You could say goodbye to ten thousand dollars.
But it gets even worse. Those $10 per mb fees are only for people on a month to month contract or plan. If you happen to be on a prepaid cap - please watch out. Your data costs jump to a whopping 5ckb. Now times that by 1000. Yes - you have $50.
Fifty dollars for every MB. Do the breakdown - what would that work out to for 1gb of data? You guessed it - $50,000.
I'm sure Vodafone are not unique with their pricing. But these rates are almost verging on a scandal. In the history of the Internet, i cant recall anyone charging $10 per MB let alone $50.
So beware when you are travelling. It would certainly pay to call Vodafone before you leave and turn your data off while you are away. Don't even take the chance.
About Just Grumpy
3 comments
Have a look at Optus their rates start at 2c per KB
Holy moly, YA! This is exactly the argument I had with Vodafone last week that led me to leave them after 5.5 years and head across to Virgin. I'm on prepaid and was just after one of the data allowance packs they advertise as $9.90 for 200mb or something. But as I am prepaid they said no. No explanation as to why they don't offer the deal for prepaid just a polite, 'stiff shit'.
My brother works at 3 and he tried to convince me to move there but low and behold, two days later their plans changed to mirror VF!
Virgin on the other hand gives its prepaid customers a data allowance with all of it's caps, including a current offer of 1gb a month until June 30. Hmmm, that looks a lot like a plug. Sorry, meant to be a comparison.
Leni
Indeed. Thanks for the tip anon, have written about that now too. Over $20,000 for every 1gb of data! Amazing.
Thanks Leni. It seems that they are all trying to gouge on data both locally and on the roaming rate. Go over the cap locally and i think they slug you 50cents per mb. Cheap in comparison to roaming but still - thats $500 a GB. I think you are right, Virgin seems to offer the best deals locally.
YG
Post a Comment