Just wondering if anyone here has any information about the future of Vodafone passport, especially in broader support for this feature on the other Vodafone networks in the world...

Here is a list of Vofadone Owned (or operated) networks in countries that do not have PASPPORT
<span style='color:blue'>bahrain
china
croatia
cyprus
czech republic
denmark
egypt
estonia
fiji
finland
hong kong
iceland
kenya
kuwait
lithuania
luxembourg
poland
romania
singapore
slovenia
south africa
united states</span>


Any ideas when some will be included?




Also is there any scope for other European operators to do something similar? Although lacking the amount of networks i am sure that there must be some plan to co-operate to bring more affordable roamig throughout the world , or no??

Orange has very strong infrastructure in Africa and the Carribean but not in Europe, T-Mobile is very strong in the US ... and so on ...

What do you think/know about this?

Don't know, but in many, though not all, of those they don't have majority holdings or even the brand name in use

... and there are strong hints of shareholder revolt about any rumoured further acquisition plans, eg the rest of SFR

Andy...as soon as I saw the words shareholder revolt in your post, I thought you were about to say there would be shareholder revolt if vodafone continued lowering international roaming rates ;)

Well, I imagine it's a two-edged sword - in the past roaming revenues have made up a disproportionate element of profits, but now ... ?

Presumably it will gain them some market share, but at potentially lower margins. In my case I have a free payt SIM with ?1 unused credit, registered for Passport; I don't suppose they've noticed any effect yet then ;)

Yes, Poland is an example of what you said.

Polkomtel (Plus, Sami Swoi) is co-owned by Voda, TDC and some Polish industrial corporations (with strong shares and, what follows, influence of the government).
The current Polish government claims to be "right -wing" and willing to improve competition in the country's economy, including telecom markets. However, it is also rather hostile to foreign capital. This attitude is directed againts mainly against "non-productive" businesses like supermakets, banks or insurance but includes obviously telecom businesses. They'd rather prefer creating Polkomtel-based strong Polish telecom company, which might be a real competitior for French-owned Polish Telecom/Centertel (Orange).

I was a bit sad to see Vodafone Sweden sold, as I had noticed that off-peak rates were very cheap - 10 ?re ≈ 1c per minute - and reckoned that would be very interesting with Passport, even if the flat fee was per 20 minutes rather than the hour of elsewhere.

I suspect Vodafone Passport was just a move from the red operator to prevent fines from the European Commission for abuse in roaming surcharges.
The EU also promoted a website to inform consumers about roaming costs: http://europa.eu.int/information_society/a...hy/index_en.htm

I activated Passport on a Vodafone IT SIM, the option will expire at end June 2006 and at the moment it is not possible to renew it after that date.
I am worried that -when the media attention on this topic will cease- Vodafone will just cancel this option or change its terms.
Therefore, we should go on insisting that roaming must be affordable as it was some years ago, otherwise it is just an useless feature.