135p per minute? Thanks for nothing Vodafone (again)

I’m delighted that my BlackBerry was working when I switched it on as I arrived into Miami Airport, I really am. But I’m very much over the fact that 10 years ago, such superb mobile connectivity would have been nothing short of a miracle. I’m well over it. So much so that I actually winced when I read the same ‘Welcome to America, let’s stiff you right now’ text message from Big Red. Here it is:

Welcome to The USA. Calls cost 135ppm to make & 100ppm to receive. SMS 35p + your home rate. Data costs start from £3 per 1MB per day. For free price info, click http://live.vodafone.com/zr/sa1 or call +441635691700. Emergency svcs 112

This is not progress, Vodafone. This is a reminder — if ever I needed it — that you’re clinging on to your outdated and ridiculous profit centres business. Take 2.5% of my entire spend every month as a fee if you like. I’ll use my Vodafone NFC-enabled Nokia for every transaction I make. But voice calls, data and text? This is still costing you crazy amounts of cash is it? For the ‘risk’? For the ‘paper work’ you have to do to pay back your roaming partners?

I think the stupid pricing is perfectly acceptable if I was using ACME Mobile MVNO that’s run out of a bedroom in Hartlepool. But Vodafone? The multi-billion pound mammoth that actually owns almost half of America’s largest mobile operator? And you still can’t — or won’t — let me phone home for even the rather annoying Vodafone Passport rates?

Ridiculous.

It’s not just Vodafone of course. Every other operator is clinging on for dear life.

Thus I will be doing what everyone else does when they’re abroad… Use WiFi. Meanwhile all the corporates around me in the airport are busy yapping away at a-quid-a-minute because… Well, obviously, it’s their company that’s paying. Which is why it’s still a super area of revenue for the operators.

Absolutely depressing. Carry on the carve up, Apple. Keep on nailing them Google. Sometimes I just can’t help thinking we’ve got nowhere in this industry.

Posted via email from MIR Live